A Mother's Struggle

Chapter 33

I hear a knock on the door, what time is it? I check my phone and it displays 10:26am.  I don't even remember how I fell asleep. After I left Chris' room, I went to watch my new favorite sitcom,  How I met your mother, and the episode was so sad that I got emotional and cried.  The last thing I remember is when Lily tells Marshall that his father had a heart attack. That episode made me trail off to Chris' situation all over again, I do not remember anything else that happened after that. I tried to think of more ways to make Chris feel better but nothing came up. I thought the episode would help me take my mind off the whole thing for a while but they just had to play a devastating episode. I went to bed straight after that; staring at my ceiling, deep in my thoughts.

Mavis is the one who recommended How I met your mother to me, she is more of a comedy person. I am more of a person who would watch the National Geographic Channel or historical shows. Sometimes comedy. My peers in high school used to say my choices of shows are the worst. I never had anyone to talk to about the shows except Nina, Chris' step sister. I also loved reality shows. I think I still do.

Mavis told me that if I watch comedy, I will cheer up a little. She said that it will help me move on from my devastating past. When I told her about my love for historical shows and animals, she said that I watch depressing things. She said that watching how a snake hides from other animals and everything in black and white is depressing, it will not help me with anything. I will still watch my shows though, I will watch comedy when I need a good distraction. I will not let anyone change me. Chris also feels like I have a weird preference of television programs. They must just leave me alone.

I hear the knock again. My thoughts got the best of me again. I even forgot that I heard a knock on the door three minutes ago.

"Come in." I shout to the person at the door. It's Mavis.

"Happy Friday!" She shouts in excitement. Man, this week went by so fast.

"Not so much, I failed to make Chris feel better last night." I say as I stand up to make the bed.
I tell her that when I went to tell him to go downstairs and eat, he was already asleep. Although, he woke up before I left the room. I tried to talk to him, tried to cheer him up, but he shut me out. He was so down that there was nothing I could do about it. I explained everything in detail.
I can tell that she is disappointed and that she actually thought I would be able to get through to him.

"Let me go check up on him." I say.

"One of the cars is not here, he must have left for work." She tells me.

"But he's sad, how will he concentrate?"

"He's a big boy. Plus he needs to work anyway. I woke you up so that you can come help me bake muffins for him. I am hoping that it will cheer him up." She says with hope.

"Hmmm! Great idea, on one condition though." I smirk slyly.

"And what is that?"

"You give me all the credit for the muffins?" I say in a form of a question and scrunch my nose.

"If you do thirty five burpees in three seconds." She laughs.

"That's impossible." I say.

"Precisely."

"Really funny Mavis. Now let's go make muffins that I will take credit for." I laugh and we both leave the room.

She said that we are making blueberry muffins and because we have no idea what time Chris will be back, we will use the ready made flour. Baking used to be a tiring task until someone came up with these ready mixed. I mean, even Naledi could bake if she was given this. Advancement I guess.

Mavis puts the first pan in. Now we wait for it. I've never had Blueberry muffins before and I cannot wait. The excitement in me makes me want to taste the ready mixed flour in the bowl.

...

I see Chris' car pull up just after the gate and it takes him about three minutes to get off.
The muffins are ready and the kitchen looks like we never used it. It's spotless. The kitchen still smells like blueberry and I love it. Isn't there a body spray made of this scent, I would love to smell like this. We also made vanilla muffins but I can only smell the blueberry.

Mavis puts four muffins on a plate for Chris. The kids got home and napped two hours ago, their rumbling tummy will be the reason they wake up.

Chris walks through the door with a smile. He is humming his favorite song of John Legend, love me now, still holding that ugly briefcase on the left and a bottle of wine on the right.
I love the mood he's in. I join him in humming and gently place a kiss on his right cheek.

"Why are you so happy?" I ask him.

"I signed two new clients today and they will get us more money than the one we lost. Not to mention the exposure they will give us."

"Really? That's great news."

"And I bought sparkling wine to celebrate." He says.

What is the difference between sparkling wine and regular wine anyway? I only know the difference between still water and sparkling water, the other one has acid and flavor and the other is, well... just water. Is it the same with wines? I never asked him. I always thought there was no difference whatsoever. I don't want to seem like I do not know obvious things. Living in some dusty old town will do that to you.

"I will have juice." Mavis says.

Mavis does not drink alcohol. She says that alcohol destroyed a life of somebody really close to her and so she despises  it and will forever curse the person that came up with it.

"I mean what is the point of drinking these alcoholic drinks, you drink it, you are not in the right state of mind and you end up doing things you might regret. You do not walk or talk properly. You enjoy life for those few hours and when it exits the system, you have a crazy headache. Wouldn't you rather have fun when you are in the right state of mind? When you can see and be sure of whatever actions you take? When there are no consequences the next day? People drink irresponsibly and excessively, in high doses, and that causes drunkenness, stupor, unconsciousness or even death. And apparently long term use can cause cancer and cirrhosis of the liver but nobody cares about that. Everybody cares about the "good" feeling that you get for the few hours after drinking alcohol, the unnecessary energy and waste of money," I recall her saying that. I never gave her speech the benefit of the doubt, I'm still going to drink. I guess that person meant a lot to her. After that speech, I never asked further questions. I did not want to open an old wound. She is right about alcohol, but it does not matter.

My whole adult life, those few hours of being drunk has helped me a lot. The few hours of forgetting whatever would be bothering me, it helped. It helped to stop overthinking for a few hours, it helped to talk all funny for a few hours, it helped to forget that I do not have a plan in life, even if it was just for a few hours. Alcohol was always my escape from reality, from my never-ending problems, and from my failures. It felt good to escape from the real world for those few hours. Even though it meant stumbling as I walk, having my tongue not co-operate with my mind and losing the little amount of money that I had. I felt like it was worth it. Mavis does not agree with drinking away your problems, she says that there are a lot of means that one could take to solve problems. What means was she talking about anyway? I do not have money for therapy and a therapist could never solve my financial issues or give me a time machine to change whatever happened with Thabo and I. The headache the next day killed me, but here I am today, alive with no diseases.