Single, with dog

The worry about your kids doesn't stop when they get grown.  It just changes shape a bit.

I figured that once they were all settled in to their adult lives, all would be well.  After all, it's fair to say that Mark and I worked hard to raise four kids. Adolescence strained the limits of our parenting knowledge.  So we figured once we got them to the edge of the nest, they would fly.  And little did I realize that leaving the nest is not always a simple a transition.

  I myself could not WAIT to get the hell out on my own. I knew my mother was proud of me and loved me, but I was ready to have my own space that was clean, and calm, and mine.  I was OK with being alone for the most part - but I wasn't really alone because I did have Mark.  

Chloe has Teddy.  And while he is a source of love and comfort to her, he is after all, a dog.  He can't hold conversations or her hand after a long day.  He can't help pay the bills.  Come pick her up when her car dies.  Make dinner a couple nights a week.  Or share the burden of laundry and apartment cleaning.  And Chloe is now 26, so I worry that she is settling permanently into this single, alone life. I know it's not my life to live, but I worry just the same.

At the end of the day, I just want to know that she is happy and doing what she wants to do.  But I also want her future to be full of more than just Teddy.

Dream feelings #1 - Dylan

Very early yesterday I awoke from a bad dream, featuring Dylan. 

We were walking along, he and I, and it was getting dark outside.  He seemed to be getting tireder and tireder, hanging on to me for support.  I asked him what was wrong and he said he hadn't been sleeping much.  At the same time, he was getting younger.  We were walking to someplace, and when we got there, he conducted his business at the counter with some woman while I waited.  I stepped up to the counter because I could hear them talking, and Dylan was curling himself up on the counter, as if to sleep.  I told him to get down, thinking, this really isn't appropriate that a grown person should be doing this!  The woman was carrying on with her business, barely noticing.  All the time Dylan was talking to her, but we finished up and left.  Flash forward a bit, and as we were walking away, he became a baby, maybe a year old or so.  It was apparent to me that he was very ill.  He was in a sort of box-like crib on the ground, struggling to breathe.  I was holding some suction tubing near him, trying to drain a serous fluid that was leaking out of him.  He also had an oxygen mask on, but I have no idea where it came from.  As I struggled to keep the fluid from engulfing him I thought to myself that I would continue to save him, even though I didn't know what I was really doing.  Then the dream ended. 

I guess this is a pretty easy dream to interpret.  He's growing up, with adult pressures and responsibilities.  But he's still at home, so I can offer him support and advice. He had some kind of intestinal bug when he was about a year old that alarmed the pediatrician.  No matter what I did, the diarrhea came every day for weeks, and it was a struggle for me as a working mom to balance that with two other kids and a full-time job.  I think I still worry about whether he will take care of himself. 

Dylan is a gentle soul of a person, and I worry that he is making slow progress to strike out on his own.  At the same time, I know that everyone has their own path and it can be very challenging.  Also, I worry about my kids in general as adults.  Did I hold their hands a little too long?  Was my mother right about loosening my grip? My gut feeling says no and I don't want them to feel like they are a burden to me.  But I feel like the time is coming pretty soon that Dylan will need to leave the nest.

Falling down

Warning:  gore galore.

I fell on the gravelly sidewalk outside of the Erwin Center after graduation.  I was navigating through crowds in blazing sun.  I guess I lost my footing - I have no idea how it happened.  But I didn't faint, certainly, and I wasn't dizzy or anything.  It just happened.

 

I even walked plenty after it happened - around to the where the school buses were parked to take carpoolers back to north Austin.  On the bus riding home I told Scout it hurt really bad, and I took a picture to show him.  I don't think all of my peeps realized I fell.  Oooh nice, skin hanging by a thread.

The next morning I didn't think it looked too bad - save for the skin still there, which Hubby insisted I trim off.  It hurt, but I carried on with my weekend.  We went to a winery and hung out at Highlands.  I was doctoring it best I could.  

Hang on a minute - it seems to be progressing to worse.

  Oh my goodness, it hurt so bad.  I had to either wear shorts or keep it under soft gauze.  Having anything touch it sent me over the edge. 

I thought it was getting infected, too, so I made an appointment to see my doc about five days in.  She said, no looks like it's trying to heal.

A couple of days after that, above. I think I probably have a big bruise under there, too.

