Come on baby I'm tired of talking, grab your coat let's go walking.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Christmas is Over (from Utah Vestibule)
Christmas is over.
That's what my sister-in-law said, annoyed at a commercial on TV.
But it's not.
The local radio station that plays the worst Christmas music on Earth starting in early November stops abruptly at midnight on December 26. Done. Christmas is over.
But it's not.
This is when it's Christmas for me. Advent, not only this year but especially this year, is sturm und drang. It is work and suffering and preparation in many ways. It is ridiculous rituals that we love and school stuff we have to finish up and snow shoveling and not enough salt for the porch and mopping the floors for the 96th time that afternoon.
But this is Christmas. This is rest and glow. This is foraging for cookies in my mother-in-law's dining room and watching Dr. Who while knitting in the recliner. This is listening to my perfect Pandora radio station I've created, to Nat King Cole and Bing and Dean and Vince Guaraldi sing Silent Night White Christmas I've been dreaming of santa claus coming to town. This is sleeping in and Mike isn't working and so the kids have two parents to bother instead of just me and did I mention sleeping in? Someone else cooks, or doesn't. Someone else cleans, or doesn't. Kids play and I take a couple advil and rest.
It's a short Christmas after what seemed like a short Advent but it actually was long. So bewildering. I'll be chalking the doorposts in a week and that seems ridiculous already.
But it's not over yet.
That's what my sister-in-law said, annoyed at a commercial on TV.
But it's not.
The local radio station that plays the worst Christmas music on Earth starting in early November stops abruptly at midnight on December 26. Done. Christmas is over.
But it's not.
This is when it's Christmas for me. Advent, not only this year but especially this year, is sturm und drang. It is work and suffering and preparation in many ways. It is ridiculous rituals that we love and school stuff we have to finish up and snow shoveling and not enough salt for the porch and mopping the floors for the 96th time that afternoon.
But this is Christmas. This is rest and glow. This is foraging for cookies in my mother-in-law's dining room and watching Dr. Who while knitting in the recliner. This is listening to my perfect Pandora radio station I've created, to Nat King Cole and Bing and Dean and Vince Guaraldi sing Silent Night White Christmas I've been dreaming of santa claus coming to town. This is sleeping in and Mike isn't working and so the kids have two parents to bother instead of just me and did I mention sleeping in? Someone else cooks, or doesn't. Someone else cleans, or doesn't. Kids play and I take a couple advil and rest.
It's a short Christmas after what seemed like a short Advent but it actually was long. So bewildering. I'll be chalking the doorposts in a week and that seems ridiculous already.
But it's not over yet.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Big Sister Moment
This December has been filled with moments. Here is one.
I'm the oldest of 4. My brother Ian is 4 years younger than I am; Bevin is 5 years younger than him, and Colleen is 2 years younger than her. Spread out, kind of like my kids, actually. Enough time between that it's been hard for me to realize that my siblings have started catching up with me--there's a huge difference between 21 and 17, but not so much difference between 36 and 32. Not so much at all, in fact.
Ian and Ashley visited this Christmas. We all went to Christmas Eve mass (10 pm, not midnight, thank goodness), all but Mike, Leo, and Maeve since Maeve had a fever (of course). We sat in two front pews, my parents, Ian and Ashley, and my niece with Sophia. My sisters and I sat behind them. Snow was still falling outside but the church climate was warm, so we kept taking off and putting on coats and dripping from shoes and boots. Sophia and Kennedy were both dressed in party dresses for reasons I never really gathered fully. They'd worn them the night before to my parents' party and I suppose they equated them with Christmas. Anyway.
Sometime around the offertory, Ashley leaned her head against Ian's shoulder, and it totally caught me off guard. My brother is just over 6 foot and must weigh close to 270. He's huge. Ashley is barely 5 feet tall and one of those 120 pounds soaking wet kind of girls. That might even be more than she weighs when she's not pregnant. Tiny.
She's pregnant, in the category of high risk. They will know how high come January at the "big ultrasound" that we all do and none of us notices except if we're looking for the baby's gender. It has never hit me that it is truly an anomaly scan, even when the tech is measuring thicknesses and looking at the roof of the baby's mouth for a cleft. Craziness. Never had to worry. Ian and Ashley have to worry. The baby has Down Syndrome and that can bring with it a whole mixed bag of physical problems, most worrisome being heart defects. We just won't know until we know and on Christmas Eve that was still a long way away.
Earlier that day I'd picked up a baby book when I was at Catholic Supply getting the last Christmas gift (my parents have a creche that we add to each year, an unbreakable creche, I might add, although the woman at the counter said that dogs like to chew on Baby Jesus sometimes. My parents don't have a dog so that's ok). And a little cross to hang in the baby's room, one of those God Bless the Child etc. kind of sentiments. I was standing in line and there was a neighbor in front of me, a woman who goes to my church and lives on the next block and we know each other but I can never remember her name. She and her husband are going to be grandparents in the new year and she's glancing at the baby book and asks me who is having the baby--probably thinking it's me, after all, with my 3 and my youngest at almost 2. And it's Christmas Eve and I'd had a minor brush with death earlier in the day and it's snowing and I'm exhausted and I start to cry. Jesus. I'm not handling any of this well because I'm his older sister and if I could do anything on earth or in heaven to help them I would and I would, without a second thought switch places and have this baby and take this cup from them? You know?
Of course, my neighbor and fellow parishioner has a twin sister who has 7 kids and the last one in that row has Down Syndrome and we talk a moment (it's like everyone comes out of the closet when you break the ice, whether about DS or epilepsy or whatever). The girl behind the counter in her Notre Dame sweatshirt waits patiently. I'm in Catholic Supply, a store I usually detest going to but it was open and I realized I'd forgotten the damned creche and I had no time to make the ridiculous trip over to the shrine in Illinois where I'd rather shop for these things but, did I mention it was Christmas Eve and there was quite a bit of stress? And I'm crying at the counter in front of this woman who is just almost a complete stranger and I pay the girl and I walk out into the snow.
So it's later that night and my daughter is sick again and my heart just won't come to the point where it admits what day it is and Ashley puts her head on Ian's shoulder.
My brother, I should mention, has always been the type that worried me. The adulthood part, I mean. He always reminds me of the passage in that David Sedaris essay about his younger brother and finding out he's going to be a father. Something like my brother was the type who would disassemble the baby and then get distracted by something else, like the chance to eat 100 chicken wings, and forget to reassemble the baby. I'm paraphrasing but that's Ian in a nutshell.
At least the Ian I knew. The Ian who sat on the couch with his 6 year old and watched "Snakes on a Plane" while my girls hid in her bedroom, afraid of scary movies. The Ian who eats habanero peppers to prove his manliness. The Ian who used to drink amazing amounts of alcohol, the Ian who took 47 years to get his bachelor's degree. And so forth. Not an adult.
We'd spent the week together, doing St. Louis things like the Arch and the City Museum and eating Italian food on the Hill because Ashley likes toasted ravioli and even though you can get them in the freezer section nationwide, perhaps, they still are kind of a St. Louis thing. Kennedy, my niece, has grown up a lot. She's 6 months younger than Sophia and is a grade behind her due to birthdays, but she's smart as a whip and nice. Nice counts for a lot when you're the aunt. Later that night she would open my present to her, a sampler quilt with colonial lady blocks, and she would be genuinely happy about it. Nice.
And this week together had shown me that Ian's edges had been worn down in similar ways that mine had. He didn't tease Kennedy, or Ashley, the way he used to. He didn't talk politics with me to get me going unnecessarily. Things were subdued, but not bad. He was more like my friends and less like the people I avoided in high school.
