September

 I'm just going to park some pictures and some simple descriptions here because I am ping-ponging between keeping myself just-a-little-bit-too busy to avoid missing my kids and overthinking things during the time of year when I am extremely prone to overthinking things. Some of the things going on have been:

-Going for a canoe paddle with my friend Dani, something I've been wanting to do for a long time. I was a bit apprehensive because 1) I haven't paddled in probably five years and I am markedly out of shape and 2) I am clumsy and lack balance and I was afraid I would fall in the river. Dani assured me that I would have to work really hard to fall in the river.

I fell in the river.

Dani swears it was her fault. I think it was probably her fault, because I was just sitting in the front of the canoe and she jumped in the back and then I was in the river, but the fact remains that in an entire summer of people canoeing with Dani, only I fell in. It was a warm night and I was pretty comfortable for the sunset paddle even drenched as I was, and I was really glad I did it. I've been trying to say yes to things that scare me the past few years. On the one hand, it sucks that things that other people would find laughably easy scare me. On the other hand, I don't have to, like, wrestle a tiger or sky-dive in order to say I've done something that scared me.

-Going to Bluesfest with our neighbours. Eve and I have been going to Bluesfest in July since she turned 12 and we decided to see if we both liked it, even though we both hate crowds and music that's too loud. We did - turns out that it being outside makes all the difference, although there was one Lumineers concert in the pouring rain where if the girl standing beside me brushed my arm with her clammy rain poncho ONE MORE TIME.... anyway. The last two summers it's been kaput because of Covid, which sucked, but there was an abbreviated concert series sponsored by Bluesfest last week in a different location, which vaccine proof needed and limited tickets available. 

I don't usually drink at Bluesfest because I want to be clearheaded enough to enjoy the music and I hate having to pee at Bluesfest. We threw that caution to the winds this time (the tequila was mostly so less liquid would be involved) and since there were fewer people, the crowds and the lines for drinks and toilets were very short or non-existent. 

It was SO MUCH FUN. Everyone was SO happy to be there, the audience and the performers - they kept saying "It's SO GREAT to be in Ottawa. Or, you know, anywhere!" We saw MonkeyJunk (knew nothing about them, they were excellent), April Wine (main reason for going, did not disappoint) and Tom Cochrane (enjoyed it even more than I thought I would). 

-Our 25th anniversary. We traditionally both forget our anniversary entirely. Last year Matt had gone to bed and I got an e-card from one of my parents' old friends, so I made a Facebook post saying I had been reminded of our anniversary and I was going to text Matt Happy Anniversary so he would wake up and feel bad that he missed it and I didn't (I was joking. Sort of. I did confess that I had help remembering). This year I got the Facebook memory of me being an asshole, so in the morning I texted him a picture of the aged banana he had meant to take to work but accidentally left on the end of the counter beside my mini fan farm. "Is this my anniversary gift? You shouldn't have." So we called Bluesfest our anniversary date. I am bad at mushy love stuff, but considering my chronically low self esteem and the high number of not-good dudes there are in the world, I got really, really lucky snagging this one.

(The dude, I mean. Not the banana)

My mom flew to British Columbia to spend a week with her sisters. She was in quite a state about having to fly alone during Covid, but she did well, and we had some nice hang time with my dad, including on his 81st birthday, when we got fish and chips and drank a box of wine.

I went to Montreal with Eve's friend's mom for Eve's friend's 18th birthday, to take her out for dinner and buy her her first legal drink (Quebec drinking age is a  year younger than Ontario's). We went to a super cute and fun Mexican restaurant and told the waiter it was Davis's birthday, and he did tequila shots with us in her honour and when she asked if he wanted to see her I.D. he said "no, that's okay, I believe you" and then, at the look on her face, said "I mean YES, I demand that you show me your I.D. right now."

Tomorrow I'm driving to Hamilton for the week-end to hang with Eve and see my old professor for dinner and stay with friends. Then I come home for three days before driving back to pick her up for fall break for a week and then driving back AGAIN to drop her off. My sister in law said "wait, which week-end are you coming?" and I said "All of them".

Our regularly-programmed angsty overthinking will recommence presently. 

Walking and Moving and Listening and Trying Not To

 Things are pretty good. Angus is having a really good time being back at school, although he was questioning his life choices a bit when I talked to him Sunday (something about jungle juice with the team Saturday night, I didn't pursue it). He's set up some shadowing at the hospital in cardiology and radiology, trying to figure out what his path is after this year.

Eve FaceTimes me pretty much every night, so I still get the Daily Download, from classes to meals to the giant-ass spider that lives outside her dorm window - I originally thought it was inside and wondered why she was so calm about it. She has to wear a mask if she goes anywhere, but she CAN go places - to empty lecture halls to study with friends from her program, to meals, to bonfires and parties. It's not what it would have been pre-Covid, but it's not what it would have been last year. I just read something about how some people believe that happiness stems less from how well things go than from whether things go better than expected - maybe this is that. 

On the week-end I hung out with a fellow empty-nester friend - IKEA and tea on Friday night because we know how to party, and dinner on a patio on Saturday because patio. Then I went for a really nice walk with a friend in Gatineau and had gelato by the History Museum. Look at me, out doing stuff! in the world! with people! 

Monday I went to work. My first day back the computer wouldn't turn on, so I took the roughly four hundred books that had been returned since we locked down last spring and sorted them and made great, teetering, towering piles all over the desk and tables. The computer issue was then rectified (hee hee rectified) and yesterday there were carts and carts of books to shelve, plus we have new shelves for the early readers so I spent the morning moving great quantities of books from one place to another.

