I Dare You to Follow This Stream of Consciousness....

Totally random stream of consciousness.  But I’m tired and that’s all I’ve got.

I was sitting in the car the other night, listening to a country station that was playing songs that were oldies, but goodies.  And a song came on and gave me a feeling I don’t know how to explain.  I didn’t have a specific memory.  It was just a feeling.  And it was so strong.  I could have closed my eyes and imagined so easily that I was sitting in the passenger seat of my husband (then boyfriend’s) Trans Am, just before we got married.

I wasn’t remembering anything in particular.

It was just a time.

A time when I couldn’t wait for him to call.  When I couldn’t wait for him to show up at the door to my dorm room.  When time seemed endless because I was sure that, if anything, we’d have plenty of it.  So secure in the life we were going to have…even though I wasn’t sure what it was going to bring.  I was just so sure of the life.  Of time.  I just had no idea that that would be the one thing I wouldn’t get.

As I tucked my youngest daughter into bed when we got home that night, she sleepily said, “I had a dream last night that you and Daddy got married.”

And there are times…that seems like a dream to me too.

~

I’ve spent the last 6 days sitting with my oldest daughter, watching her writh in abdominal pain that no one could figure out.  Out from school the last 2 days of last week (and again today), I finally took her to the doctor on Saturday so that they could take blood.  I felt sure it wasn’t appendicitis, because that wasn’t where her pain was, so I left the office after giving the doctor my cell phone number and asked her to call me with the results.

So much for my motherly intuition.  High white blood cell count.  Get her to the hospital.

I drove her downtown, after leaving my youngest daughter and my son (on his 8^th birthday) with my parents, asking them to hold down the fort and keep the birthday party that we had scheduled later that day going.  And being the saints that they are…they did.  My daughter and I spent all of Saturday in the ER only to have them determine that it wasn’t appendicitis and say those dreaded words we hate hearing from doctors, “Well, we don’t really know what it is, but we think it’s….”

Don’t “think.”  This is my kid.  KNOW.

I made it back to my house, writhing daughter in tow, just in time to host 4 little boys for a sleepover and video game extravaganza, which I know sounds hideous, but really wasn’t so bad.  After years of hosting girl sleepovers with a bunch of pre-teens…a gaggle of boys with Wii remotes in their hands was a piece of cake.  And, thankfully, my son assured me that he had had a great birthday…which was a huge relief to me.

But I still didn’t know what was wrong with my daughter.

I’m pretty shocked that I didn’t worry more than I did.  All I can say is that my widow/mom brain just wouldn’t let me “go there.”  As I sat in the ER room, watching her, waiting for signs to see if she was any worse or better, I wouldn’t let myself focus on anything other than what was right in front of me.  I didn’t think about what had happened before.  And I didn’t think about what could happen.  I literally just sat there and thought about each minute as it came.

My worrying came last night.

Deprived of sleep and still watching my daughter toss, turn, and moan in the bed next to me, I began to do what a lot of people do when it’s dark and there’s no one to talk to, nothing to keep you company but your own dark thoughts.  After not eating for over 5 days, I worried about her strength, even though the doctors assured me it was okay as long as she was drinking.  I felt helpless and like a bad mother because I couldn’t fix this for her. I began to get impatient and I knew that she thought I was getting impatient with her…when I was just upset with the situation.  What in the hell is going on?  Why can’t they figure this out?  Why can’t I make this go away? 

And what if it’s something that won’t go away?

And as the sun rose and my thoughts were still sinking further and further into the abyss, my daughter rose, sore but with color in her cheeks, gave me a little smile and said what I’d been wanting to hear for 5 days.

“I’m hungry.”

And so now I sit here, while my daughter sips Sprite seemingly pain-free, attempting to make sense of the words in front of me, because I need to write a short story for the writing group I just joined.  The assignment is to write about a “bad romance” using the name they picked out of a hat for me.

Pee Wee Herman.

Perfect assignment for the sleep deprived.