sueeeus

• A beautiful boy with bright blue eyes.

• The way he looks at his mama, like she’s a crazy lady or something, but gosh, he sure loves her!

• A child at play.

• A whimsical card from a very dear friend.  Look!  It’s a piggy!  A happy piggy!  A bespectacled, happy piggy, carrying a banner.  How cute is that (click for full view).
• An uncluttered desk
• A clean house
• A few moments of my own to escape to blogland
• A hot cup of rich black tea with milk and honey
• The smell of Baby Magic lotion lingering on my hands, left over from rubbing into my beautiful boy’s skin
• The soft fuzzy feel of his head after a shower
• The smell of his soft fuzzy head
• The way he snuggles up against me when he’s feeling tired or affectionate
• How grateful I am that I have been blessed to become a mother
• How relieved I am when nap time arrives

On my way home this evening I drove past the mailboxes at the end of the culdesac and noticed the key fob dangling from the package bin.  I smiled and thought to myself that somebody got a package today, and what a delight it is to come home after a long and hard day to a package in the mailbox.  There’s something magical about the sensation that passes through me when good mail in the form of a letter or a package arrives.  I was even a bit pleased with myself for noticing the key and thinking benevolent thoughts.

I entered the house and put my keys on their hook.  I like my supersized bling bling pink solitaire key ring.  It was a Christmas gift from Mr. Gadget.  Very me.  He did well.  Blackbird has asked to see keys today.  Mine are a jumble, but I do like the electronic fob remote thingie that opens up the car doors.

I made my way to the office, and discovered that Mr. Gadget had already collected the mail.  And guess what   The package was for me!  Me!  From across the sea!  The sea!  From my dear friend Suse.  How special.  Such a delight!  I was delighted to begin with, before I knew the package recipient was me.  Me!  Imagine  how much more delighted I am.  Giddy, in fact.

I opened the box, imagining the treasures that were moments from my grasp.  I suspected there might be…

… something like …  …this, in the box…

Ooh!  Lucky me!  Delicious soap, a lovingly knitted flannel/washcloth, some delightful photo frames that I shall soon fill with pictures of Mr. Snazzy Pants, and an adorable card depicting a frolicking child.  Such a nice gift.  Thank you so very much, my dear friend.

All I had to do was sleep.  Sleep.  My modus operandi is to be snoring soundly within 3 minutes of lying down.  Out for the count.  Regardless of caffeine or sugar or other stimuli.  But this time, when I needed to sleep, sans stimulants, the land of slumber could not be found.  I tossed.  I turned.  My thoughts raced.  I tensed.  I prayed.  I pondered.  I meditated.  I imagined my body was filled with sand and visualized the sand seeping out, out, out, leaving me deflated, relaxed, and asleep.  To no avail.  I tried the technique again, imagining I was filled with water and let it flow slowly out.  Again, to no avail, other than needing another trip to the vay-say (WC).  I counted.  I tried deep breathing.  I planned.  I went through my to-do list.  I designed some landscaping features.  I contemplated my dream home.  I imagined Mr. Gadget next to me.  I imagined Mr. Snazzy Pants in my arms, or down the hall, or reaching for me, or simply sleeping soundly in his bed.  All to no avail. 

I’ve been going through some mid-life maintenance of late.  I’ve had my first mammogram (results ‘benign/normal’).  I’ve had a pap.  Oh joy.  I’ve been to the dentist.  I’m going to an allergist next week.  And I’ve been to a sleep specialist.  Because I snore.  And possibly choke.  I was to undergo a sleep study for obstructive sleep apnea.  All I had to do was sleep.

Eventually the nurse came in and said they needed 6 hours of data for a valid study, and there were only 1.5 hours left before ‘wake-up’ time, and I hadn’t slept yet.  I apparently have anxiety issues that I wasn’t aware of.  That, and I still had a nasty cough, and about 30 electrodes attached to my body in various and sundry places.  But most of all, it was my first night away from Mr. Snazzy Pants.  I couldn’t get him out of my mind.  I felt like such a failure.  I’d hate to have to repeat such an experience, but it looks like that is in order, as I have only about an hour and a half of sleep under my belt.  I left the hospital, sat in my car, and sobbed like a baby.  Missing my baby.  Hating the feeling of failure and inadequacy.

