willingtolove

I recently found myself at a small gathering where the discussion turned to the benefits of cannabis use. Benefits such as help with sleeping and anxiety were listed, as well as occasional social use. I immediately became aware of my involuntary and, perhaps, irrational internal responses to the discussion, mainly because the group was largely made up of people I care about. I became increasingly agitated as the complacent and ambivalent attitude of cannabis use became apparent.

‘It’s legal.’ – so is jumping off a cliff but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

‘It’s not like I’m smoking heroin.’ – oh, I’ve heard THAT one before.

I’m not a snob or a prude. I am not on a high horse. I am traumatised. And I am recovering from seeing my daughter on the brink of death and destruction. And we are still in the process. She’s doing great – but it’s a journey. Every. Day.

It’s only weed. It’s only a gummy. It’s only …… Its okay.

It’s okay until it’s not. And by the time it’s not okay it’s not just weed and it’s not just a gummy. It’s a life course set to nosedive.

Potentially.

Sound extreme? Maybe. Not as extreme as my wish to have all drugs totally eradicated from this earth, starting with cannabis shops. This is post traumatic stress – it takes the seemingly innocent and twists it into something dark, laced with menace. It can’t be rational, calm or reasonable. All it knows is fight or flight, run or attack. Sink or swim. It doesn’t take the time to formulate clever questions nor does it have the patience for answers or the tolerance for understanding. It comes on swift and intense. It’s not funny and it most certainly isn’t okay.

While I fight to stay neutral, the trauma judges. The struggle is draining.

Please don’t misunderstand- it’s been a great 4 months. I am learning to trust Robyn’s process and understand the background behind the drug and alcohol use and abuse. I am also, however, learning to engage in my process. That has been very tricky.

I don’t think I will ever be on Team Cannabis. Or any drug for that matter. (I’m not even that enamoured with alcohol). But overcoming will have to mean enjoying a more balanced approach when the need arises. I guess I’m not there yet.

Recovery is messy.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no way around it. No matter what kind of recovery you are dealing with, it always has bumps and lumps and curve balls. Kind of like looking at yourself in a distorted mirror; the ‘you’ you are expecting to see is not the ‘you’ you do see. The distortion can sometimes be funny, sometimes curious, sometimes sad and a bit deflating, and then hope – knowing that this is a distorted image and the end goal is to get back to a ‘normal’ state of health, mind or strength.

Recovery isn’t binary. It isn’t either/or; black or white; dark or light. It is many faceted, especially when there is more than just one person involved. Like an entire family.

These are just my opinions, my musings, what we have found. Or rather, what I have found.

There are times when we are able to share a laugh, make a joke or jab at things over the past few years. Lately, our road to recovery doesn’t look like a road at all. It looks more like a handful of cooked spaghetti noodles dropped onto the counter from a great height. It’s hard. It’s darn hard.

There’s four of us and that means four roads with many different stop signs, yield signs, all placed differently depending on where we are at on any given day, or any given hour. We make decisions and have opinions that aren’t shared between us; we don’t agree on things and crucially, we don’t agree on where each other is on their own road. Nor do we have consensus on how to manage as a collective.

Stay in your lane. Keep your eyes on your own road. Sounds simple. Enough said. Except it’s not simple and sometimes, there isn’t enough said. Also, we need to remember the dump truck on all four roads – trauma.

I can honestly say that the only time I am not overwhelmingly terrified is when my two adult children are asleep in their own beds. That is the only time I know for sure that they are not somewhere else or planning something that will trigger one of the many post-traumatic stress indicators that have latched themselves onto me over the past few years.

It’s kinda hard to breathe when you have that kind of boot on your throat.

‘I can’t go back. I can’t go back and do that again. I can’t. I won’t survive.’ These were clear statements from me, directed at my beautiful and amazing husband. The husband who, on his own road, and having to get up at 4:30 AM for another 12 hour work shift, got his weary body out of bed at midnight to help mediate between Robyn and I during a rather robust discussion.

She has bravely and painfully disassociated herself from most of her friends and scenes she was in while she was using. The rub is that she hasn’t turned her back to the extent where I think she should this early into her recovery, or at least to the point where would I feel comfortable. Because, of course, it’s all about me…….

