Good Enough

Dear Lorenzo,

It's Friday night and Amira and I are sitting in my bed, she on her recorder, practicing, and me on the tablet, talking to you.

I've spent a lot of time in bed over the past two years.

After you died I kept my bedroom door closed and slept on the living room futon for 365 days. On weekday mornings I'd take Amira to school and then rush home to lie on that futon for five hours straight. I'd spend my days listening to whatever was on ESPN and the sound of your mother's footsteps, pacing back and forth in her apartment, just above my head. For an entire year I'd bury myself amongst pillows and comforters, amongst my shock and my denial, and I'd pray that somehow you'd come back to me, that the accident was just a bad dream.

It was a long road to acceptance but almost two and a half years later, I've finally arrived.

Amira and I...our lives aren't going to be the same as they once were. We may never go to Vegas again, much less get a second home there as you and your brother once planned. And your dream of  retiring at 50, getting yourself a scooter and moving into my mother's "old age home" isn't going to happen either. Instead, you're gone and I'm left trying to figure everything out on my own.

I don't have all of the answers yet, hell, I may not have any at all, but as soon as I "woke up" from the spell your death had cast, I knew where I had to begin.

On Monday I'm going to do something you swore I'd never do again.

I'm going to start a new job OUTSIDE of the home.

On Monday morning I'm going to wake up at 6:00 a.m., workout, shower and get dressed in clothes that aren't my usual mismatched pajamas. I'll get Amira up, clothed and fed. I'll take her to school, then rush to the El and head downtown to work in an office from 9:00 am. - 1:00 p.m., three or four days a week.

I finally got a job. A temp job, but a job nonetheless. A job that will allow me to take our daughter to school and pick her up everyday. A job that will allow me to pay off my credit card debt and still have a ridiculously over the top Christmas for Amira. A job that will remind me of what it feels like to be something other than a mom. Something other than your partner. Something other than the girl who lost half her heart when her boyfriend died way too soon.

It's just a temp job, just part-time but...it's a start. And it's a reason to get off of the futon. And right now, that's good enough for me.