Real Estate

Looking to buy a place in Boston? Got about $37,500,000.00 burning a hole in your pocket, plus a (literal) boatload of money to spend on housing-related expenses every month? Why not check this out:

Boston Globe: At $37.5m, Millennium Tower condo tops most everything

I have no idea how people pay that much money for a house. That would more than double the current record for a home (single family or condo) in the City of Boston, set in March of 2013 - $14,500,000.00. The highest condo sale was in 2011, for $13.2 million, and led to the Boston Globe putting its foot in its mouth about who bought the unit (they reported that the buyer was a local real estate attorney, who I actually know fairly well, but he was a trustee for the real buyer, who is not at all named on record).

Want to know what the REAL ESTATE TAXES will be on that baby? Assuming it sells for asking price, and the city assesses the value of the property at the sale price (it will likely be close to that), the annual taxes will be $471,750.00. That's $39,312.50 per month.

And let's not forget, this is a condominium unit. So there will additionally be condominium fees, which I suspect will be crazy high as well, given that this is a unit in a luxury building with a whole bunch of common area spread out over 60 floors, and this is certainly the unit with the highest percentage of the common charges. I bet the entire monthly maintenance - taxes and condo fees - on this unit will be well over the median annual income in the City (which, in 2012, was just over $51K).

I just... can't even. That's crazy even by Boston standards! It would also make this one of the top 10 most expensive penthouses in the country. (The fact that there are more expensive penthouses also just boggles my mind - I got curious and found the record, according to one website, is $125 Million (here)).

All of these facts and figures are probably not at all interesting to anyone but me, I just couldn't let it go without note. There are a lot of really unoriginal thoughts running through my head about it:

Seriously? When Ebola is ravaging Africa and aid organizations are struggling to find funds to help, we have people spending THIRTY SEVEN AND A HALF MILLION DOLLARS for a roof over their heads?
I could buy 140 of my condo for that price (but I did get a very good deal on my place).
How in the WORLD do you obtain that much money? And keep it?
I bet whoever buys it doesn't even end up living there full time.

And a few quirky, nerdy, and slightly more original but not unheard of thoughts:
I wonder who will end up representing the buyer?
I wonder how they will take title? Probably a nominee trust, would be my guess, with a lawyer as the trustee so nobody really knows who owns it...
I wonder what the condo docs look like for that condominium. Is it a two-tier condominium? (I get really excited about two-tier condominiums.)
I wonder what that unit's percentage interest is. My guess is somewhere around 1.5-2%, but that's very rough and depends a lot on whether there's a two-tier condominium. I bet there is.

Crazy. Just crazy.

Edited to add: If you are, in fact, interested in this condo unit, please let me know before you approach the seller. I would love to get my broker's license in a hurry and work on this deal. You don't even have to pay me - the seller does. 2.5% of the purchase price. And I could pretty much quit working.

When I grow up...

I've been trying to figure out what I want to do with my life, what I want to be when I grow up, for a very long time. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a teacher. In high school I decided I wanted to be a psychologist (no real surprise there, given my history...). English was my best subject in high school, so I decided to be an English major in college. You know, practicality and all. But something was missing, so I declared a second major in Math. I decided I wanted to teach after all, and wow how marketable would I be if I could certify in both? (Seriously.)

One day someone in the back of an English class (oddly enough, the same class in which I met my best college friend - glad I enrolled in that one!) was talking about taking the LSAT. And it piqued my interest. I figured, hey, being a lawyer might be a great way to be creative and work with words (and engage the part of me that loves English) and also analytical (and engage the part of me that loves Math). I'd say it's been somewhat true, although not exactly in the proportions I thought it would be.

I knew from the day I signed up for the LSAT that I wanted to go into BigLaw. I wanted to knock out my student loans right away, open all the doors for all the things, etc. But I never intended to stay beyond 3 years. I wanted to go "in house", whatever that meant, because that was the better lifestyle. (Not necessarily true, BTW, but that's another subject altogether).

