I have had chronic bronchitis – according to my mother – pretty much all of my life. Of course, I don’t remember coughing so hard as a baby that my mom gave me whiskey to try to soothe me. Though, that probably explains my current love of a good dive bar.

I do remember having this hacking cough as a kid. I remember codeine syrup that made me vomit, being sent to the hallway at school, and eventually just being sent home because I was disrupting the class. I was absent 45 days one year.

I remember weekly allergy shots that did nothing, my mom putting me on mega-doses of vitamin C (which did help the cough a little, but it also meant mega-hours of sitting on the toilet…you’re welcome), and I remember hovering at the kitchen table with a towel over my head while I breathed in a steamy concoction of rosemary, sage and thyme. I should have thrown in parsley for good measure. Simon and Garfunkel are so disappointed in me.

As an adult, I do a lot of visiting my pulmonologist, ingesting steroids in the form of pills and inhalers, struggling through workouts, and complaining about Ohio winters. Damp, cold weather makes the condition worse and if it doesn’t rain or snow today, it will be the first FIVE-day period here without measurable precipitation since October. I hate winter with a passion because of the cold, but mostly because I feel miserable for months.

And, I hear a lot of, “You’re sick? AGAIN?” which makes me feel a lot like that little kid who got sent to the hallway. You don’t get, “How are you doing?” because you’re always doing the same. I’m always coughing. I’m always tired and when it gets to be March and I get another flare-up, I’m really depressed. I cried after watching “Parenthood” last night; not because of the aspergers or divorce storylines, but because the characters were all so happy and healthy. Jerks.

My mom still worries about me non-stop and my son told me yesterday, “I’m going to pray really hard for you” but I can’t help but feel like one of these days I’m just going to lose it, pack up the car, and force my family to move to Arizona.

Because, even though peri-menopause and desert heat don’t mix, I’m getting really, really tired of sitting in the hall.

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I didn’t think I’d ever write again.

I’m not trying to be dramatic; if so, I would admit this with a slumped neck and the back of my hand held to my forehead. If you’re not dramatic like a southern belle, well you’re just not dramatic at all.

No, there’s no drama in the statement that I didn’t think I’d ever write again. It was just a matter of fact; a brick wall into which I ran. Actually, I just kind of walked into it and there I gazed into the mortar every day, trying to move my feet forward while facing that brick wall. I took steps, but I didn’t go anywhere.

What bothered me, was that this didn’t bother me. I was okay with being in this place, because I didn’t really have any other choice. There was this ho-hum acceptance of where I was over the last couple of months. Ho-hum, brick wall, la dee dah.

So what were the things that kept me from writing? If I had to guess I’d say first and foremost, winter. If I could weave you any tale with grandeur, it would be my disdain for winter. It would sound very Shakespearean and involve a lot of “doths,” like, “Back off winter, I am doth DONE with you.”

Because of my husband’s schedule, I spent a lot of January in a bad place; a lonely, dark, FREEZING COLD place. Hi, honey! Love you! It was so bad that I actually looked at homes for sale in L.A. Mmm hmm, Los Angeles, people. I needed real people to talk to and I didn’t care if they were complete strangers and mostly said, “Dude.”

But, February meant my husband was home more often and it means that March is coming soon and thank goodness it’s a short month! *said with slumped neck and back of hand to forehead*

There was also the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman. No, I didn’t know him. I didn’t even know his name was spelled with one ‘l’ until he died, but when he passed it felt like someone came up behind me at the brick wall, picked me up and threw me into it.

I know people who have died from heroin overdoses. I know people who are in jail because of heroin. It’s personal. And, here was this guy with nearly-limitless resources, talent, assistants, managers, and no doubt housekeepers and a nanny, who could not keep this demon at bay. That scares me.

What about the people who are struggling to just keep their jobs and houses out of foreclosure, and take care of the kids, who might have the urge to take away some of the stress and pain? How do we stop them from using heroin to take them to a place that makes them feel better? How do we stop them from trying it the first time? How do we make sure our kids don’t try something the FIRST TIME? I still don’t know the answer to that. Damn it.

And there was Dylan Farrow (I will not type his name here), the terror threats in Sochi, and so much unbelievable news that I just couldn’t be that One. More. Voice. on the Internet.

But then something snapped, and by snapped I mean it was like a twig soaked in water, then bent back and forth until the bark came off. Then I twisted the wet, woody fibers underneath and gnawed on them a little. It was like that kind of snap. All of a sudden, or not suddenly at all, I wanted to write again.

