Running

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I’m tired this morning. When I’m tired I often feel overwhelmed and emotional. Like everything is closer to the surface. I’m grateful that overall my son is a relatively good sleeper although he was very unsettled last night. We have him in a new crib and I wonder if that was the cause of his restlessness. He’s also developing object permanence. Or maybe teething. Or the baked beans I gave him for dinner. Who the fuck knows really. But overall he’s a pretty good sleeper.

It’s my day to have a small sleep in and go for a run while my husband looks after our son in the morning before he has to work. I wake up at ten to 8 to an email requesting payment for a pair of shoes I bought last night on eBay. I find this incredibly irritating since the auction only ended at 10:30pm. Why are you hassling me for payment already? And I find myself venting some of my tired frustration and anger at Gemma0803 who just wants her 12 quid and positive feedback for her purple shoes. I go for a run. I’m doing couch to 5K and am on week four. The walking bits are still my favourite.

I think about how I made my husband feel badly last night for him expressing annoyance at being woken up by our son again. It’s true that I demand the expression of my feelings be accepted but find it hard to accept his. I feel guilty and sad for making him feel this way. We’re both still trying not to get upset by mean things each other says in the middle of the night. Although if I’m honest, it’s more likely it’s me who says them.

I think about my mom again and how she’s not here anymore. I still have trouble believing that she died this summer although the reality of it seems to be sinking in as more time passes. I’m still dithering over trying to choose a therapist to help me process the weeks and days leading to her death. It all happened so fast.

My son was born at the beginning of April this year. We live in London and we knew the pandemic was getting worse and we were being cautious. Avoiding the Tube, walking or taking buses. Before he was born I spoke to my mom on the phone - she was supposed to fly over from Canada and see us but it was looking like she was going to have to cancel her trip as airports and borders across the world shut down. She was still talking about driving down to Florida though because she’d left her summer wardrobe down there. Thankfully she didn’t.

Lockdown happened and it’s hard to know if the intensity of those first weeks with a newborn was extra intense because of the social isolation or just intense because you now have a baby to look after and your life is turned upside down. Talking to others, perhaps it was the former. No visitors, no one to hold the baby while you showered, ate a meal together etc. But we didn’t know anything else. We got on with it. I send a new picture of our son everyday to Mom on what’s app and wait for her little response with an emoji. We keep in touch with video calls and these little messages.

In May I get the call from her. She tells me that she’s sick and that she has cancer. The bloating she complained about in March only got worse and so she eventually had a CT scan. It showed cancer in her liver, spleen, bones, lungs. Everywhere. They were still trying to figure out the primary source in order to prescribe treatment. It would be another month and a half and two other diagnoses before they settle on melanoma and she can receive immunotherapy treatment. It would prove to be too little too late. I call one of my best friends who’s mother also died of cancer years ago. We cry with each other down the phone.

Later in May Mom rings me up to tell me they think it’s sarcoma - a rare cancer of the blood that has no treatment. Her oncologist told her he was surprised she was doing as well as she was and didn’t expect her to live past the summer. We’re both in pieces as she talks through the realisation that she won’t get to see her grandchildren grow up and be a part of their lives. And that she will never get to meet the children my younger sister will have.

I think about this and nearly start to cry as I’m rounding the corner on Highbury Fields and a deep feeling of homesickness comes over me. I miss being close to my family. It’s a beautiful morning though. The sun is streaming over the Georgian terraced houses that frame the fields and the trees are beginning their subtle transition to yellow, gold, sienna and burnt umber.

I return home and my husband and I apologise to each other for things we said in the middle of the night. Then my son naps for 2.5 hours and I feel restored.