It is, and it isn’t, and it is. The last few years have been like a horror movie; truly terrorizing. When I think of the times I spent in the hospital, in her apartment, alone in the car, alone at home in the middle of the night on my knees…… I start to feel anxious, my heartbeat increases. That desperate, hollow feeling comes back. I cry. Sometimes I cry alot. A. Lot. So I’m in this place where I haven’t even been able to deal with all of this trauma before I’m confronted with the fear that it may happen all over again. And I’m afraid it will happen all over again because I haven’t dealt with all of this trauma….. And then it bleeds, or hemorrhages, into other aspects of my life, like, my ability to be rational with our son who, really hasn’t done anything to deserve my suspect and suspicious ire.

So, everything outside of my control, or everything outside of what fits into my comfort zone, goes into the red alert zone. Immediately. To be fair to my stunning daughter, my red alert zone is big. Really big. If I’m honest with myself, there is precious little she can do that fits into my comfort zone. Work, dance, creating at home, having a few of her friends (the ones I like), over here. Yup. That pretty much covers it. Everything else to me is red alert zone territory.

There is huge consensus with addictions professionals that relapse is almost a given on the road to recovery. I can’t even say that out loud. My body won’t let me. Instead I say – I can’t. I can’t go back there. I won’t survive. My fixation on preventing her relapse is sometimes irrational, unhealthy and intense. Or is it? I let go before….. and look where that ended. The lucid me would reword that statement. I’m not reasonable right now. I can’t bring myself to agree with Robyn that ‘mom, it’s okay, I don’t even want to drink or do anything like that when I’m out with my friends.’

In my mind, it’s okay until it isn’t. She’s been very patient and tolerant with me. But also quietly insistent on things she feels are in her comfort zone are there to stay until she decides otherwise, regardless of where they are for me.

The size of my red alert zone is not fair. It’s not reasonable or rational. But trauma doesn’t give out reasonable and rational passes for free. You have to pay and the cost is high. It’s hard. It’s darn hard.

Someone our daughter grew up with recently got engaged. I am ecstatic for them, I really am. Having the benefit of a few days of hindsight, it is curious to me how my most recent irrational rantings coincided with their announcement. It hit me on Sunday night. Even a joyous occasion can be a trigger to an exposed nerve. Tears flowed and flowed and flowed. How did this happen? Two children grew up together with the same set of values and beliefs. One set of parents are celebrating an engagement and the other set of parents are, well, writing this blog. As you can imagine, that just leads to a thicket bush full of self-blame, religion, inadequacies, comparison, etc, etc, etc.

Here’s the thing – Robyn is in a corvette and I’m in a horse-drawn carriage. We are going at different speeds. At points, to be accommodating, she slows down and I speed up, but not all the time. That causes frustration to boil over.

I know we will get there. God promised me my children would not know death; He’s made promises to Robyn too that she is hanging onto. But I’m here to say that sometimes it’s going to be messy, and I am just going to have to be okay with mess.

I was at the hair dresser this morning when the song ‘How to Save a Life’ by The Fray came on. As I listened to the words, it took me back to last August when our daughter was in the hospital. It wasn’t so much her time in the hospital, but the events that led up to it that made this song so relevant to me this morning.

Like so many others, Robyn got laid off when the world went into lockdown in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. She was living in a shared house, but it was getting harder and harder for her to keep afloat so she moved back home. As the world was gripped by the pandemic, and restrictions tightened, we noticed that she was utilizing Zoom and Google Hangout. At the beginning we weren’t overly concerned when she would have a drink or two with her friends over these virtual platforms. As time wore on, I couldn’t help but notice that my daughter could not go more than a day or two without drinking. I started to get slightly worried, but thought it was just the way young people were dealing with the pandemic. During this time she had found a job and an apartment but was sidelined when her new apartment flooded so moved back in. We were really pleased for her that she was starting her life again.

Then things really started to happen. Her behavior became impulsive and erratic. She would make commitments with us and break them. As the summer came and she was with her friends more, her whereabouts became more of an issue. And then it became clear – her substance use was affecting her job as well as her relationship with her family.

My overwhelming desire was to do anything EXCEPT what I actually did do. What I wanted to do was wrap her up and whisk her away and fix it and take care of it. What I did was the exact opposite. I let go.

