Hey, What’s New?

I ran into a friendly acquaintance while walking the dog the other day. “Hey, what’s new, how are you?” She asked, unsuspectingly.

“Well,” I began, and this is a very bad way to begin. Anyone who asks that question and is met with that answer experiences instantaneous regret. Wrong place, wrong time, friendly acquaintance Kelly. Poor Kelly, a little voice in the back of my head seems to chirp as the gears click and whir and my jaw unhinges and brain and mouth become one, like that giant mega power ranger who’s kind of manned by the individual rangers within but is also somehow an autonomous being. Here we go: my whole family has the flu, one kid also has strep, it’s been a week of everyone holed up together in a house that’s on the precipice of being torn apart for renovations, today my son cried because I don’t make eggs like my mother-in-law and then screamed when I refused to make him more not-mother-in-law eggs after he’d devoured them. I’m tired, just so tired Kelly! When will it end? The pandemic is ”over” but we’re still burdened with the same anxieties and calculations and relentless, monumental decision-making and oh goodness now it’s raining. Wait, it isn’t raining, it’s unseasonably warm! Wait, now I’m cold! Climate change! Disease! Kelly run! For god sakes, Kelly, gather your children and your dog and run for your life before I start telling you about my long Covid!

Ha ha ha, life. What else is new, amirite? Kelly? Kelly? I . . . oh okay, well, have a good weekend!

Wait Kelly, don’t go yet! I thought of something! I don’t have the flu, that’s new and interesting (to me). My husband, the descendant of Polish peasants and Pittsburgh coalmen, is languishing in bed, but I stand strong! I, the one with the constitution and humours of a Victorian child-ghost. I, the immuno-equivalent of a lesser sister in a Jane Austen novel who exists solely to propel the plot by taking a short walk in the rain, catching a cold and subsequently dying slowly in the vast home of a handsome landowner.

I’m pretty sure I can recall that, at one point in my life, lots of things were new. Everything, really. Work was new, relationships and marriage, kids, borough-hopping, home ownership. Deciding to give up my career for motherhood. The horizon was broad and open and sometimes scary. Hard, fun, stressful, exciting, it didn’t matter. It all had the veneer of something that had not happened before. Not to me — and not to anyone else. That’s how unfamiliar it all felt while it was happening. And then it slowed down.

And then it stopped.

When our father died in 2020, my younger brother could ensconce himself in the anticipation of impending parenthood and a new house for the new baby and the blank canvas of building a family and a home and discovering a new sort of life. Mine, on the other hand, had become static. In the quarantine, I hit a new low. I, like many former somethings/current stay-at-home parents, was brutally confronted with the utter absence of novelty and growth in my life. Same shit, same shovel, zero distractions. More of kids. More of mothering. More of home. More of wine. More of housework and errands and worry and planning and organizing and meal preparation and complex expressions of my rapidly fraying executive function skills.

As it turns out, that’s a tough revelation to shake. Same shit, same shovel, three years later. Different . . . bucket? Metaphors are hard when brain is . . . what’d you say?

Grief has been the only true development. And that is not a socially acceptable thing to report on when someone asks you “what’s new?” Even I know that. I swear I know!

But…did I tell you I got a new vase at HomeGoods, and it ties in perfectly with the new pillows I ordered online? And also another new vase at HomeGoods and then another set of pillows and then I returned everything and bought all different ones? So, that was pretty good. Oh, I just got a new gizmo that chops garlic like so fast. SO FAST! New shampoo, new dishes, new eye cream, a new plastic face mask that plugs in and has tiny lightbulbs in it that glow red on your skin and makes you look like Jason Voorhees at a day spa and then, I assume, extremely beautiful? TBD.

Oh! Kelly! Are you still here for creative transitional purposes? Did I tell you that I made the monumental discovery that I have naturally curly hair and then I also discovered that, in the months and years following a global catastrophe and lives transformed by trauma and social deprivation, it’s probably wise not to lead with “I’m on a curl journey” when someone you hardly know asks you what you’ve been up to? No? Buckle up, girl.

I did start trying to force myself to think about ways to progress from the stage of life where I’ve somehow found myself. I also started taking more naps. I have scrambled infinity eggs, none of them the way my mother-in-law does it. I got increasingly involved in local fundraising and school volunteer opportunities. I took more walks.

I started a new writing endeavor that I immediately abandoned, and then another, which I have neglected, which is pretty much the oldest story in the book that obviously hasn’t been written.

An over-employed college friend with two young kids called the other day to catch up and left a rambling message musing over whether I might be busy taking a “power walk” or attending a PTA meeting.

Can you believe that, Kelly? The nerve. I texted her to tell her that she was being mean, but I couldn’t call her back because I had to shower after my personal training session and before logging on to my charity gala planning zoom call which ended just as the kids’ bus was arriving. Busy busy busy!

Anyway, Kelly, what’s new with you?