I have had the distinct feeling through much of my life that I was living in the "before". You know. In the movies, the overly sunny, smiley-faced, hazy-around the edges, warm-fuzzy scenes before the Zombie Apocalypse hits and the whole thing takes a dramatic left turn. In the movies, you know that the "before" never lasts. It's not the actual story. It's the background, the happiness meant to make the "after" more shocking. Well, I've always felt that I lived the majority of my life in the "before". I have had a blessed life. I was born into a family that was stable and loving. I wanted nothing as a child, in fact had an idyllic childhood full of happy memories. My extended family was warm and fun and close - grandma, grandpa, aunts, uncles cousins were very much a part of my daily life. I went to a good school, where I made good friends, and made good choices. Went to college on a full ride, graduated with an advanced degree with nearly no debt, found a career that I loved and brought me joy. Not to say there weren't rough patches. This is Earth. There are going to be rough patches. But those rough patches were negligible in the big picture. It took what I considered a long time to find a spouse, but he came and we married when I was 26. It also took what I considered a long time to start a family. Five years. But eventually, at age 32, I became a mother. It was, bar none, the happiest day of my life, despite surgeries and NICUs and infant kidney issues. Despite four months of bedrest prior, despite a month of NICU after, despite extreme deconditioning and a long recovery for both mom and babies. I was a mom. I remember distinctly the day I was let out of the hospital after the boys' birth. Rob took me for a ride in the car to Presque Isle, and as we drove around he asked if I had any of that post-partum depression he'd read so much about. "NO!" I nearly screamed. "I am the luckiest mom in the world! All those poor saps get only one baby at a time. I get TWO!" I was so so so excited to start our family life.
While the boys were babies, I also remember Rob asking nearly nightly "do you think they're going to stick?" We were so in love with these two little humans, we were terrified they'd be taken away from us. After years of infertility, there was no taking these two for granted, that's for sure. Even as we grappled with this new-found overwhelming love that comes with parenthood, we knew that this felt like "before". Adding a long-awaited daughter four years later just intensified the feeling.
Back in college, I remember an assignment where we were to write out our "life plan"... what we dreamt of and planned for our lives. This was easy for me - I had my "plan" since I was little. Grow up. Go to college. Get married. Start a career that I loved. Start a family. Create for my family the same idyllic childhood granted myself. The End. That was my plan, and it was executed with gusto. Everything I did was geared toward the ultimate plan. It was my PURPOSE, to create this life. It was not perfect, and it was sure as heck not executed as well I would've liked. My role as a wife and mother was particularly more challenging to me than I had planned. As important as those roles were to me, I found that I wasn't very good at them. Lots of my friends were far better wives and mothers than I. They could keep a clean house, plan the perfect party, were always available to take their kid to this event or that event, were far more intentional at RAISING their children than I was. I may not have lived up to my own ideal, but was still focused on the goal, executing the life plan. It was my purpose. It was my direction. It's who I was.
Things started to change in 2020. Of course. The Pandemic brought everyone's "life as usual" to an abrupt halt. At first, though, it was fine. We still had our jobs. We had our family under our roof. We had, in fact, MORE togetherness. I suddenly had the time to do all those things I had wanted to do as a mother but never seemed to have the time for. Family game nights, dinner on the table every night, craft projects, daily walks with my husband. All the things. We weathered the start of that storm pretty well. Things outside our home started changing, though. As people huddled in place with their "germ pods", friendships started dying off one by one. Work was sporadic and certainly different, with masks and viral wipes, and isolated treatment sessions or virtual sessions. Church was absent completely, and along with it my spiritual food and sense of community. When life started back up again in fits and starts, things were not the same. Not by a long shot.
In the years since, the relationships that brought me joy and purpose have died, one by one. Friends have drifted away, moved away, gotten too busy. There are no monthly meetings over coffee with friends, chats after mass over doughnuts, or even daily texts to see how life is going. I have been to SEVEN funerals in the past year. Seven. We have lost my boys' best friend to suicide, a cousin and two favorite aunts, two small patients, and my mother in law. My heart hurts for these losses. My dad is failing, and I am 2000 miles away and unable to help. My boys have left for college and we no longer have any sense of "family". There are no family dinners, no movie nights, no games together. I miss my boys (even the one still under my roof that I literally almost NEVER see) and their friends, and the fun and laughter they brought to my world. Work continues, but there have been changes there, too, and I feel frustrated. And I realize that my "before" has ended... not with an invasion of zombies, but with the erosion of all those things that have, until this time, been important to me. I look at my life plan, and realize... I never conceived of life beyond the "before". I never wrote the "after" chapters. I don't know what "after" looks like, and as such feel unsettled, unanchored, and more than a little alone. I have been sad and crabby. It is cliche, this classic mid-life crisis. I realize that I am living through a cliche. It embarrasses me, but that doesn't make it any easier.
I am TRYING to write more chapters. I am TRYING to define the "after" and my place and purpose in it. It is a painful process, to be honest. Trying to find the joy and reason. I get glimpses. There are moments I feel it. "Oh, here's where you MATTER. Here you still make a difference in someone else's life." I will work on those things. I will try to find my place, but it is disorienting. I am still overwhelmingly blessed. I can't forget that. I don't forget that. The blessings are real and abundant, and I need to focus even more on those. But there is an active grieving process that permeates my days, at the loss of all that was. Please be patient as I work through that
