Battle Hymns of a Hot Mess Mom

March 2 of last year I was planning to take my children to New York and experience my “home”. Little less than 3 weeks after I started chemo. I have essentially CTRL + ALT +DEL my life for a restart.

The at home breathing treatment and the medication regiment that I am on has made me feel a million times better. I can breathe. I am back to my calendar book.

It keeps track of appointments, events, birthdays…but it’s written down old school. I’m Gen X / Millennial sometimes writing it down works better for me than just the iPhone calendar. The feel of pen to paper is a mood as the youngins’ say.

When you CTRL + ALT + DEL your whole life, somethings stop mattering. We live out of laundry baskets, the clothes are dried and clean…but the children and J dig through them like hobos.

Are the children going to school in wrinkled clothing, yep. But at least the clothes are clean. Do they need new clothes, yep. Have I taken them to get new clothes, nope. Is my daughter wearing size 6 shorts when she is a size 8, yep. I let go what I can let go of. When they complain they need socks, underwear – Amazon.com to the rescue. It’s the best that I can do. What about the other parent?

Listen nothing is 50/50 – I know who I married. And he’s just not a planner, he’s not a logistics operations type of person. He’s not into the details. It’s just not who he is. It’s not to complain but to state facts. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses – running the household isn’t his strong suit. He does his best. That’s all I can really hope for. Do I still pay the bills? Yes, if I feel sick…do I still have to log into the online banking site and get things set up, yes. We both brought our own skills to the table when we got married, home logistics and operations were the skills he brought. I say this because for a long time I was resentful. I was resentful that he didn’t do x, y, z the way I did. But when you reset your life you also get an opportunity to reset your view. This wasn’t what he brought into the marriage / partnership.

So we live out of baskets, everyone folds their own clothes if they get frustrated at digging through the baskets for clothes. You have to tell me when clothes don’t fit or if you need a replacement item. Before I would dig through their clothes. I would sort out those that were a smaller size and ask them to try it on and see how it fit before they were donated. Now it’s up to them.

Restarting is also letting go of the emotional side to things. Sometimes burying the hatchet to old misunderstandings happen in a reset. You bury it, but you may not necessarily reignite the friendship. You’re just at peace. I like to think of it as closure and moving on. There’s no ill. There’s just indifference. You don’t have to have forgiveness to move on, you just move on.

Restarting also gave me a different perspective on work. Work life balance, Work anything balance. I know I need to go back to work in order to be able to financially sustain the family. Disability has kept things VERY tight. There’s very little breathing room. Not that we can’t buy milk, but we need to choose between milk and yogurt. One or the other not both. (These are first world problems – I know so don’t come for me.) We used to be able to get milk and yogurt. Now we budget a little more.

Being hyper paranoid of getting sick now. I had L checked out to make sure that he wasn’t sick considering my lack of immune system. I’ve become C. When Covid hit C was next level, she wanted actual proof that we were vaccinated in order to let our children play together. It was a whole thing. Everyone wore masks but we “walk” together on the other side of the street. We could not share a sidewalk. Now I am C – just maybe not to that level.

I cringe when strangers tell me I have such a positive attitude about my leukemia…I’m like you just don’t know Baba Yaga. Also what’s the alternative? Cause that would be death. The mobile health nurses that saw L today said I had such a positive feel to me and wished me the very best on my recovery. I feel like a fraud. I’m a dumpster fire and Baba Yaga keeps me in check.

Is there really positivity or am I just faking it until I make it? I get depressed. I get angry. I get sad…but generally I think I keep on keeping on. Is that positive? Who knows. My restart has me just living today for today. Being grateful that I have today and making sure that I take care of me. I do my morning routines, take my walk, take my meds and mostly care for myself more.