This Body is Bullshit

I honestly can only remember two things about Mother’s Day weekend.

Saturday I went into the city to hang out with Grace. It was a beautiful warm and sunny day. We had lunch at this place called Little Bad Wolf which was delicious, then walked around, explored, and shopped. It was a really great day. Just the two of us, no agenda, exactly what I love and needed.

Sunday was a late lunch, or maybe it was early dinner, at this little Bohemian hole-in-the-wall restaurant I never knew existed. My dad, Kathy, Anne, Matt, and me. Good food, nice time. So stuffed. On the way there, Kathy, my dad, and I had stopped at Drew’s to meet Michael, the caregiver who has now been helping Kathy out a couple days a week. My dad is not a fan. He’s having a hard time accepting it. Which is a whole thing we’re navigating.

If my memory serves me right, which it usually doesn’t, the following weekend my cousin, Heather, hosted a luncheon for her husband’s 60th birthday and her son’s high school graduation. Matt, Ken, and I went together, which was really nice. Got to see my other cousins and my aunt, ate way too much delicious food, and just enjoyed being together and spending time with Heather’s extended family.

And then — Matt and I went to Florida!

A little getaway for the two of us. Our belated celebration for both our 50th birthdays and our ten year anniversary, even though we’re creeping up on eleven and Matt is already 51. His idea. He knew exactly where to take me, Marco Island. It’s nostalgic in the deepest way because that’s where I grew up going, where my grandparents lived. We had a condo on the other side of the island from where I’m used to, but it didn’t matter. I just feel better in Florida. I breathe differently there. The water was as clear as I have ever seen it. The shelling was not great though, which was weird.

Wednesday we headed to Bonita Springs to meet up with Rusty and Heather, which has become one of my favorite traditions. They are our people in every way — same schedule, same energy, daytime sun, boating and pool, beach walking, happy hour, early dinner, early bed. They’ve always been so generous letting us stay at Heather’s parents’ beautiful home. It was perfect. All of it was perfect.

And then we came home.

Our flight got delayed over three hours. We didn’t walk in the door until nearly midnight. Grace had been with the dogs for the week but left around 2pm, expecting us home by 8:30 at the latest. By the time we got home they were absolutely starving. We got them taken care of, got into bed, and within about two hours Frank started projectile vomiting. I have never seen a dog do that. Got him settled, cleaned up, went back to bed. He was restless. We got up around 5:30 and before I could even get his breakfast together he was at the slider door getting fresh air off the deck and then projectile vomited onto the deck again. He was not himself. He was very unwell.

Off to the emergency vet, Arboretum View. $1,300 and four and a half hours later, we came home with no definitive answer. Some blood levels off, some intestinal inflammation on the x-ray, an anti-nausea injection, and fluids. Within a couple of hours he was back to himself, which felt like a small miracle.

My dad, Kathy, and George came over later. It was Memorial Day. Kathy brought an entire meal. Barbecue ribs, corn casserole, sweet potatoes, veggies, and cookie bars for dessert. My dad was content and happy being here. We started early because we were both running on nothing from the night before, so by 5:30 we were done eating and I felt bad because I know Kathy would have liked to stay longer. They headed home. My dad called me later, a little confused, sitting outside with his dog watching the sunset. Confused but not manic or scared or angry. That’s a good night for me. I just hope it was for Kathy too.

We went to bed.

The plan for today was simple: Matt would take the day off, pick up a rental car — his car is still in the shop, another long story — take Frank to his follow-up with Dr. Palmer, and I would go back to work. Frank had other plans.

When I got out of the shower, Matt was very concerned. Frank could not stand without swinging in circles. His head was bobbing. He looked like a little drunk sailor. I had no idea what was happening.

We piled in the car to drop Matt at the rental car place first. The parking lot was chaotic. I was distressed. I was not paying attention the way I should have been. And I have no idea how I did it, but I took out the corner of a parked rental car and trashed the side of my own.

Instant tears. Full breakdown. How could this be happening? We just got back from the best trip and now I have a very sick dog and I just did something so incredibly stupid.

Matt knew I was distracted. He wasn’t really angry – disappointed, maybe. We have his car already on an insurance claim for hail damage. Our house exterior is being redone because of hail damage. And now this. He stayed to deal with the accident report and the rental car situation and I headed to Dr. Palmer alone.

Dr. Palmer is the best. He came in expecting a routine follow-up from the emergency vet visit and immediately saw that something was very wrong. He looked at Frank and told me that while he could do some things in his office, what Frank really needed was a facility with higher-tech capabilities — specifically an MRI. Because what he suspected, based on what he was seeing, was either a brain tumor or a stroke.

Not something I was prepared to hear sitting alone in a vet’s office.

As I was walking out Matt was walking in. We left the rental car at Dr. Palmer’s and drove to the emergency facility in Aurora. The one that treated Gus for his cancer. I know it well. They’re wonderful. But it’s not somewhere I ever wanted to be again. Matt and I took turns crying on the way.

The doctor there was thorough. She examined him, ran tests, and concluded she believes it was a seizure. But it could be one possibly caused by a small stroke. We’re waiting on some test results to know more. An MRI would have been seven to eight thousand dollars, which was not an option. What I can tell you is that he was in really bad shape when we got there. Clearly something serious had happened neurologically. But after nearly five hours of being there, something shifted. He started snapping out of it. By the time the doctor was giving us the diagnosis, Frank was ready for a nap but only after accepting several pieces of cheese from the doctor, because he is still Frank even in crisis.

He’s made what appears to be a full recovery. For now. A big miracle.

I missed work today and I feel guilty about it. But I was where I needed to be. My kid and my dog will always be a priority. I just hope my little guy is going to be okay. And to justify it a little for myself, I did work on Memorial Day catching up on emails and verifying timecards. Plus, dealt with the ongoing poop issues while in Florida. That was shitty.

We went from “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” in about forty-eight hours.

That feels about right.

I was not expecting the response I got. You all made me blush and feel uncomfortable. Thank you.

Kevin, my brother-in-law, a partner and chief creative director at probably one of the number one ad agencies in the world, read the blog and texted me to say it’s fantastic and that I’m a good writer. I didn’t know what to do with that. I still don’t fully know what to do with that. There is no higher compliment than one coming from him on this subject. Even though maybe he was just being nice — that guy is a sweetheart. THANK YOU! I thought Aunt Susie was my only reader for a long time and honestly, I liked it that way. Less intimidating. But apparently, there are more of you now. Which is terrifying and wonderful. I’ll choose to try to focus on the wonderful.

