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When my son was first diagnosed with schizophrenia, I tried to flood my knowledge bank of the disease by reading and researching. One of the first things I read was about how many times parents of mentally ill children want their children to be “normal.” and that can set up a scenario for disappointment after disappointment. A schizophrenic brain is not “normal.” Even though I read those words, and have never forgotten them, I still hold the wish that my son will be “normal.” Whatever the HELL normal is.

There are glimpses of the Shayne I knew before the illness took hold. Football and traveling bring out the most normal times. So I was hoping this holiday road trip would bring around more fun times and be awe inspiring and amazing.

Well. I had it all planned out. I gave tickets to the last home Bronco game to Shayne for Christmas. Then after the game, I thought we’d start our road trip west to Idaho. Right away, we had a set back. Shayne left his medicine at home. Maybe if we weren’t going to the game, we could have just turned around and gone back for the medicine. He has a lock box now, with an alarm. The alarm is piercing and doesn’t kick off until the pill dispenser is open. It would drive the cats crazy and I am trying to encourage him to stay on his medicine. I told him it was fine. We would just leave on our road trip the next day. But the rhythm was off and my plans included other routes and a different time schedule.

One of the interesting things about antipsychotic medicine and Shayne is that if there is a rare side effect, he will probably have it. The drugs have harmed his kidneys and he gets frequent bladder infections. He doesn’t like to broadcast his issues in that area with his mother, so I wasn’t aware of his ongoing infection, but after the third pit stop over a ninety minute period, I caught a clue.

We took US 50 west and the first day was fine, except Shayne downloaded a novelization of a video game to listen to. He has head phones, but when he hooked up his phone to the car charger the book started playing through the car speakers. I listened to a zombie hunting game for three hours. And the scenery in Utah is monotonous.

Neither one of us are quitters and we were sure we could make a good time happen. We found Lava Springs, Idaho. That was fine. Hot, hot water, starry skies, silence all around.. Finally, we are on track.

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with the Oregon Trail. I read Seven Alone, the story about the seven Sager kids on the trail after their parents died, so many times that my elementary school librarian gave me the book. I always wanted to go to Oregon along the route and see the rivers and forts and all the things. Ft. Hall is right near Lava Springs and I was excited to get to see all the history, finally.

The second day of our trip started early. I know Shayne wanted to stay at the hot springs, but I was eager to see Ft. Hall and the Shoshone-Bannock Multicultural Museum and, yeah. We stopped to get gas and I looked over to the entrance of the convenience store and Shayne was vaping. And I got pissed.

I know he gets high. I have quit making it my battle. I know he thinks it helps him and maybe it does, but that’s not what I see. And I don’t understand why he can’t just be with me for a few days without being high. I tried to keep my mouth shut, but I suck at that. However, I was also not going to fight with him in a car in a different state. But I was ready to just come home right then.

Things started unraveling. Fort Hall was closed for the season, but the Shoshone/ Bannock Museum was open. We went up there, but the doors were locked. I asked at a business nearby. A girl shook her head and said, “They make their own hours in the winter. Sometimes it’s open, sometimes it’s not. Grrr.

I thought we could at least look at the Snake River and see the place of the famous crossing. However, when we got there, Shayne wouldn’t get out of the car. I took pictures and read the signs and then when I got back in the car he said, “Let’s go home. I have a bad feeling.”

Fine. But I wasn’t about to turn around and come the way we had. And Montana was right there. Determined. Stupid. Crazy. How many other adjectives are there at this point for driving to the top of the world with a schizophrenic man child in the dead of winter? Shayne fell asleep, but he woke up when we reached West Yellowstone entrance. He said “Are we going to Yellowstone?” That wasn’t the original plan, and you have to book tours in advance, there isn’t random admission after November 1, but we did go to a grizzly bear refuge and see some bears and then got back in the car. Shayne said, “We are going back home now? The car is pointed in the right direction?” Well. No. Because you have to go around Yellowstone or go back the same way we had come. So Bozeman, Montana or bust.

Bozeman turned out to be lovely. Artsy and beautiful. We stopped and had food and then got back in the car. After a couple of hours, I said, “Why are you in such a hurry to go home?” He said, “You’re in a hurry to go home.” I said, “No, you said you had a bad feeling.” Then he said, “That doesn’t mean anything. This is your trip. I am sorry.”

