painful blessings

11/25/25

baby, my cat that passed away, would often follow me, and when I was in the bathroom, stick his little paws under the door, trying to open it. he would do this with any closed door, so sometimes just to watch how cute it was, we would leave doors not clicked shut, just seemingly closed, so that we could watch him open a door by himself by pulling it towards him with just one paw.  I always thought that was the cutest thing. I never thought anything like that would happen again, until the other day, I was in the bathroom and saw Hunter’s chubby toddler hands reach under the door and leave his tiny toy motorcycle that he got from a kinder egg. It made me so happy. And then just a few days after that, I was in the bathroom and he pushed in my purple paint sample that we took from Home Depot.

11/27/25

i’ve slowly been letting go of some things: the nextdoor Lindenwold news group, my sub to njkids about local kid friendly events in nj…i know we won’t be in that part of America for a long time, if ever again. but the texts i get about the PATCO schedule, that i’ve been signed up for since i took the patco every day into work…i can’t let go of, even though it’s not practically applicable to me at all anymore. every few days, i get a text about some delay or track work… i love that bridge, that train. i remember how my heart felt sailing over the water on it. i loved who i was becoming then. 

*

the cxn btwn babies and poetry: knowing nothing, but still yelping/ooing/ahhing your immediate reaction. not even knowing how to talk. out of nowhere, your voice. 

11/29/25

I still like to hold him like I did when he was a baby: cradling his whole body in my arms, but now, his arms and legs are so long that they all dangle out. I still love it, and look into his face, and just stare, starry eyed. He’s also starting to recognize more and more words. He can read small words now: new, joy, stop, go, off, on, exit..

i’m beginning to think that, maybe, despite all the pain and everything, the severity of my pollen allergies was a blessing? Because without them, we never would’ve moved. We would’ve stayed probably where we were- we definitely would not have done this – a country-wide road trip basically. And because of this trip, we’re spending so much time together, getting to know each other, just the three of us, tightly knit. Doing everything together, and we didn’t put him in school right away because of this trip- we get this precious time before he goes to school, just us, building a good foundation. enjoying so many more moments together because of it. maybe it was a blessing. Even though it was so hard. And hard isn’t even the word. It was terrible and forced me to continuously live at the edge of my psychological limit.