12 More Days

I have no idea how people can live with chronic illness or pain without throwing in the towel and just becoming miserable bitch grouches.

Brian tells me that I will make an excellent old person, waxing on about my fibroid, my knees, this cough, and - ooooh, my sinuses. I say- I'm there already. My eyes hurt, my belly hurts, my knees hurt and I want my mommy. Until I remember that she's almost 88 and the furthest thing from a whiner in the world. Her cure for spinal stenosis and arthritis is to go for a long walk outdoors in this Siberian-esque winter. She doesn't make a very good old person at all. Humph.

Speaking of chronic pain, I pulled together all my papers for income tax. Except for the inevitable dozen or so that I will have forgotten. My father in law will be messaging me nonstop asking for all the stuff I've forgotten (again), and I will be mortally embarrassed and will blame my husband for not being the bookkeeper type, forcing me to badly impersonate one. I hate tax pain. Numbers baffle me. Give me a psychiatric conundrum any day of the week, I'll deal. But not numbers. They cause me moderate to severe and chronic pain.

And lately there's been lingering parenting pain. I messaged my friend Karla the other night (she's like a 1-800-I suck, please absolve me-line). I told her my sorrows, I whined. "I can't do this parenting thing!" And in all her wisdom she said- "You are actually doing it. They're having a hard time doing the prepubescent/teenage thing. You're doing it".

To which I said- "damn it".

It's painful.

When the kids were little, and impossible, and never slept and cried constantly, some horrible people would say to me- "oh, just you wait until they're teenagers!" I would like to hurt all those people, still, to this day. I have teenagers. They never throw themselves on the floor in Walmart to weep inconsolably. They never shove their hands down their pants during dinner to whine about their panties being wrong. They don't throw fits about the toast being cut into pie shapes instead of squares. They don't poop their drawers while hiding behind the couch.

Teenagers have introduced me to a different kind of pain. It's the kind that makes me question whether I've been doing things right enough since they were toddlers, contentedly eating their own snot. It's a more existential sort of pain. It's the pain of wondering- if my teenager lives in his or her room and only comes out to grunt and root for snacks, is it because I haven't reached them somehow? Will they trust me enough to let me in when they have questions? And when they do let me in, is my response adequate? Will they be well? Physically, emotionally, spiritually well? (Don't try to answer these questions. I won't be easily reassured). The point of mentioning any of these things at all is to dwell morbidly on the topic of pain.

Which might help to explain my recent craving for a piercing or tattoo or sliver....

Twelve days sounds like a really short time. Lately at night I have been dreaming that its time to fly home from our trip and I realize I've never made it out of my hotel room. In my dream, I've spent my whole time on pinterest and sleeping and cleaning the toilet. I never found the swim up bar or the beach and I never went outside.

Maybe that's because it's how I've spent the winter- cleaning the toilet, pinning all the cats, and sleeping.

Twelve more days.

 

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