Chris and I went to a movie last night, the first I have been to in years. I checked in with Moo when we got back to see how putting Freddy to bed went for her; she always has such cute little moments to share from their time together. He was quite tired and so ready for sleep that he cut her off from reading and told her that he didn’t need to snuggle and that she could go to sleep in her own bed. What a goof. After that, we checked in about today and what was on the agenda in terms of family logistics. I reminded her that I had a mammogram in the morning and would be driving them to school cuz we needed both cars. She was like “ok mom but I really need your mammo to be uneventful, I do not have the bandwidth for more.” She’s not alone but damn if that is just not how life works.
I crawled into bed and shared what she had said with Chrissy and he concurred. Like yep yep meg’s health needs to stick to the AOK please for now. We are all doing so well right now, most days it seems like we’ve turned a corner and have moved out of the acute difficulty phase, and yet we are also at capacity. I think we all are, but maybe especially Maple and Chris. The boys and I might have a little spare room for some bullshit but the two of them are at a max and I would love not to see them adjust to take on more. No thank you.
After more than a month of dragging my feet and intermittently ranting about the broken healthcare system, I finally made a GoFundMe for Chris’s recovery and uncovered medical expenses. Chris fought like crazy for us to have incredible health care through his employer after years of bouncing around between Medicaid and the Marketplace, all while making miserable financial choices to make sure our family was covered to at least some degree. I am so thankful for the plan we have now and even so, it is incomplete. It took me seeing a GoFundMe set up for the husband of an ER doc’s cancer treatment for it to fully sink in that it really is a meta-problem, and unfortunately in our country healthcare is a for-profit system and the only way we have devised to cover the rest is through crowdfunding. Like that is the plan, the expectation now for most of us.
I like to joke that our fundraiser is called the “Sending Cancer to College Fund” because we are so focused right now on figuring out how the heck to pay for college for moo next year. We only started saving for college for our kids a little over four years ago, it seems plain to me that if we weren’t saving for that, we probably were not saving for cancer either. When I shared this hilarity with Maple she was like “well, is anyone actually saving for cancer?” To which I replied that indeed some folks are, however not many that I know, and instead of calling it their cancer savings account it is generally called saving for a “Rainy Day”. Which of course is an umbrella term for all of the sideways shit that is slated to befall all of us at unknown times and to varying degrees and so… ready or not.
I wish we had saved. For any or all of it. But I also forgive us for the impossibility of that as we have moved through life. We made the choices that felt well suited to what we were working with at all points in time leading to here. More guidance would have been cool but I cannot really lament that at this point. Hindsight is a real bitch and so I prefer to leave her alone when I am able.
Mostly, today, I am profoundly humbled by the donations that we have received from so many people. Truly. I am speechless. Rendered. People from every corner, every chapter of our lives are adding their names to the list of donors and I am so grateful and awestruck. I hope in equal measure that each of you never need it and also that I can reciprocate in kind. This process is so much more emotional than I anticipated and I am incredibly moved by the kindness, generosity, and sheer beauty of the human capacity for care and empathy and love. It all feels so infinite to me and I can only hope that I am able to keep that awareness close even in the moments when life’s delicacy is not so bright in my mind.
The other big life event in our world currently is supporting Maple as she decides where she will be heading off to for school next year. It is so big. So momentous. Witnessing her process has been lovely and revealing and I am outrageously proud of the path that she is allowing life to co-create with her. I find it hard raising kids, and especially teens, without seeing the map of my own youth in comparison and contrast to the moments and milestones as they arise for my kids. I was steered so far away from my passions and talents as a young person and it was hard to know who I was for a long time. I think I was in my thirties before I began to feel like me. Somewhere along the line, I learned that what I wanted to do wasn’t good or wasn’t right and I spent so much of my young adulthood in direct relationship with self-doubt and a pervasive sense of inadequacy.
This is a much bigger thread to pull on and maybe I will do so at some point. For now, what I have a stronger mind to convey is the privilege of watching our daughter grapple with her ability and her talent and the various pathways that present themselves in response to these distinct, sometimes but not always, overlapping parts of herself. She has had to get very clear, ya know? She is so brilliant. A capable academic. And she is also an artist. Through and through. She is constantly creating and making and has an inner world that is full of inspiration and possibility. So, yes, she will be going to art school. It wasn’t always clear but now it is and the relief that I think we all, but certainly she feels, in relationship to this knowing is real and big and profoundly palpable. We do not know which art school yet, but we will soon. She is getting close.
Ok. That is all for now. That and thank you thank you thank you. Gratitude gratitude gratitude. This life is stunningly beautiful and what a gift to know it and see it and feel it like this.
More soon. xxx,m