Half a Dozen

Such a dreary week, my goal for today was to stay out of bed. I’m getting so sedentary that I’m starting to be achy, I woke up yesterday with a huge, painful knot in my back. I tried to stretch it out and I couldn’t touch the floor with my knees straight and i can usually lay my palms flat. Each new ache and pain, in my paranoid, increasingly pessimistic mind is malignant, so I figure it’s best to avoid them.

After breakfast I baked cookies because I knew the boys would be returned home at noon. I only bake one thing from scratch and it’s chocolate chip oatmeal cookies and they’re the best in the world, no need to bake anything else. Baking is too scientific, I like to cook where you can just throw ingredients around and it’s bound to come out fine, and if it doesn’t, it’s likely not a mystery.

Boys walked in and in unison said “what smells so good?”. Happy, jolly campers, just what I need. Not long until we’re all in front of our respective screens in the living room. J playing minecraft at the computer, Griffin playing an x-box game and me with my laptop in front of the fire, contemporary cozy. Every few minutes G says “mom”. He doesn't’ want anything, he just says “mom” in a kind of sing-song way. I reply “son” and he responds “mom”. It’s simple and sweet and the way my teenager connects with me. He’s always done this, but he does it more now and with greater need to connect I think. While he’s not stepped up much in the helping around the house realm, he’s stopped teasing me and pushing my buttons. He’s kinder, gentler, sweeter and appears happy. And his needing to connect with me like this every few minutes is touching and a tiny bit heartbreaking. He talks while he plays, he likes having me as his audience.

As Griffin is saying “mom”, I realize how during the last 10 years of my marriage, the ones that I spent analyzing the oddities of the relationship {or lack thereof}, obsessively pinpointing what was off, what was missing, what made me feel so sad and lonely, and what I could do to fix it {nothing}, one of the things I realized was that my husband never said my name. Even that superficial, take-for-granted connection was too intimate, too painful for him. When out and about, at gatherings, dinner parties, I’d notice every time one spouse would mention the other, X just did this, Y saw that movie... X, do you know where my coat is? My spouse would sooner leave without his coat before asking me if I’d seen it, that would entail inclusion. Forget any nicknames or terms of endearments, He literally almost never uttered my name. So my son seeking connections with me or anyone else, brings me great joy as I so hope he’s on a different path.

The people in my life have been so gracious, so generous. Taking the time to make homemade soup every sunday, healthy vegetable drinks, picking up odds and ends I need at the grocery store. When dropping off the kids today {technically, it was his day with them}, I asked if he could pick me up a few things at the store: milk, eggs, cherries {imported from god knows where, but I’m so grateful for their presence at the store}, and sliced turkey for J’s school lunch. He did, and didn’t charge me this time, but I only got a half a dozen eggs. Who buys half a dozen eggs? And when in doubt, just get the whole dozen for crying out loud. Death by a thousand small cuts, or 10,000 pinpricks, that was my  marriage, the clock on which is technically still ticking so I should shut up.

It’s 7:03 p.m. I stayed out of bed all day, J had a friend over and they played in the snow. My eyes are tired, but it was a good day.