Just Another Damn Thing to be Strong About

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  • Nightmares

    I have always had super vivid dreams. My two favorite dreams were both about jobs. One was about being a pro skateboarder. I could jump, and soar, and ride rails and I woke up feeling happy and free. The other dream was about being a glass blower. I wore long gypsy skirts and blew glass at Renaissance Fairs across the country. I actually have that listed as my number one retirement option. I am learning to blow glass. Besides a wonderful bank of good dreams, I have also had nightmares so horrible that I wake up screaming and shaking and afraid to close my eyes again. This nightmare thing has been especially bad of late.

    I have been dreaming about seeing my dad after he died. His body wrapped up in blankets is something that haunts me. With my sister in law in ICU , machines hooked up to her and ice blankets to keep her temperature down, my hospital themed nightmares have returned full fledged. Plus one of my students witnessed a brutal shooting before Christmas. Since his return to school, I can see the trauma in him, subtle changes. Maybe I wouldn’t notice if I didn’t know him before, but the tight reigns of holding it together are evident. At night this little boy appears in my dreams mangled, murdered, in pain,out of my reach.

    Sleeping sucks.

    Anyway, I dreaded going to see my sister~in~ law yesterday. I wasn’t sure I could face another trauma. Except my brother called me three times. And he hasn’t called me three times in three years. And he didn’t ask, but I also knew he shouldn’t be doing this alone. He is my family. and I show up for family. No matter what.

    My sister~in ~law is in the neuro ICU. She had a brain bleed two days after her last dose of chemo. She has no white blood cells and her platelet count is very low. She developed an infection and her body is fighting a fever without her natural defenses. She is intubated and sedated. At first, I thought I was going up to say goodbye, but now the doctor is saying if she can be kept comfortable until the platelets start regrowing, she might have a chance. Of course that’s not weighing in possible damage from the brain bleed or any other things that might happen along the way. Lots of variables at play. But she is a fighter, so I want to put my money on her to come out of this. Please send her all your good energy, love, light, prayers, juju, whatever. She is going to need it ALL to get through this battle.

    Meanwhile, I am trying my best to have more peace and laughter in my day, so I can have more peaceful nights. Today, I am going to the glass studio. One step closer to my Renaissance life. That’s a dream to believe in.

  • Unraveling

    I had my first panic attack last year. I didn’t know what was happening at first. I woke up with an intense dread of going to school. I didn’t know how I was going to manage walking down the street and going into the building and doing teacher things for seven hours. My chest was hurting and I thought maybe, possibly, I was having a heart attack, but I could still walk and move, so I put my jacket on and left the house. By the time I got to my classroom, I was crying uncontrollably and didn’t think I could make it through the day, the week, the year.

    When I described how I felt to a doctor, she said, “It sounds like PTSD.” PTSD is for soldiers or prisoners of war, so I didn’t really buy it. At first. Then I started thinking about my life in a real way. The doctor said, “Grief is like when your pet dies. Trauma is like watching a mountain lion grab your pet off your front porch and crunch its neck in front of you. ” She asked me to name a time when I was traumatized. I just looked at her and said, “Just one? Because I can name three things like that just last year.”

    So I had to pick a starting place….and I picked the night that I got the call about my parents’ accident. That was the night I lost my anchor. That was the night everyone started looking to me to be the anchor. And maybe if I’d been an anchor before that night, I was only strong because I had a bigger anchor holding me down.

    I thought I was getting through and doing what I needed to do. Going to school was my sanctuary. I’d go to work and see my friends and laugh and mostly love the kids and celebrate in their achievements. So the panic attacks centered on being afraid to go to school were super confusing. The best I can explain was that something happened to me last year when I was on the levee and Shayne was missing. I thought he might be dead and nothing about that made sense to me. Like how do you go through the rest of your life if your kid kills himself. And then what came after was even worse. I still can’t talk about it. So even though I KNOW logically that it isn’t my fault that my son is schizophrenic, I can’t let go of my responsibility as a parent. He is mine. I chose him. After all that, I would go to school and see these little kids in all kinds of trauma and it would eat at me, trigger panic in me, and I’d think, “I’ve no business being around these kids. I’m just gonna screw them up too.” Rational? Probably not, but that’s where I was last spring.

