Ruins

“You know that old hymn, Jen? The one where you sing, ‘whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul’? Why is that still so hard?”

My aunt calls once a week. Sometimes I cannot answer, too bogged down in Teams meetings, drowning in laundry, elbows deep in raw chicken, shouting up the stairs for summer children to come down and empty the dishwasher.

The last few years have taken everything from her- her beloved of 30+ years. Her precious pets. Her sight. And yet her laughter comes easily- her empathy, like water.

“How are YOU doing, Jenny-honey?” she asks, and will not accept an itinerary of kids’ summer camps and crazy dog stories.

So I tell her that I cut my oldest’s hair in my kitchen, amidst the ruins of breakfast crumbs and dog toys missing their stuffing. I tell her I watched a YouTube video 8 times to make sure I knew what I was doing, and my hands still trembled when the craft scissors hacked through the first few strands. I tell her how shocked we both were when it came out even, hugging the curve of her back like a pashmina.

I tell her I cried when she walked upstairs to shower-knowing in a few short years, she won’t be sleeping in the bedroom upstairs. Won’t pop down to the kitchen for a cup of tea or a trim or a trip to the antique store. I tell her I am too young to have a baby close to flying. I tell her I cannot wait to see what she will do, and I am not ready to let her go.

She asks me about work, and I tell her I am tired. I let my boundaries slip the last few months again and got sucked into effort and productivity cycles that are really just code for busy. I tell her I am helping a friend with some developmental editing of a memoir, and it has given some joy back to spending my time in spaces with words and lines. It has reminded me why I chose to live my life in the narrative.

Two truths:

There isn’t a person alive who isn’t in need of a good story.

There isn’t a person alive who isn’t already writing one.

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“I just spent 50 bucks on ingredients for dinner. I’m just ordering take-out from now on.”

My sister calls almost every morning. Sometimes on her way to the office. Sometimes, right after summer camp drop-offs. Sometimes we cry about the price of apples. Sometimes we laugh about the crazy things her kids say. Sometimes we craft elaborate daydreams of life without hustle, of owning cafes in quiet Amsterdam corners, of calm revolts and fleeing the country and merging our families and buying a house with an in-ground pool.

My favorite thing in the world is to make her laugh. I save the good stories for her morning commute; for her hot soy chai latte and egg white spinach wrap in the car. My favorite thing is to watch her be the Mama I always knew she wanted to be- to snuggle her grumpy baby close and whisper words to her that will shape who she becomes.

Two truths:

There isn’t a person alive who isn’t in need of a good story.

There isn’t a person alive who isn’t already writing one.

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“Crowne Animal Hospital is at capacity.”

My husband and my text thread are full of shared updates like telegraphs in mountain towns in the 40s. Our dog hasn’t moved from our bed for 24 hours. 49% of me hopes it is fatal. 51% of me is already grieving it is.

Our children begged for a dog. I, having never been the one to concede to the “fun” requests, relented, and we got the only angry, dysregulated, untrainable doodle in the tri-state area. She hates people and animals and things with wheels. She steals hot pancakes right out of the pan. She barks anxiously, obsessively, all day long. She won’t let anyone touch me. She has absolutely ruined my life, makes me cry at least twice a week, and I love her with a kind of delusional love- a kind of abusive boyfriend love- the tragic and entwining and deafening kind that you know you’ll never recover from.

When she stopped barking- and stopped eating-and stopped caring if anyone went near me, I texted my husband, who works over an hour away, to come home and take her to the vet immediately.

Feeble and listless, he half-carried her to the car. Our vet was closed; the emergency vet was at capacity. I called in a favor and a referral, and he took the long drive from which I half expected him to return alone.

“She ran to the car. She jumped out. It’s really hard convincing them there is something wrong with her.” My phone’s starburst flashes of light in the corner of my desk during my fourth meeting of the day.

500.00 and a clean blood panel later, she bounded into the back door like a freight train.

Two truths:

There isn’t a person alive who isn’t already writing a good story.

There isn’t a good story that hasn’t ruined someone a little.