It's not you, it's me.

44 Weeks

The women I work with make up 85% of my mothering knowledge. They give advice, I listen. I ask simple questions, they teach layers of answers. At the moment, Ren is the youngest of the office offspring. Every conversation starts with, "Just you wait..."

One of my colleague-sister-mother-friends has three children ages six, three, and three. The toddlers are identical. She and her husband both work full time. Before I was pregnant I used to say stupid Friday/Monday phrases to her until one day she said, "I don't really have anything to report about my weekends. That's when we buy food, clean clothes, and remove crayon from the walls." Honestly, I don't know how she does it. She must have super-hero in her ancestry. One, I still cry a few times a week on my way to work. "I'm not depressed. I'm devoted," I tell myself as I pull it together by the time I turn off the engine. Two, I'm the idiot who still insists on making time for writing. It's like my coke habit has turned into aspirin therapy, but I'm still scribbling, damn it. Bit by bit. Keep an eye out for my fortune cookie collection next. Three, I barely have time to eat. If I had two more children I'd die in the stupidest way ever: nutritional amnesia.

Somehow, I manage to slowly creep through life accomplishing things, but they are never as quickly as I'd like. I have plays to write, wall paper to replace, thighs that need firming. When I do a thing like I used to do (meditate, for example) I am reminded that my personal timeline is still the same, it's just being stretched. I'll get to things eventually.

I tried explaining this to the psychologist I started seeing in April to get some relief about my mother's death. In the past 22 weeks since I committed to weekly therapy, I made it there seven times. My last session was our last. She gave me the number of someone closer to our home, thinking location is the wrench. What she doesn't understand, is if she happened to see her patients out of our own basement I'd still forget I'd made an appointment until I went down there to empty the dehumidifier. Yeah, we broke up. In an odd way, I feel better. I can cross grief off the list. Next!