And, I can’t really tell you why. Maybe it was my med changes, spring on the horizon, tougher workouts, completion of some work projects, more time with friends…I don’t know and it doesn’t matter. All I know is that I turned my back on that brick wall and I was writing.

I don’t know which direction I’m heading, but damn it feels really good to be moving again.

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Yesterday was my daughter’s 15th birthday. I didn’t write a post for her because I don’t know how many times I can say what an amazing miracle she is, how proud we are, or how much I love watching her grow up without people rolling their eyes and saying, “We know! We know, already!” So instead of typing away on my computer, we went to church, ate Chinese food, went bowling, cut into an ice cream cake, and ran errands. Nothing bonds you with your child on her birthday like searching through clearance Christmas lights at Walmart.

Today, we’re going to do more of the same. I have a few days off and I’m going to spend as much of that time with my kids doing things we don’t get to do very often and some stuff we do all the time, but for which I won’t be distracted. Grocery shopping can actually be an enjoyable experience when you don’t have deadlines looming.

I hope you all had wonderful family moments like bowling and Chinese food over the past few weeks and I wish you beautiful memories in the New Year. Without further ado, here are my favorite posts from 2013.

January – I reflected on parenting and how impossible and beautiful it can be at the same time. Oh, and I can’t forget that dance.

February – February was all about love and marriage. And, trauma.

March – I focused on the correlation between my mind, body and homemade wine.

April – A rough month, filled with a lot of anxiety – as you can probably see from this post.

May – My heart was broken by my son’s former school and we made a life-changing decision for him because of it.

June – I celebrated six years of blogging! And, I wrote a letter to my dad.

July – Rash decisions were made.

August – Mommy-blogging was alive and well!

September – Keepin’ it real, yo’. Just keepin’ it real.

October – I wrote 10 Things for My Daughter in Case I Die and drew a picture for my son.

November – My son took his disability public. Or, at least to the driveway.

December – The Favorite Christmas Songs series was a ton of fun to make, but acting like Kenny Rogers? Bonus.

Cheers and happiness to a fabulous 2014!

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I finally removed my last-of-the-summer toenail polish today. It’s almost winter and technically only four of the toes had polish left on them. It was brownish/purple polish so it pretty much just looked like I had four bruised toenails. Well, five because one actually is bruised from the errant placement of a kettlebell.

Logically, I should have pulled out the cotton balls last week before I walked around barefoot in front of some friends. I’m sure they would have appreciated it. They probably would have liked it if I had waxed my eyebrows too. I did shower, though. So I have that going for me. And they for them.

I waited until today to remove the polish because yesterday we went to the movies at this ridiculously redesigned theater where the seats recline. Like REALLY recline.

AMC ain’t lyin’

A friend responded to this picture by saying she thinks we’re on our way to living Wall-E times, to which I say bring on the Big Gulps.

These recliners have nothing to do with my toes. You’re welcome.

The drive to the movies was perilous, though you probably couldn’t see that from the way my husband was speeding down the freeway. He’ll tell you that he was driving under the speed limit and I will tell you not far enough under. It was foggy, rainy, icy, and part of the interstate was shut down due to an accident.

You know how your mother always wraps her fingers around the handle in the car where you’re supposed to hang your dry cleaning, even though no one gets their clothes dry cleaned any more? Here, please soak my shirt in chemicals so I can breathe it in and wear it against my skin. Mmm.

Anyway, your mother. You know how she holds onto that handle and tells you how to drive and says things like, “Please don’t kill us!” – or, is that just my mother? Well, it was also me yesterday before we got to the recliners which have nothing to do with my toes.

So, this morning before mass I was thinking about those roads and our three block drive to church. (That sound you just heard was the collective gasp of everyone who lives in NYC.) I thought about the chance that we could be in an accident and if I went to the hospital, my treatment would suffer because of the state of my toenails.

Don’t act like if you were an ER doctor and someone came in with pretty toenails that you wouldn’t treat them before the person with four, no five, bruised toenails. Because you totally would. If you say otherwise, you’re lying to yourself and should probably go to therapy.

I didn’t want my healthcare in the hands of a student who would probably give up on medicine and go work as a seamstress after treating me, because fabric swatches don’t have feet. I wanted to be seen by a good doctor. Like the time when my daughter was in the NICU and my husband told the nurse practitioner that he wanted a real nurse, not one who was just practicing.

Because I’m a catastrophist I removed the toenail polish and made it safely to church. Which, sadly, also means I didn’t get any morphine or anything. But, at least my toes look pretty.

Well, nine of them anyway.

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