Here’s something I want to clear up though: I am not sitting at a desk with a pen and a leather journal like some kind of put-together person. My hands barely work. You cannot read my handwriting. I am typing and voice-memoing and then putting it all together, and thank God for grammar/spellcheck because without those two things you would all be reading something that looks like a ransom note. The non-edited versions of my thoughts would make you genuinely question everything you thought you knew about me.

So… That’s the behind the scenes. You’re welcome.

I’m not an intellectual. I didn’t go away to college. I graduated high school a semester early in January of my senior year because I just wanted out. I went to COD for a while but those were the partying years, so mostly I just worked and partied and stopped going to school. I had my own apartment at 18. Grace was born when I was 23. The rest is history and also this blog.

I wish I had gone away to college. I wish I had lived in the city. I wish I hadn’t quit basketball my sophomore year of high school. I’m still obsessed with Michael Jordan. I still want to “Be Like Mike.” These are some of my regrets.

But here’s what I’m also realizing: not going to college doesn’t mean I’m not smart. It means I didn’t give myself a chance back then.

What I am — what I think I’ve always been — is aware. I notice things. I notice everything, actually. I hear things even when I don’t react. I read rooms before I commit to them. I watch people. I absorb. There’s probably a meme about this, something about how the quiet ones are always watching, and yes, that’s me, even when I’m also the loudest person in the room.

What I have — what I’ve always had — is common sense and street smarts. And I’ve come to realize that’s not nothing. That’s actually a lot. Book smarts are great but they don’t teach you how to read a person or know when something’s off before anyone has noticed. They don’t teach you how to survive hard things and come out the other side with your sense of humor intact. Life experience does that. And I have had plenty of life experience.

I’m also becoming wise — slowly, imperfectly, sometimes the hard way — in the way that only comes from actually living through things. Not reading about them. Not studying them. Living them. The grief, the illness, the single motherhood, the bad relationships, the good ones, the loss, the joy, all of it. It adds up. It means something. And I’m finally starting to trust that.

Which brings me to something I just learned about myself: I think I’m an omnivert. Not an ambivert, someone who maintains a stable balance of introvert and extrovert. An omnivert swings between the extreme poles. Total extroversion or total introversion depending on the situation, the people, the day, the energy. Intense, situational, sometimes erratic shifts.

And then I thought, wait, can you be both? Because I think I am. With my people — my Fab Five, my JJAM crew, my BFFLs — I am fully on. The life of the party. Loud, present, generating energy for the whole room. But put me somewhere unfamiliar or with people I don’t feel comfortable with and I go completely quiet. I watch. I notice. I say nothing and take in everything. No one has lived this more than Natalie. When we travel she will talk to anyone. Everyone. I sit on the other side of her and almost never engage with the person next to her, it’s like I’m not even there. I’m not rude, I think I’m friendly. But I just listen, maybe judge a little, and then talk to her about it later.

And then there are the days, and I’ve written about these, where even being with my people takes everything I have. Where I’d rather sit back and watch them laugh than be the one making it happen. Where contentment looks like witnessing instead of performing. I love watching them have a good time and be happy.

That’s not inconsistency. That’s a nervous system that’s been through a lot and learned to read every room before deciding how much of itself to give.

The awareness thing, the noticing, I think that’s actually a survival skill. I think I learned to read situations before committing to them because at some point in my life I had to. When you move around a lot as a kid, when home isn’t always stable, when you’re trying to figure out who’s safe and who isn’t, you learn to watch first. You learn to notice.

I was made to feel not smart a long time ago. And I mean a long time ago, it started in first or second grade. My mom and I had moved around a lot when I was young and at one point we lived in Milwaukee for a while, which is a whole other story that involves my dad showing up and threatening a principal. When we moved back to Illinois and I was at Highlands in La Grange, something happened that would never happen in today’s world. It was October or November of second grade when they decided my education in Milwaukee was not up to Highlands standards and they moved me back to first grade. Mid-year.

I’m not sure my school confidence ever fully recovered from that.

I spent years pretending to be the smartest person in the room while half the time not knowing what was going on. Always feeling smart but insecure about showing it. Because people, certain people, had a way of telling me I didn’t know what I was talking about. That it wasn’t my place. That I was wrong. And I believed them for way too long. Probably until about five years ago, if I’m being honest.

But people also lifted me up. Mary Nelson, who worked with me at Hinsdale Dental and passed away recently, always told me I was smart. That I had more potential than I was using. That she saw something in me. For some reason I believed her. I still think about her. I hope she knew what that meant.

As I get older I am genuinely fascinated with learning. Podcasts, books, documentaries, articles, I want to consume them. I’m curious in a way I never let myself be when I was younger. That’s not a failure. That’s just late. And late is still something.

Something else about myself, this one isn’t really new. In a fight or flight situation, I am always fight. Always. My first instinct is never to call 911. I don’t have the natural fear response most people have. My brain calculates that I can handle it faster than waiting for help. And then I just act. It’s a trauma response, apparently. My nervous system decided somewhere early on that action was safer than waiting. That doing something, anything, was better than standing still and hoping for the best. That I could not afford to be passive. Which also probably explains why I struggle to ask for help. Fighting means handling it yourself. Always has. My friend at work told me I go from mild to wild real quick. He is not wrong.

Kathy and I did the Wine Walk in Downers Grove. Fourth year in a row, which now feels like a real tradition, and I love that. My dad and George stayed with Matt and our dogs while we went, which meant Matt got to experience something I don’t think he was fully prepared for. I won’t get into all the gory details. What I will say is that it started with my dad being in the bathroom for a long period of time, Matt getting worried, and my dad calling him in to take a picture. My dad was still talking about what he had created long after he got home with Kathy. Matt may be traumatized for life. We appreciate his effort more than words can say.

The Wine Walk itself was good. Basically shopping and shots of wine. Amy met us, which was really nice. Donna was going to come but she was having a bad day, which I hated. We were a little rushed trying to get through it all and get back to Matt in time for his bedtime. Yes, his bedtime, he is a 3am person and we respect the schedule. It’s usually one of us staying with my dad, so getting Kathy out and doing something just the two of us was nice.

It’s a beautiful day today. Hope it continues for Mother’s Day weekend.