Most of what I intended has been thrown out the window. I'm the primary breadwinner in our family (my husband's job is great, and he's fantastic at it, but it pays peanuts). I'm still in BigLaw (though, thankfully, not MegaLaw). It's been rather gentle on me, I'd say, compared to some of my peers. And I actually do like the work I do. It's an engaging practice area with really quick results and generally minimal conflict. I get to work with a lot of really smart people who are doing a whole variety of things, and I love that. I'm fitting puzzle pieces together to help make something that will work in the real world, which is awesome. And the network of professionals in my industry is very impressive and engaging and collaborative.

But...

I still don't know if this is for me, long term. I suspect it isn't. By "this," I mean BigLaw, but also law. I really do like it, especially working part time. But I just haven't found something here that actually engages me, that gets me super excited to go to work every day.

What does excite me? There are a few things. I've had a few different ideas rolling around in my head for a while, and all of them involve creating something new. Making my own way. Most of them don't involve practicing law. Unfortunately, none of them will support my family, at least not right away, and my firm looks down on side gigs. I'm itching to make one or more of these reality, but I really can't right now, and it's frustrating. Meanwhile the itch gets itchier.

I'm still not sure what I want to be when I grow up. My husband got it just right last night when he said I'm not content with complacency, I like change. I love doing something NEW, figuring out something NEW, organizing stuff, creating forms (!!), working out how to do something better, planning events and presentations, being creative and strategic, adding value, and ohgoodlord working with interesting people. In real life. Building relationships. Helping people do something good, something valuable. Not much to ask, right? :)

Suggestions welcome.

Monday.

I managed to lock my keys and my wallet in my car yesterday.

I notice my keys and wallet missing this morning, about ten minutes after Bryan and the girls left the house (without his phone). I look through the windows and see my keys in the cup holder, and remember the wallet in the glove box. Crap. How do I get to work?

I decide that, despite the mile and a half of walking required on a broken foot*, I will take public transportation. Thankfully my bus/subway pass (called a Charlie Card)  and my American Express card are in my work bag and not in my wallet; I should be all set, even though I suspect the balance on my Charlie Card is low, because I think the grocery store near the bus stop has the capability to add value. (I can add value on the bus, but only with cash, and I have zero cash.)

So my foot and I hobble to the grocery store, about a mile up the road, just past the bus stop, to see if I can add value to my Charlie Card there. No dice, they don't do it there. Crap. Now what?

I could at this point either withdraw a cash advance from Amex (eek!) or try the Charlie Card. I decide the latter. I walk to the bus stop. Barely miss a bus. Grab an iced coffee at the nearby coffee shop to console myself while I wait for the next bus. Get on the bus 15 minutes later, and as suspected, my Charlie Card is short of the fare. By 35 cents. GRRRR.

While I'm digging through my bag for change I find a debit card for an account we rarely use, so I hobble to the bank on the other side of the square for cash. I find the ATM, and, blessedly, the machine dispenses $5 bills so I don't have to put a full $20 on my card. I get some cash (and pay just as much in fees as I get in cash, but whatever).

I walk back to the bus stop and arrive just as the bus driver is closing the doors to pull away. "SERIOUSLY?" I yell. Out loud. (oops).

I break into a speed hobble and flag him down. Thankfully he sees me and opens the doors. I add the cash to my card, get a seat on the bus, and manage to finish the commute (bus to subway to sidewalk) in relative peace, arriving at the office just before 11:00 am.

Yes, in case you wondered, it is in fact Monday.

*(I broke my foot a couple of weeks ago on the stairs in our house; I'm off of crutches now but sort of limping around in a really sexy post-surgical shoe)

Depression Hurts

First of all, thank you to everyone who reached out to me after my last few posts. It really does make a huge difference to know I'm not alone, that this thing doesn't have to be an unknown monster. And that, even if they've never experienced it themselves, people are rooting for me to beat it.

So, what is "it"? I think it is actually really helpful to put into words what depression is to me, and what it's like to live inside that hole, for me.

When I think about depression, I think of the commercial with the tagline "depression hurts" and in particular, the woman in the robe with crazy bedhead in the middle of the day. And I think of sadness - that's what depression is, right? Sadness? And sleeping all the time? And contemplating/attempting suicide?

As it turns out, yes, that is what depression is, but that's not the only way it looks.

