Because winter will never end and Spring will never arrive and we’ll be back into Autumn before really ever having the chance to enjoy Summer, gloom is muscling in on my thoughts, and where better to share that with than here? On that warm and welcoming note, onward with things that make me cry. Oh, where to start this list? It has the potential to go on forever. But that would be sad and depressing, and why would you stay? So to counteract the boo-hoos, I’ll include a the list of things that make me smile happily. And things that make me sleepy. And then, just for kicks, things that make me giddy and ridiculously, stupidly happy. Ugh. On second thought, perhaps I’ll just make a table rather than a list. Because tables are fancier than lists and today, I’m feeling fancy.
| Things that make me cry | Things that make me smile | Things that make me sleepy | Things that make me giddy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parenting | Parenting | Parenting | Parenting |
| Not eating pizza | Eating pizza | Eating too much pizza | Pizza🍕 |
| Arguing with Mr. K.B. or having him upset with me | Being ridiculous with Mr. K.B. | Watching Mr. K.B. watch television | Date nights with Mr. K.B. ('cause then he's my boyfriend again 😉) |
| Being too fat | Pants that fit and fasten shut while still allowing me to breathe without gasping | Thinking about being less-fat and rifling through my closet to find clothes that fit and that are not pyjamas | Pizza 😍🍕 |
| Those goddamned military personnel homecoming videos people insist on posting everywhere online | Those lovely, thoughtful military personnel homecoming videos people keep sharing online | Watching too many military homecoming videos that eventually morph into how to potty train a giraffe videos (thanks, YouTube!) | Standup comedy videos with far too many f-bombs and strong parental advisories. |
| Reading with my babies and realizing they need me to read to them less and less as they get more and more proficient at reading themselves | Reading to myself and getting lost in a really juicy novel or book | Reading textbooks that grow my brain and expand my knowledge base | Finding out that there’s a sequel already available |
| The Bridges of Madison County (the movie, not the book, the book was a complete pile of shite) | Love Actually, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Gone with The Wind, The Wizard of Oz and Grease | Three-hour long Pirates of the Caribbean movies and movies with non-ending endings (No Country For Old Men, anyone?). | Mobster movies, old black and white movies, the complete Rocky collection |
| Spicy food, failed recipes, cakes with jam in the middle | Watermelon, sweet, crisp green grapes, Old Dutch Ketchup chips | Too much sugar and dessert | Pizza |
| The state of Ontario's education system | Watching my babies learn new things, despite Ontario's education system | Worrying about the state of Ontario's education system | The promise and anticipation of summer vacation |
| Marriage | Marriage | Marriage | Marriage |
| Realizing that time is flying by and I’m on the wrong side of it | Thinking of all the things I have yet to try, see, do, and experience | Thinking of all the things that I still have to do just to keep day-to-day life moving forward | Thinking about how much promise lies ahead for my children and the adventures they will have |
| Coming to terms with moving on to the second stage of family and parenting - the ‘no more babies’ stage | Watching my babies grow into funny, witty, sensitive, strange, bizarrely clever independent thinkers and citizens | Parenting - all of the stages - from pregnancy to having adult children and everything in-between | Say it with me: Pizza. 🍕🍕💕 |
So, there you have it. The Oh-My-God-This-Winter-Will-Never-End-And-I’ll-Never-See-My-Flip-Flops-Again depths of despair, stream-of-consciousness emptying of my head.
~A.