Category Archives: At Least Mildly Sappy

It’s the most difficult time of the year

1

Many years ago, I lost a baby at Christmas. What a stupid euphemism — like I misplaced him. I didn’t. I know exactly where he is, exactly where he isn’t. 

It’s been more than 20 years. I don’t think of him often, not really. Every once in a while. Always with pain.

And always, always at Christmas.

It doesn’t start as thoughts, you know. My body, it just remembers. And I wish it wouldn’t, but it does.

First the pain, then the emptiness.

At some point, the brain connects the dots and tells me — hey, this is why you’re feeling like shit. You’re welcome. (I don’t actually ever say thank you.)

I have many hacks at this point to get through it all. Sometimes they work. Sometimes they don’t.

Sometimes I cry.

2

It helps to remember that I’m not the only one. Not the only mother to have suffered such a loss. Not the only person facing the bonhomie  of the holidays with a hidden sorrow. People don’t stop dying, fighting, leaving, suffering just because it’s Christmas.

Often, they suffer more.

3

None of this is to suggest that you shouldn’t wish me Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays. Or gift me cards and cookies.

Just, like… be ok with me not expressing unalloyed joy over the holiday season.

And cranky Aunt Augusta, who gets even more cranky over Christmas? Cut her some slack, ok? Maybe something horrid happened to her in December 1987 and she’s, you know, remembering…

4

I once wrote an entire book about horrible Sundays in December. Everything bad that happens to the characters — every single one of them — happens in December. On a Sunday.

I didn’t realize at the time why. I wasn’t offering it as biography. Or writing it in December.

5

There are many wonderful things about Christmas, of course. Setting up and decorating the Christmas tree. Watching the cat redecorate it. The pierogy making assembly line at my mom’s house. The kids enjoying their presents. All our special “we make these only once a year because they’re so much work” Christmas foods. Cards or emails from friends you haven’t heard from all year.

But also, through it all, behind it all, there’s grief. New grief. Old grief. Hidden grief.

It’s not your responsibility to fix it.

Or to avoid triggering it. You can’t. It just comes. 

Just, when it does, let me feel it.

xoxo

“Jane”

Donut delivery

1

I’m driving back to my house in the rain to pick up a donut I forgot to deliver to my eldest baby — wait, I’m telling the story wrong, because now it’s Monday, and the story starts on Saturday, when I drove 150 km to get what are supposed to be the best donuts in Alberta.

This, by the way, is an Alberta thing. I may live in a 1.3 million-person city, one of the largest in Canada, but let’s be honest, we are in the middle of nowhere. It’s a beautiful nowhere — Rockies to the west, Foothills to the south, Badlands to the east — but it’s not uncommon for us to drive three hours (one way) for a thing because, while everything in the city is close, nothing outside the city is.

Also, we have amazing highways.

Anyway.

The Donut Mill is a local tourist attraction.

Don’t mock. The donuts are sensational. Totally worth three hours in the car (round trip).

Especially with good company.

So I drive 150 km on a donut-getting date and of course, I get extras for my bae and the resident progeny. That’s Saturday.

Test of how good the donuts are — they’re still good on Sunday. But the eldest has excellent appetite control and eats a big supper, so only has room for one of his two donuts. (Of course I get ’em two each.)

He runs to his dad’s house after supper and I promise to drop the second donut over when I take his younger brother home.

But I forget.

No biggie; I’ll be back and forth with the younger one on Monday — I’ll drop it off then.

But, I forget again. I deliver the younger progeny back to his dad’s house minus donut for the older brother.

Text exchange:

Jane: I forgot your donut!

Son: 😦

Jane: I’ll be right back.

Son: Thank you!

Spoiled Gen Z kid and over-smothering Gen X mother? Sure. But I take the 18 minutes out of my day to deliver a two-day old donut to the 23-year-old. (6 minutes back to my house, 6 minutes to his dad’s house, 6 minutes back to mine.)

Not because the donuts are that good (although they are pretty good).

But see, I do it, because I said I’d do it and also, because I can.

2

My (adult!) kid does not expect me to do this. But also, he’s not surprised that I do it. And I think that’s pretty awesome.

3

One of the tricky things about raising securely attached kids is that they kinda take you for granted. But again, that’s ok.

When the neglected middle child was taking an extra semester of chemistry at a somewhat distant high school after graduation and before university, my lunch hours for five months consisted of driving her there (12-20 minutes one-way depending on traffic) and then driving back, three days a week.

She could have taken public transit.

But the ride gave me 24 to 40 minutes of time alone in the car with her — at that challenging age when teenagers don’t really want to spend time with their parents.

Similarly, during COVID, his dad and I routinely drove the eldest to his job at a really, really far away Home Depot. Not always — sometimes he biked, sometimes he took transit.

But when our schedules allowed, when the weather was crappy, we did.

For three years, I wrapped work twice a week at 2:30 pm so that I could be at my youngest son’s junior high school by 3:15 pm for school pickup.

He could have taken public transit, or car pooled with another kid. Or gotten picked up by Grandma — I leaned on her, and my partner — when work made its demands.

But most of the time, I did it. And I did it for that 20 minutes in the car and the after school snack and the shared transition from school to home.

The crankies call it helicopter parenting.

I call it remembering how tough it was to be a latch key kid — and how awesome it was when my mom was there to pick me up on cold days.

(And there are a lot of cold, crappy days in the middle of nowhere).

4

I’m a first gen immigrant child of first gen immigrant parents, who worked multiple jobs while going to school to upgrade skills.

I couldn’t really take them for granted. They had a lot of things to do.

I was probably in my 20s before I realized that my mom spent her entire nursing career in Canada working nights so that she could be home, waking up post night-shift, when we got home from school.

Or so that she could, post-night shift, drive us to school on those -20, -30, -40 — we don’t close schools for nothing in Alberta — mornings.

And I was in my 30s before I realized that she kept on working nights til retirement so that she could still be there during the day for me on the “Mom, I’m on deadline and I need help with the kids today” emergencies (there were many).

5

So it’s not about the two-day old donut, you see.

It’s just about being there. When you can.

6

Whenever I interrupt my work day to ferry a kid here or there, I’m very aware of my privilege. I have a job that doesn’t require me to be on a phone queue, behind a cash register, clocked in. I can often take that time, make it up later.

There are so many parents who can’t.

But I can.

Why would I not?

7

The donut delivery happens in the evening, so not on work-work time but on my writing-thinking-relaxing time. It’s an 18 minute chunk of a busy day. It also fuels me. And lets me sit down to my creative work with a smile. As I’m writing, my eldest — who is an adult now and doesn’t need me for most things — is sitting at his computer, munching on a semi-stale donut.

And probably not thinking about me.

But that’s ok. 

He might remember it in his 30s. When he makes similar choices to be there for his kids, his friends.

Right?

xoxo

“Jane”

Biking in Waterton Lakes National Park
From the archives: 2012 trip to Waterton.

Permission to be

1

It’s a low energy day — I have a lot of those these days* — and I’m in bed at 8 pm feeling I’ve done nothing, nothing. I sleep for 10, almost 11 hours. I crawl out of bed feeling rested but also very aware my well is about a quarter full, maybe less, and that quarter is quickly depleting, in no small part because I’m feeling I pissed away yesterday and I’m going to piss away today and so, why even bother getting out of bed at all?

There’s a hack for this feeling.

I know it.

I make myself use it.

“I’m not sure I belong here.” Comet aka Cosmo aka Grapefruit aka Pomegranate aka I think we will call him PomPom trying to settle in his new temporary home.

2

The hack: Write down everything you actually did on that low-energy, do nothing day. In order.

Stick to facts and try to keep commentary and judgement down to a minimum (but if you slip, whatever, don’t beat yourself up over it)

Ok.

Low energy day, yeah. What did I actually do?

Got out of bed. Did the wake-up , get moving things and ablutions (isn’t ablutions a great word, btw? And I never get to use it). The face got washed. The hair got brushed. Ditto teeth (I think).

Cleaned the litter boxes (two) and cuddled the cats (three). (I’m fostering two very stressed cats right now, whose people’s lives got turned upside down but that’s another story).

Logged in to work before 7 am. Miracle.

Checked to make sure last night’s minor’s crisis was resolved — it was. Victory.

Couple urgent emails.

Made coffee (decaf). 

Wrote Morning Pages. (There’s no wrong way to write the Morning Pages, says Julia Cameron, but some days feel less wrong than others. These pages felt good. They woke up my brain even though my body still felt as if a bus had hit it and they let me flow into the day’s first creative work task) (Emails don’t count).

(Emails should count—I really need to recalibrate the part of my brain that doesn’t think of emails and meetings as work… it’s work. I just have nothing to show for it at the end of the time though, you know? Anyway. Also a different story.)

(But, idea. Could I turn meetings into an art project. A meeting log that’s kind of a little practical but also fun and creative. I’m not drawing enough, at all, these days, and that would be kinda cool. And not take a lot of energy. Made even give me energy. Right?)

Wrote a thing. A little thing, a short thing. But important. It was done in 15 minutes. Had to remind myself it would have taken most other people two to three hours.

Answered some more emails.

Meeting. Participated, engaged, connected. Had to leave early to go to another meeting.

Second meeting: Participated, engaged, challenged. Generally contributed; begged off early, exhausted, when it became clearly further participation would be of limited value.

Ate. Not a good breakfast. Pie. But I ate. And it was calories. 