We stopped in a tiny town in Montana and had dinner and found a place to stay. This morning when I got up, his pills were scattered all over the floor and for awhile he was gone and I didn’t know where or when if was coming back. There are things to see, but he is pacing around waiting for me to go. I guess I will just see where the day takes us and try not to have expectations.

I woke up at my normal early morning time of three am and couldn’t get back to sleep because my mind was too busy thinking about the day ahead and the day behind. To complicate that idea more, it is also the last day of 2023, so I was also thinking a million thoughts about the year that just happened and where I was last year, where I am now, and what lies ahead. I thought about getting up and writing, but I fell back asleep and I had a dream that it was the first day back at work and I was trying to write my blog at my desk that was actually in my sandbox from when I was a child. I was trying not to get sand on the keyboard, or grease from a piece of pizza I was trying to eat. I didn’t get the blog written, because students were crowding around my desk asking me for candy, or cookies, or wanting a bite of my pizza. I shooed them outside and looked out the window. One of my old colleagues was moving along the sidewalk on skates, just gliding and floating like an ice dancer or something. I noticed that she was wearing those kind of shoes with wheels in them, and I wanted some too. I wanted to move effortlessly and find joy in dipping and gliding with every movement. I woke up and snapped on the light and reached for my computer.

Last year, I came across a passage in which a woman writes about visiting a place where a cheetah had been trained to run after a mechanical rabbit that greyhounds run after. When the run was completed, the cheetah was put back in the enclosure and a few minutes later, the animal was standing alert, ears up, sensing something in the wind. She was wild again. And the author noted, of course that happened, because “It’s a f….ing cheetah.” I so related. There have been so many times, that I felt like an animal in a cage. But in my case, I knew that I was in my own cage, and I had the power to let myself out of it. I just didn’t really understand where I put the damn key. 

I went to visit my brother yesterday. I knew he’d be in a bad place because it is getting close to the anniversary of his wife’s death and New Year’s is when it all started going downhill for her. I am not going to lie, I have had a hard time dealing with my brother. His pain is immense and I have nothing to give him to help. But I spent a little time with him. He is a mess, worse than what I imagined. He has basically given up on life and probably if he didn’t have pets, I’m not sure he’d still walking around on the planet. At the same time, I am not sure the pets are enough. When I left, he was crying. I felt so heartbroken for him.

I also went to visit a friend of mine. She and her husband having been building a house on a piece of property in the mountains. It’s been a long, hard journey for her and they have had so many setbacks and problems, and I’ve watched her navigate all the challenges in the past five years. It was such a celebration to see the walls up, and artwork on the walls, and her joy. She was the friend on the skates in my dream, gliding like she was enjoying the ocean breeze at Santa Monica beach or something. I felt so happy for her.

Today, I am taking my son to another professional football game, and then we are embarking on a road trip that has a loose destination of Idaho, one of the states I still need to visit. I set some goals for myself last year–travel more, write more, and find the key to my cage. I did travel and write more and I realized that the cage didn’t need a key, because I could move the walls, or take them down even. It might be hard work and I might have to remove thousands of pounds of granite by myself, piece by piece, but I could do it, if that’s what I really wanted.

Sometimes I can find myself back in my cage. I see all the pain and know there is more that I can’t see. This holiday season I could have climbed right up the craggy hill and joined the Grinch on his mountain. I was so GROUCHY about gift giving and stupid silly bows and ribbons when there are people huddled together under bridges in the snow. I didn’t want to shop or give meaningless things that no one needed and blah, blah, blah, and probably no one would even say thank you anyway. 

At the height of my grouchiness, I went into an art gallery because I knew they’d let me use the bathroom. And I saw a watercolor of a cheetah on the wall. It literally took my breath away. A reminder of the cage I was supposed to be taking down, not putting back up. And then I saw sculptures of fairies make of fabric and wood and random objects. I’m not a doll lover, or a fairy lover, but these sculptures captured something– the essence of something I couldn’t name–wildness, or freedom. The artist was in the gallery. She told me her mother had been a seamstress and dressed teddy bears. When she passed, loads and loads of fabric were left behind. The artist took the fabric home, but didn’t know what to do with it because she didn’t see herself as creative, but she’d alway loved fairies. She let the fabric dictate the mood of the sculpture and because she didn’t feel like she could draw faces, she used things she found to be faces. And then she told me, “I guess I am creative.” Her voice was kind of sheepish, like she really couldn’t quite believe what she was telling, A pride was there, but also an uncertainty. I knew right away that she was also busy taking herself out of her cage. 

