I am sometimes the person that leaves the kitchen table without cleaning it off.
Dreading therapy this morning because I know it will be the same thing that I always talk about. I dread therapy this morning because I think wow this is going to be boring for the both of us.
Telling my partner, mid-laugh, that life in this apartment with the girls is not unlike a Cassavetes film with Pia as Gena Rowlands or me as Gena Rowlands or sometimes both of us as Gena at the same time.
Practicing boundary-setting by telling my children that “no” isn’t personal. It’s a practice. One of them really hates it when I say stuff like that. She doesn’t like much of what I do. I am unpopular, often.
Writing three sentences at the playground yesterday, Maewyn says them aloud for me while I scribble.
That cloud is humungus.
I’m going to watch it.
This is going to take a while.
Calling me on the pretend phone, Pia tells me how disappointed she is that I didn’t save all their baby toys. I calmly explain how much stuff we would have if I had kept everything we’d ever been given but that answer is unsatisfying. She doesn’t scream through the phone, though, there’s just silence. I say, I’m sorry, laying it down like a blanket over her body. Then, after a very civil exchange of ideas with space in between them to breathe, she says she has to go and we hang up. She appears from around the corner, soft and smiling.