Mother’s Day, Not the Hallmark Version.
May 12, 2025
When I look back on my experience with motherhood, and being a daughter, the first memories that come to mind are not of time in the kitchen learning to cook family favorites, flying kites, making collages or coaching kid’s soccer.
I cringe a little.
My own mom and I struggled; I was an ass from a very young age and gifted at running to my father over every interaction that didn’t go my way. She, I don’t think, knew what to do with this hot tempered, angry, young woman who challenged almost every word that came out of her mouth.
After I had my own kids, it took me years to become the mom I wanted to be. I still had a temper, was impatient, and as self involved as a twelve year old. I remember giving Katy a bath in the sink while she was a baby and checking the clock minute by minute to see how much longer until I could put her to bed and have a glass of wine.
Colin and I were close until we weren’t. Maybe his temper was passed down from me, maybe he responded to my distracted parenting style. When he turned thirteen or fourteen, the wars began. You can find details of our battles, edited for both of our sakes, on these pages. I broke into his social media, he’d chase me around the house screaming for me to give his phone back.
Oh my god, how did we survive the drama?
And we did. Somewhere along the way, with a little help from my mom and my kids, and maybe that enemy of all, time.
I love being my mother’s daughter. I can’t go a day without calling her. She might appreciate it if I didn’t call her so much. We talk about Wordle, birds, her cat, my dogs, the news, what’s for dinner, and what’s on tv. She tells me regularly how proud she is of me, as a mom, as a professional, as a writer. Her words lift me up because she doesn’t bestow praise to be polite. Never did. (I’m pretty sure when I was younger, that made me a little bit crazy.)
And my kids? Katy is not shy about letting me know I could have done better when she was young, but she also calls me for advice. She’s twenty-one, so I think I’m mostly redeemed. Like my mom, when she says something nice, I hold onto her words for days. People say she looks like me, but really, she may have my eyes, but she is calmer, kinder, and incredibly good at crafting, so I’m pretty sure I was just a vessel that fed her meals and took her to checkups.
There is Colin, my angry young man. He is twenty-four, crazy charming, and absolutely determined to every damn thing his own way. We went out to dinner the other night, me and Sheldon, Colin and Jasmin, and the four of us sat at the table for three hours, talking, laughing, and telling stories. About his life in Oregon. About the students at Mcphs. About our dog, Sophie, his second Christmas, and what it was like to watch him play basketball. I’d like to see him get to a gym and take it up again. He’ll find his way there, or not, but not because I suggested it. Even through our tough years, he always gave the best hugs, and he still does.
I wish wish wish I hadn’t taken so long to get to the place I am now. I wish I’d taken more videos, counted to ten before raising my voice, insisted on eating dinner together every night, (that tradition faded when sports, dance classes, and work, took over). We could have found a way.
It’s incredible, to look back on the tough times, and realize that somehow, it all worked out.
Yes, I get scolded by Katy if I offer to clean out her closet. And it takes Colin two or three days to call me back. But when they are nearby, they come home and they stay for a while. I’m sad to them leave, but grateful I don’t have to worry about what time they’ll be home.
I’d like to wish my Mom the very best Mother’s Day. I promise not to call you at 7 am anymore and to try remember which days you play bridge. I am just as proud of you as you are of me, if not more so. You are smart, strong, kind, and amazing. We made it to the good part together, isn’t it wonderful?
To everyone, Happy Mother’s Day.
Being a good parent, or a good kid, is hard as hell.
Reflections after visiting the doctor.
April 5, 2025
I went for my regular ob/gyn visit the other day. It had been a while, surprising given my age, sixty-two, and the joy of laying under fluttering paper with feet in stirrups, and bare bottom, shining like, yes, the moon. Of course, I don’t know what my bare bottom actually looked like; I was not in a position to see much except for my doctor. She was lovely and gracious, checked to make sure the room was the right temperature, allowed me to prattle on about my kids before we got down to the business of the appointment.
Afterwards, she washed her hands. I sat up on the table, my feet, still in socks, dangled towards the floor. The doctor explained everything looked good, my ovaries were shriveled up to about the size of tiny grapes, (didn’t she mean raisins?) and I needed to schedule my mammogram.
It was hard enough confirming my age at the beginning of the appointment. But to be reminded that I am in my sixth decade and then told that my ovaries were shriveled?
I left the appointment and called friends and made the whole conversation a funny anecdote ending with “can you believe she said that to me?”
The whole time I was chuckling on the phone, I was sulking inside. I didn’t want to go gently into the good night. I didn’t want to be sixty-two.
