Sylvia's Journal

On Sunday morning July 22nd I wrote my very first post on Caringbridge and started what has become a habit, or maybe even an addiction. There have been 404 entries, which include the posts from Sita, Tessa and Joe in the first months after the accident. After that it became my blog, first on Caringbridge and on December 23rd on WordPress, a gift from Sita and Tessa. I have missed only a few days, mostly because I found myself in a place without internet connections or because I skipped a few time zones.

Aside from all the other things that this year has been, it has also become a year in words, several thousand of them. The only other time in my life of which I have such a detailed record is when my first marriage fell apart in the spring of 1978 in Beirut and Axel came into my life; ever since I have kept a written journal. I wrote mostly during my travels and assignments overseas, two- or three-week bursts of prose, or when I was having a hard time dealing with things that happened closer to home. These words are hand written, in several spiral bound notebooks and decorated with dried flowers from hotel gardens and other scrapbook material. They helped me reconstruct my trips in and out of the US when the INS asked for this information on one of the many forms I had to fill in to become an American citizen.

From the 14th of July on each day has a counterpart a year ago. I can check memories and facts and look things up on my computer and get a blow by blow account of what shape we were in, physically and emotionally, on each day that has gone by since.

The journey of recovery is not yet over and may never be. Pain, stiffness and interminable regrets have become the backdrop of our life, counterbalanced by our experience of true community, the joy of being alive, the knowledge that we raised our kids well and the beauty of the place we live in; not to mention health insurance and a regular income.

This whole past week has been among the more intense weeks I can remember because of all of the above, the ups and downs, the tears and laughter and the friends and family who remembered, whether they told us or not.

As we reflected last night on the week Axel felt it was as if we had stuffed into it all the summer things we were not able to do last year: we swam, we rowed, we kayaked, we hunted for mussels and sat on the beach with a gin tonic, mixing in chores and projects for good measure. Much of this time we were alone, just the two of us; a sharp contrast with last summer and fall in particular but even the rest of the year when we were either in the company of our kids or I was away on a trip. It was a treat to be on vacation together at our home, getting up when we wanted, going to bed when we wanted, having dinner at odd times and leaving the dirty dishes in the sink. It was a full and busy week that has left me both thoroughly tired and thoroughly rested. The latter more pronounced than it has been for a long time and I feel ready to tackle the tasks that are on my plate starting today.

This includes teaching the class at BU that I did not teach last year because I could not; a course that was a huge success; a success I had nothing to do with; wonderfully sobering, humbling, and disappointing all at the same time.