So Ashley puts her head on his shoulder and he puts his arm around her and I suddenly realize he's an adult. She is too, but that wasn't the shock. He's about to be the father of two, one of whom, a little boy, is going to need a lot of care and love and prayer. A baby they're planning to name Ethan, which means steadfast.
It was one of those moments. I've been having a lot of them lately. The most recent one was Maeve's seizure, realizing how incredibly beautiful she is, while she lay there in a post-ictal cataonia. And here it was again. It was another beauty in fear and worry moment. They're here, they're together, they're adults.
What was that I said about life persisting?
I'm the oldest of 4. My brother Ian is 4 years younger than I am; Bevin is 5 years younger than him, and Colleen is 2 years younger than her. Spread out, kind of like my kids, actually. Enough time between that it's been hard for me to realize that my siblings have started catching up with me--there's a huge difference between 21 and 17, but not so much difference between 36 and 32. Not so much at all, in fact.
Ian and Ashley visited this Christmas. We all went to Christmas Eve mass (10 pm, not midnight, thank goodness), all but Mike, Leo, and Maeve since Maeve had a fever (of course). We sat in two front pews, my parents, Ian and Ashley, and my niece with Sophia. My sisters and I sat behind them. Snow was still falling outside but the church climate was warm, so we kept taking off and putting on coats and dripping from shoes and boots. Sophia and Kennedy were both dressed in party dresses for reasons I never really gathered fully. They'd worn them the night before to my parents' party and I suppose they equated them with Christmas. Anyway.
Sometime around the offertory, Ashley leaned her head against Ian's shoulder, and it totally caught me off guard. My brother is just over 6 foot and must weigh close to 270. He's huge. Ashley is barely 5 feet tall and one of those 120 pounds soaking wet kind of girls. That might even be more than she weighs when she's not pregnant. Tiny.
She's pregnant, in the category of high risk. They will know how high come January at the "big ultrasound" that we all do and none of us notices except if we're looking for the baby's gender. It has never hit me that it is truly an anomaly scan, even when the tech is measuring thicknesses and looking at the roof of the baby's mouth for a cleft. Craziness. Never had to worry. Ian and Ashley have to worry. The baby has Down Syndrome and that can bring with it a whole mixed bag of physical problems, most worrisome being heart defects. We just won't know until we know and on Christmas Eve that was still a long way away.
Earlier that day I'd picked up a baby book when I was at Catholic Supply getting the last Christmas gift (my parents have a creche that we add to each year, an unbreakable creche, I might add, although the woman at the counter said that dogs like to chew on Baby Jesus sometimes. My parents don't have a dog so that's ok). And a little cross to hang in the baby's room, one of those God Bless the Child etc. kind of sentiments. I was standing in line and there was a neighbor in front of me, a woman who goes to my church and lives on the next block and we know each other but I can never remember her name. She and her husband are going to be grandparents in the new year and she's glancing at the baby book and asks me who is having the baby--probably thinking it's me, after all, with my 3 and my youngest at almost 2. And it's Christmas Eve and I'd had a minor brush with death earlier in the day and it's snowing and I'm exhausted and I start to cry. Jesus. I'm not handling any of this well because I'm his older sister and if I could do anything on earth or in heaven to help them I would and I would, without a second thought switch places and have this baby and take this cup from them? You know?
Of course, my neighbor and fellow parishioner has a twin sister who has 7 kids and the last one in that row has Down Syndrome and we talk a moment (it's like everyone comes out of the closet when you break the ice, whether about DS or epilepsy or whatever). The girl behind the counter in her Notre Dame sweatshirt waits patiently. I'm in Catholic Supply, a store I usually detest going to but it was open and I realized I'd forgotten the damned creche and I had no time to make the ridiculous trip over to the shrine in Illinois where I'd rather shop for these things but, did I mention it was Christmas Eve and there was quite a bit of stress? And I'm crying at the counter in front of this woman who is just almost a complete stranger and I pay the girl and I walk out into the snow.
So it's later that night and my daughter is sick again and my heart just won't come to the point where it admits what day it is and Ashley puts her head on Ian's shoulder.
My brother, I should mention, has always been the type that worried me. The adulthood part, I mean. He always reminds me of the passage in that David Sedaris essay about his younger brother and finding out he's going to be a father. Something like my brother was the type who would disassemble the baby and then get distracted by something else, like the chance to eat 100 chicken wings, and forget to reassemble the baby. I'm paraphrasing but that's Ian in a nutshell.
At least the Ian I knew. The Ian who sat on the couch with his 6 year old and watched "Snakes on a Plane" while my girls hid in her bedroom, afraid of scary movies. The Ian who eats habanero peppers to prove his manliness. The Ian who used to drink amazing amounts of alcohol, the Ian who took 47 years to get his bachelor's degree. And so forth. Not an adult.
We'd spent the week together, doing St. Louis things like the Arch and the City Museum and eating Italian food on the Hill because Ashley likes toasted ravioli and even though you can get them in the freezer section nationwide, perhaps, they still are kind of a St. Louis thing. Kennedy, my niece, has grown up a lot. She's 6 months younger than Sophia and is a grade behind her due to birthdays, but she's smart as a whip and nice. Nice counts for a lot when you're the aunt. Later that night she would open my present to her, a sampler quilt with colonial lady blocks, and she would be genuinely happy about it. Nice.
And this week together had shown me that Ian's edges had been worn down in similar ways that mine had. He didn't tease Kennedy, or Ashley, the way he used to. He didn't talk politics with me to get me going unnecessarily. Things were subdued, but not bad. He was more like my friends and less like the people I avoided in high school.
So Ashley puts her head on his shoulder and he puts his arm around her and I suddenly realize he's an adult. She is too, but that wasn't the shock. He's about to be the father of two, one of whom, a little boy, is going to need a lot of care and love and prayer. A baby they're planning to name Ethan, which means steadfast.
It was one of those moments. I've been having a lot of them lately. The most recent one was Maeve's seizure, realizing how incredibly beautiful she is, while she lay there in a post-ictal cataonia. And here it was again. It was another beauty in fear and worry moment. They're here, they're together, they're adults.
What was that I said about life persisting?
The Dream Keeper by Langston Hughes
Bring me all of your dreams,
you dreamers,
Bring me all your heart melodies,
that I may wrap them in a blue cloud cloth,
Away from the too rough fingers of the world
Bring me all of your dreams,
you dreamers,
Bring me all your heart melodies,
that I may wrap them in a blue cloud cloth,
Away from the too rough fingers of the world
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
So much to say
And I can't say any of it just yet. I need to get my kids bathed and bedded down, I need to clean up the kitchen and the guest/sewing room. I need to pamper this sore throat that's coming on. And I need to order some new bras (whee! I love ordering bras now that I've found bravissimo in London).
Once those things are done, I can write again. I can write about Christmas and snow and post pictures and discuss quilts and children and this past year's resolution (the public one I kept, the private one I kept) and thoughts about what's coming next.
Once I can sit down and let my brain stretch a moment.
Once those things are done, I can write again. I can write about Christmas and snow and post pictures and discuss quilts and children and this past year's resolution (the public one I kept, the private one I kept) and thoughts about what's coming next.
Once I can sit down and let my brain stretch a moment.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Arch
I drive past this all the time. It's part of my skyline and I don't even notice it unless I have friends or relatives in town. Most of them want to go up, frankly. It's novel. Or reminiscent. Or something.