Felt stupid and lazy — can we reframe lazy as tried? No? It was genuinely lazy? Yeah, genuine lazy — so tried to use AI to help me write a shitty first draft for a thing. After 15 minutes of prompts and four drafts of crap, wrote my own shitty first draft in seven minutes. (Still debating whether the 15 minutes of having AI generate the shitty drafts that were unacceptable helped me write my own faster? Maybe?)

(I should maybe say here that I really like AI. But when it comes to the level of work I need to produce, AI writes like a first-year intern or third-rate college communication student who revels in cliches, uses adverbs to mask lack of real content, and obfuscates rather than clarifies.)

Refined it — the non-AI draft — to something publishable in about 20 minutes. Felt brilliant for 30 seconds. Sent in for approvals.

Took a pause to ponder AI, my future job prospects, employability, career. Got depressed.

Took an intentional  break and made tea and breakfast for my bae, who stumbled downstairs after a marathon morning meeting held in my son’s/the foster cats’ bedroom.

(Yes, the foster cats are currently sharing my son’s bedroom.)

Cuddled the foster cats and the one and only Disobedient Sinful Disaster, the resident Siamese queen.

Said goodbye to my bae.

Realized it was 11 am and I hadn’t eaten a proper meal yet.

Fridge was empty, so ate another slice of pie.

Responded to a “Hellos moms” text from the online summer school -attending teenager and picked him up from his dad’s house.

Responded to a couple of emails while in the car. (But not while driving. I’m responsible.)

Walked dog and made teenager get some Vitamin D via the sun (usually not a problem for this kid. But sometimes. Getting them out of the house can be an effort…)

Remembered there was no food at home (except maybe some pie crumbs). Took teenager to drive-through for a burger.

Did not get self a burger. Ooops.

Introduced dog to foster cats. Could have gone better.

Arranged for a couple of meetings.

Responded to more emails.

World on a video script for something complicated and interesting. Enjoyed.

Thought about eating something that was not pie but the only things in the fridge were carrots and cabbage. And raw pork. Had coffee (decaf) instead. With liquid whipped cream (=calories).

Emails. Just a couple.

Got green light on something, informed relevant people, drafted some notes related to it.

Checked on cats.

Returned to script.

Proofed teenager’s film study assignment and explained the difference between a short sentence and a sentence fragment — and tried to explain how to use sentence fragments effectively.

Returned to script.

Interrupted cat fight.

“That’s right. Get under that couch and don’t come back out.”
SinSin bullying PomPom.

Felt beyond exhausted — considered that even with my teenager-getting breaks and coffee and pie consumption, I had clocked 7+ working hours. Put computer away.

Had 30 minute Power Nap.

(How to Nap 101: Experience exhaustion so deep that as soon as you lie down and close your eyes, you fall asleep.)

Woke up to text from 23-year-old:

“When supper today”

Responded:

“When you get here”

Response:

“I’ll be there are 5.”

OMG, how was it already/only 4:30?

Crawled out of bed.

Checked on cats. And teenager.

Sliced and spiced pork, cabbage, carrots, rice.

Cooked.

Walked dog.

Fed sons. Chatted with sons (sort of).

Cleaned kitchen. Drove the teenager and the dog to their dad’s house while adult son ran home, because he’s stupid fit.

Pondered reviewing and deleting some old emails.

Got ice cream instead.

Ate ice cream and read book.

Checked on cats.

Had bath.

Thought thoughts, some of them work related. (Problem solving in the bath and shower is a real thing and should be billable…)

Separated cats for the night. (Introducing adult animals to each other is a pain in the butt. One forgets.)

Ordered groceries.

Signed tax documents.

Tried to watch a show.

Fell asleep instead.

“I’m pretty sure you won’t kill me.” Avocado testing her sense of safety.

3

You see what the hack is, yeah?

“I can’t believe you let two strange cats move into my house.”
Disobedient Sinful Disaster aka SinSin looking unimpressed.

4

Note to self: You kinda did a lot. You were 100% entitled to feel exhausted at the end of a 14-hour day, even if it did include a nap.

Also, woman, eat a proper breakfast and lunch. Not pie. You know it makes a big difference.

And don’t forget the vitamins.

“You may be feeding us but we don’t trust you yet.”
PomPom and Avocado dining.

5

Follow-up note to self: But also, you know. You don’t need to do a lot. You don’t need to justify your existence via a list of tasks. It’s ok to just exist. To just be.

(Is it? Honestly, I’m not so sure.)

“I don’t know how I got here and I don’t know how I’m coming down.”
Avocado learning new skills.

6

Note from cats: Meow.

“I’m not sure about this new living situation.”
PomPom and Avocado in deep conversation.

7

Low energy days sometimes happen for external reasons but sometimes — these days — mostly internal. Chemical. Hormonal. 

It’s very difficult, in this world we’ve created, to accept their reality. To say, “Today, I need to rest and just be.”

Because there is always so much to do.

“Given what you’ve just inflicted on me, I deserve extra meals.”

8

Cats don’t have this problem, hey?

Sigh. Stupid, stupid, stupid overactive monkey brain.

“This isn’t so bad.”

9

The low energy is followed by a mid-energy day. But also, I’m tracking what I’m doing and giving myself a pat on the back every time I achieve something. Also, I’m eating. Also, I had slept for 10+ hours. Also, the cats are cute, the teenager is loving, I’ve got a friend’s birthday party in the evening, all is well with the world, mostly.

When my energy flags, I look at the things I’ve done and give myself permission to rest.

To be.

“Why is there no food for me on your tray?”
PomPom getting bolder.

10

Final note from cats: Purr.

Xoxo

“Jane”

“Nobody forget this is my house.”

*Learning moment: “I have a lot of those these days” — that’s how you use those/these properly. You’re welcome.

Yelling at strangers and other cautionary tales

1

There’s a terrible commercial Amazon Prime is inflicting on me every time I watch my current binge fave — Bones, based on the books of Kathy Reichs, not unproblematic but decent brain candy for tired evenings — and the result of that commercial is that I will ever ever use Skip the Dishes, so, commercial AND commercial saturation fail.

Have you seen it? It’s the one where an extremely annoying man tells strangers that they “shoulda skipped it.” I think it’s meant to be funny… all I see is a someone being rude and sanctimonious to strangers. Hello, person carrying heavy bag of dog food, person in long grocery line, family in a car full of hungry, exhausted adults and kids  — your life decisions suck, let me mock you for them.

There was a different way of telling that story, selling that product than having an obnoxious dude mansplain my life choices to me.

Badly done, Skip the Dishes.

2

I did recently tell a stranger that he was making terrible life decisions. Yelled, actually. I was in a park on an awkward first date. We were eating ice cream and doing the awkward first date questions (“So what do you like to do for fun?” “Do you have any siblings?” Can I be perfectly honest? I don’t care if you have any siblings until, like, after we’ve know each other for a year and there’s a chance I might meet them. Can we talk about the books we’re reading instead or weird ass conspiracy theories we’ve… oh, you don’t read. Ok. Help.) while in the background a father was verbally abusing his son.

I guess he thought he was educating him. Disciplining him.

Maybe you’d think it was nagging, I don’t know.

I was hearing a barrage of undisciplined, emotionally disregulated, psychologically unsound comments on an eleven year’s old pretty normal, age appropriate — if annoying — behaviour.

I try really hard not to judge people’s parenting. Because parenting is really hard.

And when you see a mom (it’s usually a mom; because, statistics) lose her shit at a playground over some small thing — you don’t know what’s happened before. You don’t know how many times she’s had to redirect, distract, remind. How little sleep she’s had. You don’t know.

So I was trying very hard to not judge the man. And failing.

Because what I was hearing, watching wasn’t someone maybe having a hard day.

It was someone systematically destroying their child’s self.

Out of habit.

And I was just watching.

Until…

“You’re a lost cause!” The man screamed at his son. (His son’s crime was saying he did not want to play at the basketball court, because he did not like the kids who were playing there.)

I did not think.

“Hey, dude. Do you think that’s an okay thing to say to your son?” I yelled. And then I turned to the kid. “I think you’re pretty awesome, kid. I’m picky about who I play with too.”

The man did not acknowledge me. He stalked off. It’s probably just as well: if he had yelled something back, I probably would have lost it more. And hands would have been thrown (and I would have won and ended up in jail). But, let’s be honest: cowards who enjoy destroying children don’t know how to respond to a strong adult’s challenge to their bullying.

The kid looked at me, though. I don’t know what he thought. But I hope he heard me.

Funny thing—I’m not sure I did the right thing.

But it was the only thing I could have done.

Silver lining: my date thought I did the right thing.

Me? I’m not so sure.

3

I’m never sure I’m doing the right thing these days. It’s horrible and I hate it. Most of my life has been very black and white. Clear yes, clear no. Kick-ass executive function. Right, wrong. Act now. No moral ambiguity.

Today, everything is grey — and I can’t even use that metaphor, because a book I dislike ruined it for me. (Yeah, that one. Have you read it? Then you probably understand…)

4

The poet John Keats coined the very uncomfortable but beautiful phrase “negative capability” when he was just 23. (Lucky for us; he was dead at 25.) He defined it as “when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.”

I recently found out that he had a hard time living in negative capability himself. In a letter to a friend, he wrote:

I am continually running away from the subject — sure this cannot be exactly the case with a complex Mind — one that is imaginative and at the same time careful of its fruits — who would exist partly on sensation partly on thought.

I guess this should reassure me? Maybe? But in my current state, it’s just depressing.

Still. One can strive. He did.

5

But suppose one wants to take a break from striving? And just be?

