We're not in Kansas Anymore, Toto.

Bullied, Bothered and Buckets.

I was bullied a lot in elementary school. Like, everyday, all day, not just by classmates but by teachers. And it was the 70s and 80s, there just wasn't as much focus on teaching educators about compassion and empathy and self-esteem and how that affects learning and development. I was actually quite bright, but the gifted teacher didn't want me because I was so hyper. My parents loved me and I knew that, they told me every single day how beautiful and amazing and special I was. But every time I walked out the door of my house and in through the doors of that school, I was immediately getting a different message. And soon I started to believe that message over the one my parents told me.

 

Because I understood fundamentally, they were my parents, they loved me by default. But they don't realize how worthless I am, because that's just how parents are, I thought. They are biased and blinded by their child that they created. These other people see the real me, the unbiased picture, and they tell the truth. I am stupid, I am dorky, I talk too much, I am a spazz, I am worthless. These were facts to me. I "add no value to the class, I only take away from other students by distracting them and keeping them from learning." I was told that, point blank by a teacher in 4th grade. She was young and had Farrah Faucett hair and dated a professional athlete, so clearly she knew what she was talking about. That was the message I understood.

 

So I got louder, and more obnoxious, because that was the role I was told to play. I was constantly seeking attention in whatever form I could get it from people at school, kids or teachers, anyone. My parents refused the school's recommendation to medicate me. I don't blame them. It was the early days of Ritalin, they worked with the information they had. And that information told them a 9 year old, 50# kid shouldn't be taking a Class II drug. Hindsight is 20/20, I don't judge. 

 

Another decision my parents made to try to combat the obvious emotional toll all of this was taking was to send me to therapy. It was a small group setting, with two other girls who came from abusive environments that included mental and physical injuries inflicted by others and self-inflicted, like cutting. I pitied them, sometimes openly, (ADHD doesn't come with filters, you know) because I didn't really understand how to absorb that kind of abuse. Developmentally I couldn't wrap my head around it. 

 

The only thing I learned in therapy was that my life was not that bad. That other kids had bigger problems, and that I should just shut up and take what I was given. And I didn't want to be friends with those girls anyway. Their lives were a disaster, I was just a girl from the suburbs who couldn't sit still or stand up for herself, I didn't have real problems. It was all in my head anyway, right? 

 

So, yeah. Therapy was a bust. 

 

Finally my parents made another decision. After 6th grade we moved south to a new, growing school district, to give me a new start where nobody knew me. Perhaps I would be able to find people who believed in my worth like they did, who would lift me up instead of crush me. It was the best decision they ever made on my behalf. Hands down. 

 

I took it seriously, my middle school fresh start. By then I understood what was offered by a new group of kids who didn't know me. I worked to change my personality. I tried to put a lid on the spazz girl inside. I learned to be self-deprecating and funny, using myself as the joke, because I found that if you put yourself down first, others wouldn't. Blonde jokes worked the best. I played myself as ditzy and silly, instead of stupid and dorky. Ditzy is cute, I learned. If you said something stupid but then giggled, like the cheerleaders did, teachers would look at you with exasperation but not say anything. They didn't put you down. Sometimes I was mean to the kids in worse shape than me, but I didn't like the way it felt. I knew what those pained expressions meant. I sometimes tried to make up for it when nobody was looking. Then I decided ignoring them was better. I pretended they didn't exist. 

 

And it mostly worked. By high school I was happily in the middle of the food chain, I had several good friends that I still have today, a merry band of goofballs who supported each other and told ourselves we were awesome. Each of us at any given time was smart, or pretty, hilarious, fearless, or talented, pick two. We stood together like a junior Justice League to deflect the attacks.

 

I also found my people in choir and theater geeks, and stoners. (The stoners were great, they happily accepted anyone as long as you had a few crumpled up bills for another dimebag, or maybe a bag of chips.) (This was back when pot was just pot, it wasn't laced with other, scarier things. Now, except in legalized areas, you have ZERO IDEA what you're actually getting in a small bag of marijuana. Don't do drugs, kids.)