I bought one of the fairies and gave it to a friend. All of a sudden, I remembered giving gifts is about love and respect and gratitude for the those who travel along on our journeys and help light our paths. Sometimes gifts can be for others to help light their paths. I also bought the cheetah. I hung the painting in my bedroom. It is the first thing I see in the morning and the last, before turning out the lights, at night. She (the cheetah is a girl) reminds me that I have work to do and inspires me to keep trying.

I don’t know how to help my brother. I don’t know if he can see that working through your pain is the only way to the other side of it. I don’t know if can reach deep into his soul and realize that he has to find his own meaning to life and love and then believe it with all his heart. Last spring, one of my students was telling me about sleeping on the sidewalk with his family as a little kid. He said he remembered unrolling his sleeping stuff and being careful to sleep against a building so he wouldn’t get stepped on. No one knew what to say, so I said, “I guess we remember the bad times, so we can appreciate the good times.” And he smiled at me and said, “Yeah. The bad times make the good times, great. Like when you bring us pink frosted doughnuts.” 

I wish pink frosted doughnuts or paintings could fix all the pain in the world, but I guess everything is a balance. And not everyone sees balance the same way. I wanted 2023 to be my breakout year. I don’t know if it was that. But I walked on the coast of Alaska and peered at starfish under a rock. I drove through fields and fields of grain in Iowa. I walked under opulent buildings in Detroit. I watched my daughter graduate from college. I watched my son destruct again, but also watched him try to pull himself back together and move ahead again. I have met ten year olds and eleven years old that have faced more challenges than most adults I know, but still see have the resilience to face the world with hope. I have watched the power of positivity transform my life. I am grateful for new beginnings, second chances, and my amazing community of love. As I close out the chapter of this year, I am working on taking more of my cage down and seeing what’s out there.  

I took one of those silly tests on social media: Everyone has a perfect Christmas tree. What’s yours? I laughed when this popped up. A Christmas tree made with piled up laundry. Perfect. I am not particularly “grinchy” or ” bah-humbug,” but I had a hard time feeling the spirit of the season. And I wondered if putting up a tree really mattered?

Last year when I was teaching in Pueblo, the students had something called Segunda. It was a like a HUGE yard sale set up in the gym where students could shop for their families. One of my students who bullied and tormented everyone for sport surprised me with a necklace. It was a horseshoe charm with a rose and a four leaf clover. It really touched me because I know she put some thought into choosing it for me. I hung it on my rearview mirror along with a tin flower I bought from a homeless girl.

I totaled my car last May and I was so shaken that I didn’t get the necklace or flower out of the car afterwards. When I realized that they got left behind, I called the salvage yard and someone rescued them for me. The necklace and flower are hanging over the rearview mirror in my replacement car. Every time, I get in the car, I think of those two girls–the homeless girl, using her creativity to turn trash into treasure and Surenaty, so angry and broken, yet a glimmer of soft and sweet still in her core.

But what do they have to do with Christmas? Nothing, except Christmas always makes me think about all that I have and all the people who have nothing. It makes me feel indulgent and spoiled, but at the same time bereft and a tiny bit orphaned. I vacillate between wanting to decorate the house and skipping Christmas all together. I went down a wormhole of looking for cheap flights to take myself anyplace, but here for the holidays.

To add to the frantic, but ambivalent emotions about the holiday is the stress of being in a classroom at this time of year. Kids fall apart. Yes, they are excited and ready for a break, but at the same time a change in routine is coming and many students are facing two weeks at home in chaotic situations. Who knows what will happen? Kids who normally are well-behaved all of a sudden are losing control. I really understand. So this year more than ever, there is not letting up on routine. My job is to keep things on an even keel and forge ahead. But it’s been exhausting and I have gotten home and fallen asleep, putting off getting the house ready for Christmas. No lights. No tree. No presents.