6

My youngest son is steamrolling through a five-week summer course of grade 11 English. I sit down with him to talk through outlines on Brave New World, Macbeth, then proof his essays and explain all the things teachers apparently no longer teach. Subject-verb-object sentences. Paragraph structure. Building an argument. Why phrasing a sentence like this makes it more powerful — why, if you get lost in your own thoughts and sentences, the simplest hack is to chunk them. Make them short. Use that sweet period. Knowing how to use it is the ultimate writer’s hack.

I’m in awe of how far his writing has come, this kid who didn’t really read until 11, 12 and struggled with writing well into his teens. Now, he can analyze Huxley and Shakespeare. He doesn’t enjoy doing it, mind you. I don’t think he’ll ever come back to these texts after high school. But he can do it. And he’s so proud of his achievements.

As he should be.

As am I.

7

Existing in uncertainty without negative capability makes you really, really resent people who are… sure of themselves, their position, their opinion, their path.

So I feel like maybe I owe a big apology to all the people I encountered during my black and white days. Man, I must have been insufferable. Sorry.

Really, really sorry.

8

Keats’ epitaph on his tombstone reads, “Here lies one whose name was writ in water.” 

He died before he knew he was immortal. 

In another letter, to his fiancee, he writes,

If I should die… I have left no immortal words behind me — nothing to make my friends proud of my memory — but I have loved the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had the time I would have made myself remembered.

When I die, I will have left behind children who, I hope, know that they were loved. Beyond anything.

I hope.

But also… I would like to leave behind some words.

And not the kind I yell at a stranger at a playground.

9

Have you ever noticed that I like to write these posts in beats of 5,  7 and ideally 10?

Three is the most powerful writing number, but those additional three work very well for longer pieces.

Sometimes, though, the love of structure requires some slightly awkward creative gymnastics.

10

Hungry, I don’t skip it. I look in my refrigerator and scavenge, create a meal out of odds and ends. I eat it while watching Bones, reading Keats and trying to embrace uncertainty. Don’t fight the current. Let it take me… where? I don’t know. I hate it, can’t relax into it.

But I try.

In the end, that must be enough.

xoxo

“Jane”

Soul-searching, writer style

1

“I’m not sure how to examine my soul. I tried to do it by looking in the mirror but it made me feel all queer when I looked for too long. Hav you ever done that? Looked in the mirror and felt all queer?”

Elizabeth George’s character, Hadiyyah, age 8, in Playing for the Ashes

2

I most often examine my soul while looking at my toes.

I’m sitting, on a sofa, the floor, a chair with a footstool, a picnic blanket by the river, legs stretched out in front of me, notebook in my lap. I’m writing — and you’d think that I’d be examining my soul on the page, but no. The true introspection happens when the pen stops moving and I lift my gaze from the page to my toes. Then, the thought, the brief insight, the even briefer, more fragile truth.

On the page, I create my reality, craft and control the story.

Starting at my toes between paragraphs and sentences, I just am.

Most of the time, it’s easier to write.

3

I don’t mean that I lie when I write. But I choose: I choose what to tell, what to omit. Where to assign meaning. Where to deny it.

It’s not therapy but it is a fantastic coping technique.

4

“I’m fine with it and actually, it feels good so long as I don’t think about it too much.”

Me, to you, explaining that not very important thing that doesn’t bother me at all

5

I can write myself into peace. Or into despair, anger.

Most of the time, I choose to write myself into peace.

Sometimes, I let myself write the pain. But not too often.

It doesn’t feel good, you see. So why would I want to choose that?

6

Have I ever told you about my theory that nothing actually exists until someone imagines it? Like, there were no rainbows — or black holes — until a human imagined them them. And then — presto.

The spectrum of light, including indigo.

(Seriously, how take is the colour indigo? Fake.)

Her: Problem: Who imagined the humans?

Jane: Dumb question. The demiurge, obviously.

7

Sometimes, my love and I watch Esoterica together — a vlog about religion, magic and alchemy, hosted by a Jewish scholar — married to a rabbi — who is somehow able to fulfill his curiosity about all things esoteric without losing his faith.

Sometimes, I envy him.

Other times, I think he’s a liar.

8

I look at my toes, but there’s nothing there. This disturbs me; I go back to the page.

9

I think maybe what’s happened is my soul is on vacation. That’s why I can’t find it right now now.

Don’t worry. It will come back.

It usually does.

10

The dog and cat are chilling with me on the balcony. The morning sun feels good on my skin. A human I love sleeps upstairs. A few blocks away, my eldest son is probably still sleeping too, re overing from a 10-day adventure in British Columbia with childhood friends. Some 1000 kilometres across the mountains, the neglected middle child has finished her spring semester and is enjoying a visit from her dad and her youngest sibling.

Maybe there’s a reason my soul is not in my toes.

I close my eyes and let my thoughts touch the tendrils of the souls I love, near and far.

I sigh with contentment.

I write about it.

It’s not a lie.

xoxo

“Jane”.

Time travel

Monday

It’s a travel day, and I’m at the airport by 5:30 a.m., on the airplane before 7. The plane is half-empty, which never seems to happen these days, and it’s glorious. There’s nobody next to me and I sprawl. Glorious.

I take the awkward “on the plane but no laptops” time to read a Simon Brett book – one of his newer ones, Guilt at the Garage, in which the 79-year-old male author’s heroines are mid-50s women. Neither Carole nor Jude are as attractive and fun as Charles Paris – the alcoholic, womanizing, often out of work actor who made Brett famous in the 1980s – but they’re fairly real. The Paris books are maybe politically incorrect now, as is Brett’s Mrs. Pargeter series (in which he writes a late 60s/early 70s heroine, and I don’t think he does this particularly well, but the series has other redeeming features, so I’ve devoured it all anyway). But as stories, as novels – they’re better. This makes me sad, because as a writer who’s occasionally achy in my bones and who sees the spectre of old age creep ever closer – and the possibility of that breakthrough novel creep ever farther – I don’t like evidence that suggests we reach our peak in our 30s or 40s.

Still. Brett is still writing. As am I.

Turbulence is nil so I open up my laptop 35,000 feet above the ground. Ever stop and think how crazy that is? Here, in this crazy time, in this crazy moment, I am in a metal tube above the clouds, hurtling around the globe at 850 km per hour, and while I’m doing this – I’m pulling out my laptop and working. 

I have a couple of workshops to facilitate on my whirlwind trip, and speaking notes for a big event to finalize before the end of day. I’m working on them while sitting in a pretty comfortable seat (thank you, Porter Airlines, please don’t go out of business), flight attendants intermittently bringing me coffee and cookies.

I feel so lucky.

The previous Friday

I’m, I suppose, a seasoned traveller. I’ve spent my childhood on planes. I pack light and I pack quickly. For my Monday morning flight, I pack as soon as I finish Friday’s laundry.

I want to treat myself to a work-free flight, so I start the day aiming to finish all the things before I log off for the day. But I hit my usual afternoon wall of brain fog. I know I have two hours, less, of work left. But it’s two hours of how I function in the morning or early afternoon, not the way I function in the late afternoon or evening. I can finish my work today. But it will mean working until 8 p.m. Maybe 9.

I log off, walk the dog, get Ender a sewing machine, feed the progeny, dress up, go dance with the Hot Dyke Party at the High Performance Rodeo.

I will work on the plane on Monday. I’m so, so lucky.

Earlier that month

It’s not a good day. Focus is hard and loving people is hard. Remembering people exist is hard. My work feels meaningless, the cats shed too much, there’s nothing good to eat in the house, I want a cookie, you’re not here, I want to cry, I can’t write.

Well. I can always write. I can’t write well.

I pull out a notebook and I write badly.

I switch to the laptop and I write some more. Maybe a little less badly. Hard to tell.

Ok, that part, that was actually ok. More like that.

Deep breath. One more scene? No. I’m tapped. I haven’t hit the wall yet but I see it. Today, I can’t deal with the impact.

There’s still nothing good to eat in the house and I still want a cookie. I eat some uninspired leftovers for an undefined mid-afternoon meal and promise to take myself out for dessert in the evening.

Maybe that Thursday, or the one before

She’s also a Simon Brett fan, and she also thinks Charles Paris is the best character Brett has created, although she also likes the de-cluttering series and its heroine, Ellen Curtis. I don’t – Brett tackles mental health issues in that one, and while he does so sensitively enough, I suppose, he doesn’t do it well. It’s all so contrived. And he may well be writing from the heart and from personal experience, I don’t know. I’m reading from the heart and painful personal experience too. It doesn’t ring true.

That’s the challenge of all writing: Can I dip into my darkness and make it real for you?

It’s pretty easy to do with joy. Joy, ecstasy – we can connect on those with almost anyone.

Grief, pain, horror?

We all think we suffer alone, our suffering is unique.

And even though it isn’t, that’s the way it feels. Always.

Sunday afternoon

I pick you up from the airport, and you’re my cookie and my dessert, and the wave of happiness that hits me almost drowns me, I can’t breathe.

(See? Everyone can relate to that. You can celebrate with me. Grieving together, that’s much harder.)

We stop at my house to check on Ender, who is on his third day to becoming a master sewer. I’m astounded by the progress he’s made since we got him the sewing machine on Friday. He’s made, like, pants. Also a toque. But pants! Three pairs – the last one is, he decides, wearable.

Children are astounding.

I look at this human who came out of me – seriously, how weird is this, I grew that thing, I literally made him inside my body and now there he is, coming up on 6 foot 2 and making pants on a sewing machine, how is that possible, how is that real, how is that life?

