Post something or another...

I had a thought, shocking right, after I posted last time...about the whole selfie thing.  The thing is, when I go for months, years, without seeing an image of myself, I forget what I look like.  I expect my external to match what I feel.  And, well, it doesn't.

That what this project is giving me....otherwise, I am not really aging gracefully because I cannot match what I feel with the changes time has brought.

So vanity, maybe....but it's different somehow.  I would be "shocked" with how I looked in photos because I hadn't looked in so long.  There it is, I'm trying to see how I actually look.

And I need new head shots....'cause, yeah....  😊


Emery's surgery when well.  His healing is going better.  Three days in though and he has hit that point of feeling like he got hit by a semi truck.  But he is good. He wrote me a letter to read while he was in surgery and given my history of people who write me long letters....well, it wasn't like that at all.  It reminded me how important writing things down can be, they don't have to be hideous "fuck you" letters from people who are too scared to talk things out.

I will only share this, since the rest is between my son and I, he thinks I need to take better care of myself, to care for me like I have cared for him and his brother.

Oh this kid.

We went to the surgeon yesterday to change bandages and to check the incision.  I have had this moment in my head and in my subconscious for quite some time.  I know how I have reacted at other milestones on this journey,  I have sometimes turned my head and cried or cried later or let it all out to Grant or whatever. As the surgeon began unpacking the bandages and his new chest was mostly revealed, I felt something different, I felt a wave of relief.  I looked at those long scars, beautifully straight and clean; and knew, felt, gratitude.

This is beautiful.
This is right.
This is Emery.

I realized later that the other times I had cried were not really grief as I had thought, they were tears for the long painful journey this child of mine had to take to becoming.

The journey doesn't end of course, but rather this is yet another starting point...and the beautiful thing is Emery knows this....the journey continues, but this week, this work, this surgery is a launch point.  Emery is right, it is time I let a lot of things go, fear, hurts, regrets, and responsibility for how everyone else felt or feels.  And our journey continues too, as Mother and Son.  We know we are never "done." This kid, more than any other lesson in my life really embodies the idea that you aren't done when you reach a goal, even a momentous one such as this. We are not suddenly "ok" if we reach a certain weight, or amount in the bank, or have a partner, or have that degree, or win whatever we are trying to win; we are "ok" only if we keep working on becoming, becoming....us.