So we go up in tiny 1965 elevators. Sophia is terrified of them. Since it's an arch, and not a straight shot to the top, the elevators are round and tilt back and forth, clicking into place to keep the occupants upright. Eero thought of everything. There are windows in the capsules, too, so you can see the twisting stairs and fire extinguishers. People have been caught in them during power outages. I always find myself not thinking about the New Madrid Fault as I rise 63 stories into the air in a 1965 capsule elevator like a bead on a string inside a stainless steel tube.
Up at the top, there are tiny windows, looking out towards Illinois to the east and Missouri to the west. Photos are taken. Leo is astonished. It is hardly crowded on this Monday before Christmas. At one point there's only about 10 other people up there. We look through the windows and I think about all the childhood trips to St. Louis and times I've looked through these windows.
And then that's enough. We take the 3 minute trip back to the earth (it's 4 minutes up, 3 minutes down) and glance through the museum, which also hasn't changed since I was a child. Head out into the cold December day to find some Italian food.
Many Things to Rant About
But instead here's a list of some nice things.
*Two neighbors with baby boys (Valerie and Dawn on my other blog) dropped off baby clothes for my brother and his wife. A lot of baby clothes--some had been through my hands and some hadn't and I took them all over last night for Ian and Ashley to take home.
*My niece came over Sunday and played with my girls. No fighting. Even cleaned up after themselves. Played Monopoly. Had lunch. So good. On Monday we all went to the Arch and to lunch and then they went over to my parents' and played some more. No tears to report.
*The Christmas novena at church has been so nice to attend.
*Sr. Vanda asked me to do the gathering prayer at our Christmas meal preparations on Friday morning.
*Mike did all the laundry, minus one basket, over the weekend. Folded it and distributed it, too.
*I let Zelda and Travis borrow my kitchen scale and received coffee in return. Jen and Dan needed a cup of sugar and I got cookies.
*My advent banners really did what I wanted them to this year.
*Mike accidentally left a 9x12 pan on the stove top after taking it out of the oven. The burner was on. It exploded. No one was hurt.
*We have visiting guinea pigs. Sophia is doing all the work. Without complaint.
*The pharmacist at Target was charming and funny. We talked about diazepam suppositories. About how it cost me $275 to bring home a controlled substance that I pray to God I'll never open. And about how I have a DVD to explain its use. "I bet that's a great film," was his closing statement.
*I have one quilt left to quilt. One. How did it all get done? I am honestly astonished. The one I have left is simple, too. Wow.
*Coffee? Yes please.
*Two neighbors with baby boys (Valerie and Dawn on my other blog) dropped off baby clothes for my brother and his wife. A lot of baby clothes--some had been through my hands and some hadn't and I took them all over last night for Ian and Ashley to take home.
*My niece came over Sunday and played with my girls. No fighting. Even cleaned up after themselves. Played Monopoly. Had lunch. So good. On Monday we all went to the Arch and to lunch and then they went over to my parents' and played some more. No tears to report.
*The Christmas novena at church has been so nice to attend.
*Sr. Vanda asked me to do the gathering prayer at our Christmas meal preparations on Friday morning.
*Mike did all the laundry, minus one basket, over the weekend. Folded it and distributed it, too.
*I let Zelda and Travis borrow my kitchen scale and received coffee in return. Jen and Dan needed a cup of sugar and I got cookies.
*My advent banners really did what I wanted them to this year.
*Mike accidentally left a 9x12 pan on the stove top after taking it out of the oven. The burner was on. It exploded. No one was hurt.
*We have visiting guinea pigs. Sophia is doing all the work. Without complaint.
*The pharmacist at Target was charming and funny. We talked about diazepam suppositories. About how it cost me $275 to bring home a controlled substance that I pray to God I'll never open. And about how I have a DVD to explain its use. "I bet that's a great film," was his closing statement.
*I have one quilt left to quilt. One. How did it all get done? I am honestly astonished. The one I have left is simple, too. Wow.
*Coffee? Yes please.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Sorry so behind on everything.
Dear everyone,
I am sorry I am so behind on everything.
It's been one hell of an Advent.
I will be back up to speed right around December 26. There is much to say. I should be saying it. But I can barely locate my rear end with both hands and let me share a little secret with you: it shouldn't take both hands. My brain is full and I need to be dismissed.
Bridgett
But it's good. Really. All is well.
I am sorry I am so behind on everything.
It's been one hell of an Advent.
I will be back up to speed right around December 26. There is much to say. I should be saying it. But I can barely locate my rear end with both hands and let me share a little secret with you: it shouldn't take both hands. My brain is full and I need to be dismissed.
Bridgett
But it's good. Really. All is well.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Cheers
EEG is normal.
Now we wait. For the rest of our lives but I can't wait. I'm so excited and happy to wait.
And sleep.
Now we wait. For the rest of our lives but I can't wait. I'm so excited and happy to wait.
And sleep.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Do not, I repeat do not be caught off guard
I love it when the national weather service ad-libs.
IT ONLY TAKES A SMALL AMOUNT OF WINTRY PRECIPITATION TO MAKE ROADS...BRIDGES...SIDEWALKS...AND PARKING LOTS ICY AND DANGEROUS. IT IS OFTEN DIFFICULT TO TELL WHEN ICE BEGINS TO FORM...SO DO NOT BE CAUGHT OFF GUARD.
IT ONLY TAKES A SMALL AMOUNT OF WINTRY PRECIPITATION TO MAKE ROADS...BRIDGES...SIDEWALKS...AND PARKING LOTS ICY AND DANGEROUS. IT IS OFTEN DIFFICULT TO TELL WHEN ICE BEGINS TO FORM...SO DO NOT BE CAUGHT OFF GUARD.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Well, that about wraps it up
I think the EEG went well. Who knows? It's all a bunch of crazy scrawled lines on a computer screen. The technician didn't comment and I didn't ask this time--last time when I asked the other tech got a little touchy about saying anything (the EEG was normal last time). I kept having to restrain myself from asking or from reading too much into the few times the tech clicked and typed something on the screen. She didn't have a seizure and she hasn't had one in 18 days and I think it's probably fine. They'll call with results. Earliest is Thursday, definitely by Monday. I'm not too nervous because I'm pretty sure it's ok.
Let me just say again that the timing on this? Sucked. Really, December? Really, Maeve?
Maeve went back to school for the rest of the day. I walked behind her, her brown coat and pink backpack, and found myself just praying that she'd be normal. Grow up and be normal.
But normal of course is in the eye of the beholder. We sat in a hallway this morning--the EEG lab is in the basement, without a real waiting room, just some benches by the elevator (you can see what they think about these, in comparison to the cheerful expensive-feeling MRI lab waiting room). And we sat there for just a few minutes waiting for them to get the room ready, and these two other families approached, both pushing wheelchairs, you know the kind, the ones that recline. Once child was unconscious, gaunt and pale, and the other was strapped in, awake but unresponsive. They'd both come for all-day EEGs. All day. Maeve's lasted 10 minutes once she was asleep, and our total appointment time, including getting the leads on and off, was less than an hour. And it brought it back home to me, again: even if she goes on a trial of medication for 2 years and then goes off for a while and we wait and see and do more tests and jump through hoops and get second opinions and shake our fists at the sky, I mean, screw all that. She's fine. She will be fine. It will all be just fine.
And now I'm going to go join Leo for a quick little nap.
Let me just say again that the timing on this? Sucked. Really, December? Really, Maeve?
Maeve went back to school for the rest of the day. I walked behind her, her brown coat and pink backpack, and found myself just praying that she'd be normal. Grow up and be normal.
