Like the luddite that I am, I still use a big ol’ fridge calendar to make sense of my life. I’ve been known to even carry it with me to awkward places like meetings and the dentist’s. Each month’s page is littered with little letter B’s written in green marker. B is for boys. The green B’s mark the days I have my sons. The 50/50 custody schedule I share with my ex is simple and easy to remember, but the visual still makes it easier to plan things. It’s also a weird little testament to a strange and stark divide. I’m always a mother, but for half of my life, I’m not on the clock as one.

The longest I’ve gone without drinking – by far – were the two times I was pregnant. The imposed sacrifice wasn’t something I enjoyed much, but it did teach me a few things. Well, maybe one big thing: ‘you can’t take the edge off, so don’t put it on.’ It was a recipe for living that had previously eluded me. In the time since my children have lived on the outside of my body though, alcohol has often felt like an antidote, a treat, a crutch, a friend, the best balm I can think of for my maternally weary soul. And that’s surely a problem. But it’s likely one that points to bigger problems too.

Whenever a health professional asks me if I’ve been pregnant before, it takes me a second to remember how many times. I’ve had two children. I had an abortion in my 20’s. And I had a miscarriage before my first son. That’s four, I’ll remind myself. You’ve been pregnant four times.

The frequency of miscarriages is not matched by the amount of discussion they get. Some estimates suggest that about 1 in 4 pregnancies ends in miscarriage, making it a very unfortunate, but also quite likely scenario. Given that prevalence, and the massive impact a miscarriage can have on a woman, a couple, and more people beyond, we would do well to bring the subject a little further into the light.

I’ve got a new pet peeve at the grocery store. It’s those warning labels on packages announcing that the product is super high in sodium or sugar, or some other terrible ingredient.

Being empowered to make “informed choices” sounds lovely until you remember that you live in a world that constantly crushes you with information and bombards you with choice. We are stuck in a food environment that is at odds with our evolution and benefits corporations who’ve learned how to highjack our taste buds. And now somehow that’s one more thing for me to feel responsible for? Not fair. And just one more reason for me to hate cooking.

It’s hard to believe that the terrible reign of COVID-19 started 6 years ago. The pandemic sometimes feels more like a world we went to than a time we lived through, and we don’t much like being reminded of that place or care to revisit it. Usually when the pandemic comes up in casual conversation, it’s all sighs and sentence fragments. We shake our heads and swiftly shift gears. It’s a lovely little trick of our human nature that we have trouble conjuring experiences of pain. But “the past is never dead. It isn’t even past,” William Faulkner once wrote. And whether we wish to speak any more of the pandemic or not, it continues, of course, to speak through us.

I’ve been separated from the father of my children for 6 years now. At this point separation has become old hat. Maybe too old hat cause I can’t really imagine myself in a relationship anymore. Sharing space with another adult? Being witnessed in my parenting? Trying to collaborate with them in parenting? Gah. Sounds like a lot. And a lot of relationships I see look like barely veiled co-dependence or simple inertia. Then there are the few that I do truly envy and admire. And I think how lucky for those folks. Because, though we don’t love to admit it, most of life is based on nothing loftier than luck.

After the long months (or was it years?) of being cooped up during the pandemic, simply getting to roam free in the world again was thrilling. I remember how, finally being out in wide open spaces essential for boy energy, my favourite thing to say to my sons was “run on ahead.” It’s a line I’m sure many parents relish deploying whenever they can; the subtext is of course closer to something my Scottish grandmother might have said: “get the fuck.” But saying it feels good for good reason. When it comes to parenting, getting distance is a really good metaphor for, well… getting distance.

Aside from handing back a ton of failing essays in my life, I’ve never had to deliver much bad news. When parents decide to separate, having to tell your kids that their lives are about to be turned upside down and inside out, is terrifying. You seek advice, you strategize about when to do it, what to say, what not to say, and try to imagine how such big news will possibly land in little lives. All the while knowing, of course, it’s about something that you want for yourself, at least more than you don’t, that’s pointing you to the pain you’re prepared to inflict.