Aspirations

I would just like to use today's NaBloPoMo post to point out how very proud I am of my son. He's preparing for his belt test mid-term, which is approaching in a couple of weeks, and he has really shown determination in learing all the new material for this cycle. Not that I am surprised.

Lately, I've been missing some of his Taekwondo classes for various reasons. Once per week, his class starts before I can make it home from work. Twice per week, his classes are at a time when I should really be home preparing dinner. There's also another reason for me missing the classes...

Over Labor Day Weekend, I had a falling out with his best friend's mother. It was fueled by alcohol and insecurities (hers) and she lashed out at me with a venom that I'd never in my life had directed at me before. I won't get into the gritty details, but as I've rehashed the scene over and over in my head, tried to look at things objectively, tried to see where she was coming from in her attack, I simply cannot see it. The worst of it all was not that she was so ugly to me, but that she chose a moment, as we were leaving and taking Boy Pop home, to say venemous things about my child. Untrue things. Things he could hear. She semi-apologized for the event, but she never apologized for the things she said about my child within his earshot.

Her son, my son's best friend, is in the class immediately following Boy Pop's on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I have neither seen nor spoken to this woman since that moment, in the wee hours of the morning of September 5th. I have also not forgiven her. The thought of seeing her makes my skin crawl and makes me start shaking a little. I get this sick feeling in my gut.

They say that to forgive is divine. I'm not so sure. If someone brings harm to you or those you love, how do you forgive that? How do you forgive someone who is seemingly unrepentant? I have always had a difficult time with forgiveness. I dwell on it. I stew in it. I think it is such a natural part of my existence now that I don't know how to live without that chip on my shoulder. Ultimately, though, it makes me less of a happy and involved person.

So it is time. Not to mend fences with this person or forgive her bile, but to stop dwelling on her hatefulness. It is time to stop letting her affect my life. It is time to stop letting my fear of what might happen should I run into her ruin my ability to be present in my child's activities.

It is time to let go of a lot of things that poison my soul, actually. It is time to live up to my own aspirations and start behaving like the wife, mother, person I think I am.

It Is Time

Bubba cannot every be replaced. He was one of a kind, wonderful, amazing, and there are no words to describe the hole in our hearts that were created when he so suddenly left us.

The past two months have been hard. With every knock on the door, every step outside, every glance to where his food dish sat, I felt an ache because he wasn't barking, or wanting to go outside, and his bowl is no longer there.

I can't bring myself to do our walks to school on my work from home days because I don't want to answer the inevitable questions from the people we used to pass, who would always say something sweet about my dog. Bubba was always eager and ready for a pet from a stranger.

I tell Boy Pop that we don't walk to school those mornings because he has had such late nights with baseball and he needs the extra sleep. It's only partially true.

About two or three weeks after Bubba died, Dr Pop started researching breeders. We went online and exclaimed over beautiful puppies (Golden Retrievers only, of course) just about every day. Then he briefly broached the subject with Boy Pop.

He was met with resistance. Boy Pop hasn't cried over his loss in a couple of weeks now, though. He knows that Bubba is not being replaced.

On Wednesday, Dr Pop went up to the school to have lunch with our son, bringing along pictures of two bundles of joy. We couldn't decide, you see. They are brothers, virtually the same. We let Boy Pop decide.

The above picture was the deciding factor. Our new baby arrives on March 31st. We are thrilled. Bubba would have been, too.