But normal of course is in the eye of the beholder. We sat in a hallway this morning--the EEG lab is in the basement, without a real waiting room, just some benches by the elevator (you can see what they think about these, in comparison to the cheerful expensive-feeling MRI lab waiting room). And we sat there for just a few minutes waiting for them to get the room ready, and these two other families approached, both pushing wheelchairs, you know the kind, the ones that recline. Once child was unconscious, gaunt and pale, and the other was strapped in, awake but unresponsive. They'd both come for all-day EEGs. All day. Maeve's lasted 10 minutes once she was asleep, and our total appointment time, including getting the leads on and off, was less than an hour. And it brought it back home to me, again: even if she goes on a trial of medication for 2 years and then goes off for a while and we wait and see and do more tests and jump through hoops and get second opinions and shake our fists at the sky, I mean, screw all that. She's fine. She will be fine. It will all be just fine.
And now I'm going to go join Leo for a quick little nap.
Ten on Tuesday: 10 things on my to-do list
You're kidding, righ? I'm actually post-dating this, writing on Monday, because I have a moment I'm stealing from quilting and housework (all on my to-do list). Tomorrow is going to suck spectacularly so I better get this done now.
1. Get an EEG done for Maeve. I hate that this is on my to-do list. I keep having this looming vision of the future, where I can't do anything to help her. Can't. There is nothing I can do and as a parent it is the worst feeling. It isn't at all liberating that it is in God's hands. I am standing here with many talents and I can't use any of them to help. And because you can't prove something isn't going to happen, I will spend the next 20 years, maybe 30, whenever I would think she'd be on her two feet, assuming she ever is, worried about the other shoe to drop. Yes, I know this is always true when you are a parent or a spouse. You are always technically waiting for the phone call. But here? It is palpable. I am awake every night from 4-5 listening to her on the monitor, wondering if it will happen again. When it will happen again. Yes, there are worse things that could happen. But this is the one that is in my house. So it's on my to-do list. If it's nothing tomorrow, if she "passes" the EEG, then we'll all celebrate and mind our p's and q's and my speech at her wedding will be a doozy. And if not? If not indeed.
2. Get the girls' room clean before my niece arrives and they get it knee-deep again.
3. Call the folks who service our washing machine for its yearly. Heh.
4. Call the folks who service our HVAC for a new filter.
5. Finish quilts.
6. Defrost the chicken for tomorrow night's supper.
7. Go to the design charrette for the kids' school tonight and have lots of opinions (by the time you read this I'll have done it).
8. Wash diapers. And a bunch of other laundry. Snow, anyone?
9. Call the folks who service the car for an oil change and maintenance.
10. Try to keep in mind the last line of the Desiderata: Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
1. Get an EEG done for Maeve. I hate that this is on my to-do list. I keep having this looming vision of the future, where I can't do anything to help her. Can't. There is nothing I can do and as a parent it is the worst feeling. It isn't at all liberating that it is in God's hands. I am standing here with many talents and I can't use any of them to help. And because you can't prove something isn't going to happen, I will spend the next 20 years, maybe 30, whenever I would think she'd be on her two feet, assuming she ever is, worried about the other shoe to drop. Yes, I know this is always true when you are a parent or a spouse. You are always technically waiting for the phone call. But here? It is palpable. I am awake every night from 4-5 listening to her on the monitor, wondering if it will happen again. When it will happen again. Yes, there are worse things that could happen. But this is the one that is in my house. So it's on my to-do list. If it's nothing tomorrow, if she "passes" the EEG, then we'll all celebrate and mind our p's and q's and my speech at her wedding will be a doozy. And if not? If not indeed.
2. Get the girls' room clean before my niece arrives and they get it knee-deep again.
3. Call the folks who service our washing machine for its yearly. Heh.
4. Call the folks who service our HVAC for a new filter.
5. Finish quilts.
6. Defrost the chicken for tomorrow night's supper.
7. Go to the design charrette for the kids' school tonight and have lots of opinions (by the time you read this I'll have done it).
8. Wash diapers. And a bunch of other laundry. Snow, anyone?
9. Call the folks who service the car for an oil change and maintenance.
10. Try to keep in mind the last line of the Desiderata: Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
A Maeve Story
On the way home from tree harvesting last weekend, Maeve rode with my parents and my sister Bevin while my other sister Colleen and her young man, Tim, rode with the rest of us.
Bevin and my mom got onto the topic of wedding dresses. Bevin said she thought she'd want a cocktail length wedding dress. They chatted more, about how she wanted to go with blue (I think ice blue has been the color she's discussed before), and then she said that she thought a scalloped edge would be cute.
"Wait," Maeve stopped them at this point, completely serious. "Why do you want food on your wedding dress?"
Bevin and my mom got onto the topic of wedding dresses. Bevin said she thought she'd want a cocktail length wedding dress. They chatted more, about how she wanted to go with blue (I think ice blue has been the color she's discussed before), and then she said that she thought a scalloped edge would be cute.
"Wait," Maeve stopped them at this point, completely serious. "Why do you want food on your wedding dress?"
Friday, December 10, 2010
Five on Friday: My 5 favorite things right this moment
Because I'm working hard to stay positive, to not fall into magical thinking, to not eat away at my own life with worries.
1. Lavender lotion. I have some from Trader Joe's right now. I used to dislike the smell of lavender, but it's grown on me. It is December and so it is time for my annual lotion addiction to begin. This year will be lavender.
2. Coffee. Zelda and Travis roast their own and she read my previous entry about constantly running out of coffee. "I can't do anything to fix any of the rest of it," she told me. "But I can help with the coffee." I love my neighbors. This is really not about coffee, is it?
3. Pandora Radio. I have a station I've entitled "Jazzy Christmas" and it is as close to Christmas musical perfection as could possibly exist. No more smarmy Air Supply "Sleigh Ride" or annoying pretend children talking about mommy kissing Santa. And I have it on my phone. And I can hook my phone up to my car stereo. Love.
4. Law and Order UK. I am almost shameful in my adoration of this show right now.
5. Baby naps. He's taking one right now. Maeve is playing outside with disks of ice from the tops of buckets. And I'm going to go finish up some Christmas crafting. He has now officially been a napper longer than either girl--Maeve still falls asleep sometimes, but official naps ended at about 22 months. Sophia, of course, gave them up at a year. Now, he's awake every morning at 6:30, but that's ok; I should be, too.
There. Isn't that better.
1. Lavender lotion. I have some from Trader Joe's right now. I used to dislike the smell of lavender, but it's grown on me. It is December and so it is time for my annual lotion addiction to begin. This year will be lavender.
2. Coffee. Zelda and Travis roast their own and she read my previous entry about constantly running out of coffee. "I can't do anything to fix any of the rest of it," she told me. "But I can help with the coffee." I love my neighbors. This is really not about coffee, is it?
3. Pandora Radio. I have a station I've entitled "Jazzy Christmas" and it is as close to Christmas musical perfection as could possibly exist. No more smarmy Air Supply "Sleigh Ride" or annoying pretend children talking about mommy kissing Santa. And I have it on my phone. And I can hook my phone up to my car stereo. Love.
4. Law and Order UK. I am almost shameful in my adoration of this show right now.
5. Baby naps. He's taking one right now. Maeve is playing outside with disks of ice from the tops of buckets. And I'm going to go finish up some Christmas crafting. He has now officially been a napper longer than either girl--Maeve still falls asleep sometimes, but official naps ended at about 22 months. Sophia, of course, gave them up at a year. Now, he's awake every morning at 6:30, but that's ok; I should be, too.
There. Isn't that better.