    I’ve spent months working on layers and layers of trauma. I’m no way “healed,” but I hadn’t had a panic attack or a nightmare in months. Until a few days ago. The nightmare was about one of my students. In the dream, he was on his bicycle and run over by a jeep, with the rest of my class looking on. The old agitation and fear are back and hard to push away. It makes sleep hard to come because the dreams are so vivid and real, and on and on and on. But being surrounded by kids actively living in trauma isn’t doing great things for me. I have a huge network of family and friends to love and help me and it still is super hard. I have no idea sometimes how some students in my class come to school and do anything at all. And helping them just seems so impossible.

    So I have to remind myself–you write your own story, so figure out how to weave this shit in, in a way that brings hope, and love, and light.” And breathe.

  • Chinese New Year in Pueblo

    When I was a kid, my dad would scout out new restaurants and present them to us like a gift.  The Golden Dragon was one of those places.  I will never forget sitting down at the table with the glass top and the Chinese zodiac mats, the red booths, and golden lamps and the art with the tigers and dragons and incomprehensible writing.  I found out I was born in the Year of the Cock, which my brother thought was hilarious and to this day I refuse to say that.  I say I was born in the Year of the Rooster.  Dad ordered us all kinds of dishes and that night my love of Chinese food and culture was born.  

    Years later, when I was trying to solidify a theme for my first grade art class, I was scrolling through Youtube and I saw a Chinese New Year clip.  It was full of dragons, color, and fireworks.  I decided to do a unit on dragons. I showed the clip and told the kids we’d make dragons to bring luck in the New Year.   I told them if they did an excellent job, I had red glitter for the final sparkle.  They were so excited and kept showing me their dragons and saying, “I’m going to get lucky.”  I’m not going to lie, I laughed every time someone said that.  A lot.  But the unit was so successful that it became a unit I did every year after Christmas.  

    Now that I’m not teaching art, I wondered if I’d still be able to sneak in a little Chinese New Year with my class.  It turns out that the story in the literature unit is about Chinese New Year and the theme is–What can we learn from other cultures?”  I showed my students the video clip and we made Chinese lanterns, then we read the story.  They were into it, which is quite a feat in itself.  The next day after summarizing the story, I showed them how to make a paper dragon.  These kids aren’t used to art and they don’t have the scissor and glue skills.  They STRUGGLED tracing their hands.  But they wanted to make the dragons, and dragons got made.  I started hanging everything up in the hall at the end of the day, and it felt festive.  Like maybe we are ready for our own little celebration.  

    When I was teaching art everyday, I often wondered if it had a purpose.  I’d teach the order of the rainbow, or the steps to glazing and wonder–how is this relevant?  It’s not going to get anyone a job, or stand out on a resume.  Why am I doing this?  But I find myself asking the same questions with math and reading.  Is reading a fairy tale ever important?  Why does anyone need to build an area model of a multiplication problem?  When did area models become a thing anyway?  How do I make it relevant when I don’t even know if I believe that it is?  

    Here is what I’ve learned–teaching art made more sense to me.  Creating a space for kids to take risks and try new things really was my jam.  It was about the process and TRYING and building a community where kids shared and helped each other and everybody had a masterpiece at the end of the day.  Or at least had fun trying.  Maybe I had to leave the art room to learn what it meant though.  I don’t hate having my own classroom.  Maybe if I’d done it earlier in my career, I would have loved it.  I certainly have never felt this way about a group of kids before.  They are like my own.  I care about them and want better for them.  It bothers me a lot that they have trauma and worries that grown adults couldn’t handle.  I think about them late into the night and wonder how I am ever going to get them ready for middle school and high school and all the hard stuff ahead.  It’s a lot.  