I can home from work on Monday and the Christmas tree had been set up. The decorations were half on and the star on top was really crooked, but the point is my son wanted to make me happy. I am grateful that he knows it is Christmas. There have been times in the past years when I was unsure that things like seasons and holidays registered with him. I finished putting ornaments on the tree and straightened the star. School will be over today and my daughter will be home in a few days and I am finally feeling a bit of the holiday magic creeping into my soul.

I guess when it comes right down to it, Christmas to me isn’t about the tree and lights and finding the perfect gift, but like anyone, I can get caught up in the sparkle. I actually wonder what it would be like to create a tree of laundry and gather around it with my family. I am sure we would still laugh and make memories, because the magic of Christmas for me is really about love, and I have that in abundance.

Shayne and I went to see the Holdovers last night. I’d seen the previews and it seemed a little like a cross between Dead Poet’s Society and the Breakfast Club. I am interested in films about single sex boarding schools because I went to one and the footage I saw seemed intriguing. Shayne likes action adventure movies more, but he is usually down for nachos, so unless the film is overtly a cry festival, he’ll see whatever I suggest.

The theater downtown has been “renovated.” The new owner was talking to a few people in the seats about the changes they made. He said that originally the theater held 900 people and now with the spacious seating it barely holds 250. I remember those tight seats. It gave me a moment to realize that I have been going to that theater for fifty years and have a lot of memories. Shayne was busy looking at his phone at the Lion/Bronco game during this. The score was zero/zero. I had forgotten the football game was on a Saturday night when I suggested the movie. But I was also a little afraid the lions were going to tear up the horses and maybe Shayne didn’t need to see the play by play of that. And if the Broncos were winning, the movie would be over in the final minutes of the game. That’s when the magic happens anyway. So….Shayne put his phone away, and the lights went down.

The movie was great, except there was a scene where the characters visit a mental health institution. The film takes place in 1970, so there are bars on the windows and at first, I thought maybe it was a jail, but then I realized the next character on the screen was going to have a mental health illness, probably schizophrenia. Yep. The male actor played a flat affect, and his only lines spoke to his paranoia. After the scene there was a little exposition about how the main character felt about watching his dad become ill. I glanced over at Shayne and he had tears on his cheeks. I haven’t seen him cry since my parents were killed. I asked him if he wanted to leave and he shook his head and kinda smiled at me through the tears.

I thought we’d talk about how he felt after the movie, but Shayne immediately checked the football game just as the Broncos had a penalty on the last touchdown attempt and we heard the final score. He roared in frustration, then went for a run. It was dark and cold, but running silences the voices.

I am still thinking about the movie. I really, really hate how most films interpret schizophrenia. Some of it is right, but some of it is so wrong. I hate the implied violence. I hate the fear that half information breeds. People might come away from that film thinking people with schizophrenia are violent zombies. In reality, the layers are so much more complex. There is nothing one dimensional about it.

Shayne brought breakfast up to me this morning. I asked him if he was okay. He said he was sad the Broncos lost, but if Detroit was going to the Super Bowl that they better be able to blow a team like Denver out of the water. He was wearing his Russell Wilson jersey though, representing all the way. I asked him if he was still upset over the movie. He shrugged and said, “It was pretty damn depressing. I was crying because you never stop believing in me, even when you should.” I told him that maybe we should write our own movie. He arched his eyebrows and said, “Maybe. At least it would have some punch lines.” Then he turned to leave on his run, but stopped and said, “I bet you liked the movie. The teacher becomes a writer.” Huh. I guess he does.

I am not sure if The Holdovers will become a classic holiday film, but I am glad we went to see it. It reminded me of tradition, connection, and love in unexpected places. It asks us to believe and to hope and to shine, but in a real way with all of our flaws and secrets. It was just the thing I needed to remind me of how grateful I am for all that I am blessed with.

