So when negativity surrounds, I know some day it'll all turn around.

The turnoff from the Halfmoon trail to Mt. Massive is written in tiny letters with a Sharpie. This cracked me up.

I suppose it was inevitable that eventually, we were going to start a Yahrtzeit hike and fail to reach the summit. And of course, it had to happen in 2020. Whoever had "Freak Snowstorm in Early September The Day After It Was 95 Degrees" on their 2020 bingo card, step forward and claim your prize. 

We decided that this year, we wanted to climb Mt. Massive, the second highest peak in Colorado. We chose a route that is shorter (about 8 miles round-trip, instead of another route that is 14) but very difficult - steep, with rapid elevation gain. I was nervous, as I always am. Nervous because I knew it was going to be a hard climb, and nervous because the weight of the day always starts creeping up on me a few days before I do it. 

I always think a lot about Emma this time of year - there's always the one-two punch of the anniversary of her death followed immediately by the anniversary of 9/11. Even though it has been six years, she is still fresh in my mind. Her energy, her smile, the way she made us laugh and the way she made us proud. The pain of losing her. 

And ever since I started taking additional names up the mountain with me to say a collective Kaddish for other people in addition to Emma, the responsibility of it weighs on me as well. The number of names increases every year. I think the first year I did it I had fewer than 20 on my list. Last year it was about 47. This year, incredibly enough, it was 90.

So all of this heaviness was sitting in my chest when I went to sleep on Friday night. But when I woke up on Saturday morning, I felt the familiar excitement. The feeling in my chest moved down to my belly and felt like butterflies rather than anxiety.

This is the norm.

The drive to the trailhead was insane. It's a dirt road for the last 7 miles or so, and the road was rough, rutted and rocky, in addition to being super narrow. There was almost no moon and no one else on the road, and it was so dark that we couldn't figure out where we were supposed to go. It was discombobulating because normally there are lots of other cars heading in the same direction, be we didn't see anyone else until we were almost at the trailhead.

We started to hike and immediately encountered snow. I don't know why this surprised us. A crazy snowstorm hit on Tuesday. Boulder, where Christin lives, got six inches. Christin and I are both smart, rational people who are not novice hikers. And yet for whatever reason, all week long heading into the climb we were all jacked up about the temperature and worrying about how cold it was going to be, but we didn't think about the snow or about the likelihood that a major snowstorm in Colorado was going to dump a bunch of snow on a mountain that tops out at 14,421 ft. 

So we were relatively bundled up in anticipation for cold - I wore fleece-lined hiking pants, a heavier jacket, and carried a cashmere turtleneck in my pack, just in case. I didn't need any of those things - the sun was out and the temperature was perfect. But the snow made the rocky path wet and icy and slippery, and as we ascended, the snow got deeper and the trail was increasingly hard to make out. 

Steep climb up snow-covered, slippery rocks

At one point, we passed a guy who was coming back down with his Siberian Husky. He was a young and fit and he looked like someone who hiked 14ers in his sleep. We asked him how he was doing and if he had made it to the summit, and he said that he turned around at 13,000 because the snow was too deep to find the trail and too deep for his dog. 

In a way, it took the pressure off. If this guy had to turn around, then there would certainly be no shame if we reached a certain point and decided that it wasn't safe or smart to continue. Christin and I decided that we would keep going as far as we could and call it a day if we needed to.

In the meantime, the hike itself was beautiful. The sun was shining and the mountains were glorious and the snow made everything that much more stunning. I ended up hiking most of the way in a t-shirt with my heavy coat tied around my waist. As we always do, Christin and I talked and talked about family and life and books and work and everything else. But the further we went, the more difficult the conditions became. I was using my hiking poles to climb and at one point put my pole down in the snow only to have it get caught between two rocks and snap when I took a step. Luckily, Christin had duct tape in her pack so I was able to tape it together and continue to use it. 

As we ascended, the snow was 1-2 feet deep in spots and the hiking involved a lot of post-holing - essentially, taking a step and sinking down into the snow to create holes that look like what you would sink a post into if you were putting up a fence, or putting your hiking poles into the snow and have them unexpectedly sink down an extra couple of feet because you don't know where the ground is. We also spent time trying to walk in the tracks made by others. There were tracks in every direction, made by people who were guessing at where the trail was supposed to be and often getting it wrong. At one point Christin and I spent at least 20 minutes trying to figure out the proper way to get around a group of rocks, because the trail wasn't visible and there were multiple possible routes but none that were obvious. 

Those footwells are almost 2 feet deep in some places.

We passed another couple coming down who said that they made it to 12,700 and thought, "fuck it, this sucks." We decided that 12,700 would be our stopping point. We had been hiking for four hours and had only ascended 2000 vertical feet, with another 2000 to go (by contrast, in previous years we had never taken more than 3.5 hours to reach a summit). At that rate and under those conditions, it would have taken us another two to three hours (at least) to make it to the summit, only to have an extremely slippery, difficult descent that we would have to do when we were already worn out. 