I called Mr. Gadget and sobbed some more.  Of course Mr. Snazzy Pants is fine, he said. 

Mr. Snazzy Pants (new nick name) is sick again.  (Consequently, so am I.)  Although I don’t care much for the sensation of rattling brains and oxygen deprivation during a coughing fit, I don’t so much mind, in the sense that this ailment isn’t painful or annoying apart from the coughing.  The head and sinuses are generally clear.  There’s no aching.  No fever.  No lethargy.  There is just this deep deep cough that is mostly unproductive.  It starts from a tickle and can easily end up in a fit if one doesn’t attempt to suppress the convulsions.  My son has had all of his shots, including 4 out of 5 installments of his Pertussis vaccine.  If a coughin fit does takes place, and goes unsuppressed, it gets unpleasant, with rattled brains and oxygen deprivation, or, with my son, the inability to keep one’s dinner down.  My fits seem worse than his, because I tend to try to cough something up, and that makes it worse.  When he starts to cough, he usually stops after a few coughs, but he did get caught in a gag reflex a couple of times and ended up losing the contents of his stomach.  I haven’t seen him have any trouble breathing.  We’re waiting it out.  The medicines we’ve tried are thus far ineffective.  I’m somewhat comforted in the knowledge that we are sharing the same malady, so I know that this particular bout doesn’t physically hurt as much as other maladies we’ve contended with recently.  But I am at a loss and wracked with anxiety over the helpless and concerned feelings I have for my boy when I hear him cough.  So much so that my anxieties surface in my dreams, and I dream unpleasant and frightening dreams that make we wake up in tears. 

When I have disturbing dreams, I try to explain why I’m so upset and describe the dreams to Mr. Gadget, but rather than comfort me, he tends to get angry or annoyed with me for letting the dream, which was so vivid, shake me up.  How can you even for a moment think it’s true, he’ll say.   True to form, he responded negatively to my mumbled description of the most recent dream.  He was angry with me for sharing the unpleasantries or even suggesting the possiblity of such.  Because in this dream, our boy was hurt.  It was convoluted, as dreams so often are, because the characters morphed back and forth and forth and back.  The gist of it was we entrusted him to somebody else’s care for a period of time and he ended up being hurt in a violated kind of way during that time, and I learned of it and it was too late for me to stop it, so all I could do was be horrified that this had happened to him, and hold him and try to comfort him.  I don’t know how to describe those feelings.  I woke up in tears at the moment of awareness, when the horror hit, and before the mama bear surfaced to demand retribution of the one who had harmed my child.  Mr. Gadget, on the other hand, was awake for a few hours after that, and angry as all get out, wanting to exact retribution right then and there.  The power of suggestion.  It was just a dream, and it was horrible.  It’s comforting, in a sense, that his papa bear surfaces immediately.  It tells me he would be swift to take action should anything ever happen.  God forbid.  It’s disheartening, also, that he’s not there for me, to give me comfort.  Comfort is what I seek when I wake up sobbing from a bad dream.  It’s also disheartening that the anguish cripples me enough to wake me, so that I don’t continue with the dream and perhaps do something constructive to remedy the situation like extinguish the bad guy(s) or conquer the evil.  I don’t get to learn what I might do if the situation was not fictional.  I don’t get to find out if I would be a hero.

I can point to various aspects of any given dream and correlate them to anxieties that I harbor.  Last night I put my sweet sleepy little boy in his bed, and stayed there with him as he fell asleep.  As I was caressing his face and hair, I was thinking of how much I wanted him to be well, all well, to stop coughing, to get over this silly bug.  Do we go to the doctor, do we not go to the doctor   We just went to the doctor.  Do we go back   We’re getting better.  There’s no fever.  He’s eating.  He’s drinking.  Things are moving through fine.  He’s playing.  He’s laughing.   I’m pretty sure the doctor would say we’re doing the right thing and all we can do now is let it run its course.  I thought all these things, and I also wondered if letting this run its course would actually strengthen him somewhat and build his immune system up so that it will be stronger in the future.  I’ve heard so many times and tales of people who have compromised their immune systems by overmedicating.