    You know what gets me in the door everyday?  I don’t want to be another adult in their lives that quits on them.  And I wonder maybe if I’m supposed to be there.  Like maybe I’m supposed to fight for them and say, these kids need art.  They need a way to feel successful and proud of their accomplishments.  Art encourages risk taking and builds resilience.  It brings new worlds and teaches problem solving and demands higher level thinking.  Maybe I’m crazy, but something brought me to Pueblo and as hard as it is, I am in the game, not giving up.  

    Today, I’m going to finish my mural in Florence and then I’m going to stop by Jade Cafe and get some fortune cookies for my class.  I think it will be fun to pull out the little slips of papers and try writing our own fortunes.  It might be torture, but just maybe something about all this will stick, because you just never know what experiences impact everything.  Happy New Year to all my students–past and present, and to all my family and friends.  May the New Year bring us all a little luck and a lot of love.  

  • Shady

    I went to my doctor yesterday. He was sick. So I tried to make a dermatologist appointment. December was the earliest I could be seen. So I went to urgent care. It was closed, BUT, the sign said it was reopening, so I sat in the parking for thirty minutes and waited. I knew if I left I probably wouldn’t go back.

    The urgent care guy looked at my ankle and said the growth needed to be lanced off and biopsied. He said he thought it might be a reaction to the dye in the tattoo. He said he would send me to a dermatologist. I told him I had called that place and was told I’d have to wait until January. He said the referral would get me in faster. I took the paperwork he gave me and went home.

    The floor guy was gone. He has sanded everything and he put the finish on the space where the stove will go. It is going to look freaking fantastic. While I was standing there admiring it, there was a knock on the door and Shayne poked his head in.

    About a month ago, Shayne was in Pueblo with me at school. He waited in the parking lot while I ran up to my classroom to drop something off. I heard on the two way radio, “There’s a shady guy just walking around in the parking lot and I am afraid to get out of my car.” I knew it was Shayne they were talking about and I went down immediately to diffuse the situation.

    Now that I have been working on the East side for a bit, I know why people are leery of skinny, homelessy, unkempt people. I was driving home the other day and a man was standing in the middle of the street with all his belongings fallen all around him. I stopped and asked him if he was okay. He turned real quick and shouted, “Are you fucking okay?” I could see the glint in his eyes and I knew instantly that there were a million voices shouting in his brain. But I also knew it probably wasn’t a good idea to get out of the car and help either. I drove away, but on some level it hasn’t left me. He could have easily been my son.

    Anyway, Shayne has cleaned himself up and is back on meds. I fixed up the sunroom as a fourth bedroom and I am letting him stay there until the garage apartment is built. I am uneasy about this choice. I am not ready for another rollercoaster ride and I don’t know what is worse, wondering if is okay, or living with the uncertainty of his instability.

    So many things in my life have changed in the past month or two. I really don’t know where this journey is taking me, but I am trying my best to believe that everything will work out for the best.

  • Doctor phobia

    White spot

    When I was in college, I was interested in learning to tattoo. I hung out at a shop in Boulder and was working with an artist from New York. One day we were sitting around the shop waiting for customers. He said he hoped someone would walk in because he was in the mood to tattoo. I told him that he could give me a new tat if we didn’t have customers. He dared me to wear a blindfold and let him pick out a tattoo. I tell this story to illustrate how completely fearless and idiotic I behaved at twenty.

    Flash forward a few decades. The tattoo had faded to mostly a green color and since it is on my ankle, and really visible I have considered getting it recolored. So in August, I had some time to kill before a hair appointment; on a whim I walked into a shop and made an appointment.

