Ideal Day Alchemy
One journal prompt revisited + revised
Welcome to another installment of The Bittersweet, where I share my search for a richer perspective on the Bittersweet moments that make up modern life.
Hello Friends,
Last week, I took a friend to see Suleika Jaouad and Jon Baptiste… perform… read… talk? Honestly, I had a hard time explaining it then, and I’m still not sure how to describe it now. She is promoting her new book, The Book of Alchemy, out now. I told her, “This could be anything.” By the end of the night, I thought, This was everything.
In the early days of the pandemic, Facebook fed me a group called the Isolation Journals led by Suleika Jaouad1. The concept was simply sharing a daily journal practice. I signed up for her emails2, and each day I was sent some kind of reflection and a journal prompt. Some days I chose to share my response in the group, but mostly I just lurked.
The group was big, and kept getting bigger. The community tapped into a need for connection.
In 2012, Jaouad wrote a beautiful and widely read column in the New York Times, Life Interrupted. It chronicled her journey with cancer in her 20s. This meant that a lot of the people in the group found her because they read the column, and that most were in treatment, caring for someone in treatment, or, as in my case, grieving the loss of someone who didn’t make it out of treatment.
My son, Aiden, died in November of 2019, and this was Spring or early Summer of 2020. Needless to say, I cried a lot while writing and reading along with this group.
One of the first prompts I shared in the group was one about creating an ideal day. I can’t remember the specifics of the prompt, but I wrote mine into the future, on what should be Aiden’s tenth birthday.
2020 was unreal in so many ways, but for me, the chaos of the pandemic was the most normal part of that year. Writing about a date so far into the future forced me to concede to the possibility of an ideal day, even though a whole chunk of my heart was missing.
I’ve returned to this prompt several times since then, sometimes starting a whole new document, sometimes revising the old one. I thought I’d share one of the versions with you today. I hope you’ll enjoy it.
A day in the life of my dreams
February 17th, 2028 3
I slowly come to consciousness and blink my eyes awake. It's still dark out, but the dawn is near. My face scrunches tight, and I push my face into the pillow to stop the tears. It’s too early to start now. I roll over, and my husband Nick is already awake.
We say nothing as we lie in each other's arms and watch the sky go from pale blue to pink. Something is missing, but then again, something has always been missing. "He misses you, too," Nick whispers to me as he kisses my hand.
We both climb out of bed. He goes to the gym in the garage, and I put on comfortable clothes and head into our big open kitchen. I crack the window so I can smell the salty air and hear the waves crash. We have been in this house for five years now, and I still can't believe it's ours4.
I make a tofu scramble and toast. I leave Nick’s portion5 in the oven to keep warm. I take a seat in our breakfast booth, the one Nick didn't want, but I insisted we make it work. This is where we gather each morning before we go off to our lives outside these walls.
I listen to the waves, read the news, and scribble a few notes to myself. I hear the grumble of my two teenagers as they make their way into the kitchen. My older son, Owen, stumbles past me on his way to the shower.
"Hey, Mom," he says.
"Good morning, honey. How was your rest?6"
"Good," he says.
He has the same bedhead he had during the pandemic in 2020. We couldn't get his hair cut, and I wouldn't let Nick shave it. His thick, blonde waves stand on end, and for a moment, he is nine years old again.
My daughter, Peyton, walks into the kitchen, fully dressed, tall, and gorgeous. She toasts herself a bagel, and I hand her a piece of fruit. She stands close enough that I can smell her shampoo without her knowing. I resist the urge to run my fingers through her hair. Our relationship was rocky for a while, but this year, she came back to me, or rather, I came to accept her, and she was able to trust me7. We talk about school and the day ahead. She complains about her chemistry teacher and softball coach. She thinks one of her friends is mad at her, but doesn’t tell me why. I say the right things, and she feels heard.
Owen walks into the kitchen and pours himself a bowl of cereal. I straighten my back as he stands next to me. When did he get so big? I want to remember this moment. A year from now, he will be eating breakfast in some other place in some other city and building a life I will know little about.
Nick comes inside sweaty from his workout. He says good morning as he touches Peyton's back. He says something encouraging to Owen. He gives me a kiss on the forehead.
The baby, Tatum8, who isn’t really a baby anymore but will probably always have that role in our family, wanders into the kitchen. She’s still in her pajamas, and her curly hair is wild. She started kindergarten this year. Both Owen and Peyton insisted on walking her to class on her first day. They didn’t care that they would be late for school. All three of them cried when they said goodbye. I cried, too.
Owen says, "Today is Aiden's birthday."
I suck in air and feel a lump start to form in my throat.
"Yes," Nick says, "He would have been 10 today."
“I’m five,” Tatum announces, always wanting to interject to make sure we still know she’s there. “And I knew him first.” When Tatum was around eight or nine months old, she saw a picture of Aiden and patted it with her hand. She smiled, cooed, and said, “Ahh.” It was like she knew him. When she got older and could understand, we started telling her that she knew Aiden too, but it was before she was born, and that he had chosen her for us.
I look at Nick, and he nods.
We fall into the familiar rhythm of telling our favorite stories of our third baby.
"Remember when he used to cry when the babysitter came?"
"Remember how he would grab for Dad's pizza?"
"Remember how we called him Smusherface?"
"I was the first to make him laugh."
"We used to take baths together."
"Remember when I brought him for show and tell in kindergarten?"
"Remember his chubby cheeks?"
"Bird was his first word."
“My first word was dada.”
"He could say all our names."
“But I wasn’t born yet.”
"I miss him,"
"Same,"
"I don’t remember much about the day he died? I remember Grandma was here and being sad, but that's it."
"I remember," I say quietly, "We all wanted things to be different. You both said all the things we were thinking. You loved him so much." They seemed relieved, like maybe the guilt they had about their baby brother was lifted a little.
"Aiden loved you," Nick says. "I wish he were here. He would have had a lot of fun with you guys."
“And he would have gotten me in a lot of trouble,” Tatum chimes in.
We are all quiet for a minute, grateful to have witnesses to our pain. The only ones who truly knew what it was like.
I break the silence, "All of you, finish getting ready, and off to school." Tatum runs to get dressed; I cross my fingers that she brushes her teeth. They each give me a hug, “Love you, Mom,” they say on the way out the door.
"We have good kids," I say.
"Yeah, we did that one right," Nick says.
I am alone, and our big, beautiful home falls quiet. I sit down at my desk, open my computer, and type,
"Chapter One..."
This is where I am today. Thank you for listening.
In an era where you have access to every word ever written, I’m so grateful you’ve chosen to read mine.
I hate 99% of the influence Facebook has on my life, but sometimes they get it right, and like an addict, I keep going back for that one time it was good.
I still have some in my inbox.
In 2020, this seemed like a lifetime away; now it’s right around the corner.
I don’t actually live in a beach house, but I guess I thought we’d win the lottery??
Nick would be so mad about the tofu.
I read in a parenting book to always greet your kids first thing in the morning with a smile and a question about their sleep… Even on my most tired days, the question, “How was your rest?” puts me in the right mood.
She is twelve now, and I’m preparing for the one or two years girls need to reject their mothers to find themselves. I’m terrified, but also oddly excited for whatever adventures we have ahead.
The obvious big change in our lives since I first wrote this.
Love this. What a wonderful way to honor him.
So so beautiful!!
I’ve got the book and I’m journaling! I’m on day 10! 🤍🤍🤍