I feel so lucky.

I hold you tight.

Tomorrow and the day after

I have meetings, workshops, dinners, a full agenda. I’m 3500 kilometres from home and 4200 kilometres away from Flora – this always matters, from Calgary I can be in Vancouver within two hours if I need to be, from Toronto, it’s a harder, longer trip.

I anchor on the page every morning. Good morning and good night texts. Do you have a few minutes to talk? Maybe.

I try to remember that I’m so lucky. I’m here and you’re there and we can still talk. And I’ll be back soon.

In the evenings, after dinner, I curl up on the hotel room bed and pull out the laptop.

I write.

I’m so tired.

xoxo

“Jane”

I’m so lucky.

Working through decision fatigue, maybe

The diagnosis, I think, is decision fatigue. Forgive me — I’m jumping into the story in the middle but this is where it gets interesting. I need to decide a few things: What to make for supper tomorrow, what groceries to order, whether I want to go on a group trip to Egypt in the April, whether I’ll sign up for a dance class that starts, um, when, next Tuesday? 

None of these is a life or death decision. Or even that important. Only one is expensive (I’d be paying for Egypt with imaginary or future money, never a good idea).

I can’t make myself to make any of these decisions. I try. I can’t. Paralyzed. Left or right—I’m walking the dog and I pause at the intersection, frozen. I agonize. What’s the right direction? What are the consequences of choosing the wrong one?

Decision fatigue, obviously.

I know the cause, of course — pandemic hangover. Do you remember all those agonizing daily decisions? What to do, what not to do, who to breathe on? I think I’ve used up my life’s quote bak then. Also, I know: divorce, buying a house, career pivot (then another one, I probably need to rest a bit before I make any other decisions.

Unfortunately, life keeps on demanding I make them. The boys need to eat supper tomorrow and that means I need to decide what I’m making them and decide which groceries to order and…

But also, should I take that dance class?

You know what the worst thing about being a full grown and then some adult is? You realize that the people who runt he world — they’re just like you. Moody, petty, insecure, confused, anxious, exhausted, hangry, all the things.

And they set economic and social policy. And have armies and bombs.

Speaking of bombs — Egypt? What do you think? I want to go to Egypt, of course but I want to see it through my love’s eyes not on a group trip but also what a great opportunity but also, maybe the last chance because the world is scary but also group trip and I hate people right now and I don’t know most of these people suppose they are really annoying but also, if I don’t go, will I always regret it?

Yes. I should go. Go. Just GO. It will be amazing and if it’ snot, well, it will still be an experience. 

(Past me loved experiences.)

(Present me just wants security and safety.)

(I don’t really want to be present me.)

Egypt. Dance class, Groceries. Do it.

(It’s easier not to.)

Actually, that’s a lie. It’s excruciatingly hard to NOT make decisions. Excruciatingly. It’s exhausting.

Make the decisions. Move on.

(Can I hide in my pillow fort instead?)

Ok. I can do this. 

Egypt. 

Dance class.

Groceries.

Pickle soup and toast.

Done.

Xxoxo

“Jane”

January Blues, or 68 days until Equinox

January Blues and I don’t want to leave the house and do anything and the thing is, neither do you, so when I finally make the supreme effort and say, hey, you want to go do this thing and you say no, I want to die because I wasted all that energy I didn’t have on a rejection. January Blues and everything is dark again — the brief promise of Solstice that the nights are getting shorter seems like a lie, it’s still so dark.

Ok, it’s not so bad. Especially not in the afternoon, facing south, when there are no clouds…

Life is not so bad, even when there are clouds.

Life is pretty good.

Being alive is better than the alternative — most of the time.

The world is going to hell in a handbasket — who’s carrying the handbasket, by the way, and why a handbasket, and what is the origin of that expression, I want to know — but in my little corner of it, everything is ok.

Except it’s still dark and I want to hibernate.

Can you give me permission to spend January in a pillow fort?

Or in Cuba?

You: You could give yourself permission to do that.

Jane: We both know I won’t.

January Blues and a commitment to self to not cancel plans — very hard — I deal with it by avoiding making plans in the first place but also, if you ask, I’ll say yes, even though I don’t want to, because leaving the house is not a bad thing and being around other people is a good reminder that the outside world exists and that spring will come, eventually. (They all seem to think so.)

But also, it’s hard and noisy and I want my pillow fort. Why did I say I’d go to that party?

You: You could not go.

Jane: I said I’d go. I can’t cancel.

When you start cancelling plans, the world ends. True story. I refer you to March 2020.

Looking at the colour spectrum and wondering how much effort it would take to create January Yellows. I’d need to get through the Greens first, though, how is that possible?

Possible, if one is in Cuba.

I dream about Cuba.

I remind myself that life in Cuba s actually very hard. The socialist paradise does not exist.

I still dream.

January blues, but actually, not as bad last year or the year before. I can tell by March, I’ll be back to baseline. I buy red and yellow flowers for my sunny house, I wear bright clothes, I eat dessert.

January Blues but, hey, we’re a third through the month and then it will be February Slushies and then March Muddies but then April Yellows and May Greens.

I got this. You got this? We got this…

68 days until Equinox.

xoxo

“Jane”

PS According to the Grammarist.com, the earliest known documented usage of “going to hell in a handbasket” dates back to 1682:

“…that noise of a Popish Plot was nothing in the world but an intrigue of the Whigs to destroy the Kings best Friends, and the Devil fetch me to Hell in a Hand basket, if I might have my will, there should not be one Fanatical Dog left alive in the three Kingdoms.”

This discredits the common origin story that during the French Revolution’s Great Terror, when the bodies of aristocrats and enemies of the revolution were separated from their heads via the guillotine, their heads fell into handbaskets and also answers my question as to who is carrying the handbasket — the Devil, obviously (but also, why handbasket and not just basket?).

Enjoy the silence?

i

The dark, by all the calendars, is on the retreat now. The nights are getting shorter and the days longer, even though we cannot see it yet. Every day, a few more minutes of sunlight. Less than three months until the Equinox. We haven’t made it yet, but it’s possible to think we will make it. 

Probably.

The holidays are over — New Year’s Eve isn’t a holy day as such, is it, there’s less pain and pressure around it. My body is stepping out of holiday stress and focusing on its season of pain. The shift comes, as it does every year (why can I not remember this): the pain isn’t pleasant, of course, but the suffering has an edge of both clarity and acceptance. This is what is, this is what matters.

What matters, when I have this clarity, always boils down to two things:

1. Are the children well, safe, secure — thriving?

2. Am I writing?

After that, things can get confusing and messy, fluid. It doesn’t matter. No life needs a dozen North Stars. Two can be too much, cause sufficient conflict.

ii

It’s a lazy holiday morning and we sleep in, you more than me. When you wake up and we begin our shared day, you ask what I’ve been up to. I tell you.

“You’ve had a whole adventure while I slept.”

You exaggerate, but I know what you mean. I woke up. I wrote my Morning Pages. Then I prepped breakfast, I had a long, long (hard-earned, but that’s another story) bath, I Duolinged, I read my book, I checked in on the children, I invited friends to a gathering, I tidied. I read again.

I didn’t get lost in Instagram reels or online shopping for lovers, ever-present dangers.

“I started with Morning Pages,” I tell you. “When I do my foundation, everything else flows.”

Not 100% true. But true on this day.

Beginning the day on the page is a writer’s prayer, meditation. Unlike Julia Cameron, who introduced me (and half the world) to Morning Pages in The Artist’s Way, I don’t think Morning Pages are a panacea for all and sundry. But they work for people like me — writers, story tellers, people with busy, expressive minds. Prayer, meditation, running, exercises or even a ritualized hot breakfast may fill the same role for others.

They are the foundation on which I build the rest of my day. First, the Morning Pages, then, everything else — pleasure or work. Whenever I skip the Morning Pages and jump straight into work or play, I am unmoored for the rest of the day.

Unmoored, despite knowing what I need, I don’t give it to myself later in the day. I know writing for a while would give m the anchor I need — but if I haven’t done it first, I do not give myself the time to ground myself on the page later.

(In my first draft, I write: “I don’t find the time.” But time is not lost. It’s there. All round us. It’s not a question of finding it, is it? It’s a question of giving it — to ourselves, to our writing practice — or to exercise, to whatever it is that we know we need.)

Unmoored, I don’t give myself the time.

I get lost in Instagram reels instead.

iii

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions but I like the opportunity each new year, each first of each month, each Monday for that matter, offers for reflection and action. 

The clarity that comes with the pain that walks with me this time of year tells me I need more silence.

For the past few years, I’ve needed to fill the silence — with audiobooks and cat videos and commitments and people. No guilt or shame about it (ok, maybe a little — the guilt is ever-present). I needed it. I did it, I’m here.

But I know creative work — good creative work — needs silence.

So in 2025, I need to turn down the volume.

I’m scared. Silence isn’t actually silent. It’s full of voices. 

I’m not sure I’m ready.

But I’ll try.

And if I need Rex Stout or Simon Brett to help me fall asleep or just not think in the middle of the night, I’ll use them.

But I’ll try to use them less.

Instagram reels, however, I think I can eliminate in their entirety,

Wish me luck.

iv

On Solstice, at a writer friend’s artsy, witchy house, we write down what we want to let go of in 2025 and what we want to seed, and then burn our intentions. (Of course we burn them, how else will they reach the gods we don’t believe in?)

I want to let go of guilt — I feel so much guilt right now, in so many different forms, including guilt of not having published or finished a stand-alone work for more than four years now.