For the record, I don’t like what gravity has done to my breasts, the laugh lines around my eyes, (crinkles, I guess, the word sounds like shriveled to me,) and that my feet are sore when I first wake up if I don’t stretch them out before bed. I don’t like having to stretch my feet out before bed; I don’t have the time, I floss longer than anyone I know in an attempt to make up for all the years I didn’t listen to the dentist.
But it finally occurred to me that yes, I am sixty-two. it’s not quite as great as thirty-two. But my kids and I have actual conversations. The people I call my friends must be really good friends because they have stuck around so long. And that sixty-two might be a bit easier than seventy-two or eighty-two.
I’m healthy. I go the gym. I can survive a forty-five minute high intensity workout without having to sneak to the ladies room for a breath. My body is pretty good to me, crinkly eyes, defeated breasts, and shriveled ovaries.
Getting older is, (and this is hard to say but I truly believe it, most of the time,) a privilege. It will be whatever I make of it. I don’t think I will grow older gracefully, but I’ve never been graceful and that’s never bothered me at all.
I plan to continue being who I am, at sixty-two, and sixty-three, and so on, and, hopefully, so on.
Today, I spent some time with my twenty-one year old daughter. She was bemoaning all of the work she has to do for college, the challenges of finding a summer job, and juggling all of this, along with time with her friends and stuff like laundry. “There aren’t enough hours in the day!” she exclaimed.
I said, as people do, especially people my age who have recently been to the gynecologist- “Enjoy these times, Katy. They go by so fast.”
I don’t think she heard me, or she did, but I’ve said it before. But she doesn’t have a clue what I mean. Lucky, lucky, girl, my daughter.
And I am a very, lucky woman, a work in progress, who needs to go stretch my feet because I’ve got a lot to do in the morning.
Monday March 2025 Blues.
March 25, 2025
Today, it is raining and cold here in the Boston area. I worked from home, perched on a kitchen chair whose rattan seat sags, the dogs have nibbled on the caning, and three of them are out in the trash in front of the house, (the chairs, not the pups). I could end up on the floor before I’m done writing, or my bottom could fall in, and I could end up stuck, like a sad Winnie the Pooh, with no Piglet around for rescue.
Bernadette, our tiny, weird Frenchie, was chilled after her morning walk. I took her wet collar off and promptly lost it. Or Jack stole it, and it’s now somewhere out in the back yard in the dark, in the mud.
While cooking dinner, searching for soy sauce, I grabbed the coconut aminos from tippy top shelf and dropped them. The bottle shattered, brown, sticky liquid, shards of glass, all over the floor.
I went for the mop. While mopping, I somehow managed to break the mop, the sponge piece came out of the center while I was trying to wring the damn thing out in the sink. There was a lot to ring out, and still a lot left on the tile.
I used all the dishrags, and the floor only sticks a little when I walk across it.
I can’t take the dogs for a walk; Bernadette has no collar, Chanel has already gone upstairs to bed, disgusted with having to do her business in our dark, muddy, back yard. Jack is bouncing from couch to floor, from outside, to his pillow by the pellet stove.
Dinner was good, I guess. I used too much rice vinegar, I think, but hopefully it will taste better tomorrow because I will be eating it for a week.
The world outside my door, and further beyond our own little corner of Massachusetts, is raging. People are scared. People are angry. I’ve saved all the upcoming events at my church to the calendar- the potlucks, the marches, the singalongs. It feels like nothing but it’s something. It’s something.
I had to turn off the notifications from the Times on my phone. The news has to wait until the end of the day on work days, but I work in higher education and who knows what’s going to happen.
It was a Monday, I tell myself. It is time to floss, wash, pajama, slide cool overpriced serum and then cool, overpriced moisturizer on my face. More of them same, but different products, under my eyes.
It is time to take out my lenses. After that, the house will look a bit cleaner.
I feel like a failure because I broke a bottle and lost a collar. I feel like a failure I’m sitting in a chair that should have been tossed weeks ago. I feel like a failure because usually, when I feel like a failure, I take the dogs for a walk; the night sky, and the stars put things in perspective.
I guess I can look out the window.
The gift of tomorrow, for those of us blessed enough to have tomorrows to look forward to, is inestimable. I can’t find it in my heart to feel anticipation, or believe in it’s promise.
But I haven’t looked out the window yet. Or curled up on the sofa, with three, noisy, damp, dogs, who have already forgiven me for not taking them out for their walk.
And the chair didn’t collapse, so that’s something.