It’s not that I can’t sleep; it’s more that my hours of sleep are distorted. And my dreams have been full of strong emotions. I just woke up from a dream about one of my cousins. I was on a road trip with my mom and dad. We were in New Mexico during the summer and it was hot and dry. We stopped really early in small town, time had forgotten, at an artsy, gifty store that my cousin owns. Although in real life, my cousin lives in Colorado and doesn’t own a business. In the dream, the neon OPEN sign was on, and the door was unlocked, but no one was in the store. I called for my cousin and started moving though the hodge-podge mix of rooms toward the back of building. Mom and Dad drifted through the merchandise which was mostly melted glass, photographs, fun games and novelty things, old books and artsy clothes. And an assortment of doughnuts. Lots. I found my cousin in the back; she was on the telephone, one of those old, black ones with the cord. She was pale and her dark hair pulled back on her head. Her eyes were wide and for a second she didn’t recognize me, then she reached her hand to me, gripping me tightly. My mom joined us and my cousin took her in her arms for an embrace. I said, “You can see my parents, too?” And she replied. “Yes, they are always with you.” I woke up with an intense sense of unease and restlessness, even though there was nothing super ominous about the dream. Both cats were on the bed. Lucy climbed up on my chest. Charlie sat up, his hair going in all directions and kinda glared at me, then settled back down again.

I considered getting up, showering, and going to work. But it’s three o’clock in the morning. It always makes me laugh when people criticize teachers for having summers off. I often spend twelve hour days and I still have more to do. I honestly think technology has added more to the workload. To have meaningful instruction on-line takes a lot of prep, and lately, we have been experiencing a lot of network problems, which means the old way back-ups need to be there too. Double prep.

I thought about using this dark awake time to put up the Christmas tree. I’m not really in the spirit this year. I’ve been thinking about going away for part of vacation. I just don’t have a destination in mind. Then I started thinking about animation. I am taking a class right now and I haven’t finished the animation project. I’m having some difficulties with the software. I can’t quite get my images to do what I want them to do, and I am resisting drawing frame by frame by hand because the computer is supposed to help me with that! I always thought I’d want to animate, so the fact that I’m having a hard time with the process has been hard for me to accept. But maybe because I want it to look a certain way is sort of my problem?

The assignment was to illustrate a nursery rhyme. When my son was a toddler, I bought him a WeeSing Nursery Rhyme cassette tape and story book to listen to in the car. It had sixty nursery rhymes on it and it had a running story that tied them together. We listened to that cassette for months. I have a distinct memory of taking a walk on the riverwalk carrying him on my back with him singing Sing a Song of Sixpence at the top of his voice the entire two mile walk. Every time he came to the blackbird pecking off the nose, he’d reach around and touch my nose. So I wanted to do a version of Sing a Song of Sixpence, but make my character a grunge guitar player, rocking out to the nonsensical lyrics. I can get the character to move, but I can’t get it to stop and start where I want and the sequences get all messed up. Then I start over and eventually get frustrated and wonder why I am taking this class in the first place. I already have a job. Why do I need to learn new things? Does getting a good grade matter? Yet, I am determined to get it right.

I think my time as a teacher is coming to an end. I can see the finish line, I’m just not sure the pacing of the last leg of the race. I’ve definitely got a second wind right now. I love everything about where I am working, who I am working with, and what I am doing. It’s not like everything is perfect, every moment, but it’s really pretty good. I want to show up everyday and do my best because it’s amazing being part of such an amazing team, but I know there are other things I want to do.

I keep thinking about the travels I have done this year. Alaska. Nebraska. Detroit. I want more of that. Starfish under rocks. Wide, green fields. Gritty cites with bright graffiti and neon lights. So I think the dream is about how I feel about my life right now….the store with all the stuff is all my combined memories. It’s a good place with lots of color and fun and a place I can be comfortable walking through. But it’s also cluttered with a lot of things that distract me and keep me from focusing on moving forward. My cousin is my anchor–my family, my foundation, my affirmation. My parents are my travel companions, no matter what the journey. The dream was a resting place, but not a stopping point. I woke up uneasy because I have been busy searching for a roadmap, but deep down the roadmap is my heart.

Right now the road has lead me to a perfect spot and part of me wants it to never change, but I know that’s not how the world works. So I am going to get up and enjoy the day and try not to worry about the little things on the journey. I will figure out the animation and Christmas tree. There is magic in the early morning when the sun starts to light the sky and I don’t want to miss any of it.