 

In theater, with the performers, I learned I didn't have to be me, I could be somebody else! Someone written in a script, a character. I could be a princess! It was a magical discovery. And then I learned I could sing. I could hit high notes that nobody else could hit, apparently, which brought open mouth stares from the choir teacher, impressed nods and positive attention from everyone else. My high notes even had a special title that nobody else had: Coloratura Soprano. I was prized for my high notes. Classmates and teachers alike told me I was special, but also please stop talking, For the love of God.

 

More singing, less talking. Got it. 

 

I flew under the radar of the mean girls as much as possible, though the heady ego that came with my newly discovered high notes sometimes led me to fly higher, drawn to them like Icarus to the sun. But I'd fall scorched to the ground pretty quickly. Sometimes I stood up to them, if only temporarily. By now I had enough confidence that I sometimes deflected their gaze off the girls who couldn't defend themselves, who were lower than me on that ever present, unforgiving food chain. The same girls I had hurt or ignored in middle school, in some cases. Sometimes the bullies were impressed that I had the guts to stand up to them, even in my weird, self-deprecating, court jester way. It made me stronger, righting the wrongs of middle school, reducing my asshole footprint. It made me happier, and even more confident. 

 

The point that I want to make here, and there is one, is about what it really takes for kids to survive all this. The bullying and mental torture that I survived has colored every corner of the way I parent my children and engage with kids in my classroom. You might think that all this has made me the craziest helicopter mom alive, but no.

 

No really, I promise, although I am pretty quick to send a WTF email to a teacher, always tempered with an out, like "this is the story I got and we all know my kid isn't super reliable with details, so please give me more information." 

 

Anyway, here is what it takes: it takes tools. I had to make my own tools. And what I discovered as a parent, an adult, even the teacher in this scenario, is that we have to be the ones to give kids the tools. To survive as a soldier at war, you need a weapon. To survive a car crash you need a seat belt. Kids need tools to fight bullying. 

 

I try to give my kids tools to deal with these situations; where to go, who to tell, what to say, how to look for and find friends. And I try to listen, so that I can be a tool for them; give them more skills and tools for success, in addition to filling their little buckets with encouraging words. Verbal support means nothing as soon as they exit the door, because I know what awaits. It isn't that bullies take small withdrawals from the bucket like milk money; it's that they turn the bucket upside down. You can't fill an upside down bucket. Somebody has to flip it back over. 

 

########

 

Back in my elementary school of horrors, the lunch lady used the special education kids as a behavior reinforcement. Meaning, if you were naughty or couldn't stop talking between bites of shingle pizza or just generally annoyed her, she sent you over to sit at the table with the "retarded kids." (Again, early 80s. This was the terminology.)

 

Guess who drove her crazy? One guess. 

 

I spent a lot of time at that table. Initially I was terrified of it, not just for the public humiliation but because those kids were big, loud and unpredictable. (The SPED program at the time utilized space where it existed, and my school had room, so those students were sometimes older than typical elementary kids, therefore bigger.) But I also learned a lot, just by watching their teachers and paras engage with them. I learned empathy, compassion, tools for de-escalating, and that they weren't actually that unpredictable. Cognitively and intellectually disabled people don't have filters, if they are happy, it's clear. If they are in pain, you know. In fact, if you paid attention you could see what was going to set them off. And I learned some tools for mitigating that, sitting around that lunch table, eating shingle pizza and trying to scoop up loose corn with a fork. 

 

I choose that table, as an adult. As a teacher I am super tuned in to kids with special needs, especially ADHD, sensory integration disorder, and high-functioning autism spectrum. I can spot somebody who needs a little extra care in about three seconds. I'm able to quickly evaluate and offer some type of solution, or at least a short term fix: here have a snack, go take a break, be my helper and run an errand to the office, come sit by me, etc. 

 

Overall, I keep an eye on those for whom school is hard, with all the sitting still and the not talking and the navigating the food chain. And I shower them with positive attention, tools, and brain breaks. I make sure their bucket is turned right-side up so that it can be filled. I shower them with love. Because their parents are not wrong. They are beautiful, they are perfect, they are amazing. And they are worth it. 