For me, the biggest symptom was a very profound sense of apathy. I just could not motivate myself to do much of anything. I would sit at work and stare at the computer screen, not really doing anything. And then I would leave work and go home, eat dinner with my family, hurry the kids to bed, and pass out on the couch at 8:30. I would want to get something done - working a bit more from home, cleaning my house, working on a craft or sewing project - but I could not get myself up to do it.

All of this led to an incredible sense of failure. I felt like I was doing nothing well. Certainly not working well, staring at the screen. Not being a good mother, distracted and dismissive. Not being a good wife, essentially ignoring my husband in favor of sleep. I wasn't really sad, I think, I was just unhappy. And tired. If someone asked how things are going - you know, like you ask your friends all the time - my answer was always negative. "Ugh, life is so busy" or "work is really crazy" or "I feel like I'm running on fumes." This is very much not me. I'm almost always looking through rose colored glasses.

I remember clearly sitting in a room with a few women with whom I am very close, telling them about whatever happened to be going on at the time, and saying I felt that my life is made up of a bunch of buckets, and every single bucket felt empty. Not a single area of my life felt good anymore.

I didn't feel particularly sad, but I certainly wasn't happy. At times, in fact, I wasn't sure how I was supposed to feel. I wasn't sure how to relate to people or care about what was going on in their lives. And that included my own family. I was completely engulfed in myself. I knew something was terribly wrong, but I couldn't figure out how to make it right. I began searching desperately for a way out of the hole I was in. I thought about changing things drastically - starting my own business, finding a new job, moving across the country, even moving across the ocean. I know now I was trying to run away, and none of that would have made anything better, not really. Nothing external could have eased my internal struggle with myself.

The most difficult part to admit - the part which still causes me to struggle with shame and a bit of fear, but is probably the most important of all to admit - is that I reached the point of wondering what would happen if I died. Would anyone care? How long would it take people to move on? I wasn't really actually planning to do anything to harm myself, at least I didn't think so, especially not at first, but I began to get curious, in a very detached and intellectual way, about how I might end my own life. I would think, "What would happen if... " And then I got fixated on one idea. Got over that, and then got fixated on another. And now I know, that isn't healthy. And it scares me how far I got without realizing that, how long it took me to be able to confess to anyone, even myself, what was going on in my head. Honestly, it made me afraid to do very normal everyday things related to those ideas (still does sometimes). I was (and sometimes still am) afraid that I might have those thoughts again and not be able to stop them.

Once I broke down and finally saw my depression for what it was, I finally understood what was going on. I put the pieces together and figured out why so much of this darkness was creeping in on me. And I learned how to get better. And I am. It has been a long road, and I'm nowhere near the end, but I'm making progress. I'm helped immensely by medication, by my therapist, by my amazing husband, and my dear, dear friends. I am so fortunate, so blessed, to be so supported.

Let me just say: if you're not feeling like yourself, seek help. Even if you think you're just being dramatic (you're probably not), it's so much better to ask and not need it than to need it and not ask. Just talk to someone. And know that you're not alone. And for heaven's sake, if you're seriously thinking of ways you might end your own life, even if you don't think you're actually going to do anything about it, it still counts as "contemplating suicide" and you should get help ASAP. Like, now. Like, immediately. Like, don't wait until tomorrow or next week or whatever. (Rant over.)

That's what depression is for me. And, while it doesn't result in bedhead and a bathrobe at 2:00 in the afternoon for me, it does hurt. And the healing hurts. And the confession hurts. But, Lord, it helps to know I'm not alone, to think that sometime someone might read this post like I read K's, and call her doctor. (Please do that).

Anyway. Hopefully, now that that's all on the table, I can start to blog again about more normal things... I hope.

I hope.

Weird things about postpartum period that no one ever told me (or, things I figured out the hard way)

(Don't worry - I'll keep it PG. Because I'm nowhere near anonymous on this blog and there are tender eyes that read it.)

1. It takes a long time to get your body back after you have a baby. It's possible, but it takes a while. You lose a ton of weight right away, (to the point of thinking, wow at this rate I'll be back in skinny jeans by the time she's 2 months old!) but then it plateaus just as quickly. Even after you lose the weight, well, things are distributed differently. We'll leave it at that.