I gave her a choice. I could take her to an assessment and treatment center or she could go and stay with a friend for the next few days until her apartment was ready. She chose the latter. Twenty minutes after our conversation, she was gone. It was July 23. I didn’t really hear from her until she turned up in hospital on August 19.

That month felt like I was in the valley of death. I’ve never been in the dark like I was during that time. It was like when I’m in our garage and I turn the light out before opening the door – it’s so dark I can’t even see my hand in front of my face.

I couldn’t see.

I can’t breathe.

Strangely, mixed with the excruciating moments, were moments of real peace. I knew I had done the right thing. I knew deep down that this was what I had to do. I had to be willing to let her go. She had to make her own decisions. These moments, though, were fleeting compared to the shadow I lived in during that time. The only thing that kept me going was a promise God made to me a few years earlier. One late night I was praying and He clearly said to me ‘I make this covenant with you – your children and your children’s children will not know death.’ As humbled and overwhelmed as I was at such a promise, I also knew that God doesn’t just go around making covenants for no reason. I knew at that moment that I would be calling back on that intimate time between Him and I. I just never knew it was going to be to this extent.

I called on that moment. A LOT. As my fatalistic imagination got away from me and anxiety stole my joy, I would speak it out. Reminding myself, and God, of that promise – His promise that He made to me. She would not know death. Some days it wasn’t enough. In my most desperate moment, through sobs, I spoke out a request to Him that I never thought would leave my lips. I knew that He knew where she was and He knew what was going on. I asked Him that if she wasn’t going to stop going down the road she was on, then to take her home. I asked Him to spare her any further hurt or pain or heartache; no more trauma or abuse. Take her home. I cried until I lost my voice.

I don’t recall the timeline from that request to when she surfaced. It may have been a few days, possibly more than a week. All I knew was that, for the time being, she was in a safe place. It didn’t last long, and we could only convince her to stay with us for a night before she was off again, but it allowed me time to reset. It gave me a glimpse into what may be her reality – she would not know death. Of course, that story was still a ways off, but it was a glimmer of hope. Looking back at that time, I’m convinced that we are where we are now partly because I chose to let go last July. I was doing her no favors by fixing everything all of the time and smothering her – all I was doing was prolonging the inevitable and driving her pain further down into hiding.

I have no anger or hard feeling towards my beautiful daughter. All I have for her is compassion and mercy and grace. Oh, and tons and heaps of unconditional love. For a time, that love meant needing to let her walk out the door and trust that she was going to come back. And she did. And I am glad.

I feel aggressive today.

I woke up that way. Aggressive and irritable. It happens sometimes, when I go to bed particularly annoyed and worried. Last night I continued my research on Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome. I learned how it is not a proper medical diagnosis due to the differing opinions of medical professionals. I learned that many in the field see these symptoms as part of withdrawal, and that it could last up to six months or even a year so there is nothing ‘post’ about it.

Nausea, cramping, bloating, mood swings, irritability, restlessness, agitation, severe headaches, fatigue, insomnia……

She has had it all, and although Robyn is getting better she is not out of the woods yet. It’s tiring and draining for her and I feel terrible that I can’t just take it away.

I can’t fix this with a warm hug or a cup of hot chocolate.

I can’t fix this. I can’t control this. All I can do is listen, distract and support. Hmph.

So I’m irritated and aggressive. I think about all the people who have exploited and taken advantage of my beautiful daughter. Profited off her pain; used her to meet their own ends. I’m pretty angry.
I’m angry at the drug trade, the chemists who invent new molecular structures for synthetic substances, the dealers, the pushers, the corrupt law officers and politicians who let it all slide. I’m angry at the cannabis stores, the liquor industry, the vape industry.

The greed is insidious. The human cost is cataclysmic.

The office I work for recently released a special report on the impact the opioid crisis is having on young people. It is easier than ever to get drugs and alcohol. It is more dangerous than ever to ingest unknown toxins. The pandemic hasn’t helped.

I’ve stopped trying to pin point the exact moment when ‘it all went wrong’ for my daughter. I’m not sure there was one moment. It was more like a landslide. Slow at first and then it just built momentum. It grew arms and legs and became a creature pulling everything down.