Thursday, December 09, 2010
And they wait in Casablanca
No news is good news. Dr. V didn't freak out all over the place and make me have to go get a second opinion. We have two children's hospitals in town. I could easily make the trip to the other one. But no. Conservative about our next steps and good. What I wanted her to be.
"If she were my child I wouldn't medicate her."
I thanked her for that.
In the end, we go for a sleep deprivation EEG this coming Tuesday. Then we wait. We get a baby monitor for night time and we wait. I suppose I don't sleep again for the rest of her childhood. No, I will. Just not very heavily.
If the results are good, we just wait. And wait. And if 2 years pass, I throw the diazepam away (that would be a valium suppository--in case of a seizure that lasts too long) and the clock starts over.
If the results are, as she put it, "just a little bit abnormal" then we'll get an MRI and probably just wait.
If the results are obviously abnormal, again with the MRI and then we'll have to look at treatment options (assuming it's epilepsy and not, say, a brain tumor, that would mean medication). Dr. V was very calm. It was probably fine. We would wait.
"Maeve will let us know if she needs treatment."
And then I started to cry.
I mean, we're sitting in a children's hospital. The kids in the waiting room were really really obviously needing to be there. The waiting room is for endocrinology and neurology and who knows what else. And a lot of those kids, a lot of those babies, you could tell looking at them and at the faces of their parents that these were kids with serious problems. I remember our last visit, the nurse carrying the file as thick as a dictionary with an addendum because the file was too large to add anything to. You look at Maeve and of course she's fine. Even if the EEG is sketchy and she goes on medication, it's fine. It's all fine until it's not anymore. And there are many steps between here and there.
And I guess all this stress finally was lifted and done, except for the waiting, except for the rest of my life waiting. I walked out with Maeve through the parking lot and got in the car. Took to get her lunch at Bread Company and then dropped her off at school. I've been up-front at school about everything and I was still kind of shaky, but it was good news. Why was I still so upset? It wasn't until I got to the car and called Mike and realized I was verklempt because of the EEG. I didn't want to have to do that. But if she hadn't scheduled an EEG, it would have been irresponsible of her. We need to know what's going on. If it's bad, then we need to do something. If it's good, then we need to throw it on the pile of evidence that things are not a problem.
And wait.
Once again, I just want to read the plot synopsis. I don't need the details. Just, what will it look like in 2 years? Then I'll go back and live it. But knowing that I can't know, I just have to wait.
My brother and his wife are also waiting. Genetic counseling went pretty well. They knew it was Down Syndrome already, but they were concerned about other anomalies. Genetically, they seem to be in the clear on other defects, things they can test for in a petri dish, basically--the "big ultrasound" in January will tell them more about DS complications like GI and heart problems. Waiting. They also know the baby is a boy. I have so much hope and fear for them. I can't not.
So we're all waiting. Until the EEG, until the ultrasound, until the birth, until the next doctor's appointment. Until a year from now. Two years from now when I throw away the diazepam, right?
Side note: the prescription for diazepam came with a DVD. A DVD about a suppository. I just hope it doesn't have live actors. Please be animated. I don't think I'll watch. I have far better ways to spend my time while I wait.
"If she were my child I wouldn't medicate her."
I thanked her for that.
In the end, we go for a sleep deprivation EEG this coming Tuesday. Then we wait. We get a baby monitor for night time and we wait. I suppose I don't sleep again for the rest of her childhood. No, I will. Just not very heavily.
If the results are good, we just wait. And wait. And if 2 years pass, I throw the diazepam away (that would be a valium suppository--in case of a seizure that lasts too long) and the clock starts over.
If the results are, as she put it, "just a little bit abnormal" then we'll get an MRI and probably just wait.
If the results are obviously abnormal, again with the MRI and then we'll have to look at treatment options (assuming it's epilepsy and not, say, a brain tumor, that would mean medication). Dr. V was very calm. It was probably fine. We would wait.
"Maeve will let us know if she needs treatment."
And then I started to cry.
I mean, we're sitting in a children's hospital. The kids in the waiting room were really really obviously needing to be there. The waiting room is for endocrinology and neurology and who knows what else. And a lot of those kids, a lot of those babies, you could tell looking at them and at the faces of their parents that these were kids with serious problems. I remember our last visit, the nurse carrying the file as thick as a dictionary with an addendum because the file was too large to add anything to. You look at Maeve and of course she's fine. Even if the EEG is sketchy and she goes on medication, it's fine. It's all fine until it's not anymore. And there are many steps between here and there.
And I guess all this stress finally was lifted and done, except for the waiting, except for the rest of my life waiting. I walked out with Maeve through the parking lot and got in the car. Took to get her lunch at Bread Company and then dropped her off at school. I've been up-front at school about everything and I was still kind of shaky, but it was good news. Why was I still so upset? It wasn't until I got to the car and called Mike and realized I was verklempt because of the EEG. I didn't want to have to do that. But if she hadn't scheduled an EEG, it would have been irresponsible of her. We need to know what's going on. If it's bad, then we need to do something. If it's good, then we need to throw it on the pile of evidence that things are not a problem.
And wait.
Once again, I just want to read the plot synopsis. I don't need the details. Just, what will it look like in 2 years? Then I'll go back and live it. But knowing that I can't know, I just have to wait.
My brother and his wife are also waiting. Genetic counseling went pretty well. They knew it was Down Syndrome already, but they were concerned about other anomalies. Genetically, they seem to be in the clear on other defects, things they can test for in a petri dish, basically--the "big ultrasound" in January will tell them more about DS complications like GI and heart problems. Waiting. They also know the baby is a boy. I have so much hope and fear for them. I can't not.
So we're all waiting. Until the EEG, until the ultrasound, until the birth, until the next doctor's appointment. Until a year from now. Two years from now when I throw away the diazepam, right?
Side note: the prescription for diazepam came with a DVD. A DVD about a suppository. I just hope it doesn't have live actors. Please be animated. I don't think I'll watch. I have far better ways to spend my time while I wait.
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Ten on Tuesday: 10 Favorite Holiday Shows
Don't know if it's just TV shows or if she means movies, too. So I'll try to limit myself to TV specials and Christmas episodes of regular TV. My knowledge is scant, at best. But it's a good distraction, don'tcha know.
1. Charlie Brown Christmas: Oh jeez. I remember lying on Mike's couch in the dorm watching this when we'd been dating just 2 months and maybe this wasn't the best plan but I'd burned all my bridges at home and put on 20 pounds and changed my major and I was A LOSER. And then Linus comes on and reads that passage from Luke and I just started bawling. Still do.
2. How the Grinch Stole Christmas: the animated one, the TV special. With the song sung by Thurl Ravenscroft. Awesome.
3. Are You Being Served? Father Christmas episode. If you don't know AYBS, then, well, get yourself to a PBS station at once.
4. The Christmas Carol with George C. Scott. For my money, the best rendition.
5. Ludachristmas on 30 Rock.
6. All of the Newsradio Christmas episodes. Like with the talent show and knife throwing, or the commercial recording that goes so badly.
7. A Space Ghost Christmas: Yo Ho Ho! And a bottle of rum.
8. How about Christmas with the Joker from Batman: The Animated Series?
9. The Six Southern Gentlemen From Tennessee, on SportsNight. Goodness I love that show.
10. Death Takes a Holiday, M*A*S*H. You know the one. The orphanage, the chocolate, the dead soldier and the forged death certificate.
Ah. Time to go get dinner on.