2. Also - your hair and nails will be beautiful during pregnancy. But don't worry, all good things come to an end, right? You will shed. Fistfuls of hair. It's disgusting. And those beautiful nails will very quickly revert to being no match for your teeth.

3. That whole "sleep when the baby sleeps" thing kinda works - for the first kid. With the second baby, you've got a toddler to keep eyes on - NOT conducive to sleep. If you're interested in being a decent parent. (Although if I am completely exhausted I have been known to cuddle Eden on the couch, turn on the TV, and snooze. Mom of the Year.)

4. Breastfeeding - while beautiful and natural and really amazing - can be really hard to figure out. And, yes, it's painful at first. It is toe-curling pain at first. And then there's the accompanying uterine contractions, which are also terrible. But, yes, it gets better! In fact, it gets painless. You figure out the latch, your uterus shrinks back down to its normal size. It gets awesome.


5. There is nothing in the world like seeing your baby loved on by her Daddy. That hasn't faded yet, even with the three-year-old.

6. There is nothing in the world like seeing your baby loved on by her big sister. I'm pretty sure that one won't get old either.

7. Cleanliness standards are dramatically lowered when you have a baby. Spit-up, pee, and even, occasionally, poop are suddenly acceptable substances on clothing worn in public.


8. Night sweats. They happen.

9. Everyone has an opinion, and you're bombarded with information, but the best thing to do is to take it in, and then listen to yourself. Your intuition is awesome, I promise, if you can listen hard enough for it.

10. You will be a blubbering mess for at least 10 days after your baby's birth. Dropped a paci? Tears. Sappy commercial? Tears. Painful breastfeeding? Tears. Baby sleeping and beautiful? Tears. Baby crying? Tears. Nothing at all happening that would evoke any sort of emotion from a sane person? Tears.

11. This is the most amazing thing ever. And as much as you love her now, you will love her a million times more every single day. It only gets better.

The Diagnosis, Part 2

(Part 1 is here)

It was incredibly hard to admit to myself and anyone else that I was depressed. I felt like such a failure. I replayed over and over again in my head so many those people saying "I don't know how you do it all" and the pride I felt in thinking, I really am doing it all. And now, here I was, having to admit that in reality, I couldn't.

[Aside: It's funny how mental illness is like that - we all too often see it as a weakness or a failure in a person, not as a condition. I wouldn't think it was my own weakness as a human being which caused a broken leg! No - I'd go to the doctor, get a cast, and let my bone heal. And in reality, that's what I am doing now - treating a broken physical part of me. It's just a lot more complicated. And for the most part, I'm learning, people don't talk about it. It's so taboo in part because people don't talk about it, and people don't talk about it because it's taboo. Once I started treatment, though, people came out of the woodwork from all parts of my life, saying "me too" - people I never would have expected - and it helped so immensely to know I was not alone. (This is also why I feel the need to put my story into words. I think it is awful that something like this can be at once so pervasive and so isolating.)]

Even though it was painful, in some ways, having such a clear diagnosis was a relief. Here was something with a name, something that is a thing, and it's not just me sucking at life. And here was something for which there is a plan. Something I could overcome. I could take concrete steps to get out of this pit.

I could get better.

I took a week and a half of medical leave from work in early June (with a note from my doctor citing an unspecified "medical condition" - I decided it was nobody's business what that condition was). I unplugged completely. No email, nothing. I felt really guilty about that. Like I was making a mountain of a molehill. Just suck it up, I told myself. And then I remembered that my brain was broken and couldn't be trusted, that everyone else in my life, including my doctor, believed that this was best for me, and took the time off anyway. It was fantastic. Bryan and the girls were all still in school, and I spent most of the week biking along the Charles River, doing yoga, reading, writing, sewing, sleeping (with limits set by my doctor - I didn't want to spend the whole week sinking further down), and having lunch with a couple of close friends. Bryan took a day off too and we spent the entire day together, wandering around downtown, having a fancy seafood lunch, shopping, and talking. It was perfect.