    Round two of this tattoo wasn’t at all like the first time. It wasn’t as much fun and it hurt more than I remembered. It also seemed like it took a long time to heal. It had weird bumps on it for a while and actually hurt for several weeks and just one spot never seemed to heal. I kept waiting for the skin to feel smooth and normal, but it just never has

    I am not exactly sure when I noticed the area on the bottom of the tattoo swelling and growing. But when I’d shower, the water hitting my ankle would hurt, or getting in bed at night, the pressure of the sheets would get my attention. It isn’t horrible pain, just kind of uncomfortable. And then I noticed that the area was feeling hard and scabby and I was afraid to shave over it because I didn’t want to it to bleed.

    It is getting bigger and looks like a tiny volcano with darkened lava at the crest. I haven’t been to the doctor yet, although I did teladoc on the phone. I just keep thinking about my mom.

    My mother had a rare, atypical type of skin cancer that presented on her head and neck. She had a tumor excised from her calf that went almost to the bone, one from her neck and several from her scalp. She was in so much pain and had to have help washing her hair and putting the medicine on. The lesions on her head would come back. She called them trees. I went with her to her last appointment the spring before she was killed. The doctor gave her a shot in the head and then started up-rooting mom’s trees with a tiny scalpel thing. She held my hand and asked ME if I was okay. I am not going to lie; it was horrible. I hate doctor shit. She was so brave and strong.

    And I keep thinking maybe it will just heal on its own. Maybe bag balm would help? Okay, so I know I need to get it actually looked at, but I would rather do almost anything than go to another doctor’s appointment. I kind wish doctors still did house calls or there was a drive through option…i could stick my leg out the car window or something. Maybe get some fries at the same time. I know I am being ridiculous, but at the same time, I am kinda terrified.

  • Moving Back In

    I went to the grocery store a few days ago. I saw Angel, the sweetest student I have ever had. She greeted me like it was Christmas and I was her favorite aunt. Then I saw another former student and she caught me up on her entire family, all of which had been through the art room. Then I saw another student from my early days in Canon. And then a former colleague. Honestly, there have been days when knowing I am going to run into people I know and have to pour out sunshine makes me balk at going to the grocery store. I have literally sat in my car gathering strength to face all the people ready to ‘bless my heart,’ and tell me they have been praying for me. One of the reasons, I thought leaving Canon might be good was to bring me a little animosity. I didn’t realize how much I’d miss this deep bonds I have made here.

    My house has not sold. It mostly has come down to the shared garage. The garage sits on the property line and half is mine; half is the neighbor’s. It works for us, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why it is a problem. Plus this house is 97 years old. Most people who can afford what I want don’t want to climb stairs and people who are young enough to relish a house with projects don’t have enough money. And I didn’t 100 percent want to sell it, so I probably put that out in the universe too.

    The more time I spend in Pueblo, the more I realize that it is probably not my forever home. I think about Shayne homeless in a city like Pueblo. He is safer in a small town where everyone knows him.

    I am not regretful about taking a new job. I needed to do something different. But school is school. Different geography, same challenges. I like my new colleagues and the kids are for the most part nice and I like them, but I realize that being in a classroom is a cage for me. I am like a wild thing pacing around looking for a way out. It doesn’t matter if it is art, math, underwater basket weaving, I am a cheetah ready to bolt. I thought I’d be able to muscle out a couple of more years, but I will be lucky to make it to Christmas.

    It made sense to me to take my house off the market, because I am really not sure what comes next. I am having my floors sanded and refinished and I am turning my sun porch into a fourth bedroom and then I will move all my stuff back into the house. I talked to my neighbor and we are on the same page about fixing the garage situation. Maybe I will put the house back on the market, or maybe I won’t. I am just trusting that the universe is looking out for me and the answers are coming.

  • Showing Up

    I. I honestly don’t know what is happening anymore.

    2. My house hasn’t sold. It comes down to the garage almost every time. The garage is on the property line and I own half and the neighbors own half. The driveway to the garage also straddles both properties, but is more on my side of the line, which makes zero sense. It works and I like the neighbors, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why sharing a driveway and a garage can be a problem.