I went to the periodontist the day before Thanksgiving. He appeared alarmed at the blood and pus still happening in my mouth. He poked and prodded and squeezed and then gave me new prescriptions for different antibiotics. I woke up on Thanksgiving day and the swelling was worse and my gum was more red and inflamed than before the surgery. The pain was deep in my jaw and radiated up through my eye. I tried to watch The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade anyway.

I grew up in a house with one television and I liked books better, so I usually just watched the things other people in my family were watching, but I always loved the parade. I’d drag my blanket out to the den to watch the crowds all bundled up in New York City watching the giant balloons. A few years ago, I caught a behind the scenes look at how the parade was made and I realized all the art that goes into the floats. There are people who work for the parade all year long. That sounds amazing. I would love to try that. One day, I am going to that parade and I will be one of those people bundled up waving in the background. But my pain definitely distracted me from enjoying the event this year.

I felt bad for Shayne. Thanksgiving is his favorite holiday. He devours stuffing and pie. There was no way I was cooking, and even though we had invites, he doesn’t like going places without me. Earlier in the week, Shayne got a lock box for his medicine. All the meds are put into slots and then a timer is set and the box alarms when it is time to take the doses. The alarm is shrill and doesn’t turn off until the med slot is opened. Now, theoretically, it doesn’t mean that Shayne has to take the meds. He could remove the pills and throw them away, or shove them in his sock drawer. But it gives him consistency that he hasn’t had before. And it’s given me a small glimmer of hope. I am shocked that I can still have a sense of hope about this illness, but I guess deep, deep down I still believe that life can be better for him.

So anyway, Shayne decided to go to a relatives, even if I stayed home. He was making a salad and he started narrating the proper way to cut up a bell pepper. I was laughing. It’s been so long since he has done something funny that I forgot about what a great sense of humor he used to have.

I woke up still in a lot of pain. And the day after Thanksgiving brings a realization that I will be going back to work in a few days, and I have a lot to prep and how in the world is that going to happen? Shayne brought me a smoothie in bed and called it–healing potion. He said the swelling seems a bit better, more like I have a wad of chew in my mouth, instead of a wad of acorns. I couldn’t help but smile. Maybe the lock box is working for him? Maybe my new antibiotics are kicking in? I am cautiously optimistic.

I am in bed assessing how I feel. Last night was rough. Pain makes me throw up. I know this from migraines, childbirth, an eight millimeter kidney stone, and this recent gum surgery. But there is actually something worse; my body’s reaction to pain medicine. I cannot handle it all and I will throw up and be violently ill for hours. I was toughing this out with ibuprofen and Tylenol, but after five days of being more or less miserable I took one prescription pain pill. Forty minutes later, I was dizzy I couldn’t make it up the stairs.

My son said he was an expert at helping old lady bones. I think it was a joke, but I was concentrating on not hurling until I made it to the bathroom. I DID not want to clean up my own mess. Shayne, who more or less has been inattentive to my illness, all of sudden grasped my acute pain. He got me into bed, then got his computer and headphones and made himself a home on the couch on the other end of the attic. On my trips to the loo, he would have water, cool clothes, a hand to help me up.

I did go to sleep eventually, but I woke up to a man shouting. It was Shayne. I called out to him and he apologized. He said, “I am just talking in my sleep. The voices are never gone.” Sometimes he scares me, but mostly he makes me sad. He is doing his best.

I have to go back to the periodontist for a wound check today. And even though I haven’t been up yet, I am still super dizzy. I probably have a million typos. I’d like to take a shower, but what if I get in there and pass out? I am not going to let my son find me naked. That’s too traumatizing for anyone. I could take a shower in my clothes? That seems counter productive. Speaking of that, Shayne hasn’t changed out of his Russell Wilson jersey since the Packer game. He says he has to wear it so they keep winning. That’s a problem that I can’t think about right now though.

He lost his car keys last week. I can’t really help him look, but for the life me I don’t understand our key problems. The house is clean and we don’t have clutter, so I don’t even know. I made him empty out the trash can yesterday, so at least I know they won’t be in a landfill somewhere. But he can’t drive a stick, and I can’t drive when I can’t walk, so I had to ask for a ride.

Here’s the thing though. I hate asking for help. If I ask, believe me, I have tried thinking of every option first. I am grateful that I have the kind of friends and family who show up. And maybe that’s the lesson in all this, let the village in. So I am going to try to get up, and get to my appointment and hope the corner to healing is right up ahead. If anyone wants to drop off a cheese pizza for Shayne or maybe some soup, I wouldn’t say no.