1. Charlie Brown Christmas: Oh jeez. I remember lying on Mike's couch in the dorm watching this when we'd been dating just 2 months and maybe this wasn't the best plan but I'd burned all my bridges at home and put on 20 pounds and changed my major and I was A LOSER. And then Linus comes on and reads that passage from Luke and I just started bawling. Still do.
2. How the Grinch Stole Christmas: the animated one, the TV special. With the song sung by Thurl Ravenscroft. Awesome.
3. Are You Being Served? Father Christmas episode. If you don't know AYBS, then, well, get yourself to a PBS station at once.
4. The Christmas Carol with George C. Scott. For my money, the best rendition.
5. Ludachristmas on 30 Rock.
6. All of the Newsradio Christmas episodes. Like with the talent show and knife throwing, or the commercial recording that goes so badly.
7. A Space Ghost Christmas: Yo Ho Ho! And a bottle of rum.
8. How about Christmas with the Joker from Batman: The Animated Series?
9. The Six Southern Gentlemen From Tennessee, on SportsNight. Goodness I love that show.
10. Death Takes a Holiday, M*A*S*H. You know the one. The orphanage, the chocolate, the dead soldier and the forged death certificate.
Ah. Time to go get dinner on.
Each Passing Year That I Sit Here
Slightest move and this river mud pulls me further down
There's a bit I'm juggling now. Maeve's appointment is on Thursday and even though I reassure myself that it'll be ok, there really isn't any guarantee of that. Brains are so mysterious. It isn't easy to determine what's going to happen.
Eleven years ago, I lost some time. A few incidents of lost time, actually, twice in my classroom. My consciousness was affected, something was strange. Things weren't ok. I went to the doctor, who sent me to a neurologist, and I went home with appointments for the CT scan, MRI, and EEG. Did the EEG twice, in fact. Everything was inconclusive (the MRI and CT scan were clear, the EEG didn't show any seizure activity). He decided it was just migraine auras without headaches. Which is the way to have them if you're going to do it, frankly.
Now the experts out there are starting to wonder about the connection between migraines and seizures. Which I wondered about eleven years ago.
I knew my family had a propensity for seizures. Propensity? Tendency? Whatever. Seizure-prone is how my aunt described it on Facebook last week. Cousins, aunts, uncles, children of my cousins--lots of seizures but few cases of epilepsy. There's quite a few people in this population sample--around 35 or so--but still not enough to just shrug my shoulders and say it's a fluke. It isn't a fluke. Our brains are different somehow. We're a bunch of alcoholic seizure-prone geniuses who can't wear digital watches (something about our, what, electrical fields? make them go black).
You can always see it coming but you can never stop it.
So I wasn't surprised with the first seizure. Terrified but not surprised. It runs in my family, I sighed at the ER doctor, Mike sitting next to me thinking of his ex-girlfriend who died due to a seizure. Jesus. And when Christy yelled for me the Friday after Thanksgiving: she's having a seizure, like I've mentioned before, my heart rate didn't even go up. I kind of knew this was coming. I kind of knew from some point in the future looking backwards that this was coming. As this appointment Thursday comes completely into focus I realize, oh shit, we could walk out of that office with a heavier burden than I'm ready for just yet. See how I can't even name it.
On top of this, layered in like egg whites folded into a cake batter, is the fact that my brother and his wife just found out that the baby due in June is going to have serious complications and genetic anomalies. They're down in Texas, I'm up here in St. Louis, but like I've said many times before, my siblings and I have more emotionally entangled relationships than most that I've encountered. And they're coming to town in a couple of weeks and my heart is just aching for them. And I'm bracing for something I can't even see coming because it is both too close to focus on and so far away as to not be on my radar yet.
And it's Christmas. What the hell kind of timing is that? As I was driving my sister back to her apartment Sunday night after she dropped her car off at my parents' (so they could take it to the mechanic Monday), I said that this was the least ready I'd ever been for Christmas, and not just physically, not just meaning presents wrapped and tree up and butter purchased to make cookies. It may be December 7th but it might as well be February 20. It's cold and dry and my heels are cracked and, in strict accordance with prophecy, I am constantly running out of coffee. It is winter, but it isn't Christmas yet.
Of course not: it is Advent. Like a shining speck of hope hanging over the horizon. It will be Christmas. And now I go back to working on all that and taking some deep breaths to keep from freaking out. It's not my job to freak out.
There's a bit I'm juggling now. Maeve's appointment is on Thursday and even though I reassure myself that it'll be ok, there really isn't any guarantee of that. Brains are so mysterious. It isn't easy to determine what's going to happen.
Eleven years ago, I lost some time. A few incidents of lost time, actually, twice in my classroom. My consciousness was affected, something was strange. Things weren't ok. I went to the doctor, who sent me to a neurologist, and I went home with appointments for the CT scan, MRI, and EEG. Did the EEG twice, in fact. Everything was inconclusive (the MRI and CT scan were clear, the EEG didn't show any seizure activity). He decided it was just migraine auras without headaches. Which is the way to have them if you're going to do it, frankly.
Now the experts out there are starting to wonder about the connection between migraines and seizures. Which I wondered about eleven years ago.
I knew my family had a propensity for seizures. Propensity? Tendency? Whatever. Seizure-prone is how my aunt described it on Facebook last week. Cousins, aunts, uncles, children of my cousins--lots of seizures but few cases of epilepsy. There's quite a few people in this population sample--around 35 or so--but still not enough to just shrug my shoulders and say it's a fluke. It isn't a fluke. Our brains are different somehow. We're a bunch of alcoholic seizure-prone geniuses who can't wear digital watches (something about our, what, electrical fields? make them go black).
You can always see it coming but you can never stop it.
So I wasn't surprised with the first seizure. Terrified but not surprised. It runs in my family, I sighed at the ER doctor, Mike sitting next to me thinking of his ex-girlfriend who died due to a seizure. Jesus. And when Christy yelled for me the Friday after Thanksgiving: she's having a seizure, like I've mentioned before, my heart rate didn't even go up. I kind of knew this was coming. I kind of knew from some point in the future looking backwards that this was coming. As this appointment Thursday comes completely into focus I realize, oh shit, we could walk out of that office with a heavier burden than I'm ready for just yet. See how I can't even name it.
On top of this, layered in like egg whites folded into a cake batter, is the fact that my brother and his wife just found out that the baby due in June is going to have serious complications and genetic anomalies. They're down in Texas, I'm up here in St. Louis, but like I've said many times before, my siblings and I have more emotionally entangled relationships than most that I've encountered. And they're coming to town in a couple of weeks and my heart is just aching for them. And I'm bracing for something I can't even see coming because it is both too close to focus on and so far away as to not be on my radar yet.
And it's Christmas. What the hell kind of timing is that? As I was driving my sister back to her apartment Sunday night after she dropped her car off at my parents' (so they could take it to the mechanic Monday), I said that this was the least ready I'd ever been for Christmas, and not just physically, not just meaning presents wrapped and tree up and butter purchased to make cookies. It may be December 7th but it might as well be February 20. It's cold and dry and my heels are cracked and, in strict accordance with prophecy, I am constantly running out of coffee. It is winter, but it isn't Christmas yet.
Of course not: it is Advent. Like a shining speck of hope hanging over the horizon. It will be Christmas. And now I go back to working on all that and taking some deep breaths to keep from freaking out. It's not my job to freak out.
Friday, December 03, 2010
One Week
Maeve had her seizure 1 week and 2 hours ago. It's another one of those milestones: 24 hours, 2 days, a week, 2 weeks, a month, 6 months, a year...I stopped counting after the year passed last time.