 So we picked out a big flat boulder up ahead and decided that we would have lunch there, do our Yahrtzeit ritual, and then head back down. 

As ever, the yahrtzeit was very emotional for me. Reading the a names of 90 people whose loved ones mourn for them made me cry. The words of the Kaddish made me cry.

May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, for us and for all Israel; to which we say, Amen.

He who creates peace in His celestial heights, may He create peace for us and for all Israel; to which we say, Amen.

The world is a terribly difficult place right now. The idea of abundant peace and life feels like a pipe dream. Christin and I lamented the state of the world and got choked up. Disease, climate change, social strife - it doesn't feel like there is much to be hopeful about. 

I guess that's the "may there be" part - the Kaddish is obviously aspirational. But those words, which are supposed to be uplifting, make my heart heavy these days.

We dried our eyes and ate our lunch and headed back down. It was sunny and warm and beautiful and our spirits lifted. Nothing makes me happier than exercising out in nature. 

But I think the day weighed on me more than I realized. The next night I was despondent about everything. It passed, but I don't think I realized how much the stress I am under - working full time from home while trying to navigate two children through remote learning, help them manage their own stress and sense of isolation, blah blah blah. Clearly I needed a good cry.

And clearly I still need a good hike - yesterday I texted Christin to say that I want to do one that I finish. We talked about maybe doing the Longs Peak trail to Chasm Lake again - the one that started it all - or maybe just try another fourteener in a few weeks. 

Another chance to push before the cold sets in, and to seek out abundant peace. 

Sing, sing a song, and make it simple to last your whole life long

 The adolescence is becoming conspicuous. 

I look at my children and they do not look like little kids anymore. Josie, who will be 11 in three weeks, keeps getting taller and her legs are now as long as mine, even though I'm still a few inches taller. I have a longer torso and shorter legs, and she has a shorter torso and longer legs. I have no doubt she will surpass me soon in all departments.

Zeke will be 13 next month. He is gaining height more slowly than Josie is, but he's suddenly ... thicker. Not fat. Just muscular and more substantial. He has his dad's physique, which is a good thing. Jason is incredibly strong and fit, and Zeke has inherited those same characteristics. 

Zeke is still a couple of inches taller than Josie, though it doesn't look like it in this picture.

It reminds me of when he was first born and the doctor was checking his reflexes and doing all the little tests that are done on newborn babies. One of them entails pushing on the bottom of the baby's foot to see if the baby pushes back. Zeke, who had strong, muscular little legs right out of the womb, pushed back so hard that the doctor's eyes widened and he started to laugh. 

"Ok, then!" He chuckled. 

They're funny and smart-ass-y and teenager-y. And they vacillate between muttering at me under their breath and snuggling up to me and asking for hugs and cuddles. 

I'm so annoying. SO ANNOYING, MOM! GOD!! COULD YOU STOP???

And then, Moooommmy! Guess what time it is??? It's huggy time!! I love you, Mommy!

It makes me laugh while also giving me whiplash. 

One vestige of young childhood that they have both abandoned is my singing. I sang them to sleep until they were about 8. They would ask for it every night and make requests. When they were sad, they would ask for a song to comfort them and make them feel better. Some of my fondest, sweetest memories are of rocking them in the rocker as babies, singing to them as I gently traced my fingers over their faces until they fell asleep.

But they don't ask for it anymore. Sometimes when Josie is having a hard day and is cuddled up to me, I'll ask her if she wants a song, but she says no. I understand, but it makes me wistful.

This past weekend the kids stayed with Jason while I got some alone time. I went out on Saturday night and then came home and went to sleep by about 11. 

My phone rang at 12:15 a.m. I knew it was Zeke because his ring-tone is Stewie from Family Guy saying, "Mom..Mom..Mom..Mommy...Mommy...Mama...Maaa." 

I answered the phone, only half awake.

"Zeke? Are you ok?"

He sounded whimper-y.

"What's wrong honey? Did something happen?"

"No, I'm ok. Mama, will you sing to me? Will you sing me to sleep?"

"Oh! Sure. Is there something you want to hear?"

"It doesn't matter. Anything."

So I started to sing Angel Band. But I still wasn't really awake so I kept messing up the tune and forgetting the lyrics. I would try to think hard but my brain wasn't working so I would stop and be quiet for a few seconds while I tried to remember what I was doing. Then I would try again, but I kept confusing it with a different song, so I was half singing Angel Band and half singing Patsy Cline's Walkin' After Midnight, but I still wasn't awake or thinking clearly so I would have to stop and try to find the song in my memory. If I had been more coherent, I would have laughed.

