Renee - Because Today's Her Birthday!



Headpiece.  Half-done.  But also something I would never have accomplished without Renee Life's big metaphor. 

 

 

Looking back on what I've managed to post this year, I realise that what I write isn't as bad as I think it is, that life has been incredibly busy and that I miss seeing pictures of my children.

 

 

I've been sick. 

 

Since the end of April.  The first Tuesday the kids were back at school after the Easter holidays in fact.  Or rather, 3 AM that Wednesday morning, when I woke up barely able to breathe.  I was so sick I spent the first week of school having Ryan watch Ian while I slept on the sofa for three hours a day. 

 

I managed to get to the twins' first soccer game that Saturday and every Saturday after that. 

 

I took TEN FULL DAYS off from the gym and then went back the second week in May so that I could punch out the 20 classes I needed to get my free GROUPIE T-shirt.  In two weeks.  While so sick I could barely stand up.

 

I got sick every evening I spent outside in the cold.  And yes, 15C counts as cold!  That's Monday nights for dance, Tuesday and Wednesdays for soccer and Fridays again for dance.  And every night I was up late for Tribal Style Belly Dance: Tuesdays.  I dragged through a weekend and managed to recover a bit but was down by Wednesday.

 

I never fully recharged, even after I stopped going to the gym.

 

And then came the Abbey Medieval Fest.  Or the weeks before it when there were costumes to sew. Which I don't do.  And my best friend - heck, sister - Renee started coming over during free hours to help sew four costumes.  She sewed Ryan's and mine before her own. 

 

She sewed my daughter's costume before her husband's.  Mine before her mother's.  Hers last of all.

 

Since January, Damon has been coming home to find gyspy skirts - or pieces of them - spread all over the kitchen.  Renee's entire sewing cache - her patterns, and materials and not one, but two, sewing machines (one is an interlocker?), made their way into our home.

 

We cleared out the playroom on the porch.  The kids now call it Renee's room.  They come home from school and ask if Renee is here.

 

So into our emptiness, which was packed pretty full to being with, but into the emptiness created by my sickness, stepped Renee.  She is a mix sister-daughter, a big sister, kindred spirit and friend to Ryan, a soul-mate for me, someone always welcome in our home, in her room. 

 

I've been getting slowly better - chest rads okay, EKG okay, no bloods ever done because my doctors suck - but ran in the Jetty-to-Jetty yesterday with Andrew and my cough is back.  I suspect seasonal allergies combined with cold and/or exercise induced asthma. 

 

My yoga teacher suspects I need to breathe. 

 

Oh yeah that.

 

Ain't life a bitch.  I won't slow down.  I can't slow down.  OH, can't breathe.  Funny how that slows you down!

 

I have no time, energy, or interest in sewing.  I have no time for those damn costumes.  I have no energy for more. 

 

And yet, the room was made - literally and figuratively - and everything was half done and in total chaos and totally unorganised and completely not in control and done systematically and....

 

In steps Renee.  She brings her own chaos into our crazy life. 

 

It turns out she is just what we need.

 

And as I tell Damon, if we were going to have a sixth child, isn't it nice that she's an older one, and a sister to me and Ryan at the same time.

 

Oh goody - grand-kids!!!!

 

(Cough cough.)