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.

Healing

Dear Lorenzo:

It's Saturday evening, 5:40 p.m., and I'm upstairs, writing you from Aisha's computer because for some reason my tablet isn't pairing with my keyboard and I can't figure out what's going on. In any case...

I'm still here.

This year, it was Thanksgiving that did me in.

The day started off wonderfully.

The entire family went to Sheree's house for dinner. She'd been cooking for days on end and had enough food to feed a proverbial army but we each contributed a dish or two of our own. I brought a big salad and the vegan wellington from the Chicago Diner. Asia brought her sweet potato casserole, Heidi brought a roast and your mom brought potato salad. There was mac and cheese, dressing, sweet potato pies, you name it, Sheree served it, and I threw down.

And then...

I fell down.

Little D, Dwight and I were watching the game in the living room when it hit me.

This was it. This was my new normal. You would never again come upstairs from the basement to talk football with your brother. We would never again watch another Superbowl together. I had no one to talk to about all that I'd learned from Lou Riddick or Trey Wingo or anyone else on ESPN.

I left the party early and took a Lyft back home.

Alone.

It was days before I could get myself back up again.

I stayed in bed that entire long weekend, rousing myself only on the rare occurrences when Amira was with me instead of upstairs with your mom. I buried myself amongst my comforters, the way I did for the entire first year following your death.

And then...

I woke up.

I'm not exactly sure what happened but...

Lorenzo, I'm so tired of being depressed.

I'm so tired of spending more time thinking about our life together than focusing on any future I could possibly have without you.

I need to have hope again.

I need to believe that I can truly be happy again.

I need to show Amira that there can be life for us even after your death and that it's okay for us to move on.

That moving forward doesn't mean forgetting all that you meant to us, and it certainly doesn't mean not loving you anymore.

I will always, ALWAYS love you, Lorenzo.

You will ALWAYS be Amira's Daddy.

You are irreplaceable, now and forever, but I am finally giving myself permission to let you go.

Not the love, not the lessons, not the memories, but the dream of our getting to grow old together.

I'm ready to let that go.

And in my heart, I know that's what you'd want.

I'm Missing You

Dear Lorenzo,

It's 7:43 p.m. and I'm lying in bed, watching Thursday night football and talking to you while Amira PRESUMABLY finishes her homework upstairs.

This was one of the longest weeks I've had since you've been gone.

In preparation for my first day of work, I put Amira to bed early on Sunday night. I signed off on her agenda, packed her homework folder, and made both her breakfast and lunch ahead of time. I set my alarm for 5:45 a.m. so I'd have time to workout before getting myself showered and dressed by 7:30 a.m. I went to bed that night, certain that I was completely ready for my first day on the job.

But at 4:30 a.m., Amira awoke from a bad dream and couldn't fall back asleep. And at 5:30 a.m. she began to cough.

Having been her mother for the past 9 1/2 years, I know the difference between the beginning of an asthma attack and the beginning of a cold. I know when Amira cannot possibly go to school without coughing herself sick, and I know when a few sessions with a nebulizer is all she needs. From the sounds of Monday's cough I knew she probably shouldn't go to school but that her cough wasn't bad enough for me to miss my first day of work. She was still eating, laughing and watching TV and these are all good signs. So with both Amira and your mom's encouragement, I left my, only-just-starting-to-get-sick daughter home with grandma.

I was gone for exactly five hours including travel time, and for exactly five hours I worried non-stop. I worried while being trained on a new-to-me computer program. I worried when I texted your mom to check in and she didn't text back. I worried until 12:00 p.m. when I left the office, called the house phone and Amira picked up and let me know she was okay.

And when I got home and gave her nebulizer treatments every 4 hours on the dot, when I put her in a steamy shower and let her breathe in the heavy, moist air, when I put her to bed that night with her head propped up on damn near every single pillow in this house, I worried about my baby then too.

Being a single mom is hard. Being a single mom to a child with a chronic illness is fucking brutal. I absolutely know this could be so much worse. The support I get from both of our families is something I will NEVER be able to repay. The fact that our daughter "only" has cough variant asthma and never has problems breathing is a gift compared to what others have to endure. We have health insurance, a roof over our heads, enough food to eat and clothes on our backs but...when I hear her cough, I worry incessantly anyway.

If you'd been here this week, you would have SUCKED ASS at being supportive.

You would have gotten on my damn nerves with all of your ineffective, all-natural home remedies. You would have called me overanxious and neurotic. I would have called you callous and insensitive. We would have driven each other crazy until Amira's cough had subsided, and then we would have grinned at each other sheepishly, grateful that this episode had ended at last.

There is not another soul on this planet who could work my last good nerve that way that you did but sometimes, when our daughter's sick and I'm all alone with my worry, Lorenzo, I miss you anyway.

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.

Treading Water

Dear Lorenzo,

It's 11:26 p.m. and like most nights, insomnia has rendered me sleepless so right now I'm up, half-heartedly watching The Goldbergs (you would've liked it) and waiting for the melatonin to kick in.

