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Text of the page (random words):
n my phone to fulfill her request for a lobster balloon in honor of her brother jack they had some inside jokes about lobsters from their early days observing the lobster tank in the grocery store and wishing that could save them you re my pal jack would say to the lobsters in a funny voice and even though jack and margaret never had the chance to watch the tv show friends together i loved the association that lobsters stick together for life as in you re my lobster we ve always considered jack to be margaret s lobster at least 6 months before graduation i started looking for lobster balloons her high school and college years were a jumble to me as i felt torn between being a baby s mom and a teenager s mom and not always doing well at either we didn t go on many college visits when she was a junior and the first two years of college we were so concerned about covid i don t feel like we were much of a haven to come home to i couldn t run down to see her on campus at the spur of the moment if she got lonely or sick i did what i could but everything took so much coordination but i could buy a balloon so i scoured etsy and found two contenders one was so big i wasn t sure it would float so naturally i bought a back up lobster i purchased a helium tank not wanting to leave anything to chance i left sticky notes around the house lobster lobster by the time we got down to her school the day before graduation our nerves were fraught tim had expectations about the time margaret would spend with us and he was annoyed that this didn t match up with her plans i was fried from arranging dog care for charlie packing getting andrew out of first grade early and trying to run interference between tim and margaret i kept checking to make sure i had the balloons mainly i believe we felt the unspoken emotional weight of not having gone through any of this with her big brother jack two years before as with many families even long after the rawness of grief has subsided celebrations can include joy and yearning both and in her apartment we inflated the first balloon it was big it was gorgeous it didn t float our helium tank said it would have enough to inflate two large balloons so we started to fill our back up lobster after it was plump and full and floaty we gave it one extra squirt of helium pop it felt like a tightly wound ball of grief in my chest exploded hot tears sprang to my eyes as i failed to provide the one thing i had promised margaret on this day the one thing i could do amidst so many things i couldn t but i didn t just want to give her a lobster balloon i wanted jack there for his little sister as so many brothers were that day grown up sisters and brothers together who had paved the way and supported each other during adolescence and college whose photos were already popping up on my phone in celebration in that moment i felt sick and weary of trying to keep forging ahead in whatever life handed us again and again and again jack was her lobster and of course the damn lobster popped i sat quietly on the balcony as andrew rubbed my arm to comfort me he may not have understood all the subtext but young kids certainly relate to the sadness that comes with the sudden pop of a balloon soon we rallied because that is what we do i went to an amazing party store and got what they had left a giant m a margarita for margaret and a sponge bob because she and jack had watched every episode together we tucked ourselves in early and left the partying to the other parents the next morning the graduates were up at 5 per tradition heading to the strip of bars on the corner across from the university they were a jumble of caps gowns champagne bottle selfies and giant balloons it was a gorgeous day and during the ceremony we were able to spot our beautiful margaret by the balloons she carried we listened to an amazing speech about loss and community later margaret sent me these photos so i d know that while her non floating lobster may have gotten lost somewhere on the way to the procession he had made it out for some of the early morning hoopla with the graduates love you margaret no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels graduation grief lobsters siblings you re my lobster thursday april 27 2023 hot mess express in today s episode of why can t anna be normal whatever normal is i d like to take you with me on a little journey picture a formal event for an elementary school where all the participants will be two decades younger me i wonder what is in style can i still rock a black tie event could i ever i get out my favorite long blue dress from amazon but it becomes clear that no amount of shapewear is going to get my post menopausal fluff into the bottom of it at this point i head to my happy place the thrift store and purchase a dress for 10 a dehumidifier and some pokémon paraphernalia the dress wasn t love at first second or even third sight but i figure it will do when i get home and try it on i realize it needs altering one place quotes me 90 but i eventually find someone who will add two darts to the bust for 40 50 total for a formal dress albeit one i don t love still sounds like a reasonable bargain so i forge ahead when i pick it up i find that the straight strapless cut across my chest rather than being cute sexy or even classy looks like when you get out of the shower and wrap yourself in a towel no decolletage just a vast expanse of skin so my next bright idea is to get my first ever spray tan for to make this barren wasteland more palatable as i get dressed afterward the technician tells me to not wear a bra for a while because it might mess up the tan not only was a 60 expense plus tip now added to my bargain dress this commando commandment threatened to mess with my schedule of 1000 errands to do before school pickup fortunately virginia weather means that the morning was wintry so i layered on two sweatshirts to try to disguise my unrestrained pendulous appendages what might seem like no big deal to someone in her twenties felt like a big deal to me as i ran gingerly around town checking things off my to do list who am i kidding even in my twenties this would not have been a good look for me sure i was petite but more in a marble in a tube sock kind of way than a perky free spirited one all was well until the temperature started to climb my spray tan skidded down my body faster than rudy giuliani s hair dye and i remembered the technician s final admonishment don t sweat i promise i ll put on a bra later for international night follow me for more beauty and money saving tips no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels geriatric parenting humor life is a gift menopause wednesday january 18 2023 mismatched sets we have two sets of sheets for our bed one robin s egg blue one white at some point in the distant past whether due to a sick child or a particularly sweaty hot flash the set became separated a top sheet thrown in the wash a mismatched sheet put on the bed when i strip the bed it s now blue and white when i make the bed the same it s a small thing really and no one has noticed but me every once in a while i will think i d like to get these sets straightened back out but then i ll toss the mismatched ones in the wash together and put the other mismatched ones on the bed i do this for the sake of expediency and