Anxiety!  There’s so much at play here.  Guilt.  Guilt for not going to the doctor.  We never went as children, and sometimes perhaps we should have.  Sometimes we definitely should have.  Am I like my mother   Ack, God forbid!  It doesn’t help that Mr. Gadget will invariably make some comment in a displeased tone about me not taking him to the doctor.  It’s all on me.  Why is that  

I think often of my own wild boys.  They’ve had a rough road to walk too.  It hasn’t been easy for them.  I worry about them.  In a way, I’ve mothered some of them, and now that I’m older I wish that I had mothered them more, or done a better job.  I wish I’d had my eyes more open to what they were going through, and what they needed, rather than just trying to keep myself afloat.  I wish I could have figured things out sooner, found my own way sooner, so that I could be there for them and not contribute to their own growing pains.  I wish I could take back any pain that I may have caused them, any sorrow, any misunderstanding.  But it was survival, in those days.  Growing up and finding your way is survival when you don’t have good parenting and guidance.  How I wish that life were easier for them now.  How I wish that they didn’t have to struggle with themselves and how they fit in, in this crazy world.  Fitting in.   Finding your way.  Sometimes it’s so hard.  I want my wild boys to be strong, confident men who hold their heads high, laugh, love, and joy in the mere essence of being.  I want them to be free, unencumbered by guilt, sorrow, regret, stereotype, and discrimination.  I want them to be happy.  I want them to be successful in the ways that are meaningful to them.  I want much for my wild boys.  But it’s so much harder for them, now, now that one is gone.  My heart breaks for my wild boys.

I love to see the big, beautiful, strapping men that the wild boys have become.  I remember my teens, my twenties, even my thirtees — I may have seen them as boys.  Older boys.  Big boys.  Now, in their forties, I see them, and they are men.  M.E.N.  They are rugged.  Their arms, their shoulders, their hands – all big and strong.  Lines are chiseled in their faces.  They are fathers.  They are dads.  They are grandfathers.  They are husbands.  They are lovers.  They are friends.  They are men of men.  M.E.N.  I love who they have become.

Those boys were rough and rowdy boys.  They had a tough time growing up.  They walked a rough road.  It wasn’t easy for them.  I never met the oldest.  He was grown and off on his own, doing well.  He died young — a tragic accident took him.  It was very difficult for them to come to terms with his loss.  Their first born.  Gone.  He was making his way well, in life.  Double the shame.  Next was No. 2.  I didn’t really know him.  He was graduated and married to a Native American woman named J.  They had two gorgeous girls and I used to play with them.  Then there was No. 3.  I liked him.  We used to visit.  His mom and my friend would take me along when they visited him.  It was nice to get out and away.  He had a daughter A, who used to call me Oosh.  It was the cutest thing.  No. 4 and No 5 I remember best.  They were the wild boys on the back of the bus.  Sometimes hung over.  Sometimes glassy eyed.  Often rowdy.  Always scary.  No. 4 was volatile.  He kissed me once, just to freak me out.  It worked.  It upset me.  I don’t think I’d been properly kissed before, so he was my first.  Wet, warm, soft, taunting.  I felt violated and I was upset with him for a long time.  It was just a joke for him.  He had such a devious twinkle in his eye, and he was good looking in a paradoxical clean and unkempt way.  Dangerous.  Crazy.  He was fearless and reckless.  Explosive.  I liked him.  He had verve.  No. 5.  The youngest boy.  Ruggedly good looking. 

They used to get high in the basement, 4, 5, and my brother 1/9. Our moms were upstairs playing Scrabble and drinking coffee.  They never knew.  But they must have.  How could they not   They must have turned a blind eye.  Those boys would always try to get me to join them, but I wouldn’t do it.  I was such a goody two shoes.  If we’d met earlier, while I was still impressionable, between 10 and 13, maybe I’d have gone for it.  I don’t remember exactly when I became a goody two shoes, but it was some time before I turned 13.  The summer of ’77, I guess, is when I decided it was up to me to choose the kind of person I wanted to be.  Before that, it didn’t occur to me.  I was very daft.  Naive. 