I knew that medication and a week and a half of medical leave weren't going to be enough, though. I got here somehow, and I needed to unwind whatever wound to get me here. My doctor recommended a therapist who, when I called her, said she was not taking new patients but recommended three others. I wrote them down on a Post-It note on my desk at work and stared at it for a week. Deciding which one to call seemed impossible. Picking up the phone and dialing it seemed impossible. Talking to someone I didn't know seemed impossible. Eventually, though, I just called the first name on the list, got an appointment that week, and started a course of therapy.

As it turns out, that first therapist turned out to be perfect; I honestly believe that God put those three names in that order for this purpose, so I would connect with her. It went really well from the beginning, and we've been through twists and turns throughout my tumultuous childhood and adolescence, Eden's burns, and oh Lord, I am so thankful I had this treatment plan, this therapist, already in place for what would turn out to be an extremely difficult year, during which many times I very nearly fell right back into the pit I had just begun to claw myself out of. And the clawing has been very painful. At times, I leave her office and I barely know where I am, or even who I am. I have learned I need to decompress for at least a half hour afterward. We have been digging deep into parts of myself I buried long ago and haven't really touched since, and it is so hard. There is stuff there I thought was dead and gone forever, dealt with on my own and tidied up, bursting from the ground like a zombie. There is stuff I didn't even realize was so painful, caused so much wreckage. It really, really sucks to unpack it all. Many times I've found myself sobbing a puddle of tears in her office after opening another box of my baggage, her voice reassuring me, her own face streaming tears. Yes, it's hard. Sometimes I don't want to do it anymore. But I know it is right. I know it is helping. I know I will get better.

I still believe my children deserve a mother - me, their own mother - who is present, engaged, able to function and love them in a way my own mother wasn't. And Bryan deserves a wife who is a partner, a friend, a teammate, a confidante, a lover. This fight is still about them, but it is no longer only about them. It's about me, too. I want to crawl out for my own sake. I can be a better wife, mother, friend, lawyer... but I can also be a better self, and I can believe I am lovable, love myself, and recognize that above all, God loves me.

And that, in itself, is progress.

I will get better.

I am getting better. 

The Diagnosis

In this post I referred to

"a diagnosis that surprised me, yet was expected, rocked me, yet was a strange sort of relief. I have been drafting a post in my head since this summer about it. I'll eventually write it down, but I am not quite ready yet. I'm still rocking a bit too hard with it. (I promise, there is no need to worry, it's not that big a deal - it just rocked me.)"

It is very hard to write this down. It seems silly, I know, and in some ways probably seems like not a huge deal (I'm not dying or anything), but it's a Really Big Deal for me. It's hard to write about, to make public like this.

In May 2013 I realized I was depressed. Not the "oh, I am so depressed because NBC cancelled Up All Night" kind of depression (although - really - I loved that show), but real, clinical, "is my life really worth living" depression. I read a blog post in which a woman lawyer I'd followed for a while described very honestly her experience with depression, and I thought, I think that's me. I told Bryan I thought I might be depressed and he suggested I call my doctor. I didn't.

Then one Monday night a couple of weeks later, I got upset about something very, very small and very, very stupid and I... lost it. I'm not sure how to describe what happened, other than I sort of... snapped. Something in me broke, and it was awful. I cried so hard I almost hyperventilated. I actually wished I could hyperventilate. I couldn't speak, I couldn't pray, I couldn't even control my own thoughts for more than a second or two, and my own internal voice turned against me, calling me a failure, a terrible wife, mother, friend, and lawyer, and completely unlovable, and saying I was just like my mother - crazy. I was literally curled up in a ball, rocking back and forth, shaking my head "no", and I couldn't stop. I was just hoping I would pass out. Eventually it all slowed down and I was able to lie down, Bryan rubbing my back and praying aloud, and I calmed down and fell asleep. But it was embarrassing, and absolutely terrifying.

Tuesday morning I called my doctor. We talked through the PHQ-9, the screening tool doctors use for making an initial diagnosis of depression. It was immediately clear I was depressed, and if I had been entirely honest it would have been even more apparent and even alarming. I didn't even realize then how bad really it was. My doctor told me the diagnosis - the one I was expecting, but still so, so afraid of - and scheduled an appointment right away.

