Marathon Monday

I woke up early that day, because I had to take the T to work out in Newton when I usually drove.  Commonwealth Ave was closed for the marathon and it would have taken me twice as long to reroute my commute by car than it would to take public transportation to my suburban nanny job.  As I waited for the train in the cool underground at Central Square, I saw my first marathoner, in his bib and shoes and high-tech warmup jacket already unzipped, 80 degrees and rising on that sunny April day.  I giddily wished him luck and he acknowledged me with a brief nod, far too zoned in to care.

A couple hours later, with the mercury pushing 90 now, I arduously wrestled two five-month-olds into their double stroller, and set off.  Newton residents rally for the marathoners with ferocity, since their town heralds Heartbreak Hill, the Boston marathon's notorious soul-crushing ascent at mile 20 when the glycogen is gone and you want to die more than you ever have before.  By the time I had walked the mile and a half to where the runners were streaming by, I was drenched in sweat and so were my cranky charges.  I squinted through my cheap sunglasses as I wrangled the enormous stroller through the crowd until we could get some visibility (shade was long since gone).  And then I saw them.  I saw the runners, faces purple and eyes with a look of mingled desperation, fear, and wild determination, some of them dripping in sweat and some - terrifyingly - dry.  I heard people around me ringing cowbells and shouting, and my heart swelled and something in me rose fighting to the surface and spoke in a small, quiet voice, What if you could do that?

What if, indeed.

I periodically checked on the twins for the next thirty minutes we stayed, but my heart was in the street, with those who were limping by.  It looked horrible, it looked painful, it looked impossible, but something in me thought, hey what if.

I eventually dragged myself away from the sidelines and hefted the babies back home.  The day went on with lunch and naps and a long ride home on the packed green line.  Weeks and months followed, and I struggled with food and eating enough to survive and not eating enough to get sick and I moved to New Haven and finally, one day, I answered that little voice inside that asked What if.  And on that day, I went out for a run.

Yesterday, when I finally collapsed on the couch after clinical and glanced at a few of the images from yesterday's horror and H. updated me on the body count and all that had happened, I started to cry.  I remembered the sight of those people - nay, heroes - running last year and how it changed something in me and how much that meant to me.  I remembered Boston, and how even though I only lived there eight months, it became home to me and I grew territorial and protective over its quirks and charms.  And I thought of how hard last weekend was, at only half of that impossible distance and how much it hurt and how much I wanted to die but also - that I did it, and that I was proud, and that I would (probably) do it again.  I thought of all of that and then I thought of every person affected by the bombings and I thought, How can someone want to attack something so good and so pure as the greatest footrace in the world?

And I don't have an answer for that one.

But tonight, when I get home from school, I will walk down the street and pick up the dog.  I will put on my sneakers and I will go for a run.  And my foot still twinges from last week, and my hip flexors are achy and sore, but so what.  The miles keep going, and maybe, someday, enough of them will build up that I'll get a crazy idea and I'll run enough marathons to qualify for Boston and I'll go back to the city I love, and I will ask myself what the hell was I thinking as I cruise through Newton towards Heartbreak Hill.  Maybe.  And certainly, what if.

The End.

When broken bones heal, so it is said, they are stronger than the original bone.  The new growth, the knitting together of tissue and fibers that seal a fractured limb is supposedly more resistant to future breaks.

Not so with hearts.  A healed heart, one that has relearned how to trust, how to love, how to beat in concert with someone else's heart is no more resistant to the pain of breaking again than a taped-together photograph doesn't show where it was ripped.

The scars open, the pain pours in, and your body is flooded with the aching, numbing sensation of wretched familiarity.  Ah yes, you remember.  This is how I fall apart.  This is how it feels to lose it all.

"I love you, Cait, but I just can't do this anymore."

Thud, thud, thud.  The blood pounded in my ears as I heard these words, the words I never thought I'd hear again, the words she swore she'd never say, the words that ended it all.


"Why?" was the only thing I could think to say.