No. 5 joined the army.  I was in high school when he came back.  On leave, or for good, I don’t remember. It must have been on leave.  I was visiting and we were alone together in their living room.  I don’t know where his mom or my friend were, or how we ended up alone.  There must have been raging testosterone and pheromones at work in that room.  It was palpable and I could have lost my virtue to him, had I not been so staunchly vigilant with my goody two shoes lifestyle decision.  Never in my life have I experienced such a sensation of chemistry.  Perhaps that will be something to regreat another time.  Had I acted on it, no doubt I would have had a child at 16, and I would have been the first teen mother in my class, instead of my friend, his sister. 

Growing up was hard for them.  All of them.  There was drunkenness.  Debauchery.  They were raging.  Reaching out, trying to find their fit in this world.  It was hard for them.  They had struggles.  Heart breaks.  Traumas. Losses.  Misunderstandings.  Altercations.  They’re all grown up now. Big, strapping, manly men.  Deep raspy voices, like their dad.  Mischievous twinkle in their eyes.  Like their dad.  Manly men.  Like their dad.  Sunday they gathered to say farewell to the man they loved, and probably sometimes hated.  I know he wasn’t the best dad or husband.  He had a rough road too. A tough time making his way. He wrestled his own demons, and in time he conquered them.  I had the privilege of knowing him for only the best of who he was. The man with a twinkle in his eye.  I loved him.  I see him living on in his sons.  Sons who are making their way.  I don’t know any of them.  It’s been over 20 years.  I re-introduce myself, and see the recognition.  I see them looking at me, with some curiousity.  I’m not one of Them anymore.  I’m a stranger from a strange land.  I’m from another world.  A white collar world. Not a yuppie, but a muppie.  A middle aged urgan professional.  I see them looking at me.  I see them wondering.  But I don’t know their thoughts.

If this were a film, pan to the clip of the gorgeous long legged model, and the obvious — who is that breathtakingly gorgeous girl

But it’s not the movies, and I’m no long legged model…

I want to speak with them.  Ask them how they are.  How they are making their way in this world.  But instead, I just look at them and marvel at how beautiful they are to me, these complete strangers, the wild boys whose lives mingled with mine many many years ago.  They are men now.  Real men.  Manly men.  I hope they are all well.  I hope they are all happy.  I hope they have all found their place in this world. I hope they remember their dad with love and no regrets.  I hope their sorrow is fleeting.  But how can it be   They have just lost their dad.

In a small town, the difference between Us and Them is very clear.’ How I wanted to be one of Us.’ Not one of Them.’ We teetered on the brink of the dividing line, and toppled over to join Them.’ Even so, I did’nt want to accept it.’ Or believe it. So I went out and made my own way.’ And I did okay.’ I am the Empress.’ And I’m wearing new clothes.

A tired, dilapidated old town.’ Depressed and weary.’ Shanties and shacks.’ How different it is to look through grown up eyes.’ How near sighted I was as a youth.’ I only saw that we were the poor people; the ragged band of barbarians that we were.’ No running water.’ Filth.’ I was so ashamed of so many things.’ I didn’t notice that we weren’t the only ones.’ (We probably were the only ones without water.)’ We were not the only shack dwellers.’ We were not alone in poverty.’

I have alot to say about Us and Them.’ Most of the time I’m not one of Them anymore.’ Sometimes when I’m melancholy, I find myself back on the other side of the tracks.’ I have to remind myself that it’s my choice, who I am, in my heart of hearts.’ I can be who I want to be.’ I can be who I choose to be. I am who I choose to be.’ I need to choose to be cheerful and bright, light and kind, gracious and loving.’ Those are all daily choices, moment by moment.’

Time spans the distance between Us and Them.’ Sometimes the Usses become Thems and the Thems become Usses.’ It mystifies me, when an Us become a Them.’ I wonder how they could let it happen, when it looked like they were the ones with the easy path.