Thoughts on my marriage.
February 18, 2025
Sheldon’s working tonight; I haven’t seen him since he dropped me off for work at 745 this morning.
A few minutes ago, I went downstairs to our bedroom to check on Michael the cat and find some slippers.
He’d made the bed before he left; he filled up the humidifier and it looks like he attempted to do something about the nightmare of socks on the laundry table.
When he makes the bed, the blankets are even on both sides. The pillows are fluffed, the comforter is neatly folded at the end.
All the stray glasses are gone from the nightstand, my eyeglasses have been placed high on the dresser. (Jack ate my glasses a year ago, Shel still hasn’t recovered, and the replacement pair is very fancy.)
Our conversations revolve around how much he slept, (never enough, I remind him he should stop watching war movies at 2 am and the impact on his lifespan, only getting five hours of sleep,) the dogs- how long they walked, if Chanel lost her sweater, if they ate their breakfast. If it’s too cold for the dogs, or too warm.
We talk about our kids, a little. When Kate’s home, more so, but pretty much based on the dishes in the sink or her current demeanor, we smugly agree on how lovely she is or how long it will be until she recognizes that she is too old not to least soak her egg pan.
About Colin, we worry about his mood, we compare notes on how he looked on Facetime. Colin worries us both, and there isn’t a damn thing we can do, but we call him a lot and I send him pictures of Chanel.
Sheldon worries about me, when he’s working, what I’ll have for dinner, how I’ll manage the dogs by myself when it’s icy.
He never needs to ask me how much I slept, I’m always asleep long before him, and if I can’t sleep, I will share that. Repeatedly. I do not do well on less than eight hours.
It doesn’t sound like a lot.
We worry about each other; we listen to each other. (I’ve stopped doing wordle in the car on the way to work. It was hard to give up, but marriage is sacrifice.)
We’ve heard almost all of the stories, and we don’t like the same shows.
But my husband made the bed for this morning, because he knew that tonight, it would make me happy.
So, we’re good.
If you know him, maybe you could mention he should get more sleep.
I’m Pretty Sure This Will Happen to Most of Us.
April 25, 2023
It happened tonight at the gym. It happens all the time when I’m working with high school students, having drinks at bar, walking my dog, watching television.
I feel a tiny wince somewhere in my chest, I wish I was that young. I’d like a do over or a do it all again.
This doesn’t last long. I don’t have the option of wallowing when I’m raising a twelve pound weight over my head, explaining the difference between subsidized and unsubsidized loans to a seventeen year old, or hanging out with my friends.
We’re all so busy lately. I’m busy, my friends are busy, everyone at work is losing their minds. Some of my colleagues are eating lunch at their desks, staying long after doors lock and sending emails at 2 am Sunday morning. (Not me. I have lunch with my friends, but that’s a different story, because my friends at work are the best.)
Essentially, I have too much going on to dwell on my age, or whatever the hell age I’d like to be.
Tonight, I dwelled.
When I was in high school, I drank Miller Lite behind the bathroom at the Tourne, a park in my hometown. A lot of people did this, I was known for being Rob’s shadow and spent the first six months of our relationship agreeing with everything Rob said, until we’d been together for a few months.
Around this time, I discovered the excruciating joy of passionate arguments in the middle of the street, in the middle of the night, in the snow, barefoot, because whatever the hell we were fighting was so important it couldn’t wait four hour until he picked me up for school. When I wasn’t whipped up and hysterical about Rob, I used my free time to squabble with my mom about why I had to empty the dishwasher when we had a housecleaner, and walk around a lake called Mountain Lake. I didn’t do any homework or play any sports, but it’s obvious, I was quite busy.
During my twenties, I was sad. My father died when I was twenty-two, and although he’d been sick for a while, his loss hit hard. I wasn’t hospitalized; I went to school, held some jobs, went through the motions, but looking back, I see a sad girl who should have been in therapy.
During my thirties, the first thing my brain tells me to write is I had a damn good time. I was on guest lists, went to concerts in limos, stayed up until dawn playing backgammon, and weirdly enough, talking about high school. I shopped. I hung out at the pool on the roofdeck on the Sheridan. I went to Walden Pond whenever my friend was kind enough to take me, and if she wasn’t up for it, I took a cab out to Concord and made the driver wait until I was finished. (I had a collection of cabdrivers that drove me places and brought me food and alcohol when I didn’t want to leave the house or the liquor stores were closing.)
