Listen, I have some questions for you, should you feel like offering some advice.

• For 10 years, we’ve been in this house. Two remodels, two children (projects that are nearly equal in expense and stress, I must say), countless days sitting in the yard and enjoying our cozy little yellow house. I’m eager to see what adventures await us, but I’m terribly bittersweet about saying goodbye. Do you have any ideas for capturing mementos of a home? I’ve taken a bunch of photos, of course, but … I don’t know, maybe rip out a chunk of the foundation so I can scrapbook it into a I’M JUST KIDDING but seriously, any thoughts?

• Riley’s last day of school is on Friday—he’s leaving about a month before the school year ends, and I’d like to send something into class to mark the occasion. Usually birthdays are celebrated with cupcakes or similar treats, and that seems like the easiest way to go, but, well, any other ideas that don’t involve me spending $500 (there are around 26 kids in class) or cooking anything (because 1) NO and 2) all my kitchen shit has now been wedged in like 45 different boxes that are all helpfully labeled KITCHEN)?

• Do you have tips, in general, for move day? I’m thinking I should put the stuff we’ll want right away (IE, all the stuff that has yet to be packed now, like frequently-used clothes, toiletries, toys, and the coffeemaker) in special boxes so I can unpack those right away, right? Can the cat just be wedged in a cat carrier for the drive down (5 hours or so)? We have some movers hired to help us load the truck, should we also hire helpers to unload or does that part tend to go a little easier?

• Do you have any Xanax I can borrow because honestly these Bagel Crisps only do so much?

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and the follow-up, just-for-the-fuck-of-it photo:

It smiles on command or it gets the Mini-14.

I don’t love Mother’s Day, do you? God, the pressure. Social media, in particular, has shaped this so-called holiday into a sort of competition. You can say it doesn’t exist, but it’s there. Who got the most thoughtful gift? Who has the most beautiful photos?

I’m not exempt at all, in fact, I use Mother’s Day as the one date per year when I absolutely demand a photo of me and the boys. It always, always turns to shit—grumpy expressions, increasingly irritated demands—and what the hell, self. If Mother’s Day should be about anything, it surely shouldn’t involve me blow-drying my hair and barking at my kids.

It seems a little bogus, this idea of forcing loved ones to momentarily stop taking for granted all the mothering mothery things we do, and to be honest, I don’t want picture-perfect gifts or bed-breakfasts. If anything, I’d love a hotel room to myself, with a pile of shitty magazines and 11 PM room service.

We’re not supposed to want that, of course. How awful would that be, to ask that our one gift be this: to shed, briefly, the confines of motherhood? To utterly abandon the expectations of living a perfect family life and dive wholeheartedly in the direction of pure selfishness?

(Ahhhhh, but still.)

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We knew we couldn’t expect the same situation at a different company, and JB’s new health plan will cost us quite a bit out of pocket each month. It’s not ideal, but the ability to chase down our dreams was worth it.

The problem is, the insurance doesn’t kick in for 90 days after his employment starts. Okay, so there’s COBRA, right? Except COBRA costs $1700 per month for us to continue our same coverage.

But what other option do we have? I have a monthly prescription for a chronic health condition that affects me pretty much not at all in my daily life, except I take a medication to manage it, and without the meds, I up my chances of experiencing certain progressive symptoms. You know, such as, for instance, oh, say, DEATH.

My pills cost over $2,000 per month, so it’s not really something I could pay out of pocket instead of paying COBRA. Plus, there’s the situation of losing coverage for more than 5 seconds which allows every subsequent provider to turn you down because ♫ pre-existing condiiiiiiition!

So it’s COBRA or private insurance, and private plans seem to be a bust so far (how about $900 per month and we’ll pay 50% of your prescription costs? Oh, let’s see, carry the FUCK, I guess not), but the problem is that there’s this period between when employer coverage ends (JB’s last day at Microsoft) and COBRA picks up (hopefully very soon, now that we spent $50 overnighting our $1700 check to them?). And that’s exactly when my goddamned prescription needed a refill and the nice Walgreens lady said, oh, hmmm, it says here you’ve been denied coverage?