We both lay there listening to each other breathe. I would occasionally whisper, shhhh. 

Finally he whispered, Mama.

I'm here, I whispered back.

I'm going to go to sleep now...

OK, honey. Good night.

G'night, mama. I love you.

I love you too, baby.

And then I fell back to sleep with my heart full.

Report from the front lines: Remote Learning, Day 1

 5:00 a.m. - I am up before my alarm, which is unusual and surprising. I like my sleep, plus I was up last night later than normal. Met a friend out for a couple of hours last night and then one of my car's tires blew on the way home, so it was 11:30 p.m. by the time I got the tire changed and made it home. Thank goodness for kind men who jump at the chance to change a tire for a damsel in distress. I know how to change a tire, but it was nice to have someone do it for me. Chivalry is not dead.

6:00 - I get up and get ready for the day. Task number one is making sure Josie has what she needs to start school. I get on her computer and open up the tabs she'll use - google classroom, zoom chats, the email with her schedule, etc. She should do this herself but she's so freaked about the remote learning that I set it up for her so it's one less thing for her to cry about.

7:30 - Zeke needs to start school at 8:10. He's totally self sufficient - I make sure he finds the emails from his teachers with the relevant zoom links, but beyond that he's good to go. I go downstairs to make him some breakfast and coffee. I promptly break the French press when I open the cupboard above it and a plastic water bottle falls out on top of it. I go to the coffee shop across the street instead and while I wait in line, I order myself a new coffee maker from Amazon.

8:10 - he logs into his first class. All is well.

8:45 - I make sure Josie is ready to go. She has hot chocolate and I make her some eggs. Her first class is Movement starting at 9. I have a conference call for work at the same time so once I know she's all set I go downstairs and do my call. 

9:50 - Josie's movement class went well but now she has English and she's already starting to melt down. She can't hear someone on the Zoom chat. She can't figure out how to edit the document in Google Classroom. When I make suggestions she lashes out at me. She's crying and hiding under a blanket. She wants to quit and I won't let her, so I'm mean. She cries some more, I'm annoyed, and I leave for the tire place.

11:30 - Back at home, I try to work while keeping an ear out for needy children. Josie manages to get through her English class in one piece and has a break for an hour or so. Zeke is fine. I feed them lunch in between phone calls for work, one of which entails being yelled at by an irate lawyer. Fun times.

12:00 - I finish a conference call and get up to start my third load of laundry of the day.

1:30 - I check on Josie. She's doing social studies but they're taking a break. She is spending her break underneath her bed watching TikTok videos. I tell her that when it's time to start class again she needs to sit at her desk. She begrudgingly agrees. She asks if we can make cookies later. We absolutely can.

2:30 - I check on Josie. She's supposed to write a letter to her teacher about something. She can't figure out what it's supposed to be about and is frustrated and complaining. I manage to talk her off the ledge before the tears flow. Zeke is done for the day and had no trouble. He then proceeds to torment his sister until I can get him out of her room.

3:00 - Work continues for me, as it has all day. Conference calls, telephone calls, video meetings, emails, memos. This is a hard time for school districts. Teachers are stressed, administrators are stressed, parents are stressed. We're all doing the best we can but it never feels like enough. Someone's always pissed off or upset. I'm like a pinball, ricocheting from one task and one dispute to the next. I can't focus on or remember anything.

3:30 - Josie finally finishes. I give her a hug and tell her I'm proud of her for sticking with it. The first day is the hardest, I say. Tomorrow it won't be as bad, and soon you'll be more comfortable with everything. It'll be ok. She nods, hugs me back, and lies down to take a nap. 

4:45 - A friend of Zeke's is over and the kids are out back on the trampoline. I'm almost finished for the day, having worked my way through my to-do list. I'm suddenly starving and realize I've had nothing to eat all day - just coffee. 

5:00 - I eat a bowl of yogurt with a mango cut into it. I look around and realize I need to vacuum. I think about doing a workout but know that I'm going to need to eat more if I'm going to do it without passing out. I try to come up with something to make for dinner. I wonder if I can get away with going to bed at 8 p.m.

We survived.

Mean mommy

"Mom, me and Zeke are switching rooms."

I had just walked home from being out for a couple of hours to meet a friend for a drink. The margaritas were making my brain slightly fuzzy.

"What? What are you talking about?"

"Zeke is going to take my room and I'm going to take Zeke's room."

"Wait ... what? Why?"

Zeke saw me and yelled down from upstairs, "hey Mom! Do you have an allen wrench? I need it to take Josie's bed apart."

"What? I don't know. Maybe. I don't know where it would be."

"OK, I'll call dad."

Minutes later: "Dad's got one! I'm going to bike over there."

It was 9:30 at night.

