Daily Jogging

Daily jogging isn't much different than anything else in the work from home routine, except that it marks the transition from low blood circulation to knee pain. I enjoy running the same route every time. I enjoy looking forward to it and enjoy the fact that I have done it. Running the same route means that there is nothing tricky to negotiate, like making choices about streets or having unexpectedly bad traffic, etc. In fact, it can bring little surprises to the surface in a fun way. Oh, today people are getting engagement photos? Oh, today a little boy has a balloon? Oh, there's a little party in the gazebo? Oh, basketball? Everything's always the same but each day is a little different. I have always jogged in this way. I really love it in Santa Cruz when I would jog by the ocean and notice the samenesses and differences in the water itself.

How to Retreat into Self Alienation

Here is a list of ways you can cut yourself off from other people and retreat into an introverted world that is both comfortable and perpetually alienating:

1. Don't answer emails right away. Ruminate on your hypothetical response. Let days or weeks go by. Include in your response an apology about being late to reply.

2. Don't answer your phone. Don't check voice mail. Don't call your missed callers back.

3. Work long hours alone on projects that require intense focus and quiet.

4. Follow up these long work hours with household and family projects that carry you into the evening hours.

5. For fun, pursue solo activities such as writing, biking, jogging, playing piano, or binge-watching shows that no one else can relate to.

6. Pour yourself a drink.

7. Do a deep-clean of something in the house. The refrigerator perhaps.

8. Make sure to allocate time for reviewing the kids' homework, grades, class schedule, and progress. Do this daily.

9. Don't pursue close friendships. Instead, try to cycle through acquaintances. See? You have friends.

10. Lie low. Get your shit done.

Coleman in Adulthood

No topic makes me feel more things at the same time than considering my relationship with Coleman as he becomes an adult. He is an adult!? I guess 18 means "adult" but when I interact with him, I see the whole journey of Coleman, from pre-birth to the person standing in front of me now. The love I have for him is an entire spectrum, it's a depth of feeling for someone else that before motherhood I never knew was possible.

(I guess as a mom I should clarify here that this post is about Coleman, but it doesn't mean I don't have the same range of complex feelings and unfathomably deep love for Coleman's brother, Aedan. Look for future blog posts about Aedan.)

Coleman has been just about the most fundamental part of my life for 18 years now, going on 19. No one else on the whole planet can claim that, not a single person. Siblings are unique in that they are there for the entire ride of your life, and I love my relationship with Ellen, but I can tell you without question that my relationship with Cole has provided me the most satisfying sense of family I have ever known. I am so proud of Coleman! And I am so, so proud to be his mother. I love him so much.

I have tried so hard with Coleman to not make mistakes my mother made with me: over-sharing her personal life, over-controling personal aspects of my life, asking me to be a stand-in father for a younger sibling when she was between relationships, imposing her skewed and naive vision of the world onto impressionable youngsters... Etcetera.

I feel I have been so lucky to have Coleman be Coleman, too. Always so calm and pure of heart, witty, creative, inquisitive, and caring for himself in admirable and respectful ways. I appreciate the way Cole treats me, and I know it is a thing to cherish. Not only did I never want to burden him with the details of what I was going through with Andy, but I wanted to shelter him. And even through this, the simple and honest ways he has given me comfort is without measure. I don't know if he realizes how important it has been for me to hear him reflect our realities with Andy, realities that no one else is willing to discuss.

It's a weird dynamic though, and in some ways maybe that is classic of a single mother and her oldest child. I think Cole wishes he had better protected me, which I have expressed at length was never his job or his burden. And something I carry with me and weighs so heavily... I wish I had better protected Cole. In this way we are sadly bonded, perhaps more deeply than a normal mother-son duo.
All of this is complicated, beautiful, so deep for me. Coleman and is my constant in the world, which I would be lost without.

I'm crying as I write this. It feels trite, so predictable, but it is very emotional for me. It's a mother's path to let go of her adult child, and it will open new chapters for both of us, which we both need and which we will love, and we can continue to share this world on a new plane of reality, and I'm excited to explore it. But, but, but... it is the end of something. And I am full of regret that I did not do a better job, that I kept an open door for Andy for so long to the harm of all of us. I regret not doing a better job preparing him for college, for the rigor of academics. I regret being greedy and distracted with my own passions.