I’ve been thinking about how many of my friends are without their moms. Or have complicated relationships with their moms. Or complicated relationships with their kids. It can be a strange holiday when you really think about it. Joyful and melancholy all at once, which seems to be the theme of most things in life lately.

I hope everyone finds their joy this weekend. Even just a little bit of it.

I’ve been having a conversation with myself lately. It started because I’ve been thinking about going public with this blog. Really public. Not just quietly existing out there on the internet hoping nobody finds it, but actually putting it out there intentionally. Sharing it. Letting people in.

And I keep stopping myself.

Here’s the thing about vulnerability — I don’t do well with sympathy. I never have. When people feel sorry for me I don’t know where to look. I change the subject. I make a joke. I find the nearest exit. I would rather crack you up than make you cry on my behalf. And yet here I am, 47 entries deep into one of the most honest things I’ve ever done, thinking about handing it to the world. This was supposed to be my therapy. And it totally has been. It has really worked. By no means am I cured — but it has helped so much.

The contradiction is not lost on me.

I’ve been watching other people do it and feeling simultaneously inspired and terrified. Just this week, Gloria — who we lovingly call Gogo — has put her cancer journey out there for all of us to follow. Completely open. Completely real. Letting everyone in. She lives out loud on social media through every life event, and I watch her do it and think: that takes guts. And also: I want to do that. And also: what if I’m not good enough at this to deserve the space.

The Sister Project, Kevin and his sister Heather — I was into their writing before the word journaling even entered my vocabulary. The way they write wrecks me in the best possible way. They take something devastating and make it beautiful without making it neat. Without tying it up. Without pretending it’s okay when it isn’t. I read their words and feel seen in a way that surprises me every time. That’s what good writing does. It reaches through the screen and grabs you by the chest and says you are not alone in this.

And then there’s Suleika Jaouad.

She wrote Between Two Kingdoms about her cancer diagnosis and recovery and it genuinely changed something in me. She put language to feelings I had been carrying for years without knowing what to call them. The grief of losing the person you were before illness. The strange guilt of surviving. The way your body becomes a place you don’t fully recognize anymore. I read that book and kept stopping to just sit with it. Then she wrote The Book of Alchemy — about journaling, about creative practice, about noticing your own life — and I never in my life thought I would be a person who journals. I am not that person. I am the person who makes jokes and keeps moving and does not sit still long enough to feel things on purpose.

And yet. Here I am. Forty-seven entries.

Okay — Suleika did basically start out as a polished, well-educated writer, so that comparison has its limits. But she also started out sick and scared and honest and needing somewhere to put it. And she changed people’s lives. Not because she had all the answers. Because she was willing to say: here is the question I can’t stop asking. Here is the thing I can’t make sense of. Here is what it actually looks like from the inside.

That’s all I’m doing here. Trying.

I’ve been reading and consuming so many blogs, memes, reels, books and podcasts lately. What keeps stopping me, is when something says exactly what I have been thinking or feeling for years but could never find the words for. The way trauma lives in the body. The way grief doesn’t follow a timeline. The way we perform fine for so long that we forget what not-fine even feels like. The way empathy is a gift and also an exhausting, relentless, never-ending thing to carry. Every time something like that crosses my feed I think — that’s it. That’s the damn thing I’ve been trying to say.

And then I wonder: am I just absorbing other people’s thoughts and calling them my own? Do I actually know who I am?

The answer I keep coming back to is: yes. I do. Because when those words land, they’re landing on something that was already there. I’m not learning something new. I’m recognizing something true. There’s a difference.

I know who I am.

I am someone who tries — genuinely tries — to be a good person every single day. To lift people up. To find the bright side even when it’s hard to locate. To bring joy into rooms. To make people laugh when they need it and sit with them when they don’t. I would also, without hesitation, cut a bitch for the people I love. I am not condoning violence. I am simply stating facts. My friends and family know I am their ride or die, their wingman, their person who will show up and throw punches if necessary. That’s just who I am and I’m not apologizing for it.

I am an empath to my core, which means I feel everything — my friends’ pain, my family’s fear, strangers’ struggles — and I carry it like it’s mine because it kind of is. That’s not always easy. It’s actually exhausting. I have nothing left some days. And I’m still learning that I’m allowed to say that out loud.

I am also — slowly, imperfectly — learning to care for and appreciate this body. Which is hard, because there was a time I felt completely betrayed by it. But I’m getting into exercise. I’m trying to eat better even though I am shamelessly addicted to sugar. I barely drink anymore. Drugs have been out of the picture for a long time. I mean, unless you have some magic mushrooms. In which case, call me. I take approximately nine thousand vitamins and supplements and prescriptions to keep this machine running. And I have lost over 30 pounds, which I am genuinely proud of. Even though the losses are starting to make me look older in my face and skin is doing things I did not authorize. Nobody warned me about that part. Rude.

I try my best at work. I think I do a good job. I genuinely love my people — my MP crew, the employees who come to me when things are hard. But it is stressful in ways that are hard to explain and emotionally draining in ways that don’t show up on any job description. Some days I come home and I have given everything I had to everyone else and there is just nothing left for me. I am working on that. I am not there yet.

And I keep coming back to this question: have I found my calling?

I don’t think so. Not fully. I think it has something to do with animals. I don’t know exactly what that looks like yet — working with them, photographing them, advocating for them, being near them in some capacity that feels like purpose. I just know that when I’m around animals something in me settles. Something that is usually braced and scanning and managing just — relaxes. And I want more of that. I want to build something around that feeling eventually. I don’t know how yet. But I know it’s there, and I’m paying attention to it.

There’s something else I’ve been sitting with.

There’s a quote that found me recently — the way the right words always seem to find you exactly when you need them: Forgive yourself. You did the best you could with who you were at the time.

I’ve been applying it to my mom.

Our relationship was complicated. She loved me with everything she had — I know that. She loved Grace even more than that. But it was hard. There were years of frustration and hurt and distance that I didn’t always understand and couldn’t always forgive. And now she’s gone and I can’t call her and sometimes I’d give anything just to hear her voice, even if we were arguing.

But that quote has started to crack something open. She did the best she could with what she had, with who she was, with everything she was carrying that I didn’t fully see or understand. And I was doing my best too. We both were. Imperfectly. Messily. With love underneath all of it even when it didn’t look like love.

