As I sit down at my computer I realize I’ve just gone through another transformative experience. I’m about to document it. It won’t all be revealed at a single time, most things with so much impact never do. Jack and Fiona are down for their morning nap. (Twin Tip:  Now that the babies are fourteen months they have to be separated for their naps. Otherwise they wind each other up and won’t go to sleep.)  Bruce just left for Southern California. I felt sad as he walked down the stairs. But we will meet again. My house is quiet and clean, peaceful. Jack is still sick, it’s possible I’m fighting off the cold myself, but hoping it’s just allergies.

I was raised by scientists. My mom was a Chemist, Bruce an Engineer. I think of my mom as an Artist though. But Bruce, a true scientist.  As I spent time with Bruce the past three days I realized how much he shaped me, taught me, took care of me, helped guide me in becoming the person I am today. We are family, we are so much alike. I am more like Bruce than my biological father. I’m so glad that Jack and Fiona were able to spend time with him and through the years will know him as family. My instincts were right when I felt the need to reconnect. It’s important to me to be around people who make me feel good about myself, who aren’t judging me, who trust me and believe in me. That’s how I felt yesterday hanging out with Bruce, Danny, and the babies. We were a team. Bruce made Shepard’s Pie, a dish he would cook for Danny and me when we were little kids. I made homemade chocolate chip cookies. Danny played with Jack. (He wouldn’t take his nap because I made the mistake of putting the babies in the same room. I got mad and took jack out because they were goofing off then Fiona fell right   to sleep) Danny put together the babies’ new basketball hoop. Alan got home and we all had dinner together. I put the babies to bed. We watched two episodes of Wentworth, another Australian TV series on Netflix and I ate like ten chocolate chip cookies. That’s the kind of family time I love.

We talked about my mom a lot. He confirms my memories of my mom’s sadness and emotional distance. Why didn’t she get help I wonder? She lived a very tortured inner life. It was very difficult to be raised by a person so emotionally unstable and has taken me years to overcome. But it must have been just as heartbreaking for my mom. To be depressed and not be able to engage with her children. I was so afraid that would happen to me before Jack and Fiona were born. I was very depressed, I had days of crying spells that couldn’t be broken. Now I know it was instigated by all the years of stress and trauma I went through. It hasn’t happened to me in quite a while. But I did go through that. My dad told me my mom was manic depressive. I was afraid I may have gotten the same ailment. I don’t know if it’s true what my dad said. Her childhood was horrible.  She told me both her parents were alcoholics and emotionally abusive. She needed help to deal with that but she was too busy surviving, putting herself through college, raising kids as a single mom, just trying to make it. My mom was tough. Tough as they come. Maybe she thought dealing with her parents and childhood would make her weak. I feel bad for her. I know stress and sadness caused her heart attack.

It’s crazy, life is crazy. There’s been over twenty years of missed time and experience Between Bruce and I, but it’s like there’s no gap at all. Now here we are starting a whole new chapter. With fresh eyes, open and closed wounds, and new experiences to be had.  We just keep on keepin’ on! That’s the only thing any of us can do. But along the way close the doors to added stress and negative people and open the doors to people who help you with keepin’ on!