If I add up all the minutes and hours and days and stitch them together into years―more than fifty now―I would say on balance there has been more sweet than bitter, more joys than sorrows.
Of course, I’ve lived through loss and unwanted change. People I loved died. I lost pets and left houses that bore the imprint of my life. I moved thousands of miles from my childhood home, leaving my mother and sister behind. With a bit of luck and the romantic optimism of youth, I survived terrible early relationships until I found safe harbor with my husband the year I turned thirty. I bore children late―in my early forties―embracing the bone-tired days as an older mother of a toddler and an infant. My body changed, heavier and closer to the earth, tattooed with the scars of surgeries and the passage of time. Like every woman, I felt both melancholy and content, hopeless and full of vigor, depending on the circumstances. My teenage son fell ill with depression and we had to send him away. Somehow, I endured the black hole of his absence, until he returned home after five months, and I could be his mother again.
But even when I spent days in bed, anesthetized by grief, drinking chamomile tea and reading in my pajamas through until evening, still I knew time would carry me along whether I wanted it to or not. On those days, I let myself be carried. I relinquished control and trusted the universe to take care of me, mostly because I felt I had no other choice. In the unpredictable currents of that dark river, it was clear: You float or you drown.
Lorum ipsum
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Integer nec odio. Praesent libero. Sed cursus ante dapibus diam. Sed nisi. Nulla quis sem at nibh elementum imperdiet.
"Live or die, but don’t poison everything. The words of Saul Bellow’s epigraph open one of my favorite poetry collections by Anne Sexton."
If I add up all the minutes and hours and days and stitch them together into years―more than fifty now―I would say on balance there has been more sweet than bitter, more joys than sorrows.
Of course, I’ve lived through loss and unwanted change. People I loved died. I lost pets and left houses that bore the imprint of my life. I moved thousands of miles from my childhood home, leaving my mother and sister behind. With a bit of luck and the romantic optimism of youth, I survived terrible early relationships until I found safe harbor with my husband the year I turned thirty. I bore children late―in my early forties―embracing the bone-tired days as an older mother of a toddler and an infant. My body changed, heavier and closer to the earth, tattooed with the scars of surgeries and the passage of time. Like every woman, I felt both melancholy and content, hopeless and full of vigor, depending on the circumstances. My teenage son fell ill with depression and we had to send him away. Somehow, I endured the black hole of his absence, until he returned home after five months, and I could be his mother again.
But even when I spent days in bed, anesthetized by grief, drinking chamomile tea and reading in my pajamas through until evening, still I knew time would carry me along whether I wanted it to or not. On those days, I let myself be carried. I relinquished control and trusted the universe to take care of me, mostly because I felt I had no other choice. In the unpredictable currents of that dark river, it was clear: You float or you drown.
Lorum ipsum
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Integer nec odio. Praesent libero. Sed cursus ante dapibus diam. Sed nisi. Nulla quis sem at nibh elementum imperdiet.
If I add up all the minutes and hours and days and stitch them together into years―more than fifty now―I would say on balance there has been more sweet than bitter, more joys than sorrows.
Of course, I’ve lived through loss and unwanted change. People I loved died. I lost pets and left houses that bore the imprint of my life. I moved thousands of miles from my childhood home, leaving my mother and sister behind. With a bit of luck and the romantic optimism of youth, I survived terrible early relationships until I found safe harbor with my husband the year I turned thirty. I bore children late―in my early forties―embracing the bone-tired days as an older mother of a toddler and an infant. My body changed, heavier and closer to the earth, tattooed with the scars of surgeries and the passage of time. Like every woman, I felt both melancholy and content, hopeless and full of vigor, depending on the circumstances. My teenage son fell ill with depression and we had to send him away. Somehow, I endured the black hole of his absence, until he returned home after five months, and I could be his mother again.
But even when I spent days in bed, anesthetized by grief, drinking chamomile tea and reading in my pajamas through until evening, still I knew time would carry me along whether I wanted it to or not. On those days, I let myself be carried. I relinquished control and trusted the universe to take care of me, mostly because I felt I had no other choice. In the unpredictable currents of that dark river, it was clear: You float or you drown.
Lorum ipsum
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Integer nec odio. Praesent libero. Sed cursus ante dapibus diam. Sed nisi. Nulla quis sem at nibh elementum imperdiet.
"Live or die, but don’t poison everything. The words of Saul Bellow’s epigraph open one of my favorite poetry collections by Anne Sexton."
If I add up all the minutes and hours and days and stitch them together into years―more than fifty now―I would say on balance there has been more sweet than bitter, more joys than sorrows.
Of course, I’ve lived through loss and unwanted change. People I loved died. I lost pets and left houses that bore the imprint of my life. I moved thousands of miles from my childhood home, leaving my mother and sister behind. With a bit of luck and the romantic optimism of youth, I survived terrible early relationships until I found safe harbor with my husband the year I turned thirty. I bore children late―in my early forties―embracing the bone-tired days as an older mother of a toddler and an infant. My body changed, heavier and closer to the earth, tattooed with the scars of surgeries and the passage of time. Like every woman, I felt both melancholy and content, hopeless and full of vigor, depending on the circumstances. My teenage son fell ill with depression and we had to send him away. Somehow, I endured the black hole of his absence, until he returned home after five months, and I could be his mother again.
But even when I spent days in bed, anesthetized by grief, drinking chamomile tea and reading in my pajamas through until evening, still I knew time would carry me along whether I wanted it to or not. On those days, I let myself be carried. I relinquished control and trusted the universe to take care of me, mostly because I felt I had no other choice. In the unpredictable currents of that dark river, it was clear: You float or you drown.
Lorum ipsum
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Integer nec odio. Praesent libero. Sed cursus ante dapibus diam. Sed nisi. Nulla quis sem at nibh elementum imperdiet.
If I add up all the minutes and hours and days and stitch them together into years―more than fifty now―I would say on balance there has been more sweet than bitter, more joys than sorrows.
Of course, I’ve lived through loss and unwanted change. People I loved died. I lost pets and left houses that bore the imprint of my life. I moved thousands of miles from my childhood home, leaving my mother and sister behind. With a bit of luck and the romantic optimism of youth, I survived terrible early relationships until I found safe harbor with my husband the year I turned thirty. I bore children late―in my early forties―embracing the bone-tired days as an older mother of a toddler and an infant. My body changed, heavier and closer to the earth, tattooed with the scars of surgeries and the passage of time. Like every woman, I felt both melancholy and content, hopeless and full of vigor, depending on the circumstances. My teenage son fell ill with depression and we had to send him away. Somehow, I endured the black hole of his absence, until he returned home after five months, and I could be his mother again.
But even when I spent days in bed, anesthetized by grief, drinking chamomile tea and reading in my pajamas through until evening, still I knew time would carry me along whether I wanted it to or not. On those days, I let myself be carried. I relinquished control and trusted the universe to take care of me, mostly because I felt I had no other choice. In the unpredictable currents of that dark river, it was clear: You float or you drown.
Lorum ipsum
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Integer nec odio. Praesent libero. Sed cursus ante dapibus diam. Sed nisi. Nulla quis sem at nibh elementum imperdiet.