I’m healing that. Slowly. It’s not linear. But I’m healing it.

And I think about Grace. About the ways I’ve fallen short as her mother — the things I couldn’t give her, the mistakes I made, the times I got it wrong. And I hope — I really hope — that someday she finds her way to that same quote. That she understands I was doing the best I could with who I was at the time. That the love was always there even when everything else was imperfect. That she heals whatever needs healing, the way I’m healing mine.

That’s the thing about motherhood. The grief passes down and so does the love and sometimes you can’t separate them and you just have to trust that the love is louder in the end.

So. Back to the blog.

I’ve written 47 entries. I found my voice — which is raunchy and tender and sarcastic and earnest and messy and sometimes all of those things in the same paragraph. I’ve told truths that scared me. I’ve written about nearly dying from sepsis, that after Matt had to drop me off at the hospital door alone for a mastectomy because of COVID and then went home to cry. I’ve written about carrying cancer in my body for two years while doctors called it a cyst. I’ve written about sitting on the shower floor until the water runs cold because getting up felt impossible. I’ve written about my dad — the man who once made a citizen’s arrest, handcuffed an attorney, drove him from Carbondale to Chicago, made the Sun-Times, and still has a felony kidnapping record — now shuffling around in cowboy boots at a protest because he thinks they make him taller. I’ve written about giving him virgin cocktails and watching him not notice. I’ve written about Drew spending seven hours stuck in an elevator because his caregiver fell asleep. I’ve written about the Wednesday Waffle and the Twat Waffles and the murder boat and microdosing mushrooms on a beach in Sayulita. I’ve written about the poop memo. Again. I’ve written about Gus — always about Gus. And I’ve written about two strangers at Northwestern who called me pretty on a hard day that I held onto for the rest of the afternoon.

That’s the blog. That’s all of it. The full catastrophe, as someone much smarter than me once said.

And maybe, just maybe, someone out there needs to read it. Someone who is also sitting in the shower until the water runs cold. Someone who is also watching their parent disappear and not knowing what to do. Someone who is also trying to be the strong one and running out of strong. Someone who also consumes memes and reels and podcasts at midnight looking for the words to describe what they’re feeling and finding them and thinking oh thank god, it’s not just me.

It’s not just you.

That’s what I want to say. That’s why I want to go public. Not for sympathy. Not for attention. Not because I think I’m Suleika Jaouad or Kevin or Heather or Gogo or Lauren and Michelle.

Just because I know what it feels like to find the right words at the right moment and feel less alone because of them.

And if I can be that for even one person, that’s enough.

I think I’m ready. But also, I read this back and wonder if I write about the same things too often. If I’ve beaten the proverbial dead horse. Whatever. This is what I’ve got. And maybe it’s a good opener. Even though technically it’s the end, this blog runs backwards, which also seems fitting.

It’s been one of those weeks and it’s only Tuesday.

Sunday evening my dad fell while out walking George. Couldn’t get himself up. Kathy tracked him down after he’d been gone too long and called me to come help. By the time I got there, the fire marshal who lives in their neighborhood had already shown up. He knew exactly what to do. He helped us get my dad back to the house and all the way up to the third floor so we could get him settled and ready for bed. I don’t know what we would have done without him that night. Sometimes the right person just shows up.

Then yesterday was his neurology follow-up at Northwestern.

Northwestern is massive and my dad can barely walk, even though he was absolutely set on doing so. The wheelchair conversation started the second we arrived. He fought it. Of course he did. This is the man who wore cowboy boots to a protest because he thought they made him taller. But somewhere along the way he came around, and by the end I think he actually liked it. I’ll take every small win I can get.

Inside the office he said some not so kind things about the receptionist and others in the waiting room thinking he was whispering, but he very much was not. Which is exactly like his farts. He does not care who hears those either. At one point the doctor asked me to take him out to the waiting room because he would not stop talking. Which, if you know my dad, is not shocking. I couldn’t help laughing a little and also hope the doctor doesn’t think I’m the same way with my gabbing.

On the bright side, while we were waiting at Northwestern two gentlemen walked past me and said oh, you’re pretty. So the day wasn’t a total loss.

I didn’t get to ask everything I wanted to ask. Like should I worry about dementia? My brain has really been mush lately and I forgot half of what I meant to bring up. It’s scary sometimes, the forgetting, the fog. But my oncologist has assured me it’s normal given my medications, menopause, and the amount of anesthesia my body has been through. Matt mentioned not too long ago that he’s noticed a change in me since my surgeries. That landed harder than I expected. But I believe it. I feel it.

Ken had come down yesterday too for an overnight because he had a morning doctor appointment of his own. So last night it was Ken, my dad, Kathy, Matt, and me. And the 3 dogs of course . All of us together, just hanging out. Matt had worked overnight Sunday and was running on nothing, so all he wanted to do was go to bed. But it was actually really nice to have everyone there. I was glad Ken was around. Tomorrow is his and my mom’s anniversary. I didn’t say anything about it out loud.

Kathy is coming around, and I can’t overstate how much that means. She’s been fighting it, not wanting to change her life, not wanting to fully acknowledge what’s happening, and I cannot blame her for one second. This might actually be harder on her than on anyone. She lives inside it every single day. But things are shifting. We finally got the guns out of their house this week. They’re at our house now. Between our guns and theirs, Matt and I are staring down an impressive collection of shotguns and rifles and feeling very ready for whatever purge situation may come our way. We did not expect this chapter of our lives to include a small armory.

Friday I picked my dad up and spent a few hours with him while Kathy went to get her nails done, do a little shopping, and take herself out for a couple of drinks. She deserved every single second of it. My dad kept asking me to call her. I kept telling him she was busy. I was not about to interrupt that woman’s afternoon. And then I gave in. I felt bad. That’s the thing about him — even through all of this, he just wants to know she’s okay. He loves her so much.

The past few days have also been full of things stopping me mid-scroll. Posts about being kind, being a good person. Things that remind me of my mom. Cancer posts — some about real advances that give me hope, some that stir up memories I wasn’t ready to revisit. Things about dementia that hit too close. The internet this week felt personal in all the ways. I keep sharing everything, probably annoying people. I can’t help it.

And then today. Today I got to send my annual message to supervisors to help remind associates about not leaving poop in or on the toilet. Third or fourth year in a row. I would like to think after however many years of doing this job I would have graduated past this particular communication, but apparently not. Yes, I work with adults.

