• Previous posts

  • Aging is for the weak, and everyone else
  • More short cuts
  • Smol Ketchups
  • What’s the opposite of green juice and deep breathing
  • Living through it all online
  • The Change
  • 18
  • Ok but ALSO:
  • Midlife POV
  • Influence and Dooce
  • Horse therapy
  • You can’t go home again
  • Obsolescence
  • Before and after
  • A cringe confession on friendship

Archives from 2002-2006

On Friday our pediatrician semi-apologetically diagnosed Dylan with erupting molars, a chest cold, roseola, and a double ear infection, and that was BEFORE he developed the shriekingly painful diaper rash. As you can imagine, it hasn’t really been the most peaceful of weekends—more like 48 consecutive hours under enemy fire. Yesterday afternoon after a bout of coughing had kept Dylan from napping and his difficulty level skyrocketed to Advanced: Do Not Attempt Without Benzodiazepines, I had myself a little hysterical weeping fit on JB’s shoulder, whimpering this is all too hard and I feel like I’m in prison and if I have to clean up one more cry-cough-barf I am going to go slap out of my fucking mind.

It’s so easy to spiral straight down the rabbit hole when the going gets a little tough, isn’t it? Or maybe it’s just me. A few bad days in a row and I’m like, DEAR GOD THIS HELLISH EXISTENCE CAN NOT BE SURVIVED.

Today was a vast improvement. Dylan seems to be on the mend, for one thing. For another, I got up this morning and ran the first 5K I’ve done in eleven years, which is to say I ran farther without stopping than I have in, let’s see, eleven years. I finished 578th out of 938 runners/walkers in 33 minutes 15 seconds, and about fifty people pushing strollers containing children absolutely left me in the dust while turtles and glaciers slid by waving cheerily, but who cares? I RAN A DAMN 5K.

Also, this afternoon JB and I did something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time: we bought bikes. I went for a ride this evening and it was absolutely glorious. The breeze in my hair, smelling trees and flowers, exploring new neighborhoods, listening to everything outside instead of plugging myself into earbuds. It made me feel like a new part of the world. Like a streamlined version of myself, all the baggage and bullshit left behind.

Such a perfectly fractal weekend, really. A moment is like an hour which is like a day which is like a month. You could chart it in dizzying, jagged lines. Here is the lowest point, where I cry and whine and feel as though my tank is on empty. Here is the high point: where I cross a finish line in sped-up-just-for-the-end steps, gasping. Here: the boys playing together in the backyard. Here: houses flying by and the feeling of speed. And so it goes.

Once upon a time, my favorite thing on warm summery evenings was sitting around with a cold, sweating Pacifico (or five) and a good book. I wouldn’t move from my chair unless a bathroom break or a particularly dedicated mosquito drove me from it, and I’d sometimes lean back and just look up at the sky, filled with quiet movements and sounds.

Life is different in about a million ways now. Gone are the lazy, sodden days of buzzed inertia and meandering contemplation, replaced by frenzied noise and activity and DO and GO and TRY.

I’ll take it, though. Abso-fuckin-lutely.

Next Page →

• My product review site:

  [Older recommendations]