Tuesday, March 20, 2018
I am officially exhausted and genuinely feel like my brain is going to explode. I now understand why people use sites like Caring Bridge. The communication is so important. You want to be so thoughtful and thorough and you want to make sure that people hear it from you. But there are just too many people. I failed. I thought somehow someway I would muster the energy (mental and physical) to reach out and touch as they say, everyone I love. It didn’t happen. I gave up.
At this point, my closest friends since I am 5 years old have NO IDEA. My college friends have NO idea. My friends from San Francisco, where I lived for six years have NO IDEA. My New York friends have NO idea. I worked for over 20 years, not one colleague as any idea. Sooo many people. None of my siblings friends. None of my friends from groups outside of my kids school (I had to go to them first to control the dialogue..) know. None of my husbands friends – childhood, high school and college know, and I am now completely depleted. I actually feel sick. I am completely stressed, my vertigo is worsening and the guilt I feel is in overdrive.
Thank goodness for texting and email. I swear I would be dead today without exaggeration, had it not been for these two miracle forms of communication.
I am truly sorry to every amazing person in my life that I did not call. That I did not respond to your amazingly beautiful thoughtful poignant texts or voicemails or emails. I swear I read and listened to every one of them. It was the most humbling outpouring of love and support I have ever received.
To the amazing and thoughtful gifts from Masses being said in my name, to religious medallions (they helped), to damn it dolls, glassybaby, amazingly funny cards, homemade local honey, calming oils…the list goes on and on. To the gift of your time and energy thinking about me and worrying. It is so overwhelming to reflect on this I have tears for the first time as I write.
I am sorry I never wrote a thank you note. Two incredibly dear friends of mine, Anne and Julie S both said to me “truly if one of us was to receive a thank you note we would be mortified. We want to do this for you. We wish we could do more. We will do anything. But if you have to feel like a thank you note is warranted, then we will feel horrible and added to your stress, not lifted any of it”.
They promised they were speaking on everyones’ behalf.
Thank you. Thank you for letting me relinquish this part of me. I was raised to write thank you notes. But I decided to surrender. What was coming in was too much and too fast and too thoughtful and I knew even if I had a team of people to assist me, the notes would not get out fast enough. They wouldn’t have been good enough. They could not compete with your thoughtfulness.
I started my blog by stating a fact, that I am the luckiest woman I know. I am. I know it. I am so lucky because I have in every part, every stage, every year, every location of my life, friends that are so amazing, so magnificent, I can hardly believe my good fortune. I am so grateful for my friends…it is an amazing community. One day I want to get everyone together..have them meet. It could fill a gymnasium…that is how lucky I am.
But I feel horrible I didn’t have the energy to reach out to everyone. I just couldn’t. And I wanted to make sure that EVERYONE had the exact same information. No one was “in the know” or knew more…it was going to be ‘even steven’. It had to be this way. And we had to go “public” much faster than either Will or I would have liked because of insanely sad circumstances that had taken place at our school just a few weeks before. It is why the focus was on our kids’ school community almost exclusively that first 10 days.
So its Tuesday, March 20th. Will and I need to tell the kids, today, after school, before bedtime when they are tired and more emotional. It’s one of many nightmares you can imagine, having to tell your young children Mommy has a brain tumor.
But, as our friend Hannah would say–I got this. Totally. I know exactly how we are going to do this…and I am now confident and calm and ready. Will – strap on your seatbelt…I know how it is going to go down…but will our kids get it???
Why Not Me 