I'm not worried anymore. I was only worried a bit, about medication and that she could wind up getting hurt falling in the bathroom or something. But I'm getting comfortable with risk. Heck, I live pretty durned close to the New Madrid Fault in a masonry foundation home that will liquefy when the "big one" hits.
Life persists.
I'm not worried anymore. I was only worried a bit, about medication and that she could wind up getting hurt falling in the bathroom or something. But I'm getting comfortable with risk. Heck, I live pretty durned close to the New Madrid Fault in a masonry foundation home that will liquefy when the "big one" hits.
Life persists.
Thursday, December 02, 2010
Goodbye Amber
I haven't done a Mama Kat writers workshop in a long time; Texan Mama did this one and it hit close enough to home (and I need some distraction).
1.) Have you ever had a fight with a long time best friend and never made up? Do you think about her from time to time and think about contacting her? What would you say? What if it didn’t work out? What if it did?
We were best friends. I was the new yankee moving into an insulated deep south community: instant outcast, just add water. Amber was more of a self-imposed outcast status kind of kid, with Jenny and Chelle and Ruth. Folks that don't quite fit in. I'm not one of these folks, usually--I tend to be socially upwardly mobile--but there was no choice here. I mean, you're talking about a society that has girls rush sororities in high school. Perfect hair, get their nails done, a turtleneck under the cashmere sweater with a diamond solitaire necklace dangling between their perfect B cups. Everyone is blond and everyone is genteel and nobody says the F word and nobody, absolutely nobody has an uncle who is a cocaine dealer and stays at their house once in a while and a father who takes apart a British sports car in the drive and a boyfriend who is the wrong race or from the wrong side of the tracks. In Houston, nobody blinked an eye at any of that sort of stuff (the uncle had moved on but many other things stayed the same). But deep south? Life is a special kind of dressed up nasty.
So Amber and I were friends. By the middle of our sophomore year, we were best friends in the way that I'd never been best friends with anyone. I had good friends from other places where I lived, but I didn't hide anything from Amber. There wasn't any need. Her mother read tarot cards and did my astrology chart. Amber played piano and drums and lived in a shabby rooming house (not quite that bad: they had their own kitchen and bathroom) and taught me to smoke cigarettes (a habit I kept for about 2 weeks and realized this was ridiculous). And we talked and talked and talked and talked.
At the end of our sophomore year, we were both moving. I went to Houston; she went to Las Vegas. I wrote to her all the time and she kept up with my pace (the only correspondent I ever had who could). We became each other's favorite fictional characters. We were starting to lose what the other person really was. We saw each other only as we wanted to, which is the beauty of a long-distance relationship, but also its downfall.
At the end of our senior year, we talked about meeting out in Vegas and then driving to California, going down the coast from San Francisco to LA. I didn't realize how serious she was until suddenly it was May and she was asking me to nail down a specific date. When would I be there? Her mom was going to give us the jeep.
I totally chickened out. Blamed my parents for not letting me, but really, I'd never even asked. I didn't know she was serious. She was devastated but life went on; I visited her over Christmas our junior year of college, wrote to her unceasingly when she did a semester in Europe, and we smoothed over the bumps and were friends again.
She was a bridesmaid in my wedding. While at my wedding, she kind of flirted with one of our groomsmen and started a relationship with him, long-distance again. I encouraged this because I still lived in a happily ever after chick flick kind of world. Of course she would fall for him and move here and we'd all be friends forever. It would be perfect.
A year after my wedding, well, 8 months, she came out to visit me and him. Stayed at my place in our spare room. Started talking about moving out to St. Louis. She'd had enough of LA and trying to scrape by and it didn't feel like a life anymore. She loved what we had here and wanted to be a part of it. She thought she'd have to give LA another 9 months or so with her lease and so forth, but this was a first step. I was so happy about it, for her, for him, for me. And then one night when Mike was out, we were lying on my bed giggling about some stupid thing when she leaned over and kissed me.
What?
How did I not see this coming? I don't even know. How could I be so clueless? Daft, really. Completely blind. She could see on my face that this wasn't what I expected. There were some awkward backpedaling and "no it's ok don't worry about it I'm fine sorry" moments and it was swept under the bed.
She went home to California and we kept writing and talking like it never happened. And I'm sure in a different situation we could have worked around it without a problem. If I hadn't been married, if we'd been in high school, if we weren't adults, basically. Or if I had been more of an adult. If I could have seen past my own nose for just a moment. After she was home in LA, though, I didn't have to think about it or what her intentions were or what it meant for our friendship. I pretended it never happened.
So that was the big mistake. She continued with plans to move, but then, a few weeks before I was to fly out there to help her, for us to take that cross country trip together to her new life, she canceled. She didn't feel like she could leave her mom so far away. She had friends there. She really kind of liked her life after all. The clincher was the elephant in the living room: "I can't move there for him when I'm in love with you."
And I got mad at her.
She wrote me a scathing letter that just about made me go blind reading it. Luckily Creedence Clearwater Revival was on the radio, we were headed down to my inlaws, and something about the car and Proud Mary just made me throw the letter out the window. When we got back to town, I sat down with a fellow teaching assistant's "Spanish idiom of the day" calendar and wrote her a bitch of a note all in Spanish idioms.
She never wrote back. I never did either.
Friends and parents told me I outgrew her. That high school friendships are difficult to maintain. But I think it was more than that. I think the fact that we couldn't see each other for who we really were, that I ignored obvious signals from her and she put an image on me that I couldn't live up to, that's what did us in. I have a few other friends from way back when, and what holds us together is our ability to keep things light and breezy. Amber and I never could, and it did us in.
I've shed several friendships over my lifetime--moving is part of it, and changes in circumstances is a big one (people get married, people have kids, people move, people become Orthodox Jews). Some of them I could sum up like a stereotypical guy sums up all the girls he breaks up with: "the bitch went crazy". And maybe Amber did a little bit of that. But this is the one I regret more than any of the others. But what would I say?
I don't even know. I think we would have to agree to pull up the gray film on the magic slate of our lives and start fresh with friendship amnesia. There could be no going back.
1.) Have you ever had a fight with a long time best friend and never made up? Do you think about her from time to time and think about contacting her? What would you say? What if it didn’t work out? What if it did?
We were best friends. I was the new yankee moving into an insulated deep south community: instant outcast, just add water. Amber was more of a self-imposed outcast status kind of kid, with Jenny and Chelle and Ruth. Folks that don't quite fit in. I'm not one of these folks, usually--I tend to be socially upwardly mobile--but there was no choice here. I mean, you're talking about a society that has girls rush sororities in high school. Perfect hair, get their nails done, a turtleneck under the cashmere sweater with a diamond solitaire necklace dangling between their perfect B cups. Everyone is blond and everyone is genteel and nobody says the F word and nobody, absolutely nobody has an uncle who is a cocaine dealer and stays at their house once in a while and a father who takes apart a British sports car in the drive and a boyfriend who is the wrong race or from the wrong side of the tracks. In Houston, nobody blinked an eye at any of that sort of stuff (the uncle had moved on but many other things stayed the same). But deep south? Life is a special kind of dressed up nasty.
So Amber and I were friends. By the middle of our sophomore year, we were best friends in the way that I'd never been best friends with anyone. I had good friends from other places where I lived, but I didn't hide anything from Amber. There wasn't any need. Her mother read tarot cards and did my astrology chart. Amber played piano and drums and lived in a shabby rooming house (not quite that bad: they had their own kitchen and bathroom) and taught me to smoke cigarettes (a habit I kept for about 2 weeks and realized this was ridiculous). And we talked and talked and talked and talked.