Eight days later, it still hurts, and is super itchy which means that the skin is healing, much like a healing sunburn.  I never had beautiful legs, so I'm not pining for perfect skin.  I just wish it hadn't happened.  In any case, it didn't hamper the happy of the occasion, and I have soldiered on.

But, damn.

The weight of a quilt

Last week I visited my mother and admired a quilt that she had just finished for a great great nephew of mine.  I helped her with it, even.  It had little boys appliqued in calico, each holding a toy or a treat. I drew the things the boys were holding or playing with.

It was fun to see the art I had drawn, all embroidered on the quilt.  And as usual I complimented her on it.  We had an okay visit - I helped her locate a ring she though she had lost, ran her over to a feed store for seed potatoes, and took her out for lunch. But after lunch she told me that she wanted a baby quilt back that she had given me when Grayson was born.  She said I "guilted" her into giving it to me.  I don't even remember having a conversation about baby quilts when Gray was born.  Having her make a quilt for him is not even something I would have mentioned to her. 

Something about her telling me she wants it back makes me dig my heels in even harder.  Because, why?  What does an 87 year old person want with a baby quilt she gave to me as a gift? And why wait 18 years to tell me she regretted giving it to me and wants it back?  Um, too late.  

The short answer was no, but I wrote her a letter today and mentioned the quilt at the end of the letter.  I told her I hoped she wasn't serious about wanting it back.  That I had it stored away in a safe place awaiting it's future owner - my first grandchild.  And I just left it at that.  I am hoping we won't have to have words over it. I would never ask for a gift back from a person, because I give gifts with no strings attached.  And, things are not love.  Love is love.  But asking for something back that you gave in love, is like asking for the love back.

Resolutions

I didn't make a whole lot of New Year's resolutions this year, but I am resolved to do some things differently. 

I've started on a few of these things already, so I feel like I have moved into the action phase.  I'm also trying really really hard not to vent so much about work to my co-workers.  I'm sure they understand, but it would be hard for them to only hear the negatives come out of my mouth. I am trying to make an effort to narrow down who I chat with and how often I lapse into ranting. What I say to myself for redirection is somewhere along the lines of  "focus on self-improvement and health".  If resolutions were easy we wouldn't have to make them every year, right?

Santa puked and I feel like doing the same

I feel like it took me forever to decorate for Christmas this year. 

But my plan left all of the decorating to do after I had already worked my 40 hour week:  The kids' tree, the mantel, the other odds and ends Christmas that goes up.  Christmas in just about every room - two trees, Christmas mugs, magnets on the fridge, mini trees in the china cabinet, decorated pillows, wreaths and pinecones.  Too much Christmas.
 

We have a beautiful home and it smells good and is clean, with indoor heat and plumbing, enough food in the fridge and freezer, clothes to wear.  I just dread the commercialism and materialism and stress the holidays bring.  But there are too many Santas and angels all over my house.

My daughter and I had a convo about it.
Me:  There is too damn much Christmas here.  I am toning it way down next year.  Going to give some of it to you to pretty up your place.
She: Christmas is good.
Me:  Yes.  But I feel stressed.  We own so much of it.  Every year I purge it.  Every year it seems to grow by itself!
She:  Oh that's no good.  I decorated my tree as I waited for the AT&T guy on Monday.
Me:  It's a lot to put up and take down.  We decorated the kids' tree and I. Am. Done.
She:  Santa puke is pretty.
Me:  Blergggggg

The reality is, all of the decor is just noise that drowns out the focus of the season itself.  I realize I probably should relax a little and try not to stress it.

The vertigo begins

About a month ago I had an expensive and drawn out experience in the ER.  It did rule out Big Bad Things.  Like stroke.  But I felt a little foolish the entire time, as I was in a pediatric facility.

It just so happens I had already scheduled an appointment with my regular doc the following Monday.  She took one look at my medical record and said  "Well, looks like you had the Million Dollar Work-up".  And that was true - they ordered everything under the sun.  But as my nurse said,  "you're already here and you made us pretty nervous."  Of course, my doc was not concerned with my symptoms.  So, now I have head and eye exercises, as well as "habituation exercise" to do daily, an incidental referral to an ortho doc for my tennis elbow, and I guess a little more piece of mind, with no extra pills to swallow.