    3. I am not a fan of driving to Pueblo. I am not a fan of driving in general. Honestly, if I could envision my perfect life, I’d probably never have to drive anywhere and I could walk, ride my bike, or take public transportation everywhere I wanted and needed to go, and just drive once or twice a year if I felt like a Thelma and Louis road trip.

    4. And honestly, I’m not sure I want to live in Pueblo.

    5. Or teach anymore. In fact, I’m pretty damn close to walking out the door.

    6. It’s really not specific to my current position. I just realize that the classroom is a cage for me. I’m like a wild thing, pacing around looking for a way out.

    7. I read inspirational messages everyday trying to psych myself out and be positive. Shit like–Say Yes to the Universe. Show Up. Be in the Moment. Breathe. Live for the Day. I have a whole ritual. I get up and flip to a page in the my daily oracle book. Write the message on a sticky note, or sometimes on my hand with a Sharpie and I look at if I feel like I need a reminder.

    8. Lately, two messages have stuck in my head.

    9. Your worth is greater than your output.

    10. Envision your perfect life.

    11. I go through my day, knowing that telling kids to pick up their trash, and focus on their work, and listening to conversations like this–“There’s a map by Egypt–is it a place?” “Yeah, it’s in Las Vegas”–is SO not my jam. I hate being in charge of behavior. And I’m not great at it, because why is it so damn difficult to do the right thing? Like why can’t you pick up the milk carton from the floor without being told? And why can’t you just stand in a line without talking, jumping, hitting, singing, screeching? And why can’t you turn to page 83 when the teacher says it forty-five times and writes it on the board and you were on page 82 yesterday? And I think, this is really why I went to college? And I know if I envision my perfect life it mostly involves my front porch, slouchy sweaters, and Charlie.

    12. I found out that I won a grant I wrote last year to take kids on a field trip to Denver. The lady that called me said that when she read my essay, she knew that my school was going to win. I know I can write. But the things I have to say right now are pretty bitter. And if I can’t put good out in the world, then I don’t want to share.

    13. Someone asked my recently if I like art or writing better. I said art was easy for me–like something I don’t think about, just do. Writing is more of a compulsion. Words pour out naked and raw. I try not to write, but then I can’t sleep. For days. And eventually I find myself typing away.

    12. I like going to paint stores and taking my color swatch up to the paint counter and watching the person behind the counter get my can ready. I enjoy watching the precise drop of color and the satisfying noise and vibration of the machine. I wonder if the paint store people like their jobs, or if they would rather be doing anything else?

    13. I am painting a new mural. Something that is supposed to inspire hope.

    14. I guess it’s kind of working already, because it gives me something to focus on and get me through the week.

    15. I’m going to keep showing up and doing my thing, but I know I need something where I can stretch my wild, crazy imagination, my irreverence, and my deep passion for making the world a better place. When it arrives, I hope I am brave enough to listen to what my heart is telling me and accept what the universe has for me.

  • What is happening?

    1. I finally shared on my blog about my move.

    2. The very same day the contract fell through on my house.

    3. I am not upset…what’s the point?

    4. Except 90 percent of my stuff is in a 16×20 box.

    5. There are people waiting for me to move into their house.

    6. I start a new job in six days.

    7. I have options.

    8. I settle on one idea.

    9. An hour later something else seems better.

    10. If there is a lesson here, I am sure not getting it yet.

    Yesterday, I saw Shayne walk by the kitchen window and go into the backyard. I went out to the back and found him standing there looking at his black Pumas. He was wearing a red football jersey and basketball shorts, one black sock and one of my red Snoopy socks. He didn’t look up when I come outside.

