Take That Year End Montage And...

I admit it. I've been bitchy about that stupid Facebook "look at your year" photo montage that keeps coming up in my feed. Mostly it's because the default tagline is "It's been a great year! Thanks for being part of it."

The first time I saw it posted my thought process went something like this..no, it hasn't been a great f*#@ing year. In fact, it's been a pretty shitty year and 2014 can go die in a hole. Bring on 2015. No stupid FB video montage for me. Boycott. Boycott. Boycott.

Oh, I watched many of the ones my friends posted. I even smiled a couple of times. But there was no way I was going to even look at the dumb auto-generated crap it had waiting for me. Bound to be a montage of misery. A smorgasbord of sadness. A patchwork of pity. A...you get it.

Bit by bit over the past week though my attitude softened. After lamenting with a friend last Friday night about how ready we were to kick 2014 to the curb, I started to realize there were at least a few good things about this past year. I did see The Afghan Whigs 10 times and take some fun vacations with my little guy. It was an incredible year for me with my running. I've enjoyed some great times with my family.

Over lunch with co-workers Monday afternoon I started to parse it out a bit and realized that apart from the unpredictable roller coaster that was my love life and the constant disappointment of having fighting against unbridled corporate power in my job description, life wasn't so bad this year. And, even those parts had some notable highlights. 

It's so easy when you are at a low point to forget about the great things.

Tonight as I got ready for bed, Facebook went into full aggressive mode and posted my year end montage without me even having to click to see it (only I can see it of course!) It was just too tempting. I prepared myself for the worst and started to flip through "my year". 

It was so fabulous that I had tears in the corner of my eyes when I was done. And I was a little angry (because, you know, I was OBVIOUSLY manipulated by Facebook).

There was a beautiful Easter sunrise with my son. There was my amazing work trip to Brazil. There were many Mets games. And even some they won. There were fun nights out and early morning training runs. There was a new niece born on the 4th of July. There were so many races and the thrill of personal bests. There was a family vacation at the beach and a "mommy" weekend in Chicago. There was Halloween in Idaho with Naomi. There was the most amazing half marathon in Trenton. There was a BQ.

And it was all a part of the 2014 that this time last week I was so ready to send off to die in a hole. Maybe I'll just hang on to this year until Wednesday night. We can start new on Thursday - as planned.

The Hard Truth. Some Days I Just Don't Want to Do This Anymore

I just don't want to do this anymore. Any of it. 

The constant exhaustion. The loneliness. The single working mom dance. The flood of decisions that death still demands. The home repairs and car repairs that wait for my attention. The bills that have to be paid. The dating rejection. The 4 year old temper tantrums. The Christmas planning. The day that ends before I even noticed it began. The emptiness. The tears.

I didn't sign up for this. I signed up for the photos I see on Facebook of the families in front of Christmas trees. For the life partner who knows what I'm going to say before I even say it. For someone to help me shop and wrap and celebrate with my son...with OUR son.

I didn't sign up for cancer and I'm fucking pissed. It's been three years since Joe died and for the last two weeks it feels like everything has been triggering about what Domani and I are missing. The benefits notice I got from HR that still had me marked as "married" with the "event" date being the day Joe died. The constant stream of birth and pregnancy announcements accompanied by an unexpected return to the spot where Joe and I went for prenatal classes. The Thanksgiving photo of Joe's siblings and his Dad and the emptiness that filled me as I watched it being taken.

Everything about this feels unfair and some days I just don't want to do any of it anymore. 

Some days I think that someone else could do it better - this single mom organizing for justice thing. 

Some days I think that someone else could do it better - this maintaining a household thing.

Some days I think that someone else could do it better - this raising OUR son thing.

Some days I hit rock bottom and cry a lot. Some days I even throw things or find something to punch. 

Today, I did all of those things and still didn't know how I would dig out.

And then OUR son grabbed a wrapping paper tube and put it in the pocket of his sweatpants like it was a light saber. He told me he was ready to fight the bad guys.

Ready to fight the bad guys. Love this guy.

If he can be ready to fight, then I can find the courage too.

Some days I think that God has this little guy in my life to remind me to keep pushing on.

Newsflash... I wasn't magically better after the wrapping paper tube as light saber incident, but it gave me the courage to share what I needed to with a friend who called when he said he would.

Some days that's all we need to make it through to the morning sun.