Nighttime is still hard. Brutally fucking hard. I don't usually get lonely until night falls.

Normally I'm too busy to be lonely. And even if I'm not busy, I find ways to occupy my time, to fake having a life, to ignore the nagging emptiness that sometimes threatens to pull me under. But at nighttime, when Amira's asleep, before the melatonin or Tylenol PM knocks me out...it's hard to pretend I'm not alone.

But, two years, three months, and five days since you've been gone, I'm beginning to see light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. Today was a rainy, dreary Wednesday and since Samaiya called me this morning and offered to take Amira to school, I had absolutely no reason to leave the house. Two years ago, I would have put on ESPN, curled up on the futon, and not gotten up again until it was time to pick up Amira and take her to theater but today...

Today, I got off of my ass and got to work.

I washed and twisted my hair, cleaned my house, warmed up on the trampoline for two minutes before working out on the elliptical for 45. I had a big salad for lunch and an apple for a snack. I didn't curl up in a ball and pretend the world didn't exist until my alarm went off at 2:00 p.m. I didn't eat my weight in potato chips or have a glass of wine (or two or three) with dinner in an effort to forget.

I didn't let depression win on a rainy, dreary Wednesday.

I didn't let depression pull me under.

Going With My Gut

Dear Lorenzo,

In my quest to return to the land of the gainfully employed, I've spent the past few months registering with various temp agencies. I'd wake up, get the kid off to school, shower, get dressed in the one and only work appropriate outfit I still own, and then haul ass to whatever downtown temp agency was on the schedule for that day.  Meeting recruiter after recruiter, and attempting to explain to them why they should hire me after my ten year hiatus from the work place was fucking exhausting. So you can probably imagine my relief when Danielle said she might have a job for me. After giving her my resume I first had a phone interview and then an in person interview with her boss. And today, exactly one week after that two-hour, six-person group interview I FINALLY received an email back from the hiring manager.

I didn't get the job.

I cannot begin to tell you how relieved I am.

Don't get me wrong, had I gotten the job I would have made the best of it. I would have loved working with Danielle. I would have loved taking the train into work with Heidi after we dropped the kids off at school. I would have loved having a legitimate reason to go downtown every day. I would have loved the money, the benefits, the security. Being able to help your mom out financially. Being able to pay for whatever we need without worrying as much as I do. I would have loved feeling useful again.

But...

I wouldn't have loved the panic I'd feel calling out from work every time Amira's asthma flared up. I wouldn't have loved scrambling to find someone not only willing to pick her up from school every day, but also willing to take her to play production four days a week. I wouldn't have loved not being able to chaperone school field trips or attend class parties. I wouldn't have loved not being able to volunteer for school picture day, or for Fiesta de Arte, or to help bring the kids from their classrooms to the first floor conference room to have their vision and hearing tested once a year.

And I wouldn't have loved not being able to visit my mom as often as we do.

I guess being an associate in new market development just isn't the right job for me.

And that's okay.

Because I already have my dream job, and unbelievably enough, it's being Amira's mom.

And right now, that's the job that has to come first.

Chapter Two

"Get in shape, girl, you'll love the feeling.

Get in shape, girl, it's so appealing."

Kick-ass 80's commercial

Dear Lorenzo,

I have no idea where to start this entry.

I'm not sure why I'm having such a tough time writing tonight. Amira's lying beside me, sleeping soundly. The TV is on of course, but it's been muted and the only distractions I have are the whirs of the ceiling fan and the occasional sound of fireworks from some asshole who can't accept the fact that the 4th of July has come and gone.

Although it's past 10:00 p.m., I'm not particularly tired because I've done nothing but sit on my ass all day.

I've done nothing but sit on my ass for the past two years.

Don't get me wrong, I've taken breaks from my inertia. I still love to work out and so on most days, I take long walks or use the elliptical or even jump up and down on the trampoline. And I always show up for our daughter, of course, but other than that...

Couch, tv, potato chips, wine.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

If you could see me now, you'd barely recognize me.

I barely recognize me.

And it's not just because I've gained so much weight, you never gave a shit about that so you probably wouldn't notice, but...it's my lackluster attitude. I no longer have the energy to even pretend to care about much of anything these days.

This isn't a life.

Not the life I want to live.

So...Mira and I leave for Boston in a few weeks and the plan is to stay for the entire month of August (or, until my mother and I can barely stand to look at each other, much less live together, a moment longer). But before we leave Chicago I will take the next two weeks to revise my resume and submit my applications for grad school.

And I've gotta get serious about losing some weight. No more fucking around. I'm old so it won't be easy to lose but I finally feel ready to try.  

And I don't want to work anywhere that makes me miserable. My life is hard enough right now without adding a shitty job to the equation. I want to work for an organization that appreciates me. I want to surround myself with people who make me want to get up and get out of bed every morning. 

I want to be happy again.

Despite the fact that I can no longer be with you.