Mother’s Day is this weekend. I’m spending Saturday with Grace down by her apartment, which I’m really looking forward to. Sunday we’re meeting a potential caregiver for my dad. It will be at Drew’s house, it’s one of his caregivers. So everyone will get to see him, and I’ll get to give his saint of a mother a proper Mother’s Day hug. That part I’m not dreading at all.

Tomorrow is also Gus’s birthday. I will always miss that dog. Every single year, almost every single day. I will always miss him.

Thursday morning started chaotic before it even got going. I made it back to Pilates which, progress but left without my water bottle, forgot to put my Apple Watch on, and was generally running on fumes but I made it through . On the drive home I checked my phone at a stoplight and saw two texts from Kathy.

Your father fell down the stairs. I need help. I can’t get him up.

I turned the car around immediately.

By the time I got there she’d managed to get him up and he was sitting on the couch — in shock, clearly in pain, but sitting. They live in a tall townhouse with a landing midway up the stairs, and from what we could piece together, he made it to the middle of the first set and then took a header on the final few steps. The table on the landing was moved. The lamp was broken. Things were everywhere. She was home but had been out with their dog, George. She came into him yelling for help.

We ran through the inventory — wrist, neck, shoulder, knee — all of it hurt. I thought we needed to go in right away. Kathy wanted to wait and see. We iced what we could. He could move everything, which was a good sign, and he continued to improve through the day. It ended up being a pull, strain, or tear — nothing broken. I genuinely do not know how he didn’t break his neck or his hip. He is impossibly lucky.

Late that afternoon he was sitting outside in his chair getting some sun. And that evening he came over and had pizza for Matt’s birthday. Mainly, I think, for a big slice of ice cream cake. That’s my dad.

Also last week — new fear unlocked. Or maybe more accurately, an anticipated fear finally coming to fruition.

I went to the dentist for a toothache. A small filling had fallen out of the side of my tooth a couple months ago and it’s been bothering me ever since. I didn’t know if it had fallen out again or was just extra sensitive. Turns out the filling was still there and yes, it could still be sensitive — but the x-rays also showed two new cavities in completely different parts of my mouth.

I am a terrible candy eater, I’ll own that. But I was never prone to cavities before and I worked for the dentist for 15 years! This is the beginning of something I knew was coming — the dental side effects of the medication I’m on, compounded by Sjögren’s, which means dry mouth and not producing enough saliva to protect your teeth properly.

Awesome. Just absolutely fucking awesome.

Friday Matt and I went for massages for his birthday and out to dinner. Saturday we drove up north for a surprise luncheon for Auntie June’s 80th birthday. She had no idea. When we all walked in and she saw everyone standing there in her home, tears. Pure joy. Confusion but so much happiness. She’s been pretty homebound for a couple of years now and hasn’t made it to many family things, so getting everyone together and bringing the party to her felt really right. It warmed all of our hearts. I’m so glad she was happy.

Tomorrow is Wes’s 15th birthday. His second since we lost him. A photo popped up on Facebook today, one of my favorites of him. I sent it to Crissy and Kevin with a note letting them know I was thinking of them, hoping they were doing something special for themselves and sending love to Cal and Mae too. Then I second-guessed myself immediately. Was that the right thing to do? Did it bring them some comfort, or did it just make an already impossible day harder? I genuinely don’t know. You never really know how to handle these things. There’s no right move when someone you love is missing. You just try to show up in whatever small way feels true and hope it lands gently.

And then the last few days my pain has been exasperated in a way that’s hard to explain. I don’t know if it’s an autoimmune flare, if I’m fighting something off, if it’s the weather doing its thing, probably some combination of all of it. Whatever it is, it’s sitting on top of a fatigue that goes deeper than tired.

Which brings me to Waffle Wednesday — our weekly video check-in that Cathy, Donna, and I send each other, which I love and look forward to every week. Cathy’s question on Monday(we do it any day we remember at this point now) was simple: Molly, why are you always so tired? I just sat with that for a second. Because apparently I say it enough that it’s become a thing.

Here’s the honest answer: it’s not just physical tired. It’s not the kind you fix with a good night’s sleep. It’s emotional tired. Mental tired. The kind that lives in your bones and your muscles and doesn’t lift no matter how much you rest. And when that’s layered on top of the joint pain and muscle aches of the last few days, it takes everything I have not to just stay in bed and not participate in my own life.

So I’m putting this here to hold myself accountable: I need to get back to Pilates consistently. I need to start lifting weights. I need to be walking every day. My body needs movement even when — especially when — it’s the last thing it wants. Writing it down makes it real. That’s the whole point of this thing.

I just realized I haven’t written anything here since January.

That feels wrong. But also accurate.

It’s not that nothing was happening. It’s that everything was happening — and I didn’t have the space or energy or honestly the desire to sit down and put words to it. Life didn’t pause. I just stopped narrating it for a while.

The last few months have been heavy and good, exhausting and meaningful, frustrating and strangely grounding all at once. My dad’s situation keeps evolving in ways that don’t follow rules or make sense. My body is still doing its thing — pain, fatigue, brain fog, all of it. Work has been a lot. Life has been a lot.

And somewhere in the middle of all that, I think I changed a little more.

I’m not as angry as I used to be. Still sarcastic. Still opinionated. Still fully capable of losing my patience. Have I already mentioned that Andrew at work told me I can go from mild to wild real quick. Hilarious! I loved it. Anyhoo, not carrying that constant edge anymore. I don’t have the energy for it. I’ve been more intentional about my time, my people, what I say yes to. Saying no more. Choosing quiet more. Letting some things go that I would’ve gripped hard before. Not because I stopped caring, but because I physically and mentally cannot care about everything at the same level anymore.

I’ve also stopped trying to solve things that don’t have solutions. With my dad. With my health. With what the next version of my life is supposed to look like. I think I’m just living inside it now instead of trying to outrun it.

There have been really good moments too. Trips. Friends. Laughing when I didn’t expect to. Nights that felt normal. Days that felt light. Those matter. Maybe more now than they used to.

So here’s what I’ve been up to.

I went to a drag brunch with girlfriends. So fun, so ridiculous, exactly what it should be. The next weekend we did a full JC Penney photoshoot for Donna’s birthday — because obviously that’s what grown women in their 50s should be doing. The poor kid taking the pictures had absolutely no idea what to do with us. We were awesome. Duh. The pictures turned out amazing.