At the end of our sophomore year, we were both moving. I went to Houston; she went to Las Vegas. I wrote to her all the time and she kept up with my pace (the only correspondent I ever had who could). We became each other's favorite fictional characters. We were starting to lose what the other person really was. We saw each other only as we wanted to, which is the beauty of a long-distance relationship, but also its downfall.
At the end of our senior year, we talked about meeting out in Vegas and then driving to California, going down the coast from San Francisco to LA. I didn't realize how serious she was until suddenly it was May and she was asking me to nail down a specific date. When would I be there? Her mom was going to give us the jeep.
I totally chickened out. Blamed my parents for not letting me, but really, I'd never even asked. I didn't know she was serious. She was devastated but life went on; I visited her over Christmas our junior year of college, wrote to her unceasingly when she did a semester in Europe, and we smoothed over the bumps and were friends again.
She was a bridesmaid in my wedding. While at my wedding, she kind of flirted with one of our groomsmen and started a relationship with him, long-distance again. I encouraged this because I still lived in a happily ever after chick flick kind of world. Of course she would fall for him and move here and we'd all be friends forever. It would be perfect.
A year after my wedding, well, 8 months, she came out to visit me and him. Stayed at my place in our spare room. Started talking about moving out to St. Louis. She'd had enough of LA and trying to scrape by and it didn't feel like a life anymore. She loved what we had here and wanted to be a part of it. She thought she'd have to give LA another 9 months or so with her lease and so forth, but this was a first step. I was so happy about it, for her, for him, for me. And then one night when Mike was out, we were lying on my bed giggling about some stupid thing when she leaned over and kissed me.
What?
How did I not see this coming? I don't even know. How could I be so clueless? Daft, really. Completely blind. She could see on my face that this wasn't what I expected. There were some awkward backpedaling and "no it's ok don't worry about it I'm fine sorry" moments and it was swept under the bed.
She went home to California and we kept writing and talking like it never happened. And I'm sure in a different situation we could have worked around it without a problem. If I hadn't been married, if we'd been in high school, if we weren't adults, basically. Or if I had been more of an adult. If I could have seen past my own nose for just a moment. After she was home in LA, though, I didn't have to think about it or what her intentions were or what it meant for our friendship. I pretended it never happened.
So that was the big mistake. She continued with plans to move, but then, a few weeks before I was to fly out there to help her, for us to take that cross country trip together to her new life, she canceled. She didn't feel like she could leave her mom so far away. She had friends there. She really kind of liked her life after all. The clincher was the elephant in the living room: "I can't move there for him when I'm in love with you."
And I got mad at her.
She wrote me a scathing letter that just about made me go blind reading it. Luckily Creedence Clearwater Revival was on the radio, we were headed down to my inlaws, and something about the car and Proud Mary just made me throw the letter out the window. When we got back to town, I sat down with a fellow teaching assistant's "Spanish idiom of the day" calendar and wrote her a bitch of a note all in Spanish idioms.
She never wrote back. I never did either.
Friends and parents told me I outgrew her. That high school friendships are difficult to maintain. But I think it was more than that. I think the fact that we couldn't see each other for who we really were, that I ignored obvious signals from her and she put an image on me that I couldn't live up to, that's what did us in. I have a few other friends from way back when, and what holds us together is our ability to keep things light and breezy. Amber and I never could, and it did us in.
I've shed several friendships over my lifetime--moving is part of it, and changes in circumstances is a big one (people get married, people have kids, people move, people become Orthodox Jews). Some of them I could sum up like a stereotypical guy sums up all the girls he breaks up with: "the bitch went crazy". And maybe Amber did a little bit of that. But this is the one I regret more than any of the others. But what would I say?
I don't even know. I think we would have to agree to pull up the gray film on the magic slate of our lives and start fresh with friendship amnesia. There could be no going back.
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
How the Christmas Cookie Crumbles
A friend from college wrote this article three years ago about how political correctness got us to the point that people say "happy holidays" instead of "merry Christmas." It's a good article, both light-hearted and thoughtful, surrounding a controversy of that sort at a Seattle college campus:
How the Christmas Cookie Crumbles
How the Christmas Cookie Crumbles
Maeve Update
We have an appointment for next week. It's mostly to touch base and determine if we even need to do more tests or if we just keep holding our breaths to see if she has another.
I think my "low seizure threshold" theory is a good one. Since this one happened, I learned that there are several folks in my family tree who have had one or two or three seizures in their lifetimes. All on my dad's side of the family, all on his dad's side of the family. Danged Blakes. Way more than the statistics could allow for--I mean, it's a big family but it isn't that big. Brains are such a mystery. One of my aunts, who was medicated for a long time, said that her original diagnosis of epilepsy was revoked and she was told that she was simply "prone to seizures" and if she took care of herself, would probably be fine. And she is. She has specific triggers and she manages this. I'm going to be giving her a call sometime soon. All we're doing now is facebook messages back and forth.
Because I'm good at lifestyle changes to create a healthier atmosphere. Maeve's asthma is a non-issue now that the cats are banished and her bed has an allergen-proof mattress cover and her pillows are locked inside the same. Stuffed animals are out of the way and there's no carpet in her room (we were going to carpet the attic and I'm glad now that we didn't). I kept a food diary for 6 months to figure out why I was having the symptoms I was having (migraine aura without headache was the diagnosis). Aspartame. I cut it out and they're gone. I can solve some mysteries. I'm happy to overhaul our diet or go over our living spaces with a fine tooth comb or whatever. Just don't put this kid on medication that will make her life hard to live. Seriously hard to live.
But I've stopped having the mental conversations with the imaginary doctor. I'm back into the swing of things. I've got some perspective and I realize that some things I cannot control. Hell, I'm getting croup (thanks Sophia) and I can't even figure out what to make for dinner, my brain is so foggy.
Time for a nap; Leo is on the bed starting without me. Thanks for all the prayers and hope and nice things you've all said. I'm seeing the light at the end of this tunnel, at least.
I think my "low seizure threshold" theory is a good one. Since this one happened, I learned that there are several folks in my family tree who have had one or two or three seizures in their lifetimes. All on my dad's side of the family, all on his dad's side of the family. Danged Blakes. Way more than the statistics could allow for--I mean, it's a big family but it isn't that big. Brains are such a mystery. One of my aunts, who was medicated for a long time, said that her original diagnosis of epilepsy was revoked and she was told that she was simply "prone to seizures" and if she took care of herself, would probably be fine. And she is. She has specific triggers and she manages this. I'm going to be giving her a call sometime soon. All we're doing now is facebook messages back and forth.
Because I'm good at lifestyle changes to create a healthier atmosphere. Maeve's asthma is a non-issue now that the cats are banished and her bed has an allergen-proof mattress cover and her pillows are locked inside the same. Stuffed animals are out of the way and there's no carpet in her room (we were going to carpet the attic and I'm glad now that we didn't). I kept a food diary for 6 months to figure out why I was having the symptoms I was having (migraine aura without headache was the diagnosis). Aspartame. I cut it out and they're gone. I can solve some mysteries. I'm happy to overhaul our diet or go over our living spaces with a fine tooth comb or whatever. Just don't put this kid on medication that will make her life hard to live. Seriously hard to live.
But I've stopped having the mental conversations with the imaginary doctor. I'm back into the swing of things. I've got some perspective and I realize that some things I cannot control. Hell, I'm getting croup (thanks Sophia) and I can't even figure out what to make for dinner, my brain is so foggy.
Time for a nap; Leo is on the bed starting without me. Thanks for all the prayers and hope and nice things you've all said. I'm seeing the light at the end of this tunnel, at least.
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