It’s the last day of school before Thanksgiving break. My vacation started early because I am at home in bed after a pretty horrific gum infection surgery. I look like a lopsided squirrel who was in an altercation with a raccoon. For a bit, my eye was even swollen shut, but I can see now. I opted out of the pain meds because I am nervous about having narcotics around my son. Ibuprofen/Tylenol is working except when I miss a dose. My son is supposed to be taking care of me, but I slip his mind on the regular. I asked him to get me an ice pack about an hour ago. If I really want it, I will probably have to get it myself.

But at least I know everything at school is taken care of because I am working with the Groovy Girls this year. I mean throughout my career I have had fantastic colleagues. I have made the kind of friends that have become my forever family. Every person I have worked with has touched my life in some way, and maybe all the combined experiences have made me ready and appreciative of where I have landed–in a team of awesomeness. It is the perfect storm of creative and organized and strong and soft and fun and serious. I feel empowered by my team. I want to show up everyday and be my best. So it kind of really sucks to be dealing with gum trauma when I could be at school. For the woman who was having panic attacks a year ago with just the thought of stepping into the classroom, that’s a remarkable statement. I am so happy to be able to recognize the steps of the journey and to have gratitude for where it has lead me.

The night before my surgery, a friend of my older brother texted. She was worried that he wasn’t picking up his phone. This has to be a a hard time for him. The “firsts” after someone has died are the worst. My late sister in law’s birthday is in November and Thanksgiving was her holiday. I know my brother is still devastated and the last time I talked to him, he admitted that things were very, very bad. And even though I have been preoccupied with my mouth problems, he is never far from my mind. I don’t know how to help him with his pain. You can’t get over loss, or around it, you just have to go through it. There is another side, but getting there isn’t easy and sometimes seems impossible. Looking for the light helps me through things, but I don’t have the answers for anyone else. All I have to offer is acceptance for where he is on the journey.

I had planned on a road trip to the Gulf Coast for this Thanksgiving, but the doctor has asked me not to travel. He said I will need to check in with him next week and honestly the way I am feeling, I am not sure any kind of travel would be a good idea. So I guess it will be a vacation of rest and healing. I am starting to believe that life always gives me what I need, when I need it. So the Gulf Shore will have to wait. I will enjoy my time of rest, reach out a hand to my brother, and be grateful for this season of grace and the groovy girls.

For as long as I can remember, I have had the most vivid dreams. Sometimes this is awesome. Once I had a dream that I was a pro skateboarder. I could do amazing tricks and flips. And once I had a dream that my parents were living on a fishing boat in the Mediterranean. The water was crystal clear and they were so happy. As amazing as those vivid dreams can be, vivid nightmares aren’t so great.

When I was really little, I knew my mind was making stories while I slept. I had to be really careful what I watched on TV, because the images would get mixed up in my brain and sometimes wake me in terror. I remember the first night of the mini series, Roots. I fell asleep and found myself in the hold of the ship with whips and chains and woke up, tears streaming down my face. I ran out of my bedroom toward the den where mom was watching Johnny Carson in the firelight. She let me settle on the couch and we agreed that I wouldn’t watch anymore Roots. But real life stuff would get into my brain too. Like a spark from the fireplace would pop out onto the hearth and I’d wake up shaking in terror from the house engulfed. I would see a mouse in the garden and wake up because rats were crawling all over my body.

So if nightmares were a problem for me when I had a happy, mostly idealized childhood, image what a dozen traumatic events have done to my nighttime brain. Last night I had a dream that I was driving a moving truck through a tunnel, then it was spinning out of control and then I landed with the top of the truck wedged into the roof of the tunnel. The truck burst into flames and I fell to the highway below. I was hurt, bleeding, burnt, but I needed to get to Target because my dad was meeting me there. It’s not the worst dream I ever had, but it still woke me up with a gasping sense of urgency and it took me a minute to realize that I was safe. After those dreams, there is no going back to sleep.