I tell you this just so I can rant somewhere, to someone, about the deeply painful fuck-upedness of our healthcare system and how it keeps people from taking chances on new jobs and starting their own businesses and sometimes kills people stone cold fucking dead because they can’t afford what they need. I’m lucky that we can go and put a $2000 prescription on our credit card, if we have to, and hope like hell COBRA reimburses us, but what a ridiculous situation. What a shitty deal it is to be waiting for a phone call from my doctor to advise me on the risk of a short-term treatment interruption. What a broken, stupid system where providers are doing everything they can to get out of paying what they’re supposed to, pharmaceutical companies are charging criminally inflated prices for life-saving drugs, and thousands upon thousands have no healthcare whatsoever.

Also, I feel guilty. You know? Or maybe you don’t, I’m not saying it makes sense. But I feel guilty that I am the one causing our family all this expense and worry and it just doesn’t seem like it should have to be this goddamned hard.

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Captain America. Annoyingly gym-addicted, votes Republican, is forever pining for his ex. Waxes his chest.

Thor. Favorite activities include: smoking a bowl then describing the unparalleled genius of Metallica’s Ride the Lightning album, calling in sick to his job at Guitar Center, hitting you up for rent money.

Ironman. Entertaining to be around until you realize his favorite person to talk to is himself. Proposes a threesome with your best friend. Wears expensive loafers without socks.

Hawkeye. Has a large collection of military memorabilia. Claims MREs actually taste good. Inevitably demands to show off his “William Tell” technique after he’s had a few beers. Prone to erectile dysfunction.

Loki. Uses your hair gel. Owns 5200 Europop CDs. Says his favorite author is Ayn Rand.

Bruce Banner. Incapable of wearing a crisply ironed article of clothing, has the tendency to gaze soulfully over the edge of a wineglass. Gets pissed easily, but amazing makeup sex.

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I know he only said it because I gave him a giant LEGO set (stored under our bed since before Christmas when I insisted that everyone had enough presents already) to play with and I bought them ice cream two three days in a row and I let them eat chips in the living room AND I spent like 2 hours last night playing dumb YouTube videos, but fuck it, I’ll take it. I NEVER GET TO BE THE FUNNER ONE.

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There are the existing boxes and things that have yet to be packed and all of our furniture and also everything in here:

I succumbed to logistics-related panic yesterday and we decided JB would drive a trailer full of stuff when he heads to Eugene this weekend and maybe we’ll end up doing that again, depending on what kind of dent it makes, but my biggest fear is that come May 25th, we’ll fill up the big yellow Penske and find that we don’t have quite enough room.

And really, that’s a valid concern because it would obviously suck, but I’m pretty sure I’m laser-focused on the packing situation because it’s marginally easier than freaking out about the big picture of moving into a house with a short-term lease and renting vs. buying and where it is, exactly, we’ll be living when Riley’s school starts at the end of summer. Will all the pieces eventually fit? Or will we look back and think, damn, we should have planned that better?

I don’t know, and I guess that’s the theme of this whole move: stepping outside our comfort zones and making uncertain decisions based on what limited information we have. Sometimes I’m so excited I can’t wait to see what happens next. But jesus, sometimes I just want to flip past the stressful part of this story to the part where it all works out just fine.

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Anyway. One of the assignments involved putting a message out into the world. I chose the section of a grocery store where I hoped it would be discovered by a frazzled new mom who might appreciate a random note from the universe:

My favorite assignment, though, was to ‘create a clearing.’ This was described in the class as:

A clearing is a wide open empty space in your life that is ready for something new or amazing to emerge. A clearing can be a cleaned-out closet or a regularly unscheduled Saturday. A clearing can be dissolving an unproductive business partnership or going to bed early two days in a row. A clearing can be saying no to a pesky friend or saying yes to a forbidden treat. A clearing can be as simple as taking out the trash or as serious as leaving a job or ending a not-so healthy relationship. A clearing can be recycling that piece of furniture you never really liked, not for one second.

However you choose to create your clearing, the point is that you let go of something in your life that has no purpose anymore, drains your energy, or draws your attention in a direction that leaves you feeling more burdened than free.

Man, that one really spoke to me. I was still at Workplace then, frustrated and unhappy and feeling trapped in a bad situation I couldn’t seem to improve. So my interpretation of the assignment was to clear the living shit out of my office. I cleaned all the clutter and junk—every drawer, every shelf. I recycled things I no longer needed. I dusted. I took home every knick-knack and keepsake. I removed every single photo, everything about the room that made it mine, because I wanted all my energy to be focused on me leaving that place.

