I Only Miss My Mom When I'm Sick

This is a blog entry about my move, combined with some of what I wrote months ago.  All of it applies to right now.  I am sitting in the middle of the night, feeling adrift.  B. is right next to me.  We're listening to Wire.  I told him to shut it.  I only want to listen to Wire and write.  He totally understands.

"Interrupting my train of thought, lines of longitude and latitude. Define and refine my altitude."

Working with kids, I thought I had developed the immune system of a cement dump truck.  I thought, back in Silicon Valley, in my branded concierge tutoring situation and my private preschools, some with valet parking, that I was somehow immune to ever getting sick much.  At the sign of a sniffle, moms and nannies would come swooping in and whisk their child to the doctor.  Why did it never occur to me... I thought I was immune to a lot of things in this world, but I am learning otherwise.  

I have been coughing insanely. I took on a job at this local preschool and care center to meet kids and be involved in the community.  I decided that I do not want the emotional investment that many of my private jobs had become.  This situation allows me to be fun and creative but I am not bringing any of it home with me.  What I have brought home with me is tonsylitis, laryngitis, strep throat, and a case of bronchitis that partially derailed my last trip to Manchester.  This cough has kept with me since November.  It now wakes me out of a sound sleep and I am alarmed enough that I will have this looked into in a couple days.  I am a healthy person. I feel I am healthy, but there is an unease to this that is becoming disconcerting.   I eat right (mostly) (hey chocolate!) and I go to the gym.   I love to bike and I am one of the few teachers who actually plays and runs around with the kids.

These kids come to school sick.  There is nowhere else for them to go.  Parents work two jobs. The policy is that kids do not have to leave unless their temperature hits 102 degrees.  Iowa is an "at will" state.  People are hired at their own risk.  If they miss work one too many times (which often means twice) for the health of their own child, they will just be fired from their job with no recourse.  I have sat with children who are lying glassy eyed and coughing on mats wondering what the hell is wrong with our country.

I do not like these feelings.  I do not like what wells up when one does not feel well.  I do not particularly like nostalgia.  Melancholy borders the land of depression.  All these things I avoid and I wonder how people look at pictures of dead family members and stay happy.  So why the hell am I in this house?  Why did I choose to move into my grandparent's house that is so full of memories? Benevolent ghosts, happy to see me, but I am not sure I am happy.

This is the middle of the night speaking.  This is all the darkness that we, each and everyone of us have to endure.  I know that.  I know that if I tell my truths out here, I am not alone.

My mom did the whole great thing of making a place with blankets and pillows on the couch for me. I would watch cartoons in the morning, then gameshows like Monte Hall's Let's Make A Deal. TV got boring after that until cartoons kicked in again at 3:00. She would bring me soup, poached eggs on toast, or juice, maybe cereal. If I could not stop coughing, she would give me a tiny cordial of creme de menthe. It was strong but did the job.

Even though I gleaned at a young age that her first choice was not to be a mom, she did it well. She was the first woman to graduate as an electrical engineer from NMSU, she worked with Clyde Tomboe, the scientist who discovered Pluto, she worked on missiles at White Sands Proving Grounds where she and my father decided they would no longer work on weapons of destruction and moved to Palo Alto, CA. 

She chose safety. She took an easier path and I don't blame her. She struggled uphill against the norm since she was a kid and it must have been exhausting. I don't blame her anymore for choosing the other road.

I miss her now. I want one of her poached eggs on toast.