Tonight we tell her how proud we are of her. How brave she is and how invested she’s been in her recovery. I rub her back to warm her chills and hold her hands to quiet the tremors. This is I know what to do at this moment.

She’s got this. Thinking of her determination melts the hard pieces of my heart. The hardness that anger built. It reminds me of the song Landslide, written by Stevie Nicks. Nicks explains that she wrote that song at a low point in her life. She says, “I had gotten to a point where it was like, ‘I’m not happy. I am tired. But I don’t know if I can do any better than this.’” She goes on to say that’s when she decided to right the song, to say, ‘let’s do this. Let’s get to the top.’

This is my landslide moment.

In September of last year I was at Ikea and stumbled upon one of their higher end, three seater sofas in the ‘As Is’ section. It was totally intact and really comfortable, marked down 85% to a whopping $60 Canadian (about 40 quid). The reason for the great deal was that it needed to be covered, and Ikea was totally sold out of the slipcovers for this model.

Robyn had a very small couch in her apartment that wasn’t really doing the job. She had recently been discharged from the hospital (more in a future post), and I figured a nice comfy couch in her apartment may change the atmosphere – kind of like Cognitive Behavior Therapy – looking at a distressful situation differently. I thought, in my desperate attempts to make things better, that this couch may serve as an anchor to redefine her apartment. I was aching to believe that my beautiful daughter had put ‘the things’ behind her that landed her in the hospital in August, and hoped that sprucing up her apartment would be a good start. A spruced up apartment would keep the reprobates and drug dealers away, wouldn’t it?

So I set out to not only make a slipcover, but to totally upholster this couch. I had not really done much of this kind of thing, but needed to get stuck into a project. I felt like I needed to do SOMETHING to try and change the trajectory that I sub-consciously knew my daughter was on. I created a template, and after a fair amount of cutting, sewing and taking apart, and wanting to give up, managed to upholster this couch. It looked really, really good. So good that Nigel was trying to convince me that it should stay in our house rather than Robyn’s apartment. I wasn’t having any of that. In my mind – this couch was part of the answer to a new start for Robyn. This plush black couch, complete with plush red cushions to match her tv stand and a fuzzy grey throw. This was it. She was going to turn the corner and this couch was going to be key. Um……. No.

Fast forward to yesterday. As she has already gone through in her latest blog post (which you can read here: https://robynfloraca.wordpress.com), we went back to her apartment. I had been there a few times over the past month, but only to grab a thing or two. Now, as I waited for her to get some clothes, I had a look around. Yesterday was a hard day.

At first glance the couch looked fine, but it wasn’t until you got a bit closer that you noticed things were not as they seemed. This couch, it was clear, had been through quite the ordeal. This couch had a story to tell; this couch had memories. This couch held secrets. Scanning things lying about on the table, coffee tables and floor…. it all came back to the couch.

Over the past few years I have been in very dark and desperate places. Huge anxiety attacks in the middle of the night; crying, pulling my hair, pleading and begging God to supernaturally remove my daughter from wherever she was and bring her to me. On more than one occasion I have driven to her apartment block in the night to sit in my car and wait for her to come or go. My mind would always take me to the worst scenarios I could possibly conjure, and the only way I could calm myself down was to tell myself over and over that it was just my imagination. But now, the couch was telling me all those thoughts were not just my imagination. Standing in the middle of that apartment, staring at the couch, the fact hit me – my anxiety-fuelled thoughts had passed through the fantastical veil and into reality.

I can’t breathe.

Anger has not been the emotion that has prevailed for me. Anxiety, fear, sorrow…. all in great and equal measure. Anger has only surfaced a few times since our first hospital visit five years ago, and it was mainly directed, or rather misdirected towards others. Anger showed up yesterday. Amongst the sadness and anxiety, I could feel anger crawling up to the surface. This couch was supposed to mark a new beginning and it looked like death. This apartment…… the symbol of starting something, of building something…. crumbled under the pressure of substance abuse and depression. The couch wasn’t the answer. I couldn’t fix this. Anger choked me to the point of feeling numb.

I couldn’t fix this.