Letting the Days Go By, Let the Water Hold Me Down

Another school year down. The boys' school district finished last Friday. Today at noon my school dismissed, my first year of teaching as a Real Teacher in the books. I really do feel a little like Pinocchio: A Real Teacher, like someone waved a magic wand over my head. A month ago I felt like there was no end in sight, and yet here we are. What an adventure we’ve had.

This year I started a new job, took on an extended volunteer job within Scouting that could have been at least a part-time, 20-hour per week job, and added an extra teenager to our already busy life. Why not? What could go wrong?

Here’s why not, roared back my aging body. My immune system apparently took it as a dare. YOU WANNA SEE WHAT HAPPENS? LET’S GO, DUMB GIRL. Let’s crank up the chronic pain, a couple of funky autoimmune disorders, rekindle those migraines AND migraine associated vertigo, which will keep you barely functioning sometimes for weeks at a time. HOW BOUT DA?

So yeah. I maybe overdid it this year. But I regret nothing, let’s make that clear.

Ten months ago I noticed a brief line in a school district newsletter about foreign exchange students, and suggested to my family, hey, that might be cool, why don’t we look into it? A week later we met a darling Korean teenager at the airport at 1:30 in the morning, fresh off a flight from Seoul. He was goofy and excited and quiet, all at the same time. He spoke a formal, classroom style of English, but he spoke it pretty well. He didn’t understand American sarcasm, memes, or my dad’s terrible jokes. He didn’t really speak unless someone spoke to him, initially. But he listened quite a bit. He always seemed to be off to the side, listening, watching, quietly taking it all in. I soon learned that when he needed something he would come find me in the kitchen and kind of hover nearby, until I asked, “is everything ok? Do you need anything?” He would say “well, actually…” And then we would drive to Target to retrieve whatever thing he needed for school or soccer or personal care.

He could sleep anywhere, at any time, but especially in the car. At first I chalked it up to the time change and jet-lag, daily soccer practice workouts and a full day of school in his second language. If we drove somewhere longer than five minutes away, he'd be asleep like a baby. It became something of a joke. Oh look, he’s asleep again, on the way to a restaurant for dinner out. So cute.

I made a conscious effort to slow down my speech and avoided using slang and contractions. I asked specific questions every day when I picked him up after soccer practice, good questions that did not allow yes or no answers, to force him to talk to me. I told him about my day after he told me about his, until eventually he began to ask about my day, unprompted. I corrected his grammar or word choice, and explained why. (My inner English major loved that part.)

Sometimes I let the car fill up with an awkward silence, just to see what would happen. My theory stands, as I found with my own kids, that teenagers love to talk when riding in the car, when adults can listen but not make eye contact while driving. He didn’t have a lot of social skills at first, and he kept to himself in his room quite a bit those first few months. My own boys are introverts, they prefer their video games and laptops to group engagement, so it was fine.  But we got into a rhythm as a family of five. I cooked a lot of rice in the fall, so he always had something comfortable available in the fridge. But honestly, he was the least picky eater in my house, he ate everything I put in front of him. We sat down to dinner together as a family this past year more than we have in several years, at least until spring came and everybody’s sports/activities/music/clubs schedule exploded again.

After the holidays and we went back to school in January, we hit a rough patch. My Mom attention-span got stretched a little thin. My bizarro, unexplainable, chronic pain (fibromyalgia) issues kicked in and I’m not gonna lie, it was likely stress related. I forgot things, or I got them wrong - the who what when why where part of our lives. My family isn’t used to me screwing that up so it was tough on everybody, especially me, so smug in my Supermom ego. Teenagers don’t forgive and forget easily. My kitchen became a constant scene of loud, dramatic, passive aggressive rhetorical questions: Why are there no forks? Who drank the last of the orange juice? Who ate my Poptarts? Why are there twelve pairs of shoes in the doorway? Who moved my backpack? I was supposed to take the first shower! (Hint, it wasn’t always the teenagers, sometimes it came from the adults.) Sometimes it felt like I was drowning in a sea of cranky, testosterone fueled drama, like an old episode of Real World: The Suburbs. We all got tired of each other at about the same time. I tried to tell myself maybe it was okay because all three boys were either alone in their rooms with the door shut, or arguing constantly, like bickering siblings.