I was immediately given a prescription for an antidepressant. That first pill was so hard to take. I stared at that bottle for a long, long time, sitting on the couch and trying to deny that I needed it. I didn't want to become my mother (who has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder), and I kept feeling guilty for causing such a fuss when I really wasn't all that bad (I realize now I was wrong about this). I finally opened the bottle, took out a pill, and stared at that for a while, willing myself to take it and at the same time begging myself not to. It just felt like taking that medication would make it real, final, undeniable. Finally, I had a soft, fuzzy and somewhat blurred thought - my kids deserve to have a mother - me, their own mother - who is present, engaged, positive, and able to function and love them in a way my mother was never able to. If this little pill would help me become that person, I would take it, for them. Every day for a thousand years if I needed to. So... down the hatch.

More to come.

It's been a long day...

I drafted this post more than three months ago, and didn't publish it. I didn't want my first post in a long time to be such a downer, but it is what it is, right? I want to be real. I'm backdating so it makes sense, but really publishing this is July.

Rosi Golan (if you don't know who she is, look her up on iTunes - she is awesome) has this song called "Been a Long Day". It's a beautiful song, and it's been on my mind for the past ten months or so. My favorite line is "It's been a long day / And I just want to hide away" - that's pretty much how I feel.

This has been a very rough year. Well, ten months so far. Lord, help me for the next two.

It began (sort of) in May, with a diagnosis that surprised me, yet was expected, rocked me, yet was a strange sort of relief. I have been drafting a post in my head since this summer about it. I'll eventually write it down, but I am not quite ready yet. I'm still rocking a bit too hard with it. (I promise, there is no need to worry, it's not that big a deal - it just rocked me.) I took a short leave of absence from work, and when I returned, part time, with a treatment plan in place, I thought the rocky part was over.

Then this happened in late July. And my whole community - the whole world, it seemed - heaved and moaned with grief. I'll never in my life forget standing in line with my friend to check out at Vineyard Vines, a size 6 blazer, a size 6 white shirt, and size 6 khaki pants in our hands, holding each other and sobbing, while the world spun out of control around us. It is still a very raw, tender, difficult part of my heart to touch (and all of our hearts, I'm sure). Eight months later, and I still just can't believe I will never see his sweet face again, his beautiful brown eyes so full of life and mischief.

I was so happy to say goodbye to 2013.

And then, in the last few months, I've seen two teenagers I know and love with my whole heart face situations no one their age (or, really, any age) should have to face, and I have shouldered the grief for the loss of a piece of their innocence and the anger that resulted, directed toward the adults in their lives who should have known better, who should have never put them in a position to face it.

Then, a few weeks ago, on a Sunday evening, Bryan got a call from his brother R that one of his other brothers (he has three, all of whom are older than him), S, was very very sick. S had been battling colon cancer for two years, and they were sending him home with hospice care. Nobody had any idea how long he might last. Bryan hadn't been back to visit in almost exactly three years.  He and I were able to fly back home to visit on Tuesday, hold his hand, and let him know we love him. He was able to communicate in spurts of lucidity, and he knew Bryan was there. He also knew he was dying. Bryan held him and prayed and they both cried and I couldn't even watch. We put together puzzles with others holding vigil, delivered meals, bought groceries, clung to each other, talked through arrangements, and sat in silent disbelief that this 43-year-old man, with a wife and two children, was, very certainly, very near death. We came home with heavy hearts on Friday, and then the next Wednesday we got The Call. S had died overnight.

The whole family flew home this time. Bryan was chaperoning a trip to DC, so we picked him up there on our layover, where our wonderful friend (Auntie) Megan was keeping him sane. We stayed for a week with R, and spent almost all of our time with Bryan's family. We visited S at the funeral home with Bryan's brothers (R and M, both of whom are older than S) and their wives, their mother, and S's wife and children. S, who was in the construction industry his whole life, was buried in a t-shirt and jeans, with a crowbar in his hands. The funeral was difficult - it's so impossible to understand why a man so young, with so much yet to offer, had to die. And to waste away like he did... it was just brutal. And now his sixteen year old daughter has no father to walk her down the aisle, his thirteen year old son has no father to teach him to shave. Two more teenagers I love in pain they shouldn't have to face.