Most nights, when we were out, I’d leave first, and head back to my apartment to wait for my friends to come over after the bars closed. I don’t like waiting in line for the bathroom and crowds make me uncomfortable. The limos were nice, and the concerts were amazing, but mostly, what I remember is trying to locate the limos after the concerts. That was not fun, and often took a very long time. Backgammon is fun, especially when you’re winning, but Walden and winning backgammon games aren’t enough to redeem a decade that, from this angle, looks pretty shallow.
I had children in my forties. I remember trying to hold slippery Kate up in the sink so I could wash her hair, and almost dropping her, because I turned around to look at the clock. I needed to know how many more minutes until I could put her to bed.
I skipped through parts of Lemony Snicket when I was reading to Colin because I wanted to get back downstairs to some tv show.
I loved taking them to the pool but we didn’t go often because of how long it would take to get them in and out of their swimsuits. And sometimes, while they were swimming, they’d need to pee. It was so inconvenient, those three to six minutes of helping my kids get ready to play in the water.
As they grew older, they started to move in another direction. I’d take them to the park, leave my book and phone behind, and they’d meet their friends. We’d go for a hike, and they’d want to turn around after thirty minutes so we could go for pizza.
By the time they were teenagers, I caught glimpses. I memorized conversations and wrote about them on Facebook, not to brag, but so I’d have records. I drove Katy anywhere she wanted to go, just to have time in the car. I tried to connect with Colin, but he started drifting away around age fourteen. The only time we spoke was when he lost something in the laundry, the only real conversations we had were in the car when we were on the way home from the police station.
Now, Colin is twenty-two and Katy is nineteen. Neither one of them live at home, but we talk. Colin tells me about his new apartment and sends pictures of his food all the time; this is a trend I don’t understand. Katy shares stories about frat parties I’m pretty sure not every parent hears, sends pictures of her new haircut, her new chair, her form in deadlift, and lately, has let me listen while she tries to figure out what she wants to be when she grows up. Right now, archivist, physical therapist assistant, and media consultant are all on the table. She is also considering archaelogy but I guess the prospects for employment are dismal.
My kids are entirely different, but they pick up the phone when I call. Sometimes I have to call twice and then text, but they pick up.
The only do over I’d like is those fleeting moments when they were really small. I’d sit on the floor with Katy and color, instead of leaving her at the coffee table while I sat at kitchen table on my desktop computer. Colin loved playing with tiny plastic animals, I have no idea what he did with tiny plastic animals, but I wish I knew. I wish I didn’t always rush him off the swings, he loved the swings.
I think most parents go back to wishing they’d had just a little more time giving baths and cutting up vegetables. Maybe that’s why so many want grandchildren; I haven’t gotten there yet.
I’m good with where I am now. I live with a pup who thinks going to bed at nine is almost as much fun as eating cookies.
I work, and eat lunch, with people I like, for students who need my help. I don’t spend a fortune on records, (Spotify!). I like to cook.
I wake up without a hangover; I take my time getting ready because I’ve laid my clothes out the night before.
My kids talk to me, and quite often, when I say something, they listen.
Cancel the do-over.
I need to stop time.
The dog who couldn’t get up and did.
October 14, 2022
I don’t want to go back and read what I wrote about three weeks ago. I’m pretty sure it was a softspoken couple of lines about the impending death of my Sweetest of Dogs, Sophie, also known as Mrs. Blackburn.
Maybe, I talked about carrying her down the stairs to a final cookie party, or our trip to the pond so she could move in the water. On land, she could only stagger, or lurch, or sigh, sit, and rearrange her paws around her body to look up at me as if I had inflicted her with aging joints and rapidly advancing kidney disease.
Let’s be clear. It’s been three years since she started dying. I’ve written similar elegies. I’ve had my minister mention her name at church and more than one drink put on someone else’s tab after I spilled the sad story of Sophie the Magnificent, aka Mrs. Blackburn.
But three weeks ago, well- I’ve never had to carry her to and from the car before. I’ve never had to lift her onto the sofa, the low one, where we forcefeed her meds, my husband prying open her jaws with two hands, and me dropping the crushed up powder in, sliding in down a folded square of cardboard. I gave up all pretense of healthy dog food, gave her Sheldon’s leftover steak, with a smear of catfood on top, and a little bit of buffalo chicken for bedtime snack.
That was three weeks ago. And for those of you who know just how bad it was, I gotta tell you now-
She’s fine again.
She’s climbs up and down the stairs three times a night, because sometimes at three am, Mrs. Blackburn likes to look at the stars, take a drink from the toilet, or chase Michael the cat. She is still fussy as hell, but is starting to realize we’ve noticed she eats the healthy dog food when we’re not looking.