Because I didn't support her enough, I didn't do enough, I couldn't be what she wanted or needed or hoped for, especially over the last five months of incredible difficulty, sickness, and loneliness (for both of us).

I want to fight for this, I told her.  I'll do whatever it takes.  I made a promise to you when you asked me to marry you, and that promise was that I would always, always fight to make this work between us because there is nothing that means more to me than being with you.  I've been fighting so hard for us these last few months, she said.  So have I, Alix.  So. Have. I.  Every day that I got out of bed when I didn't feel like I could, I was fighting for us.  Every time I ate a meal when the demons in my head were screaming, telling me not to, I was fighting for us.  Even when I made the incredibly hard decision to move to Boston in order to surround myself with a support network to help me grow stronger and healthier, that was me fighting for us.  I won the battles but lost the war.

I asked if she loved me.  She said that she did.  I said good-bye.
I hung up the phone.
I grabbed a pillow, clutching it to my heaving torso and called - who else? - my mother.
"Mama," I gasped.  "I need you.  I'm coming home."

Eight hours of empty highway stretched before me.  Dry-eyed, I drove and drove and drove, until, shaking, I collapsed into my parents' warm bed.  The dam broke.  I cried like I've never cried before until, finally, I was able to get the words out as I tried to explain what I couldn't (and will probably never completely) understand.  "I tried so hard," I told my mama.  "I tried so hard.  I did the best I could, every day, to support her, to be there for her, to be what she needed.  Why wasn't it enough?  Why wasn't I enough?"

"Sometimes," she softly said, holding my hand with both of hers, "sometimes, there are needs and voids in people that nothing and nobody can fill."
It hit me then - "I can't bring back Alix's mom," I said, "and I can't change the hurt in her family, and I can't take away her sickness."
"No, you can't," my mother said.  "No one can."

A wave of peace washed through me.  This isn't about me, I realized.  This is not my fault, I realized.  Everyone has demons.  And we are all, every day, fighting like hell against them.  I will fight my fights, I realized, but I cannot fight hers too.

I gave it everything I had, and then some, and when push came to shove, I was ready to keep fighting for what we had.

I will mourn the future that she and I had planned.  I will grieve for the children that will never be ours, the dreams that will never be fulfilled, and the love that could have grown over the decades to come.  I will cry when I hear our songs, when I see old photos of us, and when I see my engagement ring tucked away in my nightstand drawer.

But I will also get up, every day, and keep fighting.  My feet will hit the floor and the fight will begin.  Because in the end, what matters is this:

I am enough.

Running Out of Love

In the shitstorm that was my life at the end of July, I never really talked about my job with the boys ending except to mention it here.  Becoming suddenly unemployed wasn't exactly in the plan, given the new scope of my financial responsibilities, but its event was cruelly ironic, nonetheless.  You see, I had been slowly gearing myself up to quit, only to be unceremoniously dumped before I could leave of my own volition.  Don't get me wrong, I'd so much rather have a job like this end because of circumstances beyond my (or my boss's) control then have to go through the pain and awkwardness of quitting - let alone be fired because I wasn't up to snuff.  Shock and panic about finances aside, the overwhelming emotion I felt about the job ending was very simple: relief.  It is only in retrospect that I can look at my time working with LM, Bee, and Bean and see that for as much as I enjoyed the good times with them, mostly I felt stressed, saddened, and exhausted by the whole experience.  This isn't easy for me to admit.  After all, I pride myself on being good with kids just as much as I equate my self-worth with my ability to be spectacular at whatever I take on.  And the cold, hard truth of it is that I was not the best nanny I could be for those boys.  Yes, I worked my butt off.  Yes, I did a good job.  Better than good, in fact.  But not the best. 