"What? No! It's 9:30 at night, you don't have a light on your bike, and I don't want you riding up Josephine and York streets in the dark."

"But I need it to take Josie's bed apart!"

Josie has an IKEA bunk bed that I can take apart and put back together easily. I am the queen of assembling IKEA furniture - I find it very zen and satisfying. But the bed takes awhile, and if you're 12 years old and impatient and don't know what you're doing and don't have the directions (they were thrown away years ago), you'll make a big fat mess and end up crying. Crying 12-year-olds are annoying as fuck.

"It's 9:30 at night!! You're not taking Josie's bed apart! It's complicated and it takes a long time to do it right, and you'll mess it up and then I'll have to fix it, and I don't feel like it fixing it. I'm tired. It's bedtime. You have camp tomorrow. You need to get ready for bed."

"But we want to switch rooms," they whined.

"I don't care. You're not doing it tonight. You can do it tomorrow. And I'm not helping."

This went back and forth for a while, ending with Zeke saying, "god, mom, why are you so mean???"

I'm mean. I'm so, so mean.

I'm mean when I make them clean their messes up before I turn on the WiFi.

I'm mean when I make them go to bed before midnight.

I'm mean when I don't let them eat upstairs because it's gross and eventually I end up rummaging through the kitchen going, "where the hell are all my bowls???"

I'm mean when I'm on a video conference for work and Zeke starts bellowing at me about something and I'm like, "I'M WORKING!! BE QUIET! I'LL HELP YOU WHEN I'M DONE!!"

 I'm mean when I get irritated that it takes me half an hour to get them out of bed to go to camp.

Thank the little baby Jesus for camp.

Colorado is actually doing pretty well with COVID. Our numbers are declining. Our governor is making data-driven decisions and slowly opening things up while still maintaining certain restrictions and precautions. The one thing I vehemently disagreed with him on was his approach to summer camp.

My kids were registered for two weeks of overnight camp, which they love because it's fun, and while I love because they're gone and I can get some peace and quiet. The gov had delayed making an announcement until late May, but the word was positive. And my assumption was that as between overnight camps and day camps. day camps have exponentially more opportunities for transmission, whereas with overnight camp, you check in, you get your health screening, and then you're captive for 14 days.

But then the overnight camps closed and the day camps opened, so day camp it was.

It's hard for them. Nothing is back to normal - the neighborhood pool is closed, the rec center a few blocks away is closed, most of their friends aren't allowed to play with anyone else. They're restless and antsy and bored.

But it's hard for me too. Zeke has been living here full time, but Josie had continued to go back and forth between my house and her dad's house. And then about a month ago, she started staying at my house longer and longer.

"Don't you want to go see daddy?" I keep asking.

She shrugs and says, "sure, but not tonight."

I think a big part of it is that they like being together. They will fight and bicker, but they really do love each other and take care of each other.

But I need a break, so I told them that I need every other weekend to myself. Two days out of every fourteen. Zeke suggested that I got plenty of alone time when they're at camp - i.e., WHEN I'M WORKING. I expressed outrage at that suggestion. They were thinking I was mean but they were smart enough not to say it. So I'm getting my weekend in three days.

Last night their dad brought over the allen wrench and they got to work. Zeke tried to take Josie's bed apart and got a little turned around about exactly which pieces needed to come apart in order to move the bed, and which could stay intact, So of course I helped. We took the bed apart and moved it and put it back together. We figured out how to move Josie's enormous dresser (but not before they accused me of being mean when they insisted on trying to do it in a way that was never going to work and I said, "it's not going to work that way").

Zeke said, "isn't this fun, mom? We're bonding!"

I went back to my room and got into bed. The kids were excited about their new rooms.

Ten minutes later Josie poked her head around the door. "Can I sleep with you?"

She crawled in, threw an arm around me, and went to sleep.

Twenty-three

My dear Emma,

Happy birthday. You would have been twenty-three years old today.

I've been thinking about you so much lately.

I've been thinking about everything, actually. We're stuck at home in a global pandemic. There's a lot of time to think.

I think about how quickly life goes by.

When I turned twenty-three I was in my second year of law school. I knew nothing about anything. I didn't know what kind of law I wanted to practice.  I didn't know where I wanted to live. I didn't know what I wanted my life to look like. I was totally making shit up as I went along.

And now suddenly I'm 50. I barely know how I got here.

After your accident when you were twelve, you always seemed to have a greater sense of purpose than I've ever had in my life. You had almost died, and then you struggled to recover, and I think it gave you a focus on living deliberately that was mature beyond your years.

It's a focus that would have served you well right now. People are struggling with how to live - how safe is safe enough? How much risk is too much risk?

At a certain point we have to recognize that life is for the living and it's time to get on with it. You've gotta die of something. You knew that. And you were taken too soon anyway.