    Sometimes I think he has amnesia instead of schizophrenia. I don’t even know what to say to him. On one hand I am so mad at some of the choices he has made, but

    when he looks at me I can see it all–his pain, his hunger, his exhaustion. But I that doesn’t break me anymore. So I say, “Where’s your stuff?” He tells me he has it stashed and then he picks up his bag and says, “You can look, I don’t have any drugs.” We both know I am not going to look. It means nothing. Maybe they aren’t in the bag, but they are somewhere stashed with his falling apart sleeping bag and one gray sweatshirt. I relented and let him eat the food I bought for my friends who helped me move. I wondered for a moment if I move all my stuff back to the house. Do I leave it there? Shayne asked me if I want him to mow the lawn. It’s this dance we do. He totally betrays my trust. I feed him and he does chores. He thinks it is fixed; I know it isn’t.

    So what now? Honestly, I have no idea. I guess this is one of those times when the universe hasn’t shown all the cards yet. I know better than to wish for a little luck. Mom would tell me to say a little prayer. Dad would probably think weeding the flower bed would be helpful. Guess I can do both those things and finish painting a sign for a little old man I met in Florence. I am sure it will all work out.

  • What’s next?

    1. People keep asking.

    2. I resigned from Canon City Schools.

    3. I took a job as a 5th grade teacher in Pueblo.

    4. I sold my house.

    5. I am moving.

    6. I don’t know if it’s my final destination.

    7. I kinda think Albuquerque might be.

    8. Or maybe Florida or New York.

    9. I know in my heart that I just want to paint.

    10. But my head isn’t quite there yet.

    Anyone who follows my blog knows the last several years haven’t been easy. But I thought I was doing okay, considering. So when the panic attacks started in February it took me awhile to figure out was happening. At first I honestly thought I was having a heart attack. But I was also afraid of leaving my bed and the thought of spending the day in a noisy classroom would bring on sobs of agony. I felt like I was losing my shit.

    One morning I made it to work and called my HR director and told her that I didn’t think I could finish out the day, the week, the year. Her response was to send over Jamie. Jamie has a title but we go way back, and she brought me a breakfast burrito and she listened to me for an hour. And she said, I think you have PTSD.

    At first that didn’t make sense to me. I am not a soldier. I have never been on a battlefield. But the truth is I have a lot to trauma in my life and the last years have been on going trauma. I guess my brain finally had enough and said, “Hey, I can’t do this anymore!!!!! Are you listening?????

    One of the things that I have trained my brain to do is look for the silver lining. My parents died in a horrible tragic accident, but at least it was quick. They didn’t have years of suffering or illness. I didn’t have to watch them lose their independence or memories. As the years have gone on, I am so glad that I haven’t had to watch the aging process with them.

    Same story with my son’s illness, I always find a way to have hope. At least he doesn’t have kids. At least he hasn’t been in jail. At least he isn’t violent.

    But the fact of the matter is that kind of positivity discounts the pain and confusion and pushes aside the trauma.

    Last August when Shayne disappeared and I was working on the levee was the first time I actually lost hope. I realized that he could be dead, or he could die and one of these times things aren’t going to end well. I didn’t even know what to do with those thoughts I remember just sitting on the wall by the river just staring at the water, or watching the sun come up, or go down, not even knowing who I was or what I was doing.

    I think about the night my parents died all the time. The phone call. The doctor telling me despite his best efforts he couldn’t keep my father alive. It was like you see on TV, except TV doesn’t even begin to capture the screaming that happens in your soul. And then seeing him. They had him all wrapped up in white sheets in a hospital bed like he was sleeping. But he slept with his arm stretched out. I know because when I was small, I’d climb into bed next to him put my head on his bicep. He’d curl his arm around me without even waking up. He’d always be warm. I touched his skin that night. Sometimes the memory of that chill comes to me when I am doing simple things like rinsing off a fork or unwrapping a stick of gum.

