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Learning and trying to be kind and living my life as fully as I can stand it.

Monday, February 25, 2019

A snippet

It's been challenging for me to write lately, for lots of reasons. Here is an unfinished piece, a snippet, written almost two months ago.


This morning I woke up alone except for the dog and the cats. It was really cold in the house. I lay in bed quietly, trying to remember what day it was and what was happening.

January 2, 2019. First day back to work in an office after a fifteen month break. Wednesday. Kids coming back from their dad's. Almost the end of winter break so still no school.

I went into the kitchen, opening the cabinets to find the coffee grinder. It wasn't there. Did he take it when he moved out? I hadn't noticed. It's been a while since I've bought whole bean and he moved out in October. I debated driving to Peets to get a pound of coffee, or at least a cup, but I knew the kids would be getting dropped off soon and I didn't want to rush. Tea, then. Hot, milky, sugary tea like my English friend Jemima made for me in Madrid twenty years ago. I held the mug in my hands and sat at the kitchen table. I opened up my laptop and tried logging into Outlook--password remembered, 5400+ emails.

My dad arrived, arms full of gallons of milk in what has become his Wednesday morning ritual, steady even as routines change around him. I let him in and we sat quietly together. I made him tea just like mine.

The kids arrived, full of smiles, Cleo dressed for summer because she never gets cold. My ex-husband and I greeted each other in the kitchen, rolled eyes together at the confusion of going back to work on a Wednesday--him after being off for a week, me after being off more than a year. I told him how many emails were in my inbox and I thought of the other times I've gone back to this workplace in the time he and I have known each other. Once after my two week trip to El Salvador. Another time after our month long wedding and honeymoon break. I was in management then so there were a lot more emails. Once after my first six month long maternity leave. Once after being laid off and then a year of working elsewhere. Once after a three month long medical leave of absence. This time after the longest leave, the longest break from paid work I've ever had since being a working person.

He left, the kids settled in with their part-time toys in their part-time house. I got in the shower. The water was hot. I thought ahead to my haircut next week as I rubbed too much shampoo into my too long but still very short hair. Six months ago I shaved my head. Six weeks after that I shaved it again, marveling at how brave and how vulnerable I felt out in the world--forty one, almost divorced, no hair. Who was I? Could I still be pretty? Would anyone ever want me again? What if for the first time in my life this is the start of not defining myself by whether anyone else wants me or not. People asked me if I was scared when I had it buzzed off and I said no, shaving my head was the least scary thing going on at the time. We were going through mediation, talking money and custody and endings. I was trying to even imagine living half my life without these kids near by. Shaving my head brought my insides more in line with my outsides. It felt raw, wild, wounded, bare. Powerful, defiant, bold, free.

This morning running fingers through sudsy, inch-long, shaggy hair growth helped bring me into the moment. A physical marker of time passed. Of easy, awkward, change.



















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