I was looking through old pictures and I found this one from Thanksgiving of 2008. Only one person is left - Leo is gone, you're gone, your mom is gone.

I want to get back to living. I don't want to stagnate in my house, afraid to live because I'm afraid to die. The truth is, I'm not afraid to die.

It's hard to imagine what you would have been doing now. Out of college, yes. Grad school? Traveling? Following some calling? Being a surf bum? A ski bum? A responsible working professional?

Like most twenty-three-year-olds, you probably would have been clueless and trying to figure out how to be a grown-up, not realizing at the time that most of us never really figure that out. But I feel like you would have had a better sense than most.

It would have been fun to get to know you as an adult.

I miss you and I love you. We all do, with all our hearts.

Wendy

Live your best life

If there is a casualty of this COVID-stay-at-home-so-you-don't-die dealio, it will be my sense of time. Lisa wrote about this, and I get the sense that most people are feeling this way, but it bears repeating. I have no idea what day it is. I have no idea how long this has been going on.

This is hard for me, because my brain generally sees things in calendar form. When I think about my schedule, I see the grid with dates and times and days of the week. I remember appointments and due dates and what day and time the flight leaves, and from which gate.

So to spend all of Wednesday thinking it was actually Tuesday - - well, it's very confusing. Every night feels like Friday night, for some reason. I find myself relating to the Dowager Countess's confusion about what a "weekend" is.

I have a theory. Not about what a weekend is - I actually do know the answer to that question. I have a theory about why our sense of time is so whack-a-doodle right now.

We're living in a fog of sameness. We stay in the same place and do the same things and see the same people. There aren't markers or boundaries or events that distinguish one day from the next. I felt the same way when I was on maternity leave.

I also think we're in a "one day at a time" mode, because if we start thinking that this one day is part of a stretch of 40 days or 60 days or 80 days that all look and feel like this one... I have a hard time with that thought.

So I just deal with today. Which, according to all of my zen yogi friends, is what I should be doing anyway. Be present.

Maybe present-ish. Present-adjacent. I might think a little about yesterday, or about tomorrow or the next day.

Anyway. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow ... I'm doing well, for the most part.

Today I went to Zeke's school to pick up a novel that he's going to be studying when school starts back up in a week.

Then I went to the grocery store. There are still no paper products to be had, but everything else is in stock. Except yeast, because apparently everyone has decided to spend the apocalypse baking.

I actually mocked a guy in front of me at the checkout at Target a few weeks ago because his cart was loaded up with paper towels and bags and bags of flour. I mean, I didn't mock him to his face. Just in my head, and maybe a little bit on Facebook.

Anyway. He sure showed me, huh?

What else?

My knee hurts.

I've been very good about exercising regularly. I alternate Peloton rides with runs. The other day I went for a run around City Park. The street leading there has old sidewalks made of slate or flagstone slabs, and over the years they have been pushed around by tree roots, leaving the slabs uneven. So I'm running along and listening to my music and admiring the blue sky and then suddenly I was on the ground.

I landed hard on my left knee. I ripped my brand new running tights. It hurt like a motherfucker.

I lay there for a couple of minutes as I took stock. Was anything broken? Was there structural damage or was it just a bad scrape? Could I keep going?

I kept going.

At one point I was waiting to cross the street and realized my knee felt a little sticky. I pulled up my tights and discovered that I had basically taken the top layer of skin off my kneecap and was bleeding.

Still, I kept going. I wanted to finish the run. My skin and my leggings are washable.

And bonus!! Now I have a matched set of busted up kneecaps!

A few months ago I slipped on ice and landed on my face and my right knee. My face healed quickly. My right kneecap is still a little bit tender - I must have bruised the bone pretty badly.

Do you know what a pain in the ass it is to not be able to put pressure on either of your knees?

But I'm fine. We're fine.

I ordered a trampoline for the kids - it'll arrive tomorrow.

We watch a lot of movies. We play a lot of videogames.

I ordered a bluetooth karaoke microphone, and it may be my favorite toy, ever. Josie sings Lizzo and Billie Eilish, Zeke sings Frank Sinatra, I sing the Dixie Chicks.

I bought Zeke a pumpkin pie at the grocery store this morning and encouraged him to eat it for breakfast.

For my morning coffee, I got out the Wedgwood that I inherited from my grandparents, because why the hell not?

We're going to be in this for a while, so we might as well make ourselves happy.

The play unfolds before my eyes, there stands the actor who is me

Because I do my assignments, I was determined to know the speech, off-book.

I practiced in front of Josie and Zeke, both of whom applauded me enthusiastically. They're so sweet and encouraging. It made me feel really good.

"Are you going to be in a play? Will you be famous? Can we come watch you?"

It's the famous part that they were most interested in.