What I want to seed is private and complicated. As I’m about to burn it, I realize that in a very full articulation of what I want, I don’t touch on writing. At all. Should I have? (Guilt.) I take my pen back to the page, hesitate.

I add, “I have not written anything about writing here. What does that mean?”

(Guilt.)

I burn the intention. I carry the guilt home with me. I tell you about it in the night.

You suggest writing is such a core part of my life, of who I am and what I do, that I didn’t need to create an intention around it.

But shouldn’t I want to write — or at least finish — another book? Isn’t it time?

Guilt.

Well. Letting go of things is a process.

v

The holidays are over but the New Year is not yet here, and we’re in that in-between time during which, if you don’t have to work, time loses all meaning. My past self is bleeding and in medically-assisted denial. The ER doctor has sent me home. “Wait and see.” When I come back, it will be too late but I don’t know that yet. I wait and see.

My present self feels her pain, fear — guilt. Can’t quite turn it into art, not today. But I also know that she has done so in the past — I have done so in the past. Repeatedly. This is the pain I tap into every time I craft the Dark Moment, every time I make you cry with a story.

Today, though, I can’t craft fictional Dark Moments. But, I write. Morning Pages first. Straight from that into this, an exercise in short-form creativity, a reminder that something doesn’t need to be 100,000 words long before it’s finished. Then, a pause for exercise, which I don’t particularly want to do but I need to do. Ok. Done. Now some time with Julia Cameron — I’m working my way through Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance. It helps.

Next, check in on the kids. The eldest is working, the younger two recovering from Christmas. Do they need me? They’re not sure. We might go to the mountains or thrift store hunting. Or just chill , separately or together. I don’t mind the uncertainty — I have written , I’m at peace, I can take whatever the day throws at me. 

I can even, today, do nothing. Spend a little bit of time in uncomfortable silence. Remember how to tune out the worst of the demons that eat me and tune into the deep voices that feed me.

I will try.

The dark is receding. I will try.

xoxo

“Jane”

Tis the season to sit with the pain

i

It’s December, the month in which my body remembers the loss of a child I never knew, never held and I don’t want to write about it, except to say all month, my body anticipates the loss and my mind can’t do anything about it. It’s worst between December 24 — the day I started bleeding — and December 29 — the night it was all over — that’s when I spiral and the world ends.

I physically anticipate the spiral all month.

Funny thing (well, not funny, but kind of interesting?) — this happened for almost 15 years without me knowing what was happening. My big epiphany — Oh, wow, this is why I now hate Christmas — which was triggered any another awful thing that happened in December, why do so many awful things happen in December — didn’t help or fix anything. The spiral is still there, pain on a scale to which only one thing compares — and hey, that’s another awful thing that happened at Christmas too. 

Point: Knowing the root cause doesn’t actually fix anything. 

Second point: I hate Christmas.

ii

Making this Christmas worse is the unlovely fact that I basically have no relationship with my father right now nor any hope of resurrecting it. We will all be together for Christmas Eve of course, because I don’t want to ruin a tradition they value and enjoy for my children. It will be awful because I have no masking bandwidth left. And I don’t want to write about that either, except for this: Children, however old they are, do not love parents unconditionally. They do not forgive everything.

Nor should they.

iii

Joyous feelings for Tis the Season to be Jolly, but here’s the thing, kittens, it’s not such a jolly season for many people, right?

It’s often a very difficult season. Also, in this hemisphere, it’s cold and dark and gross.

January, please hurry, December has also lasted too long.

iv

Sometimes — usually in September and October — I get fired up about crafting new Christmas traditions that hold space for my pain and encompass the beauty and complexity of my life. But then, the dark comes and all I can do is get through it — and give my kids a good Christmas.

Pain.

V

Advent calendars are delivered. The tree is up. Most of the shopping done — let’s not talk about the crass commercialism of the not-so-holy day.

But mostly, pain.

Vi

I don’t know where to find the joy this year. Not that there isn’t joy — there is much joy in my life. It’s all around me (you knew a Love Actually reference was coming, right? Here it is). But maybe, in December, I don’t have to. Maybe this is just my month to mope and suffer, walk with the dark in the dark.

And maybe January (let’s be honest, March) can be the re-emergence, the re-birth,

Maybe. Let’s do it like that this year.

Honour the pain.

Xoxo

“Jane”

And again with the existential angst

i

This is why people talk about the weather, I say, wiping my eyes.

I much prefer these conversations, you say, kissing my years.

Theoretically, so do I. Except when they hurt this much.

I can’t quite remember how we got to existential angst — except that all paths seem to lead there these days. Do you remember how we got here? You mentioned human trafficking and I talked about idiosyncratic causes — and cause fatigue, so many things to do battle for, what do you choose — my lack of the activism gene — I know there’s no such thing, one of my few brags is that I know how genes work, still, it’s a useful turn of phrase, I don’t think I have the activism gene — we inevitably went to end-stage capitalism, my brief (oh so brief) sting with an Antifa cell (don’t ask and don’t start a dossier on me, it was pathetic), your attempts to redirect my tears by talking about how small actions touch people, transform them, make life better for them, and surely that’s enough, that matters (but nothing matters and if nothing matters why does this matter) and then my navel-gaze, clumsily articulated, statement that I used to believe that the best way to make an impact on the world, to shape it, in however a small way, most effectively was to live the life we wanted to live.

And I lived that life — I lived in cooperative housing so my family would have community and housing security without me having the chain of a mortgage wound around my throat, I freelanced so that I would have the freedom — I choose the word freedom, not ability, consciously — to be my children’s primary caregiver and also not be dependent on any one employer (or any one person). I attachment parented and homeschooled my not-quite-neurotypical brood while paying rent and getting food on the table writing and it was a really good life.

No regrets about the past really — but regrets about this: What did it accomplish, really? It ended and now I have a mortgage. Children in school. A Monday-to-Friday, 9-to-5 (sort of) job-job.

I’m just like everyone else, I’m living the life I never wanted — in many ways, a life that feels out of synch with my core values.

I sold out. (And, if you think about it, not for very much either — for housing security. The end.)

Cue the tears, cue the existential angst.

ii

My eldest, who, to be painfully honest with you, has told me that he wishes he hadn’t been homeschooled because school would have “taken the rough edges off” his weirdness (I prefer the word uniqueness) (also, I don’t know how he thinks he would have survived school, especially the elementary school years, but, ok) (also, he’s not weird, he’s pretty much exactly like me — does he think I’m weird??).

And he thinks I homeschooled them all because of ego.

I suppose it’s true in so far as I thought I could do better than a random teacher with a class of 30-40 kids in a system I consider highly flawed. And it’s true that my angst right now is about ego. The path less travelled etc etc and at the end of it, what do I have to show for it? Long forgotten articles, books no one reads and that failed to pay the rent, a child who wishes I had made other choices — another who’s absolutely thriving in said highly flawed system, indicating he’d probably have thrived in it from day — how exactly have I changed the world, their lives, anything, by those early hard choices?

God knows I’m not changing it. Mortgage. Job. All the usual dependencies, restraints.

It is ego. Who am I, after all, to have these delusional ambitions?

An insignificant speck of dust on an insignificant planet in an insignificant universe.

You counter by pointing, again, to my children and repeating that it is the “peopling” that matters. The lives we touch, the children we raise, the people we help. True enough but not enough, you know? Especially when you feel that everything around you is on fire. During the prairie summers these days, literally.

iii

I try to bring myself back from the angst and the tears to the positive. I gave my children the childhood I thought would serve them best for as long as I could. I gave them love and security and freedom to be themselves, to find themselves. I supported my family — and myself — by writing for a living since I’ve been 17. Isn’t that something, isn’t that worth something?

You see all those “I” sentences above? Yeah. It is all about ego. My ego does not want to be unimportant, unnecessary.

And we know what the solution to that is, don’t we?

I really hate it when life throws up evidence that the Buddhists are right.

iv

I’m sitting in the sunlight-flooded living room of the beautiful townhouse I own via an extortionate mortgage that I could afford because of a Monday-to-Friday, 9-to-5 (sort of) job-job in which I’m still earning my living writing (and thinking, which is harder) and in which I do have an opportunity to touch people’s lives and hearts and make a difference. I start my days writing from the heart, I spend the day with lovely people writing from the mind. Sometimes, I write again from the heart in the afternoon and one or two evenings a week, I help people who want to write bring their stories to life.

And stories matter.

Even if I don’t.

v

There are still tears as I write and this time you’re not there to kiss them away. I’m not sure I’ve solved anything for myself. I have not dissolved the ego, I have not forgiven myself, I have no arrived at peace — or even glimpsed the way to peace.

But I remember that there are three children in the world who know that they are loved and that I’m there to drive them to school, work or the ER when they need me, no matter how bad the roads are. And that I always have snacks for them. And if I squint really hard into the past, there have been one or two articles in the past that shaped public policy and public opinion. And while my books don’t change the world, they do give their handful of readers pleasure. And maybe, occasionally, point the way to freedom.

Take that, ego, and be satisfied. Let me lead an ordinary life.

With fewer tears.

xoxo

“Jane”

PS The writing instructor’s notes to self: Bad headline, too may run-on sentences, chaotic structure. The CTA doesn’t really follow from the lead. Rewrite, tighten up and ramp up the positivity to give the reader something beyond your teary navel to focus on. Don’t hit publish until you do. What are you doing? Why are you hovering over that damn publish button.