With all those regrets, I also feel so much joy and pride. Like it was all so perfect. I couldn't have asked for two better children or any more perfect experience of motherhood. Like the feelings I've had about John in past months, getting twisted around wishing this or regretting that puts an absurd dark blanket over the very best aspects of my life. It's absurd. I mean, I hate it when people say, "I am so blessed" when we do not live in a world that actually bestows BLESSINGS, but I can say how fucking, how absolutely fucking, lucky I am. I came from a family life that was a struggle for me, and I got THIS? I'm so fucking lucky.

In this autumn time with Coleman, it's time to let the love and the lucky tears well up. He's such an awesome guy. I get to be that guy's mom for the rest of my life.

All Caught Up

A blog a day keeps the psychological diarrhea away! Anyway, I skipped a day so the obsessive compulsive part of me is making me write this fake post to "count" for the post I am missing.

There. That's an extra post. Now I'm all caught up.

Open and Closed

I feel I'm kind of sloppy with being open with others vs. closing myself off to others. Sometimes, I over-share, I go too deep too fast, and I look for people willing to go to the same psychoanalytical place as me, whether it's analyzing others or revealing dark parts of ourselves.

And sometimes, I do not want to enter the outside world at all, with all my thoughts looming. I will not return phone calls or texts, I'll be "too busy" to go anywhere. I will loathe small talk with every fiber of my being if I am forced into these situations with my mind not there. I'll drink just to get through the situation.

I feel I spent my summer between these two extremes. Each extreme was the same feeling though: me carrying this giant boulder in my chest and trying to figure out what to do with it as I talked to people, talking to people reaching around it, or yelling from behind it, or just letting it block me from them entirely.

I guess this is another reason I started this blog: to regularly clear the mind so that I can more authentically experience life with other people, without my own psychology getting in the way. Like making sure to blow my nose regularly because I have allergies.

But back to the "open vs. closed" idea. I have a shaky history when it comes to choosing friends. I just don't vet them very well or think strategically before making time commitments to people. I operate in the moment and I love most everybody if I get to know them well enough. Maybe because of this, I tend to go with friends-of-friends, where I don't have to be on the hook for being a good friend. I'm quick to feel like I am a bad friend, and I'm quick to forgive and not really care about my actions when it comes to friends. But mostly, I think I keep people at kind of an arms-length and rely on my domestic relationships for the core stuff. It always feels like maybe I'm missing out on something in the world of friends, or letting people down. I think because in the end, I like being closed to everyone but the very, very, very inner circle.

I have no idea if others are like this; it seems like they aren't. I've always been.

All I Can Offer

Sometimes all I can offer is very little. Like tonight, when I had ideas all day about writing about:

• What institution of marriage really means (in response to a TED talk radio thing I heard while jogging)
• Haha, what that stupid movie Chef really is
• My mom's stroke ('cause I learned today that was so soon after I graduated from high school and it was weird to put the numbers together - we passed the 20 year anniversary unobserved!)
• Being a corporate personality and also a real person who is just faking corporate culture after all

All great topics! None of it will be explored tonight because of stuff (logistics) (kids) (logistics of kids) (fuck it's 10:07). But my mental cleanse carries on. Every day, it's the little rattling thoughts. That's this blog. It's you and me dear reader, in my deep weird space and I love that you're here. Some days it's just about looking each other in the eye.

Short Post

A blog post a day is a LOT! I am inspired by this project but not every day will be as impassioned as the last. Maybe today I will simply share the dream I had last night. First, a little background: Aedan is going to California on Thursday, returning Monday night. The idea when Andy moved back to California in the summer was to help facilitate the kids visiting him. In reality, only Aedan has much interest in visiting and it's not a ton of interest. Also in reality, the only one who can fund these visits is me, since Andy doesn't work, have an income, or have any organizational skills. I am beginning to question the value of these visits.

OK, so onto the dream. In my dream, after facilitating getting Aedan on the plane for this trip, I came home and discovered through Facebook that Andy was actually visiting Portland seeing his ex-girlfriend Jess during the days Aedan was in California. I was so that he was missing his son's visit! But I also didn't want to confront Andy or even risk having to see Andy in person while he was in the same town as me, so I just let it ride, knowing Aedan was having a fine time visiting cousins & other family members. But I was also really outraged, like this was some final step and I wouldn't take it any more, but also not really knowing what that meant. It was a dream about wanting to confront and make change but at the same time I was attempting to ride things to ride out peacefully and feeling shitty about it.

It was a dream very reflective of reality.