I explained that it's just for practice, just for a class. Just for fun.

I wanted to have some fun.

I come from an actor-y family. My grandma Ruth was an actress and a radio DJ. Throughout my childhood, I watched my dad do community theater in Venezuela and Israel and India. I did school plays and community theater in middle and high school, and a little bit in college.

Chava in Fiddler on the Roof. Margot in Diary of Anne Frank. Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Alice, one of the romantic leads, in You Can't Take It With You.

 Let me tell you, there are few things more mortifying than being an 13-year-old 8th grader in a high school production and having to kiss a 17-year-old senior on stage.

But I did it. I kissed Trevor, who seemed ancient to me and who towered over me by well over a foot. I persevered. The show must go on.

The acting class was a 6 week series. It provided me with something that wasn't work and wasn't child-rearing and wasn't for anybody else. It was just mine. It was creative. I was in a different environment and interacting with different people.

I did the speech. I received some constructive criticism, but felt like I did it well.

And then it was over. Now getting out into the world and interacting with new people is over, for the time being.

I went into self-quarantine this past Sunday - I was skiing up in Summit County on Saturday, and it turned out they had had a cluster of positive tests. Then that night the governor ordered the ski resorts closed. Now everything is closed.

It's hard.

I'm not fully an extrovert, but I'm not fully an introvert either. I like being alone, and being around lots of people can wear me out. Big crowds can make me anxious and exhausted. But I like having it at least be an option.

My kids and I are home, and we're all getting along. We're keeping the house clean and making time to get outside, although we had a snowstorm yesterday and it's still cold and wet, so our daily games of street hockey have been put on hold. I'm exercising every day. I've discovered that deep-cleaning the house every day relaxes me.

We have plenty of food and wifi and games to play. I work for a government agency that doesn't depend upon customers or profits to keep its doors open (though our doors aren't actually open right now), so I'm not worried about money.

I am maintaining connections with people via email and text and FaceTime. My mother and I have coffee together every morning. I chatted the other day with a sorority sister whom I haven't seen or spoken with in 30 years. The Denver ZTAs are having a virtual happy hour tonight.

But I'm scared. I miss my family. I worry about them. I worry about my children. I worry about myself, and how devastating it would be for my kids if something happened to me. I mean, I'm extremely strong and healthy, but strong and healthy people have been hit by this virus and are now dead.

I'm not particularly afraid of death - once you're dead, what's the difference? But I know what it would do to my family.

It's actually not like me to worry. I'm not a worrier. My mother taught me from an early age to not worry about what you can't control. You can only deal with what's in front of you. If something bad happens, you deal with it when it happens, but worrying about a thing before it's a thing isn't helpful. My natural inclination is to stay calm. Don't freak out. Be zen.

So it suprised me when I had a major panic/anxiety attack the other day, and she was the one who was able to talk me off the ledge. She's better at this than I am.

My dad offered to drive out here, but we told him it wasn't a good idea for many reasons. Not the least of which is that he's a terrible driver.

He laughed when I said that.

We take it day by day, and play our roles. We play all the roles. In my house right now, I am mother and teacher and playmate and friend and therapist, all at the same time, all rolled into one.

We go along and try to act as if it's all normal, so that we don't go crazy.

Pretending is the only way to get through it.

Truth hurts

It takes a lot to accept that a fundamental decision in your life was a bad one. It's hard to admit it, that your judgment was so off.

You want to think that you chose well. Because if you're wrong, you were so, so wrong. You failed so utterly.

So you suffer through years of gas-lighting, being made to feel like you're crazy for being outraged that your children are suffering and so unhappy because he is incapable of taking their needs into account. You protect them as much as you can, to the point of calling DHS on one occasion when he gets a little too rough with the boy.

As he drags them from house to house and woman to woman, you are the rock. You maintain the stability they need - your house is the same, your temperament is the same, your rules are the same, your love is the same. You don't introduce them to any romantic interests.

In particular, the boy suffers. The first post-divorce wife is a fucking monster and awful to the children. When they break up, he's alone for a little while, but he is incapable of being alone, so he starts dating a new woman and marries her within about 8 or 9 months. She's a nice person, but she has 4 kids, meaning the children are moving into a household with 5 new people, only some of whom they like.

Imagine that for a minute. You're young and heading into puberty, with all of the craziness that entails. Over the past few years, your life with your father has been turbulent. It has been exhausting and occasionally traumatic. You're a bit of an introvert, like your mother. And now you have to move into a house with a new step-mother and four new step-brothers. The step-mother also has an after-school childcare business, so the house is constantly crowded and noisy. You alternate weeks between the chaos of the new situation and the quiet and calm of your mother's house.