By the time we got home we had decided that everything in the apartment was going to be donated or thrown out. The couch – we could sell it. By last night I was clear. The couch, along with its memories and secrets, was going in the trash too.

It was time to start fresh.

About 8 years ago I was chatting with someone I knew from work and my wider church community. We had a bit in common – we were both social workers in the child and family services field in one way or another, in two different regions. We were talking generally about issues young people face in the world with the surge of social media. My friend, who had three children under the age of 7 at the time, stated in a very matter-of-fact tone:

“As long as parents create a safe space for their children to talk, your child will never keep anything from you. It is parents who don’t create safe spaces who have children who lie and keep secrets.”

I wanted to punch them in the face.

By the time I was speaking to this person, my daughter had been cutting herself for two years. Funny thing, though – I didn’t find out because she told me. I found out from a close friend who had heard it from her own daughter. A secret and a lie. Hmmm. I guess I was one of those parents who didn’t create a safe space for my children. Bullcrap.

The creation of a ‘safe space’ in our home and family was textbook. We did not overreact (well, we tried not to) when they made mistakes, we tried hard not to over-discipline or consequence. We prayed together. We did devotionals together. We preferred to use logical consequences over corporal punishment…… we had family meetings, we encouraged open communication. We embedded a family culture. We said sorry to our children when we made mistakes. Robyn and I even had a journal that would go back and forth between us. Lots of it was funny, cute things but it was also used for her to talk about things she didn’t feel able to speak to us about. We weren’t perfect, but we gave it a good try. The space was so safe, it was like falling 30 stories into a puff of fluffy clouds.

There was one problem. It wasn’t her space. It was a safe space, but it wasn’t her brave space.

I had been exposed to self-harm. I paid my way through university as an after-hours duty worker, driving teenage girls to the hospital after swallowing pins, crushed lightbulbs ….. a bottle of Tylenol. Their forearms looked like checkerboards – some scars had healed while others were clearly fresh. I thought I knew about self-harm. It took another ten years for me to realize that all I knew about self-harm was that I didn’t know a darn thing. My exposure to self-harm as a university student crystalized certain stereotypes and scenarios by which something like that would exist. To me, self-harm was straightforward – it was people, mainly teenagers….mainly teenage girls, who would hurt themselves but cutting themselves or eating things that would cut their insides. Taking too many pills was a failed overdose. Overeating, abusing alcohol or other substances were not self-harm in my book – they didn’t even equate. No. No. Self-harm was cutting. Furthermore, those people were ones who had horrific pasts – they had endured abuse or neglect. They were in fostercare for pete’s sake. That was self-harm and those were the types of people who used it as a cry for help.

Not my daughter. Not my child. Why would my child want or feel the need to do something like that? She didn’t have that upbringing. She didn’t have those experiences. Why? Why? Why are you destroying your beautiful skin? Why are you hurting yourself? Stop it. Just stop it. I’ll put up a sticker chart – you can get a reward at the end of the month. Here, have some ice, squeeze on that……… what are you doing? Why are you doing it? You can talk to me about it. We can use a code word. You can call me anytime – I’ll drop whatever I’m doing, no matter what. Stop. Just stop.

What do the books say about it? What does Google say? What do the prominent Christian leaders say? Don’t give it attention but take care of the wounds. Provide other, less invasive forms of self-harm (ice, a hair band), hide anything sharp in the house (until they start taking apart their own pencil sharpener). Get her into therapy, counselling. Get her a mentor. It is addictive. Tell her that.

It was exhausting. The sleepless nights were endless. I would sometimes do checks on her when she was asleep, comparing scars to see how old they were. Sometimes I would trick myself into thinking newer ones were just older ones. I did that a lot. I would kiss her scars – a mother’s love is pretty powerful (I still kiss them). I pray for them to disappear. I’m not sure why I do that – maybe it’s because 8 years ago I got a distorted message that I’m a crappy parent. Maybe I still want to punch that person in the face.

I didn’t get it. I didn’t understand that it wasn’t a tap you could just turn off. I couldn’t comprehend why a person would not just pour out their guts and deal with whatever their issue was so the hurt would stop and they didn’t have to cry for help anymore. I had created a safe space – what was the problem?