Jane: Sometimes, the revolution/reframing starts sharing the shitty first draft from the heart. 😉

Let it snow, let it go

Winter is evil. I know this is not a universally held opinion, and while I don’t want to yuck the skier or snowboarder’s yum, come on. Black ice, killer roads, snow drifts, -40 temperatures, the sun setting at 4 p.m. — winter is evil. Terrible. Gross.

And it brings out the best in people. Doesn’t it?

When my son has his very close encounter with a concrete barrier on the second day of winter’s awful roads, strangers immediately stopped, made sure he was ok, and got his truck to a safe place.

After giving up on trying to make it up the hill to his house, my love parked his car by the road and then spent an hour helping half a dozen other cars get up or off a snow-drift covered urban hill of death. And then, they pushed his car up the hill and into his parkade.

Much as I hate the sound, smell and environmental cost of snowblowers, the dude two streets over who owns one clears snow off the entire block with his.

And much as I hate my next door neighbour, he’s shovelled my entryway and driveway, as well as any car parked in said driveway, with his snowblower.

He’s also attached it to his bicycle to make it go faster — he’s still biking in this weather although not because he wants to save the world — and he’s also used it, consistently, between 10 p.m. and midnight as I’m desperately trying to fall asleep. 

It’s ok. I have ear plugs.

Also, as much as I hate my neighbour, I recognize that he’s doing his best to use the snowblower for good. Evil winter is bringing out the best in him, too.

Are you judging me for hating my next door neighbour? You shouldn’t, until you live next door to him for a while. According to the gossip on the street, he and his roommate-partner-girlfriend-common law wife (she insists they’re just roommates; he has a different spin on their relationship), have been in the middle of a violent domestic break up for going on twenty years. He screams and calls her terrible, terrible names. For hours. At some point, some neighbour breaks down and calls the police. I’ve done it once myself. It’s awful. How can someone, anyone scream at anyone, much less a person they possibly claim to love, like that?

Almost every day. Sometimes, for hours.

Then he apologizes. To me. Perhaps to her, I don’t know. I never hear the apologies, only the screaming.

On the days when I can access my deeply buried compassion, still not back at its pre-pandemic levels, I remind myself that however awful my experience is as next-door-neighbour to the neighbour from hell, it’s nothing compared to the hell he and his partner-roommate-whatever have created for themselves.

She’s not an agency-less victim, by the way. She’s his active enabler and enthusiastic participant in the fights. She just doesn’t scream — she whispers her venom. I only hear it when we’re all outside, which I try to avoid happening.

Anyway, point: The terrible, terrible neighbour is shovelling my driveway when snow comes. I still hate him. But I also appreciate him.

Hate is a strong word, you say. You hate winter, you hate your neighbour. Can you dial it down, you say. Dislike. Don’t enjoy. How about that.

No. I hate. Don’t weaken my passion. I hate winter. I hate my neighbour.

I love the strangers on the roads who stop their cars at the risk of never ever being able to move them again to help someone else get unstuck from a snow drift or a stretch of ice.

I hate, hate, hate the guy leaning of his horn because he doesn’t understand what flashing hazard lights mean. But I won’t stop my car and go yell at him. He’s already suffering. Right? That’s why he’s leaning on the horn.

My neighbour is also suffering. Constantly. I’m aware of that, I see the signs of mental illness and addiction, I see the eleven year old — maybe seven year old boy — who got totally screwed over by life and is now stuck in his loops and patterns, living in a nightmare, inflicting said nightmare on the people around him. He does not want to be an asshole, this I believe. 

He can’t help it. I can understand that — and I can hate him. I’m no enlightened Buddhist.

It’s late at night and it hasn’t snowed today, but the snowblower next door is out. I shudder and put in earplugs. Winter is evil. My next door neighbour, while not evil, is definitely not good. And prone to engaging in evil acts. Yelling and swearing at your roommate-partner is evil. I can hate him and his snowblower and also be grateful that he shovels my driveway.

Human beings are complex.

Winter is evil.

But it does bring out the best in people.

“And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said…”*

i

The first thing you need to know is that he’s ok, the second thing you need to know is that he spun out on black ice on Glenmore on his way to work and crashed his new-to-him truck into a concrete barrier. The third thing you need to know is in the five seconds between I heard “I spun out on Glenmore” and “Yes, I’m fine, but I hit the barrier” I died a thousand deaths and aged two decades even though, obviously, logically, whatever had happened, he was well enough to call me.

They never tell you, before you have children, what a horrible thing you are doing to yourself — putting a piece of your heart, body, soul out into the world, exposing it to all of its dangers, nastiness, black ice on Glenmore.

They never tell you, when they lie that it gets easier, that as they get older, the dangers get bigger and your ability to keep them safe from the dangers smaller. You can keep that baby in a wrap, the toddler in your lap.

You can’t keep a 22 year old off an icy road when he has to drive to work.

He’s ok. Sad and angry at himself, of course. But he’s ok, that’s all that matters.

I’m not quite ok yet. My adrenaline, 10 hours later, is still elevated.

They’re not ours. But we think they are. And it hurts.

ii

Another thing you need to know is what parenting after divorce should look like. He called me and his dad from the side of the road as soon as he got the truck, with the help of a passer-by, onto the shoulder. I was on my way to pick him up in minutes, texting co-workers and cancelling meetings in the Uber that would take me to my car, while his dad talked with him on the phone, settling him down. He called for a tow truck — which would come in four to six hours — and I drove him to work. His dad left work to facilitate the tow truck transport later and then picked him up from work. Yeah, we could have made him take transit home in the evening after his stressful day. But also — while I drove his younger brother to a math tutor, his dad went to pick up the adult child who had just had his first car accident. To be with him. 

Tough love is bullshit.

We’re GenX parents. We know that first hand.

iii

I don’t know if you need to know this but I’d like you to know, or maybe I don’t even need to say it and you already know, I’m going to be sick for weeks now when I know that he’s driving and the weather is bad. I’ll find excuses to send him texts about the time that he should be arriving at work or home. Nothing so obvious as, “Hey, did you get to work safe?” But, like, you know. Memes, Instagram reels.

When he gives them a thumbs up, I’ll breathe easier.

iv

There will be other accidents. Worse ones. He got his motorcycle licence — and a motorcycle — this summer and every time he rode, my love and fear rode with him. There will be worse things than accidents: Heartbreaks. Injustice. Illnesses. Pain. Nothing I can do to protect him, nothing I can do to save him — not him, not his brother, not his sister.

They never tell you, before you have children, how helpless you will be after you bring them into this world. They never tell you how hard and heartbreaking it will be.

They talk about the love. And it’s there and it’s huge and life changing and all of that.

They never talk about the pain and the fear. 

But then, if they did — we wouldn’t believe them.

We’d have them anyway…

v

All you need to know is that he’s ok. It was really the perfect first car accident — dear god, I know there will be more. No one hurt, no other vehicle involved. Crunched bumper on the truck, but hey, that’s what bumpers are for, also, a jostled engine. (That’s the technical term. No, it’s not, I don’t speak car, but, you know, the engine is just behind the bumper, there was jostling and a loose cable or two. Really, I don’t need to be talking about this, I’m babbling, because I’m so relieved. He’s ok.)

And that’s all you need to know. He’s ok.

Also, maybe this:

*On Children
Kahlil Gibran

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.

And he said:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you.

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Repeat until you believe

1

I’m moving this week and I’m worried — what? I didn’t tell you I was moving? How is that possible? That’s all I talk about. It’s the centrepiece of my menopausal midlife crisis. Short version: I bought a house I’m not sure I can afford with imaginary money I’m still expecting the bank to claw back from me at the last minute, all to assuage the (imagined) fear that I’d be 50 and living under a bridge and the (very real) housing insecurity the comes from living on a six-month lease in a rented crackhouse that’s about to be be torn down.

Anyway. Yeah. I bought a house. Well, a condo. Townhouse? It’s a vertical, three-story affair that faces onto an alley — not a coincidence that it has so many of the characteristics of the place I lived for 15 years and which I loved so much. It’s old and it needs not just new paint but new floors and electrical work and a new bathtub and OMG I bought a moneypit, what have I done?

And it probably comes with a crazy condo board — they are all crazy.

But it’s mine. (Or it will be unless the bank changes its mind tomorrow. They can’t do that, right? They won’t do that.)  It’s mine. I’m the only one who can raise my rent (well, also the Central Bank, but whatever, don’t think about that). I’m the one who decides how long I get to live there. And I can paint the walls. And hammer in nails.

Mine.

It’s intoxicating.

Until I think about the money and then it’s terrifying. So I’m trying to not do that. The money will work out. I’ll figure out the budget. I’ll figure it all out and I’ll still be able to take the kids out for sushi once in a while.

(Repeat until you believe.)

2

So I’m moving and I’m packing and living in chaos and of course stuff is coming up — stuff I thought I had dealt with, stuff I didn’t think I needed to deal with.

Dealing with stuff sucks. I’d really rather not.

Here’s what I want to focus on: Four years ago, I was severely underemployed (thanks, COVID), in debt, paying rent on a one-bedroom basement suite (although it was a lovely basement suite) with imaginary money, with part-time access to a battered car that I didn’t like and didn’t want — and I wasn’t sure my children would ever love me again.

Today — I’m pretty sure my children love me, I’m about to move into MY house, the mortgage on which is my only debt, I drive a funky VW Beetle that I’m way too fond of, I have a job at which I’m valued and well-enumerated — and did I mention that I’m about to move into MY house? And MY house has space for all the children — a bedroom for Ender, a bone room for Flora and a garage where Cinder can store his motorcycle and make things. And a lover who adores me and treats me so well and oh, so much love, and also, did I mention, I bought a house, I’m about to move into MY house?

