More so..

 Yesterday was one of those perfect poignant days I never wanted to end. We didn’t do anything particularly special but still it seemed to seep onto the stone of my memory more than other days. The weather is finally warming. We took the boys out for breakfast at IHOP. They were their young-boyish-boistrous selves. We then went to Wildlife Prairie Park, a boy haven, for an early hike. The boys ran and tumbled in the cool but not cold morning air. We saw chickens and piggies and some calves. Eagles, wolves, and a puma. Frank bought the boys peanut butter crackers and water on the way home which thrilled them to no end. While the boys napped Frank and I sat in companionable silence on our tablets/laptops and listened to the strong spring winds gust about. I did more reading/research and managed to finish my book club book. No remodeling, yeah! I even napped for a half hour while Frank puttered in the garage. We didn’t have our usual Saturday date night since our sitter’s sister was in labor with her first child. Instead, we passed a quiet subdued afternoon and evening with the boys, reading books, singing, playing outside (while I read/researched more) and had a leftover dinner. I had my familiar pangs of "this will never be the same again–treasure it!!". I did my best to pull it all into my head and under my skin. I am not sure Frank ever has this or as often and as fervent as I do. 

There was rain and lightening after we put the boys to bed. I love the fierceness and wildness of spring weather.

Trying to write in a bed crowded with boys, toys, and automobiles is near impossible and inadvisable.

I learned last week my mother has metastasis to her lungs. She doesn’t know yet. I am struggling what to do with this information. The CT tech and I are old friends from long ago. He hugged me after I read the report. I don’t think the chemo has had the desired effect on her liver lesion either. In my inexpert mind, it brings her demise closer..maybe much closer. I feel panicked when I think of it happening, her dying. I’d like to say I have a normal reaction..love, loss, etc to the idea of her death but i don’t. I care for her much more than I ever did my father but I choke in my throat around the word "love". She’s a simple minded sort,  good hearted, uneducated, and not particularly interesting. She’s has a weakling, codependent streak. She imagines things about herself being strong and needed and even a good cook when she is none of these things. I know I am not like her yet one of my deepest seated fears is being very like her. Still, I am sad for her. She’s understandably scared of her cancer and she should be! Yet, she does nothing to find out about it. Nothing to help herself. She doesn’t rally. She doesn’t find grace in any of this. She plods along in her life like a broken down farm horse who knows its path and nothing more. 

I wished I loved her. I wished I admired her. I wish I could shake her. I wish I could do more than simply interpret for her. I wish I could do more than make her medical decisions. I wish she looked at me less like I know something, everything, anything. For I don’t. I know so little. I am as helpless as she. Just a bit more informed and I am not sure it serves me well at all.

The sitter’s sister gave birth to a little boy around 3:25 am. I know nothing of the details of his arrival, only that her water broke 6 weeks early and he is in ICU. I hope all went well. She is the same age I was when I had my daughter. Although she is beautiful and I was not. I never was. Am I the better for it?

Perhaps there is something to not being beautiful. I spent much of my life wanting to be, striving to be though I never was and never will be. Maybe it freed me in certain respects. I never had the inborn anxiety about my looks truly beautiful women have. I’ve always had more of a "it is what it is" attitude. Not saying I didn’t mourn my lack of beauty and still sometimes would trade..whatever I am for a portion of (beauty) potion. But still..I don’t panic at the idea of going to the store without my makeup on or worry what the world will think if I have some grey in my hair or a zit on my chin. I don’t feel the need to exercise myself into a lather to keep the girlish figure I never had. Maybe that was true in my 20’s and 30’s when I bravely decided I had looks. But now..in my 40’s and looking at the downhill slide into my future..eh, not so much.

I’d prefer health. I’d prefer wisdom. I’d prefer less stress. More sleep. More energy. More cerebral activity. More hope. More joys. I want to feel good in this second half of my existence. I’d like to feel encouraged and inspired. Inspired. Inspired. That is what I need. That is what I am experiencing by taking on this possible writing project. It is what is pulling me back from the mire of my own misery.

And while I might not have beauty, I still like seeing a sparkle in my eye and less droop to my mouth when I look in the mirror. I think I am going to take the dog for a walk and enjoy the fresh spring sunshine while I think and mull on what it is I want to say.