The very thought of it makes your chest tighten with anxiety. Predictably, the boy doesn't deal with it well, and his behavior at his father's house shows it. He is miserable, and makes everyone else in the house miserable as well.

Rather than recognize the source of the boy's behavior and unhappiness, or to understand that the boy is 12 and prepubescent and thus essentially clinically insane, his father informs you that the boy is a cancer and an asshole and a cunt (sorry - his word, not mine), and that he is no longer welcome in his house.

So it is agreed that it's best for everyone if the boy comes to live with you, where he can have one place that's home with the one parent who feels like home. When things calm down, maybe he will spend occasional weekends with his father so that you can take a trip or get some downtime.

Also, the boy is unhappy at his middle school - it's just not a good fit. So you arrange for him to switch to a different school with a better system of instruction, a better curriculum, and better teachers. When he starts the new semester there, he is immediately ecstatic. He loves school, always wants to talk about what he's learning, wakes up every morning chirpy and with a spring in his step.

Things are sorted. You've got the carpool situation locked down.  You've got an upcoming business trip and some girls' weekends coming up, and it is agreed that the boy will stay with his father for a couple of nights.

Things have gone from anxious and tumultuous to organized and calm. The boy is happy, so you are happy.

On Friday night, you head off on your girls' ski weekend in the mountains feeling confident that the boy will be OK with his dad for a weekend. They're going skiing and all seems to be well. You're looking forward to connecting with friends and skiing a mountain that you don't know very well.

But then you are awakened at 6:15 yesterday morning by a phone call. It looks to be from the father's wife, but when you pick up, it is the boy. He is crying.

He was dawdling and difficult when told he needed to get up and get ready to leave. Traffic to the mountains on a Saturday morning is a nightmare, so if you want to minimize the agony, you need to leave by 6 at the latest, and preferably a little earlier. Missing that 15 minute window can literally add an hour to the trip, so time is of the essence.

With a carload of people up and ready to go, the boy petulantly said, "just leave without me." So they did. I kind of get that part of it. But they also take his phone. Just to be a dickish and punitive. Just to pile on.

Again, imagine that for a minute. A 12 year old boy is left alone in the house with both parents out of town. His means of communication is taken away. Word is not left with a neighbor or a friend that he's on his own, to keep an eye out just in case. If there's an emergency, no one can get in touch with him. If there is an emergency on his end, he's left to fend for himself.

He remembers that the Amazon Echo is hooked up to the step-mother's phone contacts, so that is how he manages to reach you.

You could try to get someone to go get him, but you can't call him to give him a head's up. Nonetheless, a friend generously agrees to go check on him and take him home, but when he knocks on the door nobody answers - the boy went back to sleep and didn't hear anything.

The boy needs you. There's nothing to do but go back to Denver.

On the way, you call and ask what happened.

"He was being a jerk and holding everybody up, so we left him."

"But why did you take his phone? Aren't you concerned about what could happen if there's an emergency and he can't call anyone and no one can call him?"

He laughs and says, "I guess not," which just about sends you into orbit.

You're quiet for a second and then ask, "don't you care about what happens to him? Don't you love him?"

"Not really," he responds.

"How can you say that about your son?" you ask.

"You don't know what he's like," he says.

So there it is. He's a father who isn't interested in being a father when things are difficult or inconvenient. His love, to the extent he is capable of it, is conditional. He seems unconcerned with his son's safety. He doesn't understand that being a good parent means gutting it out when adolescents act like normal adolescents - i.e., assholes.

You pick up the boy. You take all of his things and all of his clothes. The poster of the earth viewed from the surface of the moon - a gift that his grandfather bought him at the Air & Space Museum - is removed from the wall and brought home.

Everything has come very clearly into focus. Because you didn't want to accept that you failed, you have spent years trying and trying and trying again to repair the relationship, to keep lines of communication open, to get them into therapy to work out their differences. The parent-child relationship is so important. Boys need their fathers. Blah blah blah.

You have tried to talk yourself into believing that his horrible abusive childhood left him somewhat emotionally stunted and not good at resolving conflict, but that deep down, he's a good person. A good father. That your kids are OK with him.

But you realize that you are beating your head against the wall. You are the only one making the effort. You are Don Quixote, tilting at windmills.

The truth is, he's a terrible person and a terrible father. Your son is not OK with him. You did choose badly. You did fail.

That realization is heartbreaking, but also liberating. Your path forward is clear. You now know that there's no point in trying to force him to be someone he's not capable of being.

The boy has you, and that will be enough.

It's been a hell of a time

I've been thinking for a while about what I'm going to do with this blog. I've been writing it for 13 1/2 years. It's been a record of my life and my thoughts for a long time. It chronicled my marriage. I've written about my kids since they were born.

