My hubs rocks. As in, he pays attention and quietly works to show me he hears me and THAT rocks! I say this because he is forever trying to give me the best August memories ever. You see, I haven't liked August for awhile. It's my birthday month and I think it always sort of hit me like everything else as a middle child. It's supposed to be about me, but never really was... And that went a step further that year when my grandfather died and the funeral was held on my birthday. It was like the creepiest family reunion and the memories play in my head of member after member still crying and verbalizing their happy birthdays to me. The oddness of the mixed emotions forever set that into the crumbling stone of my memory. Years after, my widowed grandmother was remarried on that very same day. Lovely. I was growing up and I got to choose a fancy dress and my first set of heels, but then that year it wasn't about me either. So birthdays continued.
Things seemed to fall apart around my bday maybe just cause it was August and there is a lot of back to school bustle, but none the less, every year there was something. Hurricane Katrina didn't help August for me either... 6 week old newborn and an evacuation from our home, friends, church, comfort, degrees, jobs, "normal"--even the writing of this triggers a bit. Again with the love hate. I remember being in one of my favorite places... my grandmother's home in the fancy room with a slate blue velvet couch and portrait of my dad as a child hung over my bed. I remember the feel of the linoleum under my feet in her kitchen and the familiar smells. I remember us all gathering at the breakfast table straining our eyes and neck to see the small kitchen television perched near the ceiling in the eat in space. And I remember the processing speed slowing down quite a bit when I started to attempt the making sense of yesterday nights going to be conclusions and that morning's realizations.
I was grateful and felt loved being surrounded by so many precious to me and that cake! My all-time favorite cake that my great grandmother was famous for... My grandmother, without prompting and in secrecy, made that cake for me! Angel food cake from scratch with fulffy white, egg-whites only icing that was like marshmallow fluff! (y'all as a side note, if you forget about that last bit of cake and leave it on a plate in the cake holder on top of the fridge for several months, it is concrete... straight up hammer it off the plate concrete) But the kicker is that I was still send scrambling that year. Straight into mom of a new born with nowhere to go, mastitis sufferer cause I also didn't have clothes, a home, somewhere to wash. Hubs was driving hours to work to he could find a permanent job, so I was single newborn parenting in lines for vaccines, for red cross for diapers, assistance in whatever form I could find it!
I remember finally getting to go out alone after the baby was about 4 months. I needed clothes... that I liked and that fit. My dad offered to babysit. I drove to the mall. Parked the car and started crying. Crying cause I was finally alone. Crying cause it had been pushed down and overridden so long due to survival instinct. I remember wandering the stores and then calling my sister telling her my mind couldn't fathom what to even look at to buy cause I was in brain fog! It was August.
August is all about the brain fog and this year was no exception. I literally started the month's August with serious brain fog. I could tell I was struggling to make actual sense and real distinct intelligent thought, but I could not find my way out. Running... fast walking could have helped actually, but hindsight isnt all that helpful in this case. I struggled with work and getting it done and accomplished. Still am struggling through August. I can't even go through last year. I was quite on the verge of a full mental breakdown last year at this time. Sooooo many issues with W then. I cried most of the way to a friend's house 4 hours away one weekend. Hard to parent these babes and their neurologic difficulties!
This year is better. It's still August and I'm not loving it. Not at all. Been a rocky climb but I have been injured on this trek this year. W is ticcing... a good bit. His behavior lacks a great deal of inhibition. He is blurting...and we watch for copralalia. We long for structure and order in his schooling and that has been all over the place! But August will be over soon and September will come. It WILL ease and we will progress. This too shall pass.
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