Then Puerto Vallarta with Natalie. I don’t even know how to summarize it without underselling it. Amazing resort, boat cruise to Yelapa, fruity cocktails, sun, matching pajamas, a pirate cruise, and a Freddie Mercury impersonator who was genuinely so good. Every trip we take we somehow get closer, which feels impossible at this point but here we are.

Then we celebrated my cousin Jennifer’s 60th birthday with Aunt Susie and Maggie — shopping in Andersonville, dinner at Bar Roma, and laughing until we were crying mostly because of these absolutely horrifying wax lips my aunt brought. If that day was any indication, Jennifer’s 60s are going to be her best decade yet.

And then I turned 50.

Which turned into approximately a three-week event. My husband threw me the most incredible party. My friends showed up. The decorations were perfect, the guest list was everything. I’ve had dinners, lunches, brunches, a full day in the city with Grace. I did puppy yoga, tried aerial hammock something, and I now own roller skates.

Fifty is kind of awesome, honestly.

In between all that, real life kept doing its thing.

My girlfriend’s daughter got married — beautiful wedding, great venue — and then midway through dancing they brought in Portillo’s and Rainbow Cone. A chaotic and perfect choice.

We met with elder attorneys. Kathy and I are trying to figure out what the next steps look like for my dad, which is overwhelming in every direction. I stayed with him for a week so she could get a break. We’re looking into adult daycare because she needs real help and I genuinely cannot be there as much as she needs. I do check on him. Spend time with him. Our favorite date is going for ice cream, frozen custard, actually, because his palate is apparently too refined for regular ice cream.

Sometimes he’s sweet and feels like my child. Sometimes he’s an angry asshole. Both are true and both can exist in the same afternoon. I’ve become the one who can usually talk him off the ledge when he gets really confused or agitated by that point Kathy is completely tapped out and I don’t blame her. This disease is brutal and there is barely any information out there. It’s frustrating and scary and I find myself wanting to spread awareness because people just don’t understand how hard this is.

Somewhere in there we did our taxes. We owe again. Shocking.

St. Patrick’s Day came and went, my favorite day, and I barely celebrated. We got out for a couple of hours and that was about it. Felt weird.

And then there’s Uncle Brad, who has been absolutely through it.

He was out fishing with his dog, slipped, hit his head, likely knocked himself out, and woke up in the water unable to get himself out. I cannot imagine that level of terror. His dog Stump jumped in and helped him get to the side. No one else was around. He somehow got himself to the hospital with a broken collarbone and a massive knot on his head.

Stump is officially a hero.

And because that wasn’t enough, Uncle Brad then had to deal with some very unpleasant medical procedures that no man wants to experience. We’ll leave it at that. Everything is benign and he’s on the mend — but come on. Give this man a break. All of this after recovering from sinus surgery.

On my own health front, I had my quarterly Zoladex implant and my first Zometa infusion for bone loss. It actually went well. Shockingly.

I haven’t been to Pilates in months but I’m starting back tomorrow. We’ll see how that goes.

Matt’s birthday is this week — pizza with his mom on his actual birthday, then massages at the spa the next day, which I am very much looking forward to.

Work has been insane. Lose-sleep insane for a stretch there. I got pulled into some executive-level drama I wanted absolutely nothing to do with, but it seems to have settled. The good news is I’m back overseeing my Melrose Park buildings and I could not be happier about that.

So yeah. That’s where I’ve been.

Not because I didn’t have anything to say.

But because I’ve been too busy living it.

I couldn’t remember where I left off, so I went back and reread the post about my dad’s birthday. We did have a nice evening out — even though I’m pretty sure he was onto me ordering him virgin drinks.

Shortly after that, the bottom dropped out for me. Whatever upper respiratory thing I was fighting knocked me completely flat. I was down for at least three days and weeks later I’m still coughing.

We also just came off two weeks of Matt working nights — outside, in a parking garage, during the coldest stretch of winter so far. It was brutal on him. I won’t lie though — coming home to quiet evenings alone wasn’t terrible. Unfortunately neither of us adjusted well to the sleep schedule so now we’re both exhausted and playing catch-up.

One of those evenings I had Kathy drop my dad and George off to hang out with me and have dinner while she got some time to herself. I also intended to have some direct, uncomfortable conversations with him.

The most overwhelming, frustrating, and honestly mind-blowing part of FTD is that he doesn’t know he has it. He doesn’t understand it. He can’t comprehend it. No matter how simply or clearly I explain — facts, examples, logic — it just doesn’t stick. Just when I think he gets it, he questions it. Or makes an excuse. Or changes the subject. Or acts like the conversation never happened.

The social worker told us not to explain. She said we have to adjust because he won’t. He can’t.

Kathy really struggles with that. I don’t have it in me not to try.

When I talk to him and try to explain what’s going on, he tells me he’s glad I’m letting him know because he’s confused about why certain things are happening. He asks me to tell him when he’s causing Kathy stress because he never wants anything to affect his relationship with her.

That part is heartbreaking in the most tender way. He loves her so much. He’s obsessed with her. And while it’s sweet, it’s also a lot for her.

That night we talked about alcohol. I told him it makes everything worse and that he shouldn’t be drinking. His compromise was that he wouldn’t drink at home — but if he goes out, he should be allowed one or two to keep up appearances. I didn’t argue. The next night he found a hidden bottle and made himself a drink before Kathy came downstairs.

The no-power-tools rule went right out the window too.

Then we talked about driving — the hardest topic of all. I explained that there’s a note in his medical record requiring testing he hasn’t done, and that if he were ever in an accident he could financially devastate Kathy. I told him that even though he can physically drive, his reasoning, problem-solving, reaction time, and ability to navigate are all affected.

He denied it. Explained it away. Minimized it.

Finally I told him that his license expired on his birthday and that we likely wouldn’t be renewing it.

Most of this happened at the dinner table. Then we moved to the living room.

He said that when the time comes that he can’t drive, he wants me to be the one to tell him.

What I wanted to say was:

WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK WE WERE JUST FUCKING TALKING ABOUT!!!????

What I actually said was, “Okay.”

Then he said we should keep everything we talked about between him and me — he doesn’t want to upset Kathy.

I said okay again.

For the record, Kathy and I tell each other everything. Especially the things he tells us not to.

