Stress and the jar

Tonight a friend asked me how I was, and I said "good." And then we talked for a few minutes and she asked again.

It's not that good.

I'm just a little overwhelmed. It's my students' college application time, which means I'm getting slammed with requests for letters of recommendation. And should they have done it in advance? Sure. Am I obligated to write them? No. But part of my commitment to this career is a commitment to the kids, and I don't like to let them down. So I'm spending all my free time telling EOP programs how involved young Mr. Her is in Key Club and honors classes despite his many disadvantages.

And the house is kind of in chaos, because I haven't had a lot of time to clean since we got back (more on that in the next paragraph), which makes me tense anyway, but I was really hoping to get the house all spic and span so that we could put up a tree this weekend. I love Christmas so much, and usually it feels like a treat, but right now it feels like another thing I have to do.

Anyway, we got home from our trip Saturday evening, and Sunday morning at breakfast, Lochlan got burned. Like... not a little. A lot. Pretty bad. So there was the flurry of running and water and burn gel and phone calls and WHAT THE FUCK DO WE DO WHO PUT US IN CHARGE?! Long story short, it's in all likelihood going to heal fine, and although there was some nurse chatter of skin grafts and the burn unit at Shriner's, the plastic surgeon we consulted with yesterday was very calm about it all and dismissed most of those concerns. He said that we need to let it heal, change the bandages, let it breathe, and we'll follow-up again on Monday. I had a few questions for him by email today, so hopefully I'll hear back soon. But despite the fact that this is really a pretty fucked up injury, Lochlan has been his pleasant, stoic self all along. I mean -- he was screaming bloody murder when it happened, but by the time the nurses were wrapping his wounds, he was laying his head against my arm and dozing off.

That's not to say he hasn't complained at all. Every time a new nurse came in the room, he'd announce to me, "She NOT a nurse." "She NOT a doctor." "She NOT a helper." He even tried to side-whisper to me -- despite the plastic surgeon being literally 18 inches away -- "he a BAD man."

Anyway, three doctor's appointments in three days kind of throws off your schedule a bit, so I'm behind the 8 ball on, like... everything.

And changing his bandages is really hard -- he hates it, he complains, he wriggles, and Sweetie and I are both scared of hurting him. If the bandages stick even a little bit and make him bleed, I feel like I'm torturing him. We've been doing it in the morning before work, which leaves me feeling shaky and drained for a couple hours (I know that makes me sound like some delicate flower, which I am normally not, but it's fucking awful).

And I nearly screwed up a field trip REAL BAD, and my best friend's mom is dying, and also have you heard anything about politics right now?

Where, you may be asking, am I finding something to put in the jar?

Exactly here, in the middle of all this chaos. Because as awful as I've been feeling, I know that I don't usually feel this awful. I know that my tense back muscles and my headache are not my typical state. I know that I am generally healthy, happy and relaxed, and that this is situational and will pass. That is something to be thankful for.

Also, Lochlan has been singing Old Mac Donald, but he personalizes it in various ways, and it's funny as all get-out. You would not believe some of the things Old "MickMack Donald" has on his farm, "E I I I I O." Like cars that say vroom, and poops that say poop. So into the jar goes Old MickMack Donald.

The jar

Yesterday I had a lot to do and got home later than usual, so no post, but it was a pretty great day. Next week is my Sweetie's 43rd birthday, and we usually celebrate with a Thanksgiving-type meal that my mom makes, topped off with cherry pie (this year she made cherry AND pumpkin). We had Monkeygirl over, as well as some old friends of Mom's and Boompah's (that we really like), and we had the nicest evening. The topper, though, was that at dinner Z asked if we could all say what we were grateful for. And there was a lot to be grateful for.

I'm not over the election, and in many ways, each day's news is almost worse, the cabinet appointments confirming some of my worst fears. However, I can start to feel myself turning the corner from grief and dismay into anger and action. I put a "Black Lives Matter" sign in our yard. I tried to cancel Paypal (I'm joining a nationwide boycott against businesses whose founders or CEOs supported Trump financially), and although it didn't work yet, I am committed to getting it done. I signed several petitions today -- even useless ones that I don't think will go anywhere, like one asking the Electoral College to cast their votes for Clinton, as she won the popular vote. I don't expect that one to work, but I'd like it to be widely reported that X number of people signed such a thing. I need my fellow Americans to take note that there is a widespread resistance, and I am looking forward to taking part in it.

Pink

Lochlan wanted his nails painted pink today. He laughed and laughed as I blew on them to dry them. The kids and I ate grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup, a marvelous comfort food, for dinner while Sweetie was at a football game.


I am still having lots of thoughts about the election, but I wrote them in pen today. I think I am finding a way forward that doesn't involve "fuck you," but it does involve a fight.