The funny thing about my adult nightmares is that they often come when my daytime life is fairly calm. Take now, I am happy at work. I love the women I work with; the administrative team is among the strongest I have ever experienced, and the kids are great. My son isn’t what I would call stable, but he isn’t lost or living in his car in the mountains either. I am enjoying my graphics arts class, and the most dramatic thing I am watching on TV is Thursday Night Football. I think the dreams get worse at times like this, because I don’t trust times of peace.

My little cat, Lucy, has become the nightmare whisperer. She must sense something wrong because she crawls to me and climbs right up onto my chest and settles inches from my face. She falls asleep before I do, but as her purrs die out, my heartbeat slows.

I would love to not have another nightmare as long as I live, but I would never want to give up my ability to remember my dreams. My dad visits me, and I get to ride horses and make friends with lions and walk on the beach. I really do try to have healthy sleep habits and think positive things before I close my eyes, but I don’t know if my nightmares will ever really completely go away. I guess it’s my brain reminding me that I still have shit to work through. And maybe I always will. The best thing I know to do is to get up and see what needs to be done. I don’t try to remember all the details of the bad dream and live in it, but I don’t try to shove it away either. I am learning how to recognize my fears and pain and not treat fear and pain as enemies. Instead I am learning how they can be allies for growth and strength. It’s not easy, but maybe that’s the only way to sweet dreams?

I am taking a graphic arts class and I’ve had to build a website this week. I have learned a lot about the language of html and css and all the stuff that make websites work. Html is interesting as far as language goes. I realize that I have actually witnessed some of its evolution. I remember back to my high school days when the computer would boot on after an eternity and a green cursor would be flashing and then if you knew the magic code, maybe something else would happen. I remember teaching English in the early 2000’s and kids were using punctuation to make smiley faces and winky faces and all kinds of picture messages. Now emojis take the place of those quirky punctuation pictures, entire lives are lived on line, and computers are a different machine than they were thirty years ago.

For my assignment, I had to choose a season, input a picture, write about the picture, and link another website that went with the theme of the season. At first, I thought about fall, because it’s been such a glorious fall this year. I never remember the colors just lasting, and lasting. But when I was scrolling through my photos, I came across the Bryant Park photo.

When the kids and I were in Manhattan the Christmas after my parents died, we spent an evening at a world market in Bryant Park. There was a carousel and both the kids wanted to ride it, even though they were both beyond the age of being excited about that kind of thing. While they were riding it, I looked up and saw the bare winter trees, immense, reaching for the sky. The skyscrapers of the city were just beyond, glinting with yellow lights. The sky was a beautiful, mauve color and it felt a little mystical. I remember the three of us sitting on a bench together afterwards, just taking everything in around us, completely at peace with the experience. And that’s why I love the photo so much. A rare moment when we were all in sync.

I am enjoying the graphics art class, but it hasn’t been easy to squeeze into my life. I can see the appeal of creating websites from scratch. It’s fun to put in the language to make the colors and text come together, but I don’t know if I’ll ever grow to love coding. It’s a beautiful fall day, and I am hunched like a grumbly, witch over my keyboard trying different potions to make my heading text get centered. I just need the text to be centered, I don’t need to know how it happens, or why it happens. I kind of wonder what in the hell is possessing me to learn all this anyway, but it seems like the right thing to be doing now.

The holidays are fast approaching. Truth is the holidays make me feel untethered and orphaned. I’d love for my kids to be home with me for cozy Hallmark moments. But that’s not how life works. The hardest part of being a parent is accepting that kids grow up into their own lives. I am not sure what my daughter has planned. My son lives in a limbo world, and I never really know what version to expect. Sometimes I feel like I am in a cage of unstable circus animals. Or maybe just the drugged lion. The thing is though, I do have a key, even if the image of him lost in a haze is always with me. I have to remind myself that I am not the one trapped.

Anyway, I had a dream that I was driving through the mountains with my dad. I looked behind us and the sky was on fire. I told Dad that everything was burning and he said, “Well, we aren’t going in that direction.” It’s funny how I always feel my mom around me, but dad mostly comes in my dreams. I wake up with strength to do the day. And for now the fire is behind me.

So I am taking this class to learn for myself. I try to see the good all around me. I am grateful for the texts from my daughter and for the moments my son notices that I am in his corner for the right reasons. I might not know or understand everything on this journey, but I feel like I am on the right road for now.