This week I also had my two-year post-radiation follow-up. The nurse hugged me. The doctor hugged me. They’re wonderful people. It’s strange to spend so much time with a medical team — thirty-one days in a row, two years ago — and then suddenly not see them anymore. It’s a good thing, of course. But you don’t realize how attached you become until they’re telling you they don’t need to see you unless you need them.

We’re just a call or email away.

Wow.

Two years out. After four years of absolute hell that permanently altered my body — but maybe also made me a better person. I nearly died from sepsis. The cancer didn’t kill me. It changed me. The medication is kicking my ass and has genuinely broken parts of me, but I’m not letting it win.

Tomorrow I’m getting together with my girlfriends to celebrate Donna’s birthday, and I’m also meeting with the elder attorney with Kathy. Because apparently this is where we are. In just over a week I’ll be in Puerto Vallarta with Natalie.

There is so much good in my life. The good usually outweighs the bullshit.

I just need to stop watching the news. And stop reading what friends on the opposite side of the political spectrum keep posting.

And it feels like this might be the last normal one.

The five of us — Matt, Grace, Kathy, Dad, and me — are going out to dinner tonight. I’ve been fighting some upper respiratory bullshit for the past few days, trying to hold it together long enough to make it through the evening. I’m worried the bottom’s going to drop out at any minute.

What’s happening with him still feels surreal. Kathy and I talk a lot about the slow decline — about how there’s still so much of him there, which somehow makes it harder. Managing him, redirecting him, watching him struggle while still being mostly himself. It’s brutal. Not that I’d ever wish him further into this disease, but sometimes it feels like it might be easier once things are clearer. That’s a horrible thing to think. But it’s honest.

Years ago, when The Sister Project started their blog about their mom’s FTD diagnosis, I followed their journey closely. Michelle became almost a full-time caregiver. They had nursing help. They were able to buy her a place of her own. It was heartbreaking and remarkable and I never once thought we’d be here someday. I reached out to her recently. There are no answers. Just shared knowing.

Today, I want to celebrate him.

He’s a shell of the big, macho, tough guy I grew up idolizing. Now he’s a small old man who looks like the Lorax — the eyebrows, the mustache — but without the belly or the orange. He’s sensitive. Anxious. Trying desperately to hide fear and confusion.

This is the same man who rode Harleys, worked construction, got into fights, and knocked people out. His claim to fame was making a citizen’s arrest of an attorney in Carbondale — handcuffs, duct tape, backseat of his car — driving him all the way to Chicago where the police greeted both of them. My dad spent a night or two in jail, made the Sun-Times, the evening news, and still technically has a felony kidnapping record.

Which is hilarious.

If you ever called him stubborn, he’d act like you’d called him a cunt. Worst insult imaginable. He is stubborn. And vain. And an only child who has been spoiled his entire life. He made it to 84, outliving both of his parents by over a decade. He tried hard in life. His intentions were always good, even when things didn’t work out. And except for Kathy — he absolutely hit the jackpot with her — so much didn’t.

I don’t know what this year will bring for him. I just hope he always knows who I am.

And if someday he doesn’t — like my friend Tricia says about her mom — maybe he’ll still know that he loves us. And maybe that has to be enough.

Kathy and I keep wondering how long this has really been going on. FTD is usually diagnosed in people under 60. He’s 84. Could this have been unfolding for 25 years? Honestly — maybe. Looking back, there were signs.

I dread the day he can’t take care of himself or understand what’s happening. He’d be devastated. He’s too proud. He never wanted to be a burden. Sometimes I even think he might be lucky enough not to wake up one day, because living fully aware of what’s coming would destroy him.

Losing him is already happening in pieces. And like Donna and Tammy, I’m realizing how strange it’s going to be to exist without parents. I’m incredibly lucky to have amazing stepparents. But it’s still a reckoning.

I think about my mom a lot too. Our relationship was complicated. I know she loved me with everything she had — and she loved Grace even more. But it was hard. I loved her, but I was often frustrated and hurt. That wasn’t all her fault. I wasn’t easy either. And now, as a parent to an adult daughter, I see how anxious and worried she must have been. I probably shaved years off her life.

She didn’t take care of herself at the end. I miss her. And I wish I hadn’t gotten angry about things that were beyond her control. It probably didn’t help that I was always such a daddy’s girl, putting him on a pedestal.

If I could tell her one more thing, it would be this:

I love you. I forgive you. I’m sorry.

Tonight, and for however much time we have left, I’ll celebrate my dad. I’ll listen for that wheezy laugh. Watch his eyes close when he smiles.

Cheers to 84, my maniac dad.

Love you, old man.

This blog started because I needed somewhere to put things.

Not to teach. Not to inspire. Not to brand myself.

Just to survive my own head.

If you’ve read the last 41 entries, you already know this isn’t a highlight reel. It’s a running log of grief, exhaustion, dark humor, tenderness, medical appointments, family chaos, work stress, joy, and the occasional moment where I realize I’m still standing.

This blog is therapy. Whoever reads it is a mystery to me. And that’s exactly how I want it.

When I look back at the earliest entries, I can see how angry I was. Not loud, explosive anger — but sharp, brittle, always-on-edge anger. Truth be told, I would choose violence if I could. The kind that comes from being overwhelmed, grieving multiple things at once, and having no room to set anything down. I was surviving on adrenaline and obligation. Everything felt urgent. Everything felt heavy. I didn’t trust rest. I didn’t trust stillness. I’m still negotiating both.

Somewhere along the way, that shifted.

I’m less angry now. Still tired. Still frustrated. Still grieving. But less reactive. Less jagged. Don’t get me wrong — I’d still pop someone in the mouth if they needed it.

I’ve become more intentional with my time, mostly because I no longer have the energy to waste it. I’m choosier about where I show up, who I show up for, and what I say yes to. I’m learning — slowly, imperfectly — that doing less doesn’t mean I care less. It means I’m trying to stay functional.

A lot of these entries are about my body. Cancer. Meds. Pain. Fatigue. Brain fog. Scars. Side effects that linger. This body is bullshit sometimes — but it’s also carried me through more than I ever expected. I don’t romanticize survival anymore. I just acknowledge it and keep going. There’s a word for this phase: survivorship. You’re not done, you’re not healed, and you’re definitely not back to who you were. You’re rebuilding. Or adapting. Or just trying to feel like yourself again. If that sounds familiar — you’re not broken. You’re responding normally to something that changed you forever.