I sent Sheldon to the store yesterday for another case of the damn stuff, I think it’s four bucks a can. I didn’t want to send him to the store until I was sure, well, you know.
She had a fight with the neighbor’s dog this morning, which translates to when the tiny grey poodle walked by, owner following behind on the phone, Sophia the Fierce, tore out the back door to the fence, where she alternated fierce, ear splitting barks with deep throated, impressive growls.
She’s fine again, though that dog from this morning might disagree.
I was going to say, I’m looking forward to taking her for granted again, but I don’t think I will.
Winter’s close, and it’s time to stay close to those that we love.
Sophia, The Kindest Of Queens will keep us warm and safe until spring. We need her this year more than ever.
The season of the big ouch
October 2, 2022
About three years ago, Sophie the Sweet, was diagnosed with liver and kidney failure. We were warned she didn’t have much longer to live.
I jumped on the internet and started making recipes for low protein low fat meals, most of them ended up greyish brown or brownish grey. Sophie the Stubborn never ate a bite.
We found her a ‘healthy” dog food that I would eat after I covered it with slabs of bacon, shredded mozzerella cheese, meatloaf, chicken skin, and catfood. We would place her bowl at the top of the basement stairs, behind the door, and stand on the other side to listen for slurping or toenails on cement heading downstairs.
For months after the first visit to the vet, tears would spring at random. Was this our last walk at Houghton’s? The final cookie party? The final glimpse of her gobbling a rabbit smeared on the driveway left by Michael, the cat?
But she went on. So we did.
Just last week, she started limping. My husband diagnosed her as needing a day at the spa. The pawdicure didn’t work.
For the past three days, I’ve been carrying her inside and out of the house. The healthy dog food is going to my son’s puppy, Nell.
Tonight, I fed Sophie a chicken enchilada, tore every morsel into tiny bites, and left out the bits with tomato, in the middle of the living room while Nellie tried vigorously to climb my right leg. I’m not sure what exactly Nel was trying to accomplish, but when she stopped, she looked like she wanted a cigarette.
Tomorrow, I’m thinking Peking Duck for lunch. It will be Sunday, and Chinese food tastes best on Sunday. We’ll take her to the vet on Monday. Maybe there will be another miracle.
Right now, there is a miracle dog in my living room. I”m going to go read a book and hope that she can read my heart as I sit on the couch, near her, in her bed, on the floor.
Tomorrow we’ll visit Houghton’s so that she can swim before the weather turns cold.
Winter is promises to be bitter this year.
Miracles Happen.
January 16, 2021
For a time, I posted regularly on all channels about my life, including details about my daughter, husband, son, workouts… I shared and shared and shared.
The first of January one of my first orders of business was less time on social media- scrolling through my feed, checking likes, fussing about how to share the challenges and bliss of my new position at Blue Cross MA, obsession with spin class at home, (support your local gym, they are struggling,) and clicking on all links that left me sprawled on my sofa for hours.
Social media made me put off conversations with my daughter, and the exploding number of plastic containers in my cupboard without lids intended to store food I am not making because I am on staring a screen looking up someone from middle school.
I have written numerous posts about Sophia the Sweet, a pitfall border collie mutt, struggling with liver and kidney disease. Six months ago, Sheldon and I sat in the parking lot at the vet waiting to hear if it was time for us to “end her misery.” She was walking into walls, not eating scraps of Sheldon’s Italian subs, barking at neighbors, or lifting her head when Maurice the Cat strolled in the room.
It came out of nowhere, we said, but not really. We were busy with Covid, Colin, my 20 year old pain in the ass, oh-so-charming, son, and weren’t paying attention.
These days, mid January, Sophie seems fine.
We stopped taking her to the vet for check-ins; the visits made her tremble and cost a fortune.
We are feeding her a low protein diet topped with oven fried chicken, tenderloin, or slow cooked ham.
She won’t walk at Cunningham Park, but is happy to stroll the neighborhood.
Sophie likes to take me round a long slow mile as long as I don’t tug on the leash. She is not comfortable being photographed, sniffing or rolling. She is comfortable with the current covid restrictions because she is shy and anti social.
I am doing quite well because Sophia sleeps on my feet.She doesn’t get up when I do; (remember, I have a job, and it does require I get up in the morning).
I am a woman whose emotional health is tied to whether her dog looks happy to see her.
Oh, yeah… This isn’t about me.
Miracles happen.
julierichmond 