I did ok.

So it’s also ok that I’m tired. And that I haven’t published a book in four years.

(Repeat until you believe.)

3

I’m moving and everyone is helping me. I’m loved and I’m supported and I will not die alone, eaten by my cats.

(Repeat until you believe.)

Editorial note: Can you make that “I’m loved and I’m supported sentence” more positive? Like, cut that “I will not die alone, eaten by my cats” part?

Jane: In the end, everyone dies alone. And there are worse fates than being eaten by cats posthumously. Being eaten by cats while still alive would, I grant you, be unpleasant.

Editorial voice: What’s wrong with you?

Jane: Nothing.

(Repeat until you believe.)

4

I’m moving and I’m so excited and I can’t wait to show you MY house and everyone is helping me and I’ve done so much over the last four years and I’m loved and supported and oh, I’m going to write so much in my new house.

(Repeat until you believe.)

xoxo

“Jane” 

On priorities, parties and product (totally not)*

1

The week I turn 50, I do all the things.

I’m supposed to be in Cuba, but I’m in Toronto – an interesting choice that I’m second guessing until I do the thing and kill it, but I’m getting ahead of the story.

I’m in Toronto with my loverly partner and they’ve never been, so over the weekend, I am a cicerone of sorts. Of course, all I know about Toronto are the book shops and the shoe stores, also, a few cafes.

We go to all the book shops and eat all the food.

Also, we dance at Lula Lounge with my work dancing queens, because dance is life.

Well, life is life. But dance makes life better.

2

On Monday, I take myself to the Bata Shoe Museum and then along Queen Street West to Church – that is, the Toronto John Fluevog Store, because a) it’s huge and b) it has an illusion room in a former bank vault c) why do I even need to give a reason? I go to Church in every city I visit that has one. Don’t judge. I don’t believe in god but I believe in the power of shoies to make any mundane day better.

3

On Tuesday, on my way back to the hotel from my Toronto office, where I spend a fairly productive day, I stop to buy a rose to make my lover’s heart sing. Buy the men in your lives flowers more often, people. It feels good – to get flowers. To give flowers.

Tuesday is our actual birthday – not the royal we, but the loverly we, which is really cool. Everyone should partner up with someone who shares your birthday. It’s very fun. Also, efficient. It’s our birthday trip. What shall we have for our birthday dinner, how shall we celebrate?

By eating the 27-ingredient Singapore Slaw at Lee Restaurant, of course. If you have not experienced this, put it on your bucket list.

4

On Wednesday, I do the thing I came to Toronto to do, and I make magic happen. I’m so high. And then my colleagues fete me all night long in the most incredible way (unrelated to the magic I performed, btw) and I can’t get over it because I’m kind of a cranky bitch at work most of the time, focused on product, impatient of process and frequently inconsiderate of people – why do you all like me so much, I sob as I blow out the candles?

(But they do. Mystery.)

5

Thursday, I do a little more magic. Kill it again. Sidenote: It is very fulfilling to be good at that thing you get paid for. Definitely.

Then, goodbyes. Flight delay. A few hours in a sheesha lounge with my loverly love pretending to work. Airport. Flight delay continued. We will get home eventually, right? Plane. Take off. Interrupted sleep. Landing. More waiting. Uber. I’m in bed shortly after 4 a.m. Hey, it’s already Friday.

6

On Friday, I celebrate the birth of my eldest, now 22. When did that happen? He was a slime-covered mewling newborn just yesterday, you know? We spend the day, birthday boy and siblings, sitting on motorcycles and eating too much food. I pat my primordial pouch with pleasure, watch this man child I grew with joy.

7

Saturday, I have almost all the people I love in one room for a final shared birthday celebration. My cup runs over and all that.

8

Sunday, I spend the day in bed, feeling things.

9

And then it’s Monday again and time to return to the ordinary and routines

The cup is full.

The well is deep.

It will be a good week.

xoxo

“Jane”

PS *I realize the headline is misleading. Whatcha gonna do. I wanted to alliterate. With the latter P.

PS2 It was a rather hard Monday tbh. But. The well is deep, the cup is full. It will be a good week.

PS3 But will it? I wrote this before reading the news and starting my day and I end it feeling sick and horrified and guilty for being alive and happy and safe. How can ordinary life go on and feel beautiful when horrific things happen to an entire people? I don’t know. Do you? I make the decision to hit publish anyway as this is my reality. And my guilt. We probably share it. It will be a good week… for some. Definitely not for others.

On learning to love the number 5

1

I’m still in my 40s today, and as I move from the decade some friends tell me was the best decade of their lives to the one other friends tell me is the best of theirs, I’m trying to come to terms with my utterly irrational hatred of the number 5.

I don’t want to turn living through ten consecutive 5-something birthdays – including a horrific double-five – into the worst decade of my life… because I don’t like the number 5.

Wait, it’s even more irrational than you think.

I know nothing about numerology or kabbalistic magic – which always sounds like cannibalistic magic, don’t you think. I just don’t like the number 5. It’s icky.

I should like it. It’s a cute number. It’s a prime number and a Fibonacci number. I love 3 and 7. I embrace 4 and 8. I’m neutral about 0, 1 and 2. I’m cool about 9. I’ve got reservations about 6 and I hate 5.

Flora: And we’re still debating about where I got my pattern things from?

Jane: Me. I know it’s me. Sorry, child.

I google the meaning of 5 and hey, if I believed in numerology, all would be hunky dory. The number five is amazing. It symbolizes curiosity, freedom and change. New beginnings and opportunities, high energy, excitement.

The Wikipedia definition resonates with me more:

5 (five) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number, and the cardinal number, following 4 and preceding 6, and is a prime number.

It’s just a number.

Get over it, you freak.

2

My dislike of 5 is not new – I did not like being 5, 15 or 25 (I don’t remember 35 or 45; life was intense). But I concede that some angst about turning 50 is mixed into it. I’ve not been relishing the approach of this round birthday. I barely noticed 30 or 40 – it was another birthday, another year. The 50 seems – very round.

And significantly closer to death than 40.

It’s presenting me with dual angst: First, a sense that there’s not that much time left. Less than 30 years (I plan to be dead at 78 – but that’s another story), and the last decade passed in a blink. The clock is ticking. And second, perversely – 28 years left, an entire lifetime. What am I going to do with them, how am I going to make sure I don’t piss them away?

3

I’m reading The Marginalian and Maria Popova’s insightful (but long-winded; I love her, but the woman needs a ruthless editor) summary of Marion Milner’s a Life of Own’s Own:

Here then was a deadlock. I wanted to get the most out of life, but the more I tried to graps, the more I felt that I was ever outside, missing things.

…I could not understand at all that my real purpose might be to learn to have no purpose.

…

I want to feel myself part of things, of the great drift and swirl: not cut off, missing things, like being sent to bed early as a child, the blinds being drawn while the sun and cheerful voices came through the chink from the garden.

…

I want… the patterns and colourings on the vase on my table … I want to be so harmonious in myself that I can think of others…

…

…why was I always striving to have things or to get things done? Certainly I had never suspected that the key to my private reality might lie in so apparently simple a skill as the ability to let the senses roam unfettered by purposes.

…

It struck me as odd that it had taken me so long to reach a feeling of sureness that there was something in me that would get on with the job of living without my continual tampering.

I suppose I did not really reach it until I had discovered how to sink down beneath the level of chattering thoughts and simply feel what it meant to be alive.

It resonates.

Marion Milner wrote A Life of One’s Own under the pseudonym Joanna Field

4

Five is just a number.

Fifty is also just a number. It’s also half a century. Definitely the latter half of mid-life. Maybe the beginning of the last quarter.

I don’t mind aging, getting older. It’s better than the alternative.

I just thought I’d be somewhat more with it by 50.

Instead, I feel, in so many ways, like I am back at “start” again.

Except with baggage.

Scratch that. 

With experience. Right?

5

Five is a very cute number.

It combines lines and curves. It’s in the middle, and I like to be in the middle. The middle is cozy, fun.

My decade of fives will be fine. Fiery. Formidable. Freaky, even.

(Menopausal bloggers have ruined fabulous and fantastic as adjectives that can modify 50.)

(Omg, I’m about to become a menopausal blogger, fuck me now, how did that happen?)

Five.

Just a number.

A cute number.

Curvey and strokey, bold and soft. 

A perfectly good candidate for a favourite number.

My favourite number.

So cute.

Ha.

I’ll totally come to believe it. By tomorrow.

See the power of story?

xoxo

“Jane”

 

Hibernation, in five stanzas

i

January is almost over and I’m still processing 2023 — how about you? It wasn’t a “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times” kind of year — well, if you live in Gaza and the Sudan, yeah, it was definitely the worst of times. For us privileged First World Whiners, really, it seems shameful to whimper that it was a hard year. But it kinda was. Maybe not hard. But draining. Was it not? I think I have a hard time with coming to terms with its essence because it was so full of good moments, not just short ones, but amazing days and weeks, peak experiences even.

And yet, I arrived at its end exhausted and mildly dissatisfied.

Therein’s the rub — exhausted and satisfied is a grand place to be. Exhausted and meh — meh. Not an awful, “I’d rather be dead” feeling.

But not a great feeling. You catching what I’m throwing?

(It’s not a snowball.)