Here's what's tough: being the best nanny you can be means giving of yourself to children as if they were your own.  It means opening your heart to loving them with a devotion and fierceness that transcends that of a normal caregiver, in order that you can weather the tough times, discipline fairly, be endlessly patient, and come back the next day ready to do it all again.  I did all of those things - with Monkey.  When I left him, something broke inside of me.  I couldn't love my new boys the way I loved Monkey.  I couldn't jump into their midst and deftly love, care, and nourish them the way I had been doing for my little guy only a week previously, and for ten months before that.  I tried, though.  Oh, how I tried.  I worked hard, I fought to love them, and I was harshly, bitingly critical of myself when I was impatient or abrupt or uninspired.  Despite all of that, I couldn't fix or overcome what had broken inside me and it was the slow descent into misery that made me desperate to quit, even as I frantically pushed myself to work harder and be better.

I wrote about the good times here.  I would allude to the hard times, because it's inevitable that things are not always rosy posy with three boys under the age of four.  But there were days when I would tell LM to play by himself during quiet time while I would retreat to the bathroom and cry, counting down the hours until the day would end.  When Bean wouldn't take his bottle, I'd sometimes stare at him helplessly, barely able to muster the energy and determination to wheedle him into finishing those last few ounces.  When Bee would have a tantrum, it was often all I could do to not start pitching a fit right beside him, as exhausted and frustrated as I was.

The fact of the matter is, what broke inside me when I left Monkey is still broken.  I didn't love the boys the way I loved him.  I wasn't able to give of myself so completely, knowing what it feels like to leave that behind.  The worry and fear I hold close to my heart right now is that I'll never be able to love like that again - even with my own babies.  I fear that what's broken won't ever be fixed, and that my own children will suffer because of it.  Did I play fast and loose with my ability to love?  Did I squander my chances?  I can't bear this, thinking that the answer is yes.

The Expiration Date

Exactly eleven months from today, Alix and I will be getting married.  We picked the date and the venue (in Connecticut) months ago, for a lot of reasons: it was one of the closest states where same sex marriage was legal (no longer true, thanks NY!), it was the weekend after Alix's graduation from law school, it was close to the end of my contract (for the job I no longer have), and it seemed like a nice time of year to get married.  Given the recent legalization of same sex marriage in New York and the fact that eleven months seems like an awfully long time to wait, who knows what we'll decide to do.  Regardless of when or where our wedding takes place, there is one very important person who won't be there.  Even had Alix and I married the day we met, her mother still wouldn't have been there to see it.

Four years ago today, Alix's mom died of ovarian cancer.  Four years may sound like a long time.  It's not.  It's seconds.  It's moments.  It's definitely not long enough to forget how it felt to watch your own mother take her last breath after fighting an epic battle against a monster that was determined to steal her away from this world long before her time.  It's not enough time to forget how it felt to pack up the various belongings and personal detritus that had accumulated in the last room at the end of the hall on the oncology ward of Lenox Hill after months of visiting every day.  It's not enough time to forget how it felt to walk out into the bright sunshine of a beautiful June day and marvel, incredulous, at the ability of the world to just keep going while yours was crashing down around you. 

The truth is, there is no expiration date on grief.  There is no statute of limitation.  It's there, and it's there to stay.  It settles in, comfortably, finding its home in your head and your heart and it catches you unaware just as often as the times when you can feel it coming.  Is June 26th a sad day?  It sure is.  But so are the days when Alix gets a great grade on a test and thinks - without thinking - "Oh, I'm gonna call Mom and tell her about that!"  Or the times when we cook her lentil soup and think about how nice it would be to invite her over to share it with us after a long day at work.

I don't pretend to know what it feels like to hold a grief so large and untouchable that it can consume you.  But in my own way, I grieve for the death of Alix's mom.  I think of all the moments that have happened and will happen that I wish she could be there for.  When we got engaged, when we get married, when our children are born - these are the obvious ones.  But there are smaller moments too, that I wish she could be there for.  My hopes, and Alix's, are in vain.

So, Tina, although you never knew me, I hope that you know this: I love your daughter.  I love her fiercely, completely, and with everything I've got.  There isn't a single thing I wouldn't do for her and if I can bring her joy in this life and make the load she bears just a little lighter, then I will have succeeded.  I wish I got to meet you.  In my own way, I miss you.  With love, Cait