The Tales of a Future Hockey Wife

Chapter 62: Writing

~Eleanor~~October~

Ben has been gone for about three months now. I know I said it would be good for us to spend time apart, but I really regret saying that now. I think I had forgotten that, beside him, I know absolutely no one in Windsor. I don't have any more friends, I don't have a boyfriend, I don't even have classes to attend, and I don't have my job. For the past three months, it's been Ophelia and me 24/7. Just the two of us with the occasional phone call from Olive and the weekly FaceTime with Ben, that's it. To say I am lonely would be an understatement. I know I said I would have time to do everything I want, but the problem is that I don't know what I want. Ben told me I should write, and I know he's right, but I don't know what I want to write about.

"Those texts you send me about Ophelia, you should post them," he said to me about two weeks ago. Since we only speak once a week, I started writing little everyday updates like how she started to sleep through the night two weeks ago or when we went shopping and she didn't cry at all. I know it's simple stuff, but it's simple stuff that he misses every day, and I know it kills him to not be with her. I always attach a picture to the text before sending it. Apparently, she makes all the other guys on his team jealous.

"Like a blog?" I asked, sceptic. I was never fond of people who use their kids to get attention online.

"If that's what you call it than yes. Start a blog, El. Maybe it will make you meet people." I had to admit that the idea wasn't that crazy. Even if it was only online, having someone to talk to who understands parts of what I'm going through would be good for me. So, I spent all of Ophelia's naps for the past two weeks working on starting a blog which is more complicated than it looks. I even had to buy a domain name to make my blog available for everyone to see. No one will probably see it, but I am still excited to launch it. I finished the site late last night, and I am very proud of it. Just that made me feel good. I hadn't felt proud of myself for a really long time.

My first post will be more of an introduction to our story. It talks about how Ben and I met and how we ended up, five years later, with a baby while living on two different continents. It doesn't have that many details simply because you can't relate five years into a six-hundred-word essay. I also have the next five entries written. I took the documents I sent Ben, polished them, and added content to interest people. I have in mind to post at least one entry per day, so having a few ready seemed like a good idea. The one part I struggled with was the title. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't find a title that wasn't cheesy or too serious. Also, if I wanted my blog to attract readers, I needed something that made me different. There are already enough blogs about motherhood and parenting, I had to find what made me special. I kept thinking about it until it hit me while I was on the phone with Olive. Hockey, that's what makes our story worth reading. There are tons of blogs about single mothers, homosexual couples or teen pregnancies, but there are none about the women behind hockey or the women married to a hockey player who had kids. I never thought hockey would make me special, but I guess it does.

My blog, The Tales of a Future Hockey Wife, will be available tonight. It's a blog about motherhood, obviously, but it's about more than that. It's about the struggles couples face when one wants to transform a passion into a career. It's about trying not to lose yourself in someone else's dream even when it seems impossible. It's about learning how to become an adult while staying young at heart. But, most of all, it's about love. It may be the story of a white, heterosexual couple, but it could be anyone's story because everyone has the same love problems. We all have to compromise, we all have hard decisions to make, we will all disappoint the one we love at one point or another. It's inevitable.

With this blog, I hope to reach out to as many people as possible. I hope that someone, somewhere, will recognize their story in mine even if, from outside, they look nothing alike. I hope it will make me feel less alone by connecting me to the entire world, and I hope that it will make me feel closer to a man who lives in Germany because, right now, I feel like we live on two different planets, and I wonder if we'll ever be able to connect again.

I know he's online as I press the uploading button. He told me he wouldn't miss it for the world. He'll be my first reader, as promised. He'll be the first one to read the words I wrote while thinking of him. Every sentence is filled with parts of me that were contaminated with parts of him. Every word is filled with my feelings for him, the good and the bad. I try to picture him clicking on the site and reading the words I wrote for him. I turn off my computer after uploading the site. I don't want to be the obsessed blog owner who watches every new reader. It's still early, but I decide to go to bed anyway. It's with a heart filled with hope and a smile on my face that I close my eyes, dreaming of the ways this blog could change my life.

I wake up the next day with a text from Ben. The red heart emoji shines through the screen like the sun in summer. I get up to check on Ophelia. Since she's still sleeping, I turn on my laptop. I got 57 readers last night which is good, I think. It fills my blood with pride and makes my heart beat louder. I text Ben to ask if he clicked on the site 57 times. The answer comes immediately. He didn't, but he showed it to a guy on the team whose wife lives in California. She showed it to some of her friends who did the same. It's not viral or anything, but it's a start, he writes, adding a wink at the end.

"I love you," I type as I hit "post" on the second entry for my blog.