our last first tooth

I prefer my pets to people

It’s not that they are perfect.

My dog has destroyed my couch, ottoman, three pairs of my shoes, my daddy blanket, Cecilia’s daddy blanket, two of Neil’s shoes, 3 of Cecilia’s, my sheets, my new blanket, three pillows…

I STILL like that mother fucker better than people.

Today, my baby, our baby, lost his first tooth.  It seems like it took forever to happen!  But now that it came out, I want to shove it back in!  And revel in the awesomeness that is his growing up.  And the hollow that rings in my chest echoes and echoes and echoes.  John didn’t even get his first tooth.  There is that silent screaming thing I do, again.  I don’t make plans for things often.  I guess when I do, I do it without realizing.  I have always loved kids, but never planned on having them.  Mostly because I didn’t think I would ever find anyone I’d want to have kids with, anyone that would love me, anyone I wanted to be with.  I even threw my coins in the Trevi fountain in Rome and asked only for a husband.  Because I had to be sure.

As far as I can tell from this side of things, "sure" ain’t nothin’ but a deodorant.  And I’m here raising three kids on my own, going to bed night after night, getting up and going to work, and on and on ad infinitum…never having a best friend anymore.  Always having to create the safe space, never entering it.  Comforting and caring for.  How do we do it?  The single parents who are single forever?  How do you keep going?  I feel like a life vampire has been attached to my hip for three years, on and off, mostly on…sucking away at my life.  Count Rugen’s awful torture machine, set on low and made to be worn like a back pack…increasing the loss of life incrementally.  I see my hands and they seem to represent the slowing and drying of my heart.  The psoriasis hasn’t fully gone away and there are always spots that are peeling.  And I so often think to myself in a mumble how I don’t want to do this anymore.  The loneliness is a poison dart in my spine.  I got nothin’.  So I take a breath.  I go to sleep.  I try again tomorrow. 

And at least I have my pets.  Between them and, for now, my kids, I never totally sleep alone.