New Rules

"I've got new rules, I count 'em"

Dua Lupa

Dear Lorenzo,

Before I met you, had our daughter, and turned Christmas into that most magical time of year, New Year's was my favorite holiday.

I've always loved the idea of shutting the metaphorical door on all of the preceding year's bullshit and broken promises.

I've spent my entire life cultivating the fantasy that if I could just make it to December 31st, I could start anew at the stroke of midnight.

And THAT'S where my real life would begin. 

New Year's Day represented hope.  

The promise of a clean slate, a second chance, a do-over.

And so for many years I'd spend the last week of December pestering Michele and Maggie with a laundry list of resolutions, each more outrageous than the last, proclaiming, "this time I'm going to do it!" while my best friends rolled their eyes and shook their heads in bemusement.

Because they've always known what I didn't; that dreams without plans are nothing more than fucking delusions.

After sharing my list of goals with Fareeda and Kay, I went about achieving these objectives in my usual fashion.

By doing next to nothing.

And then...a few nights ago, after brushing her teeth and saying her prayers, Amira turned to me sleepily and said, "Mama, will you be with me for a long time?"  Unsurprisingly, her greatest fear, the greatest fear of any child who has lost a parent I suppose, is to lose her mother next.  After assuring her that I'm not going anywhere, I thought long and hard about my promise.  Twenty years ago I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and after the shock wore off I vowed that M.S. was the only illness I'd ever have.  Shit happens, we both know that, but I'd take as many preventive measures as I could to stay as healthy as was humanly possible.  I became a vegetarian, joined a gym, ate tons of salad and did my best to get 8 hours of sleep a night.  I took my health EXTREMELY seriously.

But after you died...I stopped.

Stopped watching what I eat, stopped getting enough rest, stopped taking care of ME.

I have spent the past 2.5 years pouring every ounce of energy I have into our daughter.  She was traumatized after losing you so I did everything I could to get her through this.  I made sure she saw a therapist once a week and spent my weekends and after school hours shuttling her to dance class, theater class, swim class and any other class in which she showed even the slightest interest.  I turned your workout room into her slime factory and have lost innumerable Tupperware containers and pillow cases to her slime obsession.  In the years since you've been gone I've spent a small forture on her Christmas list and get her damn near everything she asks Santa for, in the fruitless attempt to make up for the fact that I can't give her the one thing she wants most.

Lorenzo, I am doing my very best to be a good mom.

What saddens me is the realization that in my almost 44 years on this planet, I have NEVER given myself, my hopes, my dreams, the same amout of consideration.

Never.

This is my extremely long-winded way of saying...

That ends now. 

Not on January 1, 2020.

Now.

I do everything within my power to make our daughter's dreams come true.  I did everything within my power of making sure your dream of becoming a firefighter came true as well.

And so today, on January 12, 2019, and tomorrow, January 13, 2019, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that AD INFINITUM I'm going to do EVERYTHING within my power to make sure MY dreams come true, too.

I want to make my living as a writer.

I want to lose all the weight I put on since you died.

I want to be here for our daughter for the next 50 something years.

I want to be able to financially provide for both my mother and yours.

And I DON'T want to pretend my dreams aren't that important anymore.

They are worthy of my hard work and dedication.

I am worthy of my hard work and dedication.

TODAY.