Snowy Saturday
What a full day. Mostly good with some tough moments mixed in. My girlfriend (and her 3yo son) who joins us for gymnastics was a good friend with J as well. So after pushing the boys off to class, we sat and talked. It was helpful just to say things out loud and mull them over with another person who understood.
Then each of us was off to our crazy full, pre-christmas Saturdays. C and I split the boys up and went on errands. I took my little C shopping for presents, and he was surprisingly chipper and compliant. When we got home, our first snowfall was coming down and by the time they woke from naps, it was 3-4″ deep and perfectly sticky.
My workout today was pulling the two of them on the sled all over the yard. Again, mom, again!! And making snowball after snowball for them to throw at me or the other. Even big C joined in briefly.
I was tempted to drink wine at dinner. C made a very delicious, weekend wine-friendly meal – thick-cut sirloin (rare, my favorite), risotto, roasted cauliflower and sautéed mushrooms. Doesn’t a nice red sound perfect with that? And of course, he had one open. But no, tart cherry juice on ice had to do the trick.
Then, after boys went down, I took on the project of stripping the bench I found on Craigslist, in the hopes of turning it into a mini puppet theatre and dress-up storage. My first time stripping, and it was a lot harder and more physical than I’d imagined. I worked my ass off on that for 3 hours and it’s only 1/2 way done. Even ended up running out to the store at 10pm to find more stripper when I ran out (and it was nice to have that option, being sober).
As I worked, and strained, and scrapped away, I realized that it was therapeutic, almost a form of meditation. And I thought about J. I thought about our friends who are affected. How he died. The finality of it. And I channeled the pain into the work.
I’m exhausted now, but it feels good.