to conserve energy because everyone knows if you don t dress a bed right away you re likely to find yourself at 10 30 pm looking at a bare mattress pad and choosing a fitful night s sleep over having to do one more thing it never seems like the right time to deal with it i think my sheets are a bit like relationships something can be out of whack and instead of addressing it we keep doing the okay but not quite right things again and again maybe straightening it out takes too much energy when we are already depleted maybe the mismatch has become comfortable or almost imperceptible and in relationships unlike with a bunch of balled up sheets we run the risk of finding out that a simple fix might not be simple at all and that s frightening in life we often take care of the day to day getting to school and work on time making sure most boxes are checked and the car registration is renewed but there are the other things both tangible and intangible big and small that pile up on sticky notes or in sacred rooms of our brains and hearts that we just can t seem to tackle we put them off for another day hoping for a burst of energy motivation or inspiration we wish we could summon a laundry fairy a relationship guru or a virtual assistant to take care of them for us and do what we can t seem to do for ourselves no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels friendships housecleaning marriage middle age tuesday november 29 2022 through line a few years ago i bought a medium pre lit artificial tree as our sole christmas tree with the main purpose of cutting down on marital arguments about light stringing no longer was there a big fresh tree for sparkly bows birds and baubles and a kids tree laden with macaroni ornaments clothes pin reindeer and construction paper chains it became both a delightful mish mash in fact many of my fancier ornaments remained tucked in plastic tubs because this tree simply isn t big enough for all of it and the ornaments keep coming at an advent event last night andrew made 6 new ornaments out of popsicle sticks paper and felt with margaret home for thanksgiving we were all able to decorate together this meant so much to me as i was able to remember how the first few years after jack died decorating was excruciating i did it for margaret but oh how it hurt now i am able to hold jack s baby s first christmas ornaments and smile i am able to remember how i bravely put up christmas trees during college after my mom s death even though no one expected it of me this year andrew pulled a ziploc baggie out of one of the tubs and asked me about the ornament inside i told him that when my brother sister and i were kids we each had a glass ball with our name on it in glitter mine shattered one year and i was distraught my mother quickly selected another ball wrote my name on it with elmer s glue and dipped it in colored sand that we somehow had in our cluttered happy home that blue ball with red sand followed me the rest of my childhood and far into adulthood a few years ago it shattered but instead of tossing it out i put it in a plastic bag so each year as we decorated i could remember the loving care of a mom who always provided me a soft place to land after we finished the tree this year 6 year old andrew called me back down to the family room he had dug through the tubs of ornaments we weren t using rigged an ornament hanger into the plastic bag and hung the remains of my ornament on the tree for me his loving gesture reconnected me to my mother s loving gesture over 45 years ago no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels bereaved mother christmas christmas trees geriatric parenting motherless daughters parenting tuesday november 22 2022 it s the little things i am a white lights on the christmas tree kind of girl the artificial tree i bought 2 years ago has about 7 options including blinking ugh and cycling through from white to colored and back again my buddy andrew loves the colored lights and we are in a sneaky battle with each other changing it back and forth when we walk past to go to the bathroom multiple times a day we haven t spoken a word about it and i love it so much it reminds me of when my teen brother used to do something similar to my mom she was a fantastic florist and when she would go on deliveries she had large flowers by margaret magnetic signs on her car doors sometimes she d drive around all day before realizing her signs were upside down thanks to her firstborn pranking her sometimes connection and i love you s come in funny forms now when my high school boyfriend did deliveries for her and changed every single one of her radio presets from country and classical to whatever the hell he listened to that was just plain rude like read the room dude no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels christmas connection love parenting parenting after loss monday october 31 2022 proud i just spent 45 minutes in the toy section of target looking at legos with andrew it wasn t what i would have chosen for a gorgeous sunday afternoon but he had money burning a hole in his pocket and was excited buy something new we compared prices and talked pro s and cons of each minecraft set it was no surprise that after reading minecraft books hearing andrew s running commentary about all of the characters and watching him play for months i was able to hold my own in the conversation after we checked out i let him try some parkour moves on the giant red concrete balls out front we ve been watching american ninja type shows and he s developing an interest in climbing as i watched an old friend from the before times crossed the lot we hadn t seen each other in years we were young parents together in the same mothers group at church i remember when she had her third thinking oh boy laura just set her ticket to freedom back about three years i was so tired and so busy with two little ones that i kept my eyes on what i thought was the prize getting them launched someday as we know i didn t get to launch jack in the way i thought i would my baby margaret is now 21 and launching andrew feels like a lifetime away after my friend and i chatted andrew and i headed to the car he was proud of the money he d earned selling original comic books to our friends and neighbors he showed no regret about reducing his nest egg down to one 2 dollar bill and a sacajawea coin i knew the coffee table would once again be taken over by colorful bricks for the next days or weeks i gave myself a minute on the way home in the car to be proud of myself proud for persevering after devastating loss proud for embracing my 50 s and 60 s and beyond that will look a lot different than i thought they would even as i acknowledge the twinge i still feel when i see my peers at different stages proud for being in the moment with andrew and fully invested in what makes him tick can you think of something today that makes you proud life is not made up of grand accomplishments sometimes it s just waking up showing up and taking baby steps even if the baby is 35 45 or 60 no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels 50 s 6 is a wonderful age embracing the life you have geriatric parenting parenting parenting after loss older posts home subscribe to posts atom get updates from anna subscribe loading thank you you have successfully joined our subscriber list 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