Bryan's mother, another woman (ironically, with the same first name as Grant's mother) burying her son far before his time, was so broken she could barely stand at the burial, and Bryan, R, and M literally held her up. It was such a picture of his family. They are all boys, but they are very close, and they take care of each other and their mother so well (especially M, R, and S, who all live very near each other and their mother). Every need is a family need, every loss is a family loss. They hold each other up. There was absolutely no question and no discussion about the fact that all of us would pitch in to help with the arrangements, the cost of things (S unfortunately had no life insurance), the daily living. In some ways, despite the incredible weight of the grief, it was a beautiful picture.

My dear hope is that some day there will be beauty out of these events. I am not naive enough to think it will outweigh the grief, the sense of loss, the anger, the frustration, the brokenness; I just want a thumb on the other side of the scale.

But right now?

It's been a long day.

I just pray it doesn't get any worse.

Mothers

I find it so interesting to see my friends as mothers.

Once we were all children, adolescents, teenagers, college students, graduate students, always young and relatively carefree, going out on a whim and having dinners in actual restaurants without shushing half of the table. And now we are mothers, caring for lives we helped to create, lives we are helping to shape, little people who rely on us for food and shelter and safety and love.

I love seeing my friends in this role. I love seeing them snuggle their babies (even though some of their "babies" are far from babies!). I love seeing them tossle hair and joke around, speak lovingly into little ears, dry tears, run to the bathroom with a potty training toddler, and, yes, shushing their children. I love to see them teaching their children, training them up in the ways they should go.

I learn so much.

I, who had a hundred mothers and also none, love having these mothers all around me.

(I really love having this particular mother around me... I miss having her close by! And I love love LOVE how she cares for her children.)

Happy Birthday, sweet boy

His seventh birthday was Saturday. I can remember the day he was born. Bryan and I were heading to Canada on a service trip for Labor Day weekend, and we stopped at the hospital to meet him. He was so tiny, but so alert, so full of life, even then.

We celebrated his birthday. He should have been there, enjoying his Iron Man cake, opening his presents, running around with his friends, but he wasn't. Well, not really. His body was there, under the earth, but his spirit was flying high above. We sat on a blanket next to the spot where the grass was just starting to sprout in the dirt, where flowers and balloons and gifts had collected.  We ate his cake, lovingly made by a grieving mother for the son who would never taste it. We read The Birthday Monsters book to our children, and to his memory.  We signed a card, we opened and assembled his Legos for him at his parents' request. Our children played, trying to climb the trees, finding "treasure" in the bushes. It was a beautiful afternoon, and that made it perfect and intensely painful at the same time.

He should have been there.

But he wasn't.

Someone's carelessness and inattention at a summer camp pool took him away over a month ago.

Yet I can still feel my lips on his hair, my hand on his head, as I gave him a kiss on the crown of his head. It was the last day of Vacation Bible School, and I was watching all of the children of volunteers for the hour before the action started.  It the last time I walked him up the stairs to the main sanctuary, the last time I told him to have a great day. I remember thinking to myself that someday he would be too old for me to do kiss his head, too tall for me to even reach.  A week later, I was with a good friend, purchasing clothes for him to wear in his coffin. Size 6 khaki slacks. Size 6 white button-down shirt. Size 6 navy blazer. All I could think was that nobody should be buying clothes this small for this purpose.


Eden, my sweet daughter who looked up to him probably more than anyone else she knows, who always wanted to be wherever he was, when I told her that he was gone, said through her tears, "I think the whole world is going to be sad." And in some sense, it was. Our whole world was sad; he was a very vibrant part of our amazing, tight-knit community.

I believe that he is somewhere better, that he is not sad at all, that he had the best birthday ever on Saturday. And I know that somehow good will come of it; maybe not enough to outweigh the tragedy, to make the stinging stop, but some good.

But I still miss him dearly. I ache for his parents. I wish it was all a horrible dream.