Some things are still taboo. Mental health is one of them. Cutting is a big one. Feeling depressed, overwhelmed, abandoned and alone are all there as well. Pile on the optics – being raised in a Christian home, an active part of the youth group and have parents who are well known in the Church. Safe spaces do not exist for a person with this lived experience. The only spaces that exist are brave spaces.

The notion of brave spaces came to me only recently by a colleague of mine. She is a wonderful, courageous Indigenous woman who speaks out about the injustices of racism and discrimination. She explained to me that for her, there are no safe spaces, just brave spaces. This means that she decides when and where she puts herself out there; when she takes that step of bravery and becomes her most vulnerable – sharing her experiences growing up as an Indigenous girl. She has found that the times when she was encouraged to share in a ‘safe space’ but didn’t feel right about doing so ended up being a bad experience. It was those times when she chose to be brave, when everything felt right and she was ready, that the experience was healing and positive.

As hard as I worked to create a safe space for my daughter, it was always going to stay empty until she felt ready. Until she felt able to step out and speak out on issues that are still left in dark corners and hidden under carpets. As hard as I toiled to ‘make it better’, any safe space I created dried up. Her pain is her pain; her reality is her reality. And I’ve had to realize, although painfully, that I can’t take away her pain. I can’t take it away by hovering over her, hiding all the sharps in the house, controlling her environment to make it as less stressful as possible, taking away her phone, turning off the internet. That did nothing but drive her away and send her the message that all she needed to do was snap out of it. I can’t make her stop cutting by ostracizing people who I believed had children who may have hurt my daughter or caused her distress; or people who I had expected to be positive role models in her life but did not live up to my ridiculous ideas. All that created was her feeling she needed to lie to me and tell me she ‘wasn’t doing that anymore’. The one who needed care was now having to take care of me.

No. The only way that a brave space was going to be created was for me to start letting go. Letting go and putting my trust in the Almighty. The One who made her, planned her. The One who had her first – the One who gets to claim her before me. (I will talk about God ALOT in these posts. You have been warned)! That was a 10 year process, and I’m not totally there yet. But we’re getting there.

My daughter wasn’t a baby who walked early. In fact, she wasn’t really interested in walking at all. She was happy to crawl around on all fours, fast as lightning, to get to where she wanted to go. Once she started to furniture walk, it took her months before she finally let go to take her first independent steps. I remember it like it was yesterday. She was holding onto her grandma’s fingers, and then, with loving reassurance from the woman who had such an impact on her life – let go. I was close by, camera at the ready. I knew that if I was holding onto her she would have never let go. She, and I, would have prolonged this next crucial stage of her development. I was excited for her to get to that stage, but found it hard to face the reality of it at the same time. My baby was growing up, she would be a ‘toddler’, it was all going so fast. But I knew that I had to let go. So I did.

I had no idea how profound this moment would be over the course of not only my daughter’s life, but to the survival of my relationship with her.

Now, on the brink of turning 25, my daughter is ready to start telling her story. Her lived experience of suffering with mental health issues, undiagnosed disorders and how that led to a crippling and life altering drug and alcohol addiction. I stand with her, and I’m insanely proud of her brave decision. I have my own story too.

Parenting a child and young adult through mental illness and addictions is indescribable. Your heart is always broken; you are in a state of constant grief mixed with anger, exhaustion and unbridled worry. And most of all, you are terrified. Terrified of the phone ringing, a knock on the door, an unexpected visitor – expecting that phone call, that visitor, is the one. That one message that keeps you up at night – the message that your daughter is gone.

I can’t breathe. I’ve been saying that for the past five years. It is the only way I’ve found to describe what goes on inside me during those times.

I’ve felt unable to tell my story because it is so entwined with her story. A story that was, and is, not mine to tell. That is going to change. As she tells her story, I will follow up with a post of my own, from the mother’s perspective. We hope doing this will not only be healing and cathartic for us, but helpful to others. I have pages and pages and pages, but I will only go so far as to what she is ready to share. It is my sincere hope and prayer that she feels able to be as authentic as possible.

Stay tuned and follow her on robynfloraca.wordpress.com.

