I Can Do It With A Broken Heart

Lice, Taylor Swift, and my Ten Year Wedding Anniversary

Dear Reader,

Friday was my ten-year wedding anniversary.

I had been emotionally preparing for a while. I made sure I kept the day’s workload light; I made plans for a good friend to come over after bedtime. I’ve been trying to make more space for my grief.

Then the day came. My kid woke up early and climbed into my bed, which is a rare occurrence now that he’s eight. We chatted for a bit. I made myself a cup of coffee. I felt okay. Then I noticed the scratching.

I brought my Heath mug, the last survivor of the wedding set, in the car as we drove to Target for the lice kit. I hadn’t eaten or brushed my teeth. A half hour later I was combing dead bugs out of my child’s hair and wiping them on a clean paper towel at the kitchen table. There was something so familiar about it, even though we’d never had lice before.

My kid was born six weeks early at exactly four pounds. He was in the NICU for ten days, hooked up to several little monitors until finally one morning we came in and he was all wrapped up like a tiny version of a normal baby and they said that we could take him home.

The next day X went back to work. I was exhausted and overwhelmed. I did not know how to care for a baby. My doctor told me that I was not allowed to get out of bed for three weeks but that just wasn’t in the cards. The business needed X more than we did. So I figured it out, braving the long daylight hours on my own. I think that’s why I didn’t cry when we got lice on my anniversary. I’ve done all of this before.

I don’t know how you feel about Taylor Swift. Many of my male friends don’t like her and I get it. When at least 75% of the art in the world is made by you, for you, it can be hard to connect to something that was created without any thought of your approval or enjoyment. But I fucking love her. I feel like we’ve grown up together; for the past ten years she has narrated my experience in the world perfectly, poetically, setting it all to music that I can scream-sing or cry-sing to very easily.

There’s a song on her latest album called I Can Do It With a Broken Heart. This song perfectly crystalizes the feeling of single motherhood in the wake of catastrophe. Sure, the literal lyrics are about a young pop star trying to scrape herself off the floor after being left by the person she loves. But when TS says, “I’m so depressed I act like it’s my birthday, every day,” I feel like she crawled inside my head and read my thoughts.

Being a single mom is actually impossible. I am pushed to my physical edge again and again and again. I can never, ever stop. I want to lie on the floor and die but I just. Have. To. Keep. Going. It doesn’t actually matter that it’s my wedding anniversary. Life does not stop for me in this way.

But somehow with a sparkly, four-on-the-floor dance beat underneath it all I feel like it’s actually possible to get through this moment. I CAN DO IT WITH A BROKEN HEART. I actually can. In stilettos, with lice. Me and Taylor Swift. We got this.

To be honest, the anniversary outbreak ended up being kind of fun once I gave in to it. Something to bond over with my kid. A memory to put on the shelf with all of the other new ones we are making as we figure this out.

Cuz I’m a real tough kid

I can handle my shit

They said babe you gotta fake it till you make it

And I did.*

All my love,

Kate

P.S. Press <3 if you liked this one.

P.P.S.

*I CAN DO IT WITH A BROKEN HEART by Taylor Swift