Page 86 of Breathe Again

What a great phrase. No words ever invented better described a state of mind.

I color-coded my cue cards, cooked breakfast, fed the cat, homeschooled Olivia, called my mother, (thankfully, she’d been friendly lately), checked in with Bex and Willa, made lunch, stripped the beds, finished the laundry, sat in front of my blank computer screen waiting for innovation to strike, cooked dinner, fed the cat, cleaned the kitty litter, made it through to the next day. Repeat.

It was Wednesday, this time a week and three days had passed since we’d last made love. Okay, I’d had my period in there, but still, it was a long time. I felt numb. No sex at all might be better. This numbness was more comfortable than the hunger, but I was aware I was doing the zombie thing Rebecca had done when she lost her husband.

I practiced my progressive body relaxation meditation morning and night for the past several days. It helped, but I found it hard to pay attention to the words instead of the thoughts in my head. Ibrought my attention back to the meditation time and again, but I couldn’t attend to it. Variety would help, I thought. I downloaded an app on my phone so I could have choices.

Radical Acceptance was the key idea in my workbook that I kept coming back to over and over again. Radical Acceptance, an acknowledgement of reality as it is, not fighting it, complaining about it, or resisting it, just stating how things are, and realizing they are like that because of the million different events that came before, making it impossible for things to be any other way. That didn’t mean change couldn’t happen. It could. But it helped to acknowledge what was, to determine your starting point, before you could move forward to what could be.

I wrote my radical acceptance statement on a cue card,

I have BPD because of certain childhood events and issues in my family of origin. Due to a lack of resources to healing and processing, combined with my genetic vulnerability, this could not be any other way.

I took another cue card and wrote,

My relationship with my mother is what it is today because of a million reasons and events that have happened up until this point.

This statement was particularly liberating, it freed me from the feeling of responsibility and weakened the guilt-induced drive to mend any rifts in our relationship. Rifts she caused with her criticism and constant trampling of my boundaries. I put the cards away in my desk drawer and went looking for Olivia.

“Livvy? Little bird, you want to go swimming with Mommy and Auntie Bex?”

“Now?” her voice came from the direction of her bedroom.

“Leaving in an hour. What do you think?”

“Can I bring my mermaid tail?”

Bex bought her and Amelie ridiculously sparkly lycra tails with giant flippers. Olivia swam like a little fish in it. Wearing it, she was impossibly charming.

“Yes, you can bring your tail.”

“Okay, then.”

I let Bex know we’d meet her at the pool and went about the hour-long procedure of extracting Olivia from the house.

At the pool, the warm water soothed us both. I took pictures and videos of Olivia swimming in her tail and sent them to Zale at work. He missed her during his long days, and he loved to see her out and about. Bex and I put in our laps early and were now treading water in the deep end, our laughter making it more difficult than it needed to be.

“Anyway, then Cole walks in and now they’re both standing there in our bedroom doorway asking Rhys why he’s lying on top of me. Rhys is trying desperately to cover our sides with the blankets and keep his bare ass covered at the same time. He can’t get up because he’s got a massive erection, which was still inside me by the way,but believe me when I tell you, he was losing it fast, and Amelie takes a step toward us. He starts yelling like we’ve got some sort of plague and startles her so bad she starts to cry.”

Bex choked with laughter to the point it was hard to make out all her words, and I could barely breathe. All the old biddies in the pool were glancing at us, half looking scandalized, half smiling, probably reliving similar situations in their memories, and Bex was too loud by half.

She continued. “So, the dogs hear the racket and run in, barking their high-pitched barks, and Rhys just drops his head on my shoulder and we both start shaking with laughter.” She took a breath. “Then Cole, God bless him, says, ‘Are you guys having private fun?’ Rhys meets his eyes with such relief and says, ‘Yes, son.” Cole gets this mini-Rhys smirk on his face, takes his sister’s hand, and leaves the room.” She wiped her eyes. “I don’t even know what he knows but he knows something.”

“He’s Rhys’s son. He was born with the knowledge. I’m sure of it.”

It felt so good to laugh, happiness bubbled and popped inside me. Bex’s face was red from embarrassment and laughter.

“So, what happened with Amelie?”

Bex smiled big again. “Rhys and I went to her afterwards and he started to say something to her. She holds up her little hand in a stop sign and says, ‘No, Dad, just no. This is Mom’s job.’ I nearlyswallowed my tongue, and the look of joy, I mean, pure joy, on Rhys’ face when he turned to look at me was comical.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“I started to, but she just says, ‘Cole told me. It’s all good.’ I still don’t know what they know but I imagine we’re going to have to explain a few things, age appropriate of course, and set up some boundaries, like, don’t pick the lock on mommy and daddy’s bedroom door!”

I smiled at her happiness. “I’m happy for you, Bex.”

“I’m happy for me, too.” She studied me suddenly. “Now, how about you? How are you doing?”

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