I sit here at my kitchen island (the beautiful one that my dad built) at an hour in the morning where the only ones awake are my husband and Jesus. Jesus because He is All Powerful and Almighty and would never take His eye off of His beloved; and my husband because, even though he knows he is at risk of being laid off in a moment’s notice, he is working from home diligently during his 12 hour shift, making sure that many transport trucks across Canada have the fuel they need to keep people like us stocked piled with all of our necessities.

I am awake because I have realized what has been creeping up on me for the past few days. I am not okay. I am not okay and I’ve been fighting it.

At the end of February what I thought was a common chest cold raged into pneumonia, mainly because I could not get a doctor to see me because of my symptoms. When I finally got medical treatment I was past the worst of it, but it was the sickest I had ever been. My lingering cough has kept me isolated for well beyond the 14 days given the fluid protective measures, rightly being taken by governments, organizations and businesses everywhere.

For the past months we have billeted a wonderful young hockey player who has devoted his life to trying to make the pros. He works incredibly hard, is incredibly focused and has sacrificed many things to pursue his dream. He is in the final stages of his junior career and looking for the big contract. We could offer little condolences as he packed up his room and car – directed by the league to be going home within 24 hours due to the suspension, and now full cancellation, of the rest of the season. Draft eligible, this will have a massive impact on his chances of realizing his lifelong dream.

I’ve been a social worker for 25 years and am unashamedly fueled by striving for justice for children who see themselves in the care system or justice system. They have rights – and when they are at their lowest time – dealing with trauma, isolation and separation they deserve to get their needs met in every way. For the past 10 days I have seen that slipping away – and my ability to influence change slipping away with it. I cannot stand up to the people who are deciding that children should be cut off from seeing loved ones and being taken to a locked room for quarantine because an adult around them feels they are ‘exhibiting symptoms’ – all in the name of Public Health. I cannot and will not stop advocating for the marginalized; but it feels different right now. It feels like I’m talking to the wind because I know that very little is going to happen in these current times.

I can jump up and down and scream and shout and stamp my feet but the reality is this – people are dying and addressing that has to be the #1 priority. So as a result, many things, and many people, get sidelined. Issues that are critical to the ones I work with are not seen as important right now. And I get it – but I don’t like it and it simply isn’t fair.

I am not okay.

My children (23 and 18) get laid off from work. I initially breathe a sigh of relief, happy that they are both still living at home so at least they do not have to worry about how they are going to support themselves. And then, within a week, my relief turns to self-flagellation as I realize how much I have fed the raging furnace of entitlement over the course of their lives. Not being in work is clearly not a big deal to them BECAUSE they don’t have to worry about supporting themselves. As babies, I was vigilant in ensuring that they form healthy attachments and a secure base so they learn to trust the world and not worry about things going through life. I guess I didn’t stop at the right time and that window of opportunity has slammed shut – the evidence of this being laid bare when my suggestion to apply for the over 100,000 jobs that are being created in supermarkets and warehouses is met with incredulous looks (‘I’m not working in the middle of the night’). Something I really cannot understand as at least one of them is up most of the night anyways. I draw lines in the sand in my mind – if their 54 year old father ends up stocking shelves at the local Sobey’s they will be right behind him. I’m curious to see how my thinking will transfer to reality.

So I prepare to start another day working from home – grateful to still be in work but not feeling overly optimistic of being able to do my job as I would like. And I still hear my husband steadily on the phone downstairs, staring at three screens with mind-boggling numbers, doing his part to ensure the continuation of the supply chain, knowing two of his colleagues got laid off last night, with more to possibly come. He just gets his letter of confirmation that he is part of an essential service so a glimmer of reassurance, but with such a fluid situation anything can happen.

I am mandated, I tell myself. My job is written in legislation – I am safe. The words run quietly in the back of my mind like anti-virus software, slightly slowing my executive functioning. Funnily enough my worry is not about my mortgage, or bills, it is about the children. If me and my team go – then noone will be around to make sure that these children and young people have a spot at the table. Noone will make sure that decisions about them are not being made without them. I wipe away tears of feeling overwhelmed at the thought.

So. I have my cry and then I move on. My tears are at the cross. Everything is poured out. It’s all there – He has it all. Jesus. The one who came to save us will not leave us now. It’s not going to happen. This I know. It’s crept up on me and I’ve felt the burden and I’ve recognized that I’m not okay. The only thing to do then is to engage with it, pour it out, and then move on. Getting stuck in a rut is not helpful for anyone.

