It's hard to believe that I started doing this almost 3 years ago; writing. Since we start a new decade in 2 days, now seems as likely time as ever to recap this past year. I don't have any huge insights or words of wisdom. Most days are all about survival-surviving one moment to the next with my sanity and sense of humor intact. Some days I do a better job than others. As I was texting Lee this am to tell him about my morning with the kids he texted back and told me that, in writing, it was all very funny-the eruption of the rice crispies volcano all over the table at the hotel bfast buffet, the wet sheets, the bathtub drain soddered shut at my 9 year old's hands, the arguements over who gets to open the hotel room key with the plastic card and the dead battery in the car because some kid forgot to turn out his light (and more importantly-I forgot to check). And, as I explained to him, I suppose that is precisely why I write. Because on some level I know if you take these situations and isolate them and look at them objectively, even I can find the humor in them. The alternative-loosing your shit with your kids (which I do aplenty regardless of my attempts to the contrary)-is much more damaging. But, as I told my middle child the other day (right before he ran out into traffic and nearly got squished by a car because he 'got confused'-just as squirrels and dogs do as suggested by his dad) when he was crying that I was never nice and I was always mean: he can save his money to go to an expensive therapist one day and tell him or her how awful I was. Then that therapist can tell middle child to get over it and realize I did the best job I could with what I had. Unfortunately I think the moment was lost on him when he became fractionally close to becoming road kill.
I wish I could be all 'leave it to beaver' but is near impossible for me. Last nite I had a dream about this other mom that I know who, in real life gives the appearance of perfection. In my dream another mother quickly dispelled the myth and explained that said mom is a true hot mess. I quess I had this dream because I screamed at my kids about something and then I had to work it out in my guilty subconscience. I could feel better about myself because the 'perfect' mom was the true stark raving lunatic who repressed all of her rage.
Still, despite my daily frustrations I still have moments when I love my kids unconditionally (mainly when they are asleep or at school). About a week ago my heart almost cracked in two when my daughter, who is my youngest, overhearing her older brother asking about my breast cancer realized that it could return. I was getting dressed in my closet and my oldest son, surveying my surgically reconstructed breasts commented on how lucky I was and how many good things I had gotten from the experience. As she was walking by in her towel she overheard him say that he hoped my cancer never returned. She stopped dead in her tracks and looked me straight in the eye and said "it can come back? You can get breast cancer again?" This is not a conversation you want to have with your 6 year old daughter and I'm fairly certain if I googled 'discussing your own mortality with your kids' that whatever might pop up wouldn't actually be that helpful. So there I sat, half naked on the floor of my closet trying to reassure my kindergardener but without sugar coating anything. I don't know if I said the right things to her but I knew that conversation would eventually take place. God in heaven knows that I'd love to tell them that I'm completely cured and the cancer is never going to come back, but I honestly think that lying to them would be worse. Just to be clear about things my oldest asked me for a refresher course this afternoon. I guess this explains why he needs so much reassurance and mom time.
Well, I don't know if this was really a review but it was cathartic for me nonetheless. So, I'll you in 2010 and hopefully I'll be a little more patient and still cancer free (God, I hope you are listening).
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