Travel

So, the man I married is out of town on business. There is tornadic activity in the area, so I was worried and called him early--that, plus the baby had me up really early, and I just wanted to say hello to him. We have been allowing her to cry herself to sleep and it's been hard--I'm feeling a little lonely so I call him--meanwhile, he calls me yesterday to say they cancelled his flight, so of course because he needed to talk to me, I stayed on the phone. After this, I called him periodically to be sure he was on a flight out. Once he no longer needed an ear to bend, every time I called him after that he made me feel like I was intruding--this morning, he didn't pick up his cell at 6:45 and I was worried that he forgot to set an alarm to wake him up.
I left him a message to tell him how the night went with the baby.
I called again to make sure he was up and to see how the weather was, and this is what I got from him,
"Can you let me go?"
Of course I know he meant to the meeting, but thinking about it now, it seemed to have a larger meaning.
Out of sight out of mind--
He called later on and I told him I was busy and I'd call back and then I hung up.

It used to be when I was married to my first husband and things started going badly, I'd take off my wedding ring and not miss it.
I'm starting to feel that way about this ring, too--I took it off to put cream on my hands, and didn't put it back on. This morning, with everything, I didn't notice it was gone.
Why does he have to be such an ass? He told me before he left to call whenever I want--I called twice, didn't speak to him--how long would it have taken to speak to me and touch base?

Is it really a good idea

to be working on the weekends to make the weeks better? And how can I make the weeks better anymore? Why do I envy people who seem to have it all figured out, or are far better than I am at pretending they know what the right thing to do is, and when do I stop feeling so depressed so often lately?
I used to think that people who need medication to get over and keep going were weak.
Now I'm not so sure anymore.

Decisions

So you're there with your hand on the button--if you push the button someone you don't know will die. Someone distant, a total stranger, someone you will never meet, will die. This was the premise of a short story I read years ago, and the idea that in an instant you can make a decision that can ultimately impact a life was incredible, and an incredible burden to carry if the choice you made was the wrong one.
Now, as I did twice before with my other two kids, I stand with my hand on the crib in the middle of the night making a decision. Pick her up, or let her cry? Is she hungry? Should I try to feed her? What's the right thing to do? I want to make her comfortable, I want to protect her and will wear myself out in the process of establishing for her the safety net, the security blanket of love and understanding and unconditional acceptance of the little person she is.
My middle child, a teenager whom I know is experimenting with...something at some point, wants to go to a house that her older sister has intimated has little adult supervision and the opportunity to do whatever the kids want to do. Do I trust her? When she comes home I'll ask for a kiss hello because I love her, and because I'll notice the slight whiff of cigarette smoke if she's been smoking. If I do smell smoke, do I trust her if she tells me that she's not doing anything??
My oldest before her, and all the things she experimented with --I trusted her. I trusted that eventually her own guilt would get to her and that's she'd come to her senses. I embraced her friends hoping that if they liked me enough they wouldn't hurt my little girl.
Not true.
Eventually my oldest moved away from this pack of wolves, but mostly because, thank God, they abandoned her.
My middle child makes friends, and I meet them, and I do like them. Good kids from good families, they try hard but feel compelled to do stupid things anyway. Burn holes in rugs, burn paper in the backyard, try pot.
And I have to make decisions about how to deal with it all without alienating my children, without making the wrong choice.
The stress is incredible. The decision-making is momentary, and can affect their lives for a lifetime.
I stand at the ends of their beds, or on the stairs, or years ago with my hand on their crib, choosing the direction their lives will take, trying to influence the decisions they will make as they move through their peer groups, hoping that whatever the foundation is that I gave them gives them the tools to survive through their teen years.
My baby daughter reminds me every day of the tremendous burden it is to be someone's momma. The tremendous responsibility I've embraced for the last 19 years, trying to do the right thing, struggling with the need to make decisions quickly. To make them correctly, to make them so that my children, at least at the beginning, are insulated against pain, and hurt and to insulate them so they won't be vulnerable to the horrors of the world.

Nothing prepares you for motherhood--nothing--but it is the greatest job you will ever love.

Of monkeys and coeds

Maybe we should thank the cartoonist at The Post for the distraction of the stupidity he decided to create.

It sure took my mind off of what a horrible turn our country has taken lately.

Who knows if all the people who showed up in front of The Post building in NY were people out of work, who needed somewhere to go, and something to focus on other than the ache that their lives have become. Who knows?

Or if the kids who barricaded themselves at that college in NY were also escaping from the ordinary-ness of being college coeds, and wanted instead to be youtube fodder. Did any of them understand what it means to protest? They called themselves "Take Back NYU." From what?


Everyone who is a part of these altruistic causes should be in and of themselves ex halted for their ability to remind us that people in numbers can still make a difference. That we still live in that great land where you can stand in front of a tall brick building and express through frozen lips to a TV reporter about how important it is that you are standing there in front of that building. Or where a young woman can be shown fighting back against the security guards who want her and the others to go back to being ordinary, and quiet, and that we can feel one with her frustrations and want her to illicit change.

Or we can just let it be what it really is...a temporary distraction from how bad things are, and are getting.

Starting from Scratch

I have no idea if this web-log (which is what the word blog was created from) will become anything viable, but it's sort of neat to make one--like a macaroni-covered box that your teacher would spray with golden spray paint.

Somehow, the extra glitter made whatever was inside that much more important.

I think that's how people see the web...as a box they put something ordinary into and cover with pizzazz, thereby raising the level of importance of the content probably to one much higher than it might have had, say, if it was said during a drunken stupor at a party. Or put out at a garage sale. Or taken out of a fortune cookie and left on the restaurant table as insignificant, and inappropriate.

My family