Family runs through every part of this blog — the love and the complicated parts. My mom’s absence. My dad’s decline. Caregiving without a roadmap. The strange grief of losing someone in pieces instead of all at once. Trying to protect everyone while quietly unraveling myself. Learning, very slowly, that I can’t control outcomes no matter how vigilant I am.

Matt is here too — steady, loyal, sometimes annoying, always showing up. We’ve changed together. Not in a shiny rom-com way, but in the real way people do when life keeps handing them things they didn’t ask for. We’re still learning how to meet each other where we are, not where we used to be.

And Grace — my daughter, my heart, my mirror. She’s grown now, which is both beautiful and brutal. Watching her navigate her own life, her own emotions, her own hard things has forced me to loosen my grip and trust that I did enough. That she’s strong. That she’ll find her way. That part is still hard. It might always be.

There’s also joy here. Real joy. Friends who show up. Dogs who anchor me. Shared meals. Traditions. Laughter. Moments that don’t fix anything — but soften it.

If there’s a theme to the last 41 entries, it’s this: I’m learning how to live inside the mess without trying to outrun it.

I want more texture in my life now. More depth. More curiosity. Less noise. I want to travel — not to escape, but to stretch. I want to learn. To see how other people live. To gather stories and perspectives instead of just responsibilities. That takes time and money and space — all things I’m still negotiating with.

I don’t want a bigger life. I want a truer one.

So this is the 2026 version of me: Less angry. More aware. Still sarcastic. Still tired. Still showing up.

This blog will keep being what it’s always been — a place where I tell the truth as I understand it in the moment. No tidy conclusions. No five-step takeaways. Just honest documentation of a life that keeps changing, whether I’m ready or not.

If you’re reading along, welcome.

But mostly — this is for my own sanity.

A few months ago I started listening to Hidden Brain. Not because I was trying to reinvent myself or do the work — I’ve been doing the work against my will for about five years now — but because I needed something steady in my ears that didn’t involve murder, cults, or politics. It started making sense and I got hooked. It didn’t fix anything or change my life overnight, but it helped me put language to things I’ve been living for a long time. The way trauma rewires your brain. The way grief lives in your body. The way we chase worthiness like it’s a moving target instead of something we already have. If you haven’t listened, I recommend it. All kinds of topics, not just heavy stuff, and it has a way of explaining why we are the way we are without making you feel broken.

Then today — New Year’s Eve — a close friend posted something beautiful about standing still as the year turned. Breathing. No resolutions. No new version of herself. Just choosing to stay exactly where she is.

It hit me. Because this blog has never been about one rough year. It’s about the last five. Five years of cancer diagnoses, surgeries, recurrence, reconstruction that didn’t go the way I hoped, and learning how to live in a body I didn’t trust anymore. Five years of grief stacked on grief — losing my mom, watching my dad slowly disappear, friends getting sick, dying. Five years of being reshaped by things I didn’t ask for and couldn’t control. This is my therapy, and I’m sorry it’s sometimes a pity party. But it’s real.

Here’s the part that feels important to say out loud though:

I actually have a good life.

Matt and I have a good life. We love each other. We laugh. We have enough. We are safe. I know that and I’m grateful for it. But also — I want more. Not more stuff. Not more success. I want space. I want to travel. I want to be near water and in nature and see how other people in other parts of the world live, slow down, exist differently. Maybe not all their food — I know who I am — but everything else.

That doesn’t mean I’m ungrateful. It means I’m alive.

And then there’s Grace. I am so proud of her it almost hurts. She worked her ass off for her degrees and is putting them to use in a way that actually matters. That didn’t happen by accident. And because I’m her mother I can hold two truths at once — I’m proud of everything she is, and I want more joy for her. More confidence. Less hiding. Less isolation. I want her to feel solid in who she is, not just capable. Happy, not just functioning. Loving your adult child is a strange mix of pride, hope, fear, and knowing when to shut up and trust that they’re finding their own way. I’m still working on that last part.

I am absolutely exhausted by Christmas. Crawl-into-January-on-my-hands-and-knees exhausted. And yet I genuinely love it. I love giving gifts — not in a healthy budget-conscious way, more like a mild condition. If something makes me think of someone I buy it immediately. I don’t wait for birthdays or holidays. I see it, I think of them, and suddenly my card is out. This is why December arrives and I look at my bank account like huh, interesting. I just hope people remember that random Tuesday in March when I bought them something because it reminded me of them. Because that counts. That’s how I love. My bank account would strongly prefer I express affection some other way. It doesn’t get a vote.

FTD is a fucking bitch. Incomprehensible. There are no answers, no roadmap, no clarity on why he’s acting this way or what’s coming or how to help Kathy. Just confusion and heartbreak and the slow loss of someone you love while they’re still standing right in front of you. Zero stars. Do not recommend. I hate it. I hate how unfair it is and how powerless it makes everyone involved.

And yet I still get up. I still show up. I still love fiercely and laugh and want beauty and warmth and water and rest.

What Hidden Brain helped me understand is that when trauma and loss stretch on for years, your brain gets very good at survival and very bad at rest. You don’t stop wanting joy — you just stop trusting it. You brace. You scan. You wait for the next shoe. And then you judge yourself for being tired and reactive when your nervous system has been running emergency drills for half a decade.

I need to say this plainly because I tend to minimize it: I live with pain, fatigue, and brain fog constantly. Not occasionally. Not dramatically. Just always. The kind that doesn’t look impressive from the outside but quietly dictates how much energy I have, how clearly I can think, how far I can push before my body reminds me who’s in charge. Some days I feel sharp. Other days I lose words mid-sentence and forget why I walked into a room. It’s humbling. It’s frustrating. It’s real. And I’m tired of pretending that surviving well means pretending this part doesn’t exist.

For a long time I thought healing meant getting back to who I was before all of this. Before cancer. Before grief. Before pain rewired my body and loss rewired my brain. That version of me is gone. And chasing her nearly broke me.

So as this year turns, I don’t want a new me. I’ve already been remade too many times and none of it was optional.

What I want now is simpler and harder: to stay in my body without apologizing for it to hold gratitude and longing at the same time to stop treating worthiness like something I earn after surviving well enough

No resolutions. No reinvention. No pretending the last five years didn’t change me.

Just me. Feet on the ground. Hand on my heart. Breathing through whatever comes next.

And honestly? That’s enough.