Walls
Behind walls
Dark and terrible things happen
Secrets
Whispers
Threats
Crimes
Injuries
Tears
Wars
Bargains
Betrayals

Walls
Behind walls
Bright and glorious things happen
Friendships
Smiles
Discoveries
Embraces
Triumphs
Pacts
Laughter
Victories
Love

Walls
Behind walls
We grow up
And when the time comes
We leave
Move on
Escape
Venture forth
Break free
Break away

We find places with new walls
Walls of our own choosing
Where the ghosts of those first walls
Come with us
If we so allow
The memories ebb and flow
Fade and grow
Like fish tales
Sometimes they nourish us
Sometimes they break us

Oh to have the wisdom
To sort the wheat from the chaff
To magnify the good
Forgive and forget the bad
Cling to the best of the best
And let the bright and glorious moments
Be those that shape our heart of hearts

Walls
Behind walls
We live

Suse and Kim both did lists of tens today.  I want to make an attempt.

1. Wow man, looking back at that intro and glancing those two names in close succession makes me do a doubletake and reminds me of someone I used to know…
2. There are so many things I think about or am briefly inspired about that I want to blog about, but I struggle with not having the time.  How I struggle with the time issue.
3. How could I not have noticed the huge bruise on my baby’s head   I cut his hair extremely short this morning, and expected to see if there were any mishaps on his scalp, but didn’t notice any.  When he got home, he had a big red spot on his head.  Did this happen at daycare   Why didn’t anybody mention it   Of course, it was Mr. Gadget who did the pickup this afternoon, and he usually doesn’t chat or ask how the day went.  Tomorrow we will find out.  I’m almost certain it wasn’t there when I dropped him off.
4. I’m going to drive many hundreds of miles this weekend to attend a memorial for my friend.  I’m thinking of driving by my old house to see what it looks like these days, now that we’re all gone and others have remodeled it.  It will probably be a wistful weekend.
5. It’s after midnight and my husband thinks I should go to bed. 
6. I only lost 1/2 lb last week.
7. I wonder if my tooth will heal up well.  It seems to be a bit better, and now only one front tooth is still loose and sore.  I should have probably gone to the dentist, especially because of the headache, but I’m an expert at thinking that everything’s fine with me.
8. Yesterday at work someone made the comment about not wanting to be the one to tell the emperor he has no clothes.  It was an excellent analogy for the situation.  Later, another coworker and I were talking about it and I told him I wouldn’t have a problem (telling the emperor…)  Because at work I have no fear.  I’m all about speaking out for the greater good.  I hold my own very well in my male-centric workplace.  But in my personal life   Not in a million years.  I’ve way non-confrontational when it comes to things personal.
9. I want a cup of tea, but it’s now 12:30 and I probably shouldn’t.
10. I read on Glamorouse that the famous Amalah quit her job, and I have weird mixed emotions after reading this.  She’s got a freelance writing project on the horizon that she will unveil before too long, and I feel a bit torn and guilty, maybe, because I could probably quit my job and we could probably manage, but I don’t want to teeter on a financial precipice and have to scrape so tightly as I have all my life when I’ve finally reached that time and place in my so-called-career where it makes a very decent wage and comes with full medical and dental insurance, a company matching 401k, pension, paid vacation and a degree of schedule flexibility.  None of which Mr. Gadget’s livelihood, bless his hard working heart, provides.  Being a SAHD is not an option for  him.  He says he’d go crazy. 
11. I don’t know how I could possibly work at home with my child at home as well.  He wants to be interacting constantly, and he needs to be interacting.  I don’t know how I could work.  If I’m at the computer, he’s there too, helping me type.  Caps lock, ctrl, alt, anything that can be reached on the left half of the keyboard is fair game to him while he’s helping.  I gave him his own keyboard, but mine is better.  Of course.  Besides, I would want to play with him, and if I tried to work and get him to occupy himself, I’d feel even more guilty.  I go through this every weekend when I scurry to catch up on housework.  I do the mad dash when he takes his naps.  When he’s awake, we play, and I try to get little spurts of things done in between.  At daycare he learns to interact with other children.  He plays happily all day.  I’m very thankful for daycare.   And for this I feel guilty.
12. I’m having some tea anyway.  Tetley British blend with milk and honey.  Given the time, I will likely pay the price tomorrow today.