So. I’m going to do what I always do when I can’t make sense of the past: Decide root causes don’t matter, put it in a box, duct tape it, and try to be less exhausted and more satisfied in 2024.

ii

January is almost over, so it’s staying light until almost the evening — well, until 6 p.m., which is at least late afternoon and, actually, at the equator, this is when the sun sets year round, so why am I complaining, also, the only stuff falling from my sky is snow and rain, why am I complaining — but it’s still so dark when I wake up — so that’s why I’m complaining.

The dark is hard.

Two more months, six weeks, really, and I can pretend spring is around the corner — the sun will be back. I want a life in which I’m not in the Northern-Northern Hemisphere November to February. Canadian and American snowbirds ruin every Mexican city they invade — I hate them, I want to be one of them.

iii

Snow can be beautiful. The cold, less so. The dark, never, not in the winter, not for me. The dark takes away the will to live.

You want to make plans to get me out of my blues — I offer a date in March. You say, but I haven’t seen you since October. I haven’t seen me since October either. I am still, asleep, hibernating. I will wake up in March.

My challenge with 2023 — I don’t think I ever woke up. I slept through spring-summer-fall and I’m not sure I have enough reserves for a second winter.

iv

I am not unhappy or depressed. Let’s be clear here before you start planning an intervention or prescribing mindfulness and CBT therapy. I’m just cold. And sleepy. Because it’s dark. No, I can’t take any more Vitamin D. Yes, I can probably turn on a few more lights — no, I can’t, we just got a government alert telling us to stop using so much electricity because the polar vortex is threatening to overload our power grid, tell me again why winter is fun?

v

I light a lot of candles and my happy blue light. I google “is it possible to overdose on Vitamin D” (Yes, but how you could swallow that many pills in a day, I’m not sure, and you have to keep on doing it for months, so I’m ok). I turn down another invitation for a tete-a-tete but I make plans to dance in the dark with everyone I know. I will try very hard to show up

The dark is hard.

Six weeks, two months, soon.

I’ll see you in March.

xoxo

“Jane”

Same old, same old…

i

I bought a new-to-me car last week – thank you, it’s a boy, his name is Darwin and you should see his eyelashes, incredible!

I feel immense guilt over this purchase and how much joy it is bringing me because a) I’m incurring debt, however small and however manageable and debt makes it hard for me to breathe and b) death, death, death.

I can’t even – how can ordinary things, selfish things, materialistic things, such unimportant things when, this? Helpless, frustrated, privileged – I am no activist. When I stand on the sidelines of protests, ill with other people’s pain and anger, all I can think about is the futility of it all. When a government doesn’t care about human lives why would it care about the public opinion of… aliens?

Guilt. Pain. End times. But hey, I have a sexy, new (to me) car. Want to go for a ride?

ii

Guilt, pain, end times – we go to a protest, then, to a party. In the car (not mine), the cognitive dissonance is killer and I wonder what we’re doing. We can’t dance, laugh, play. Not possible. Not right now, not tonight. Not. Possible.

But it is. At the party, we dance.

You can meet the end times in a sack cloth with ash on your forehead or in stiletto heels with a glass of cheap red wine in your hand.

Actually – splurge, get a good wine.

After all, end times.

iii

Ok, so it’s probably not so much end times as same old, same old – but really, don’t you think this experiment called Homo sapiens has failed? Sure, it’s made some cool art and built spaceships, but overall, it’s a nasty, vicious species, destructive and selfish. Pull the plug, bring on another flood (Homo sapiens has facilitated the frequency with which these occur, so it seems appropriate), start again – or maybe don’t. This time, give the Earth to the octopi.

Better yet, the orcas. They seem to want it…

iv

The sad thing about orcas is that they will never know the pleasure of driving down a spirally highway in a sexy car with a tight turn radius and a killer sound system.

I know I’m burning fossil fuels and contributing to global warming and the flood that might wipe us all out. You’re welcome, YHW, just doing my part to hasten Armageddon. End times.

Same old, same old times.

v

I park Darwin in the pull-out over the cliff and look down at Earth over which I have no dominion, rolling hills, mountains in the distance – I can’t see it, but behind them, there’s the ocean.

It’s beautiful. So beautiful. Heartbreakingly beautiful.

I let my heart break.

End times.

Same old, same old.

“Jane”

Plot twist!

I’m giving myself a pep talk so that I get inspired and motivated to do more: to write more, to exercise (at all), to make plans with friends. My baseline energy and ability to people is, if not quite in my heels, definitely below my knees. I’d like to get it at least up to my waist – the bra line would be phenomenal.

I’m not sure how because in the past, telling myself “Suck it up and just do it” sufficed. My executive function is off the charts. I accomplish things. I get things done, no matter what. That’s my superpower.

Well. That used to be my superpower, apparently.

My pep talk morphis into a spiral of self-hate and I slap it back. Come on, self, WTF? We don’t need that. Stop. My daughter’s illness, the pandemic, my own brush with COVID and its lingering effects, my divorce, the effective end of a very significant six-year relationship, a complete reinvention of how I earn my living, supporting my youngest son through his transition to public schooling, did I mention, COVID, divorce, new job – all of these things tax the bandwidth. Could I, maybe, cut myself a little slack?

No.

I don’t cut myself slack.

I do things and I don’t whine about it.

That, by the way, is the difference between us.

I do things. I accomplish, I achieve, I execute.

Except I’m not, so now I’m just like you and I hate myself.

Yes. Apparently, I hate you too. Well, hate is a strong word. Don’t feel a lot of respect for, shall we say?

That might be worse.

Myself though, right now, I hate. With a passion.

Stop.

This pep talk is going horribly wrong. And I don’t really hate you. And I don’t disrespect you. I used to even understand you. But I resent you. God, I resent you. Because when you don’t execute, someone else has to and that has always been me, you know?

Spirals within spirals. Stop. Can we just make it about me? Leave you out of it?

Side-spiral: between them, the pandemic and my daughter’s illness, stripped me of compassion and empathy. Completely. I hate all of you. I have a hard time finding my way back to the person who loved deeply if selectively and who understood and empathized with almost everyone. I miss her. She was nice. Also, she accomplished things.

Back to the pep talk.

Just do it. Why can’t you just do it?

Because, I don’t know, I’m tired, can’t somebody else?

No. There’s just you.

Ugh, what a depressing thought.

Another spiral. Stop.

Ok. My daughter’s illness, the pandemic, the divorce. Everything that came before. The end of relationships, the beginning of another, the new job, housing instability, the pressure to be financially responsible for two – now three – households. Let’s not think about the aging parents. They’re not demanding yet – but it’s coming. It’s coming.

Oh, a new spiral. Not fun. Stop.

Pep talk: so many legit reasons to feel drained and tired. And all the important stuff is getting done. I’m not spending my days curled up in the fetal position under the bed. The children are taken care of. The rent is paid. The morning pages written. And I’m even dancing. Sometimes. Going to conferences, teaching. It’s not so bad.

By your standard, I’m doing just fine.

It’s not Kenough.

I’m sorry. I don’t hate you. Really.

Ok, a little. I’m sorry. I’m trying to find my way back. To compassion. To my usual baseline.

I’m tired of being tired and of cutting myself slack. I want to want things and I want to do things. All the things.

Him: Amphetamines?

Jane: Meditation.

I mean… nothing else is working. And it did help me, before. For a while.

Day 1.

Ommmmmmm….

;P

“Jane”

18.

Flora is 18 today. It feels like victory – over fate, genetics, the universe, God, whatever you want to call it. She’s made it another year, we’ve made it another year – she made it to 18, dammit, and you can all 18 just a number but socially constructed milestones matter. She can vote, drink legally in most jurisdictions, be tried in adult court, and possibly own a gun.

My girl is 18. She made it.

My joy and relief are, and always will be now, fragile. The demons that started to ravage her life four, five years ago will never leave. They are part of her DNA and for the rest of her life she needs to work to keep them controlled, contained, and the people who love her need to stay aware, vigilant.

But when the meds and therapies are working, we can relax, at least a little, and rejoice.

Celebrate this 18th birthday for all that it’s worth.

If you see my beautiful, confident daughter today, you’ll be blown away by her poise, style – and, as soon as she opens her mouth, you’ll be blown away, and likely intimidated, by her intelligence. You never see what it costs her to get there. Not in some distant time in the past, not in the time she spend in hospitals, clinics, with armies of doctors and therapists, but that morning, every morning, an hour ago, every moment of every day.

Maintaining her health and well-being is, in effect, a full-time job that she fulfills while going to school and working to spend time with friends, have fun, live a life.

In her university applications, she’s had to reflect on her youthful milestones and accomplishments, to tell the gatekeepers who she is and why she’s worthy of admission. She’s told me and her dad that the questions are had to answer. Retraumatizing in some ways. At a time when most teenagers are supposed to do the teenage thing, find their first selves, and also party a little, have their first crushes and broken hearts, all of her energy was focused on battling her illness, staying alive.

“I don’t know who I am,” she says, writes. “I’m just starting to be able to ask that question.”

She’s 18. She’s alive. Beautiful, smart, tough. A little cruel and unforgiving, but I understand. Surviving her illness made me cruel and unforgiving too. Perspective is actually a terrifying thing.

She’s 18. Every functioning day a gift. Every hard day that she sees to the end and to a new beginning a victory.

Happy birthday, my most beloved. Keep on fighting.

xoxo

Mom

Why I document…

Kick like a girl, April 28, 2019

Her story, my story, our story, June 22, 2019

“You are amazing” — you are partly right, June 25, 2019

Suffering, living, loving… home , January 5, 2022

Happy birthday (the war’s not over), January 9, 2022