Hugs

This morning my mom and dad visited and gave me the best hugs. I know it was this morning because I am post menopausal and was up for an hour or two around the crack of dawn, as happens on the regular.

I have been having a rough time in the last few weeks. My therapist is having a health crisis, recovering well but slowly, so we haven’t gotten together since January. It happens that my grief has refreshed itself and the loss of my parents feels like it happened a few weeks ago rather than a few years ago.

Work has been super weird, very busy week followed by almost empty week. This wreaks havoc on my financial health. I am a self employed massage therapist and have not had a regular paycheck in 23 years, but the waves and troughs have been extreme so far this year. Unsurprisingly, I find this stressful.

Add the inflammation psoriasis causes on the palms of my hands and feet and I am done.

So done.

Last year was exhausting. I learned long ago never to say, I just have to get through this one thing . . . because there is always another thing right on its tale. Or, if it’s 2025, overlapping. But usually there is a breather and time to recover. There has been no time to recover.

Even a week on a lake in Maine didn’t help last year.

So all of my circuits are fried. I keep pushing through, I am my mothers daughter and we cope and deal, deal and cope as she used to say.

I cope. I deal. I write down things I need to do. I do them. I check them off. I make the calls. I pay the bills.

Then I sit on my couch watching TV and knitting. And everything I watch makes me cry. I’m not even kidding.

Even Big Bang Theory. I sing the theme song with a resounding BANG at the end. Which my mom found very entertaining. So every time I watch an episode or two, I think of entertaining my mom and I wish she was here to laugh at me.

Even once.

So when Jonathan and Nancy show up I run into their arms.

This morning they were a bit younger and healthier than at the end of their lives. Dad was still standing tall, before Parkinson’s and Camptocormia pulled him down into a question mark. I wrapped my arms around him and it was just as I remember a dad hug. Safety and love. No expectations. It was so lovely.

Yes, I’m crying now.

Then mom. There’s nothing like a mommy hug.

It’s not easy navigating this life post hormones, post parents.

Though I do have to say, not having to deal with the misery that was my period is pretty great, even with the hormonal bullshit that comes with that.