So, I am not okay, but I pour it out to the One who takes it all and it leaves me room to breathe, and think, and feel. It gives me space to see beyond my circumstances, the ability to dream, look to the future (even if the future is only this afternoon), and ultimately realize that the only thing I can control right now is my actions and my state of mind. And I can do that.

I hope you can too.

It’s 1:30 am and we’re driving home from another hockey practice.  I am a hockey, or rather, a goalie mom.  My goalie is asleep in the back; fat paddled goalie sticks next to him.  The familiar scent of sweaty hockey equipment lingers in the air.  I’m tired.  I’m cold.  But I love every minute of it.

Ice rinks make up part of my earliest memories.  I’ve been on the ice since I was a baby; from being in a sled, to bobsled skates, to the real things from the time I was 3 years old.  And hockey is in our blood.  Where I’m from, no self-respecting male would be without a hockey stick and set of gloves at the very least.  When the ice was taken out in the summer, road hockey started.  In the winter, no patch of frozen water was safe from the hoards of us kids that went down to play a game of shinny.  It was life in a northern community – but to me it was life.

This is what hockey means for us – it is more than just a sport, or a hobby our son chooses to do.  For us hockey is part of our culture; our way of life.  I love the sound of metal grinding into ice and the cold biting my cheeks while I nurse a cup of crappy rink coffee.

When our son made the transition to goalie it was a new world for us.  Everything was different.  From equipment, to training, to mental preparation, to diet it seemed like another world.  Our focus started to shift from the ‘whole’ team to the one who stands at the last threshold – the one that can sometimes shift the balance; change the atmosphere or drive the momentum.  It can be a lonely position – literally.  It is a physically and mentally demanding position.  Our son’s equipment weighs in at almost 50lbs and he is up and down at least 80 times a game.  Strength, stamina and endurance are required in much greater measure.  It’s gruelling and exhilarating all at once.

Ice time takes on new meaning.  I listen to other parents complain that their little angels only get a few minutes ice time here and there.  For goalies it’s feast or famine.  You are either sitting on the bench or you are in the net for the next 60 minutes of game time.  There is not much in between.  We are in a season of feast; he is the starting goalie for two teams, and is sometimes requested for other practices when they need someone to shoot at.  This brings other challenges; making sure he is eating right, he is strength training so his knees do not get worn out, and that he stays mentally fit.

It’s hard being a goalie.  Goals against are much more obvious than when a player makes a mistake.  The right or wrong of it aside, it’s a position of zero or hero.  I’ve had to physically move away from parents who are ‘blaming the goalie’ for goals that are scored because of poor defence or lousy offence.  We spend the week building up our son, only to have it torn down by some stupid teammate who blames him for the team’s loss.

It’s expensive being a goalie.  His stick alone can buy two or three player sticks.  His leg pads are double our monthly mortgage payment.  I’ve learnt the art of saddlery and have lengths of white leather to patch up worn or torn pieces of pads, blocker or catcher.  We’ve forgone two years worth of holidays to ensure he gets the specialist training and equipment he needs.

The goalie reads the ice like no other player on the team.  Our son’s understanding of plays is astonishing.  His hunger for the mechanics of hockey and how plays are executed is insatiable.  Our house oozes hockey.  If it’s not on TV, or being read from a book  or magazine, it’s being played in the driveway or in the house.  Trade deadline is like national election day in our house.  Goals are analyzed continuously; from the start of the breakdown in the play rather than once it gets to the net.  I listen to the boy and the husband talk about it, analyse it and work out plays for hours.  It’s mesmorising.

I don’t care if our son’s team wins or loses.  I love watching him play hockey.  I love the sound of metal grinding into ice; the sound of when he makes a perfect C-cut and the sound of pucks hitting his blocker.  I love the cold biting my cheeks as I nurse a cup of crappy rink coffee.  I love watching him train – juggling on a balance ball or catching tennis balls with vision training goggles on.  Our son chooses that hockey is his future and I couldn’t be prouder.  I am not merely a chauffeur, or a bank.  I am a hockey mom with a specialism in goalie mom.  I love it.