These last few weeks have been a roller-coaster whirlwind, it feels. Ever since the postcards have started coming, my emotions have been tospy-turvy. Tears come every day, anxiety dances beneath my skin and I have taken up the bad-habit of smoking again, something I was proud to have quit at the beginning of the summer. I miss that girl, miss her smile, miss the nights we stayed up all night talking. I miss our connection, how we could sense each other's emotions even two time zones away. I have never been able to open up to anyone the way that I did her - and vice versa. My family knew her, adored her, welcomed the thought of bringing her into our family when we grew up and got married.
I miss her. But betrayal still stings me, makes me relook at our past and wonder where that girl I fell in love with went - because the girl I loved wouldn't have spun such untruths and falsehoods around me. She is a stranger to me now, but my heart still yearns. Still aches. Some days, it is all I can do to keep from picking up the phone and calling to hear her voice. But it is hard. I know that my Angelboy will be threatened, I will lose the rest of my friends, and I can't even count on the fact that she would tell the truth.
My heart is sore and swollen, feeling at once too-full and yet so empty. I have been picking fights with Angelboy, unable to get past this feeling of frustration and anger and sadness. Afterwards, I am always ashamed. I feel stuck in a rut, unable to move, unable to journey forwards or backwards. Mud climbing up my legs, keeping me firmly rooted. Stuck in stagnation, which has always been my biggest fear. When life becomes stagnant and I feel trapped, I panic, grow anxious and start lashing out, start pushing people away.
I have been trying to stay superbusy, and so far, that has helped a lot. This past week has been filled with family adventures, as my youngest-older sister Aimee is getting married on Saturday. This week has been a whirlwind of shopping and gifts and dresses and shoes and nails and hair, everyone working themselves to the bone to give her this perfect amazing day. She deserves it.
Yet even amidst the hectic craziness of pre-wedding activities, my mother still found time to show her own craftiness. She is a goddess of the kitchen, a skill that neither my sister Danielle nor I seem to have gotten. She doesn't follow recipes, just makes things up as they go along, throwing in a dash of this and a dash of that, and creating nothing but the most mouth-watering delicacies.
This week, she taught Danielle and I how to can. On Monday, we spent hours peeling and cutting up tomotoes, cucumbers, onions, garlic, cilantro, throwing them all together to make the most delicious salsa ever. We have 27 jars to show for our hard work, and three jars have been consumed in the last three days alone. Tuesday, we spent seven hours cutting cucumbers after cucumbers, making dill pickles, bread and butter sliced pickles, hamburger pickles, pickled tomatoes, pickled cauliflower, and lots of relish. At the end of the night, all three of us were ready to drop from exhaustion. Yet we had 72 jars of various pickles proudly stacked on the table.
Those were the highlights of the week, time with the mother I admire and the sister I adore, laughing and joking and teasing and sharing and learning and creating together. Magic.
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