I dare you.
What has happened? Where has the time gone? I realize that it’s been ages since I’ve caught up here, and I’m woefully behind on so many writing projects, but things are good. We are going with forward momentum these days. My job is busy. My life is busy. I have thoughts that I’m constantly trying to get down on some form of paper. I have blog posts backed up like traffic on the Gardiner in mind. And yet, I’m also craving stillness. Ten minutes of yoga a day seems to be doing the trick. I loved my book about meditation. I’ve downloaded the exercises and have listened to them a couple of times on the subway. In the midst of the thrum of people cruising back and forth to work, I close my eyes and become that girl. You know the one. Breathing heavily and not caring what anyone thinks. This is what motherhood has taught me. I can leave my house in jogging pants with unwashed hair, not wearing any, ahem, support, all tucked into my winter coat, not having slept for days and go grocery shopping. S*#t just needs to get done. And if meditating on the streetcar on the way to get my sixth bit of bloodwork tests done in as many weeks, well so the flapjack be it.
For the first time in a long time, it’s not the disease making me sick. For all intents and purposes, it’s actually in remission. There’s a significant amount of damage to my kidneys, and they’ll never make enough red blood cells for me not to feel anemic, but I’m alive. I’m in remission. That’s something to celebrate. And then. And then, well, I started feeling truly crappy. Run down, exhausted, with lots of pain, feeling lethargic, and I thought, no, no, no, please Wegener’s please don’t be flaring again. I just can’t take it. And the bloodwork shows that it’s just my WBC (white blood cell count). It’s too low. And that has all the same symptoms as the disease. So, bam, the meds are making me sick, but that’s not unusual. They’ve slowed down on the imuran, and my counts are coming back up little by little.
We’ve been on two short ‘mini-breaks’ as the Brits say in the past couple months. The first, we thought was a super-cheap couple of days at Great Wolf Lodge. We got an amazing deal on the hotel, but then the fact that it’s an actual resort, complete with people walking around in flip-flops in February, and you have to pay for your ridiculously expensive meals meant our budget simply did not stretch to meet those demands. That said, the water park is really amazing, and we had a great time sploshing about. Of course, we got stuck in the epic snowstorm coming home, almost slipped off the road a few times, and dealt with a puking toddler not five minutes away from home. Awesome.
We’re trying to break the RRBB into travelling slowly. He’s habit-dependent, so it’s rough for him. He doesn’t sleep well while we’re away and nor does he eat terrifically. Just a couple of weeks ago we spent a really fun few days in Collingwood. Super cheap, ate mostly in the rented condo, and enjoyed the best that winter can offer (excellent skating, great tobogganing, cursing around the village near the ski hills). But, again, after his cousins left, our kid had a complete meltdown, and it was time to go home. Funny, I don’t think I’ve spent this much time outside, enjoying the winter, in years. A blessing, of sorts. You forget how terrific and crisp the snow is. You forget how great it feels to climb up a steep hill and come barrelling right back down. You forget a lot, until you remember.
Now comes the thaw. A whole host of to do lists revolving around spring cleaning and summer planning and trying to stretch what little royalty money we have left until the next cheque comes. They can’t be depended upon. And it’s glaringly apparent that I need to find alternative sources of income. That we need to find some ways to make ends meet in these lean months. Gift cards. Air miles. Gift cards and air miles. We’ll figure it out, we always do, scraping the backs of the cupboards, eating through the freezer. The thing is, I really, really don’t want to go in any more debt. There’s a glimmer of hope at the end of the tunnel, and if we buckle down, we just might get out of the maternity leave hole.
I’m in a funny place these days. An in-between place. Slightly between sick and healthy. Busy and bored. Pushed along from the current when I really want to be swimming in the other direction. But soon, really soon, I’ll be up at the lake. And that’s a balm for anyone. We’re lucky. I am lucky. It’s so easy to forget that with all that’s happened. I am lucky. What if I just keep repeating that?