It was as I was methodically plucking and separating and alphabetizing and slotting books that I suddenly realized I had been working accompanied by a steady stream of heinously negative self-talk. I became aware that I had been sort of nodding along to it, almost like it was music that was not enjoyable, exactly, but familiar enough that it could be mistaken for it. It was almost funny, except for the whole fact of my own brain trying to make me feel worthless and inadequate.

The good part is that I recognize the narrative now, as something that's trying to pass itself off as authentic but isn't really. The bad part is that I can work on turning the volume down, but I can't quite turn it all the way off. 

I leaned into the whole book-moving thing, walked the dog down to the polling station to vote and weeded a bunch of flower beds on Monday. Got called in to cover in the office and spent hours in a half-crouch filing report cards - RIP legs and back. The office was, predictably, a shitshow, but in a mostly funny and entertaining way. I like being there - I've never worked in an office as an office-y person before, and it feels like one of the more normal things I've ever done, even though I frequently feel like a big loser there. I did walk in and announce that I had forgotten everything over the summer and would have to be re-taught, but I didn't really think it was true. Then the first time I took a call, I said I'd transfer her and then stared at the phone blankly trying to remember how to put her on hold and then transfer the call. I had to put the phone down and whisper over to the other desk to ask Heather how to do it, and then she was laughing so hard she pretty much blew my cover. 

The summer felt like a bit of a reprieve from Covid for us, even though I'm well aware that this pandemic is far from over. We may well be in the calm before (between) the storm, but of course, when aren't we? And I'm just going to leave it there before I wind up ending on a Finding Nemo reference. 

Well, Here I Am

 In my big empty house (well, there's a husband around here somewhere), because apparently it's not MATURE to expect your kids to just HANG AROUND FOREVER just because they're funny and nice and you like being with them and they, like, CAME OUT OF YOUR BODY or whatever, but I'm supposed to let them GROW and BE FREE and FIND THEIR OWN PATH and shit. I have to LIVE MY OWN LIFE now or some crap along those lines. 

Hmph.

We moved Eve in last Wednesday and stayed until Saturday. Her residence is new and beautiful and, in a hilarious turn of events, absolutely dwarfs the puny residence Matt and I lived and met and felt like hot shit in, which is right next to it. I thought I took a picture illustrating the difference, but I guess I was too bowled over by the big res. 

Her room is wonderful, which is just such a gift, because she loves her room at home and it's her sanctuary and it was so hard to leave it, and the fact that she could kind of recreate that will really help. I went to McMaster and roomed with my best friend and my boyfriend lived upstairs, so it didn't matter that the room was crappy and small, I was fine. She's in a single with a bathroom that she shares with the girl in the single on the other side, who is absolutely lovely - they had connected online beforehand, and she literally came in (through the bathroom, which is always going to be a little bit funny to me) and said "do you want to go to dinner with me and a bunch of people I made friends with?" Then she came the next morning to take Eve over to the cafeteria for breakfast EVEN THOUGH she had already been to breakfast. She's like a Perfect Suitemate from Central Casting and I love her.

So we moved her in and got the bed made and some stuff unpacked, and then we went to dinner with our friends whose daughter is basically the one other person Eve knows at Mac, but hasn't seen since they were both nine. It's kind of a funny story - Elaine and I met in my friend's playgroup which was a group of women who had all met in childbirth class. We knew each other for a few months and then at a birthday party we were at either end of a long yard and our husbands were looking at each other going "wait, I know him, why is he here?" and Elaine and I were going "hell if I know, he's my friend's husband" and it turned out they had gone to a high school semester at the Ontario Science School in this program for weird smart science people. Eve and Holly haven't changed that much in the intervening years, but they're in difference residences so they can't go to each other's rooms at this point.

The next day we picked up Eve to shop for last-minute hardware and school stuff and snacks and then she snuck us back up to her room to put some stuff together and hang pictures. 

Then we went to dinner at Matt's brother's place - both the brother and his lovely wife are doctors who are actually on faculty at McMaster (yes, she is definitely surrounded by family and friends who will be there at a moment's notice if she needs anything, THIS STILL SUCKS FOR ME). My niece Lydia is a red-headed firecracker who frequently looks like she's plotting the downfall of her enemies and I adore her. We hadn't seen Mitchell since he was a baby (stupid Covid) and he is a delightfully giggly little force of nature. 

Friday we went back and walked around campus so Eve could find the building where her in-person class is and we could show her the places we spent most of our time when we were there. Some places were instantly familiar and some were a complete blank for the first few moments, which was extremely disconcerting. It was disorienting being there as a parent after only ever being there as a student. 

Matt's library (H.G. Thode - Science library)

My library (Mills Memorial - Arts library)

Once you get in past the ring of residences, the inner campus is a beautiful layout of old buildings and grassy paths. Eve said "wow, I feel like Rory Gilmore before she turned into an asshole".

 

As we were approaching the back of our old residence, she said "omg, there's a group of people playing soccer on the grass. It's literally like a brochure. Are all the races represented? Yep, it checks all the boxes!" 

On a sunny day, all the campus pictures look like brochure shots

Saturday we picked her up and drove into Westdale, the little town around the university, and had tea at a little cafe. Then we dropped her off and had lunch with Matt's former supervisor who is still at the university - we had seen my former professor at her cottage in Thunder Bay when we were there for the memorial, so this closed the loop. He and his wife live in a pretty little town a few minutes away from the university, where they both work, which is one of my dream alternate lives. I loved my time in university, but I did realize at a point during my master's that, as much as I love literature, I didn't really want to be a professor, so as much as I like to imagine walking around campus as an adult like I belong there, I'm okay passing that baton to my daughter. 

So that's what happened, and I'm just going to leave it there without getting into how I FEEL about what happened for now. As for my other child, he did text at one point "enough with the McMaster mumbo-jumbo, I'm FINE, thanks for asking!" So that's good.