    Flashes of things that happened that night bombard me at unexpected moments. My mother’s dusty pink fingernail as she spelled, die, into my palm. Shayne’s glittery eyes. His shrieking, “Kill me instead.”

    Maybe if it was just that night, but the trauma never seems to be over. Each time Shayne has a psychotic break, I don’t think it will get worse. But then it does. So last fall when I thought he was dead. i didn’t know how to cope anymore.

    Work had been my haven. I’d show up and kids would make me laugh and I saw my friends and for the time I was there, my trauma was at bay. Without going into specifics, work was pretty tough this year. Lots of change and toxicity and all of a sudden, work didn’t feel safe anymore. Hence, the panic attacks. My brain couldn’t cope with living in two uncertain worlds.

    I really, really considered leaving education. And to be honest, I am not sure that I shouldn’t. I still love kids, but some of them are so damaged and I am sensitive to their pain. Dealing with my own trauma is a full time job, let alone being surrounded day after day with little kids who have seen more trauma than grown adults.

    I know leaving Canon after spending most of my life here isn’t going to fix my trauma. And to be honest I have questioned my decision to leave every step of the way. But last week I found this little house over by Mineral Palace Park. It’s got a white picket fence and lined with roses. It reminds me of my dad and mom in the best way. The backyard is an oasis and from the front step there is a little sliver of the interstate. I like that though, it feeds my imagination. I will sit out there at night and watch the lights and wonder about all the destinations possible. Who knows? Maybe I will grow old there; maybe it is just a stopping place on my next journey. I am open to all the possibilities

  • Reclaiming

    I’m sitting on the floor in my living room in this old, silent house. I moved here because I wanted to have more space between my son’s bedroom and mine. I didn’t want to hear him when he talked to himself, or laughed at nothing. I wanted a house where I would have space to be alone and read, write, do art. I wanted to be close to work and downtown. While this house isn’t perfect, I do like it. But this week, I’ve thought a thousand times about selling it and moving.

    My son is gone again. This time there will be no search parties. No fliers. No missing persons report. This time he isn’t coming back. And it is his choice. I cannot write or even really talk about what lead to this decision, except that it was so awful, that I can’t even quite wrap my head around it. It wasn’t violent and no one was physically hurt, but the betrayal and depth of the action was so hurtful to me, that I can’t even comprehend that I child that I have raised would do such a thing.

    My best friend in the whole world, the woman who has known me my whole life, told me –“this isn’t about you. This is him. He is very sick and has been for a long time.” I know this, but I have to keep remembering those words.

    In the last six years, I have experienced more traumatic life events than some people face in a lifetime. At first I thought, well, this is just going to make me stronger. Then I started thinking, what do I have to be strong FOR? And now I’m thinking, I’m as strong as I want to be, so enough with the life challenges.

    So today I guess I am packing up all the things my son left behind. I’m repainting the room. A pale peach maybe. Something warm that makes me think of warm spring days with new green grass and blossoms floating through the air. I am moving the rocking chair that I nursed him in, to the back porch or maybe to Goodwill. Because even though it’s a good memory, it also is so very painful that I couldn’t sit in it if I tried. The room has good light. I could read in there, or maybe it will be writing studio and I will write something amazing like a comic book about a cat who wants to be president. Or maybe I will reinvent Captain Letterman? I loved him. He could make a comeback incarnated as a she with sassy red boots to match her cape?

    I know that a little paint or new furniture isn’t changing anything. My son is gone. And nothing about this is right. I know I am not going to sleep at night without wondering if he is okay. If he is safe. If he is hungry. If he is dirty. If he is alive. I am never going to wake up again without thinking those same thoughts. I see him in every pair of big blue eyes. Everywhere I look, there he is. I will never stop loving him.

    The worst thing about everything is I know that this is just a waiting place. I just don’t know what I’m waiting for. All I can do is try to move forward and use all this strength that has been building to help see me though to whatever the future holds.