A drop in the bucket towards faith.

Yeah, so... just when I was thinking I had lost faith in humanity, I lost my wallet.

I came home and cancelled my credit cards, and started thinking about what else I'd have to replace. But in the meantime, we ate dinner, I cuddled the baby... and the doorbell rang.

A woman had found my wallet, looked inside for my name, figured out how to email me and did. Then, because it was a work email and the weekend, she just drove here to return it to me.

Hey, look: she's one woman, not representative of people as a whole.

On the other hand, although I don't believe in God, there have certainly been signs in the universe (signs from the universe?) before, often glaring neon ones*. I'm trying to learn not to ignore them.

So just when I needed some faith and hope, someone returned my lost wallet.

Thanks, lady.

Thanks, universe.

Hashtag still-mad-about-the-election-though


*Have I ever told you the story of my first wedding, wherein the processional music wouldn't play, the best man and some guests were left un-picked-up, the officiant had a UTI, and it was so hot the cake melted?

Jar and stuff

I took the kids to the dentist this morning. Lochlan was a kitty-cat the whole time. I got my teeth cleaned while he lay on my chest, and I flipped pages for him in a Little Golden Book of Lady and the Tramp. He told me what was on each page... "Mama dog and Daddy dog... Mama dog doesn't like the red thing on... Choo-choo train." (I looked later, and he was right. The "red thing" was a muzzle.)

The jar, okayness, and a long-ass commentary

First, today's virtual gratitude jar: Azadeh raked leaves into a pile and Lochlan flopped onto the pile. I have pictures. (I'll come back to add them, but the phone's dead at the moment.)


Second, I am not okay yet; I am not near okay; I am not even on the road to okay. I am still in table-flipping anger mode. But when the day comes that I am okay again, or I'm learning to be or trying to be, I will give some consideration to these two quotes.

Optimism isn't principally an analysis of present reality. It's an ethic. It is not based on denial or rosy thinking. It is a moral posture toward the world we find ourselves in.
                                                                    Josh Marshall 

 It was tribal warfare between Trump's us-against-them nation and Clinton's we're-all-in-this-together coalition.
                                                                    David Corn

The first one because I can choose to take a "moral posture" even when it doesn't seem warranted. The second because I have been feeling so "us-against-them" and I don't want their way to define my thinking, if that makes sense. (For the record, TODAY I feel hella us-vs.-them. But I can see myself working back to stronger-together. Maybe. Someday.)

Thanks to my loving Sweetie for sending me that first one.

Virtual Jar

I keep reading about an idea to write down something you're grateful for, or a highlight of your day, then put it in a jar. At the end of the year or whatever, you read the things in the jar.

That's lovely, but then I'd have to keep track of paper, pens, and a jar.

So here are today's highlights.

This morning Lochlan asked for his pink kitty nose and whiskers again.

Later, Azadeh blew grape-scented bubbles around us as we snuggled on the bed. Lochlan asked Sweetie to keep him warm, so they cuddled under a blanket. Then Lochlan said, "Daddy, be a ghost." So Sweetie put the blanket over their heads and said "OoooOOooohh." Lochlan replied, "Meow."

At bedtime, Lochlan was a little fussy, so I started singing to him, but with meows instead of words. He asked me to lay down next to him, and I did, and then he joined me, meow-singing, too.

What to even say?

Yesterday, Donald Trump was elected the President of the United States of America.

That had two pretty profound effects on me.

First, it told me that the America I thought I loved and the people I thought I counted on are not what and who I thought. I thought I could trust them, ultimately, to vote to protect my family, my friends, my children. And I couldn't. I lost faith in America.

Second, I discovered that my optimism, which has rarely let me down, is a failure now. It's a part of myself and my identity and the way I think of myself that is now an untrustworthy black hole. I lost faith in myself.

And I logged on to Facebook and saw the messages I would have posted once... about how to move forward. About Martin Luther King and the arc of history. About Anne Frank and her faith in people.

And I saw -- even though, I admit, I have manipulated and blocked and hidden and unfriended my Facebook page into an echo chamber of liberals -- that on almost everyone else's expressions of grief and dismay, there was some white dude (not a stereotype if it's true) talking about why or how or gloating or defending or in some way trying to tell people like me that our feelings aren't real.

And I had e-fuckin'-nough. I deactivated, probably temporarily, my Facebook account. I don't know how I will face my students today. The articles all those lovely people were posting suggested that we tell our students we will protect them, make sure their parents aren't deported, make sure they don't lose their health care, make sure they don't lose their rights. And I don't think I can tell them that lie today.

So I made pancakes, and I am going to get through today. That's what I can promise.