Coworkers jokingly asked me if I was quitting, and I laughed and said of course not.

Six months later, I did.

I think about that assignment a lot. I mean, I’m not saying the simple act of tidying up my office made a difference … but who knows. Maybe it did. Maybe that was the start of a brand new path, one that eventually led us to the place we are now. If I was still tied to that job, there’s no way we’d be moving to Oregon.

Dreams never die. A-fucking-men.

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Apparently Dylan had complained of a headache, then sat up in bed and BLOOORP. Also, I’m sorry to report he’d eaten hotdogs beforehand, and I don’t know what it is about hotdogs, but they never dissolve. NEVER. Barfed hotdogs look exactly like chewed hotdogs, and even the barfdog-pieces will remain in the bottom of the washing machine, wholly untouched by the laundering process, until you call on your last mental reserve and wipe them out with a paper towel.

(I complained about the hotdog disaster on Twitter and several people were like “EWWW” and “THANKS FOR THE MENTAL IMAGE!” and I was like, oh, am I supposed to feel bad about grossing you out? Because I’m pretty sure sharing the burden of my personal trauma and disgust is exactly what Twitter’s for.)

We’d planned a short trip east to Cle Elum for the next day and when Dylan seemed perfectly fine in the morning, off we went to explore some cool graveyards and marvel at the presence of an actual push-button telephone in the hotel room. Fast forward to 8 PM that night—exactly 24 hours after Dylan’s pukeplosion—and Riley suddenly complained of a headache. Dun dun dunnnnnn.

After Riley’s equally dramatic but thankfully bathroom-contained eruption, he too fell asleep and was perfectly fine the next morning. Have you ever heard of a virus like that? Sudden onset headache, Puke Attack, then back to normal the next day? I don’t know what the hell that was all about, but I guess I’m glad it was short-lived.

PS: The front of Dylan’s collarbone brace got barfed on so we had to wash it and then it shrunk and kept coming undone so we drove to the weekend clinic and begged for a new one and they gave us one in a larger size and it doesn’t fit very well either and oh god, he’s going to look like Quasimodo for-fucking-ever, isn’t he?

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Anyway. Dylan appears to be no worse for wear and hasn’t even complained about the brace, which has been surprising. He’s bummed he can’t ride his bike or go to swimming lessons right now, but 10 days isn’t so bad. (I remember cracking my own ankle as a kid right at the beginning of summer, and having to wear a plastic bag over my sweltering cast every time we went to the beach. That was the summer I learned about sponge baths and the genital euphemism of “possible,” as defined by my grandmother: “Wash as far up as possible, as far down as possible, and possible.”)

It’s hard not to feel guilty about Dylan’s injury, or at least question, repeatedly, our possibly ill-conceived decision to build a ramp for him to hurtle over at top speed. I mean, I kind of knew it was just a matter of time until he crashed in a more serious fashion than his usual dramatic but minor tumbles. But then again, he’s been having so much fun, and really, he’s been getting really good at it. Um, except for that one time when he fell and broke his collarbone.

You know what I thought of last night, though, when Dylan woke up around 1 AM, whimpering, and we gave him some ibuprofen and I went back to bed and my brain went GUILTTILTGUILTTILT, is this story I just covered the other day at The Stir about a baby girl who has spinal muscular atrophy and isn’t expected to live past 18 months. Her parents have a blog where they’re documenting her life and keeping a sort of bucket list for her. Some of the items are on the fanciful side—swim with dolphins, that kind of thing—but many are heartbreakingly simple. Moments we take for granted that our children will experience: play dress up, make s’mores, play hide & seek.

Ride a bicycle is on there. Man, I can only imagine that this little girl’s parents would love to deal with the easily-fixed situation of their child cracking a collarbone while joyously riding her bike at top speed.

So: no more guilt. Dylan’s just fine, and he’s raring to get back on his bike, and I’m not going to hover and cluck when he eventually does so. (Well. Not TOO much, anyway.) And if I start fantasizing about sealing him in bubble wrap and slapping a set of training wheels back on, I’m going to remember this quote from Mr. Gonzo himself, Hunter S. Thompson: Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!”

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Plus this:

Equals this:

And 10 days of this:

AAAGGGGH. Anyone have a broken bone story to make me feel less guilt-ridden and awful?

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