But my kids are now at an age when I don't feel like their stories are mine to tell. Stories about Zeke flirting shamelessly with my friends were adorable when he wasn't even two. But it's not fair to talk about his flirting habits now, when he's 12 and in the throes of middle school drama. When anything and everything is embarrassing.

Suffice it to say that middle school girls are a fucking nightmare. I feel like I can say this, having been one once.

Josie isn't quite at the point of being mortified by discussion of her life's foibles, but I still think that she's entitled to her privacy.

As for me, I've always felt like an open book, but it's hard to write about certain aspects of my life when this is not an anonymous blog. People who read this know who I am. I work for a government entity that is highly political. I've written what I thought were incredibly innocuous posts and gotten snarky pushback from individuals in the community where I work.

But then I was recently chatting with a colleague who I don't know very well, and she said, "I've been reading your blog! I really love it. I love your voice. I love the way you write. You're funny."

I was flattered and encouraged. We talked a little bit about writing - she's a blogger too - and I lamented that I was feeling bottled up because the things that I have always written about - my relationships, my kids, funny stories involving foul language - feel off-limits for one reason or another. She understood, but told me I should write anyway.

So I will keep writing. I want to write more. I find it therapeutic.

There have been all kinds of things buzzing around in my brain lately - I've been dealing with a lot of shit, much of it of the deja-vu-all-over-again variety. But in the dawn of a new decade, it feels like a good time to do a little retrospective. I was thinking about it and then Lisa did one and now I'm inspired to do my own. (Love you, Lis! xoxo)

The decade got off to a rough start. And looking back, it never really got better. It's been a hard ten years.

At the start of 2010, I had a newborn baby and a toddler, a husband who was working out of town during the week, a job that I hated, and we were broke from the housing crash and the move from Hawaii. Jason got pneumonia in January. Emma had her awful accident in March. We managed to buy our house (now my house) before the short sale on the Hawaii house trashed our credit for a few years. I changed jobs in November. I was constantly exhausted and feeling like I was hanging on by a weak thread. But there was a big bright spot - I went to an India reunion and reconnected with all of my old friends, most of whom I hadn't seen in at least 15 or 20 years. It was magical.

Things felt somewhat calmer and more normalized in 2011, though I was still a single parent during the week and feeling generally overwhelmed. There were some bright spots - I started skiing more and grew to really love it. Emma got better.

In 2012 and 2013 we started to explore Colorado more. We did some camping, which the kids loved, especially when it involved me getting a speeding ticket.

But I was sinking into depression because I was so unhappy in my marriage. So, so unhappy. I was miserable and not taking good care of myself and even had a scare when I thought I had brain cancer (it turned out to be silent migraines).

The true annus horribilis was, obviously, 2014. The worst year of my life, no question. It started with the decision that Jason and I made to split up, which was good on one hand because it needed to happen, but for financial reasons we needed to continue living together for a while. At first it was sort of fine, but then it really wasn't. When he started being overtly mean to me and trashing me in front of my family at the beach vacation that my parents had paid for him to attend, my mother told him to cut the shit. I told him it was time to move out.

And then less than a month later, Emma was dead. Even now, five years later, it still feels like a punch to the gut every time I think about it.

2015 is a fog. I wavered between despondency and depression, and feeling like I was learning how to live again. I went to another great India reunion, which made me happy. I was walking to work every morning, which was life-affirming and restorative. We went to Iceland, which was really cool. But I still frequently felt bombarded by grief and overwhelmed by loneliness.

The years since have been more of the same - crazy awfulness mixed in with some triumphs, but mostly mundane bullshit.

Lori died in 2016. So did her sister.

My kids, particularly Zeke, have struggled post-divorce.

Things haven't been all terrible, or even mostly terrible in a day-to-day sense. I was talking to my friend Jen a couple of weeks ago and as part of the "how have you been how's life treating you" conversation, she said something that stuck with me: "oh, you know. Mostly muddling through, with occasional moments of joy. You know how it is."

I do know how it is. And I have had some moments of joy, including some borne of sadness. I started climbing 14ers on the anniversary of Emma's death, first for her, and then for others. I've done some traveling, including Italy in 2017 and a wonderful trip to India with Lisa this past July. I adore my reunions and time reconnecting with old friends. I got a new job that I love. I love skiing and hiking and enjoying where I live. Trips to the beach with my family, whom I love and from whom I draw so much strength. Days in the sun and on the mountain. My children, who get more wonderful and interesting each day.

But looking back over the past ten years, I realize that I have spent a decade feeling like I'm under siege, going from crisis to crisis, difficulty to difficulty, struggle to struggle. It's been exhausting. It's been so hard.

I am turning 50 in a month and a half. It's a new decade. I am trying to make an effort to be thoughtful about what I want and need for myself. I have some trips planned. I signed up for acting classes, because I thought it would be fun and it would be something just for me.

It's a work in progress.