This is normal, according to the exchange agency coordinator. Happens to many host families - the shine wears off. March and April screamed by, and suddenly it was almost time for end of year band concerts, dance club concerts, finals and graduation. Suddenly it became clear to all of us that our little experiment was about to end. The kids began to tolerate each other better, seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. And our student friend became more and more sad, each day of May that went by, anticipating the end of this experience and life as a member of our family.

Back in August, on his first full weekend in Kansas, we went to a Royals baseball game, in part because my son's marching band was performing the National Anthem. Bookending his time here with live sports games, on his last evening in town before flying home to Korea we went to a SportingKC soccer game. We sat in the front row behind the corner kick flag, and had a blast. We took selfies with kitty noses and whiskers drawn in, and I commented “look how cute we are! I like that, it makes my face look less fat.” Actually, it's a feature, he replied. American sarcasm, achievement unlocked.

It was an amazing year. It wasn't perfect. Sometimes it was hard. I was often reminded why my husband and I had deliberately chosen to only have two kids. But seeing someone experience the life we take for granted was humbling, and I am grateful for it. I'm glad my children had a chance to see a different point of view. He played competitive soccer, read Hamlet (in his second language, can you imagine? The metaphors alone are barely understandable in English!) He went to prom, and patiently defended his beloved country to American teenagers who don’t understand the difference between North and South Korea.

 

Last August, I greeted an adorably awkward, foreign teenager at the airport, and brought him into my nest as one of my own.

Last Thursday morning I put a young man back on a plane to Seoul. And onward we go.

Little Shop of Horrors.

Earlier today, I was out in the yard with our exchange student, turning over rocks looking for bugs he can take into school for Zoology class. I was complaining about the weeds growing in among the newly seeded grass since we've had so much rain. 

Him: so you have drugs growing in your yard?
Me: ...?
Him: weeds is a drug, right?
Me: OH! No. Not that kind of weed. That's a nickname for marijuana. It's a plant. A weed is something that grows up through the grass.
Him: Right. A plant that is a drug. Weed. Also I heard it was called grass sometimes.
Me: Yes. No! Not exactly. It depends. Weed is just a nickname for a plant that grows in a place where you don't want it. But yes, it's also a nickname for the drug marijuana. Grass is also a nickname for marijuana, but it isn't the same as this grass. I don't have marijuana growing wild in my yard. This isn't Breaking Bad: Leawood edition.

 

He didn't look convinced. But whatever. 

(I would totally watch Breaking Bad: Leawood edition. I'm sure I would know some of the people.)

(The Grass Pad commercials don't really help. https://youtu.be/EEFW6jpvz8c)  

 

Even after almost eight months, there are still some cultural things that just don't compute. Like weeds that grow in the grass. Or that failure is okay in certain instances. Last week I had a conversation with him where he was telling me about a conversation with his mother. She wants him to stay the course on his original education plan, but now that he's had a taste of an English speaking life, he wants to try to test out of the rest of high school (like getting a GED in the United States,) and apply to an English speaking university there in Korea. It is a very distinguished program, and hard to get into, apparently. His mother is afraid he may fail to get in, and then he would be left with no options.

 

I had a hard time following the part where he'd be out of options, because couldn't he just go to a different university if he didn't get into the fancy English one? Finally, after going around in circles for a while, it hit me. 

 

It isn't that he wouldn't have other options if he fails to get in. The problem is that if he fails, it dishonors his family. 

 

To us, failing at something could be another chance to learn, to make yourself better. High school students in the U.S. often apply to schools knowing that they may not get into the one they really want, so there's is always a back up plan college choice. As a teacher and a parent, I spend a significant amount of time trying to convince kids that you should always try, don't let fear of failure dictate your choices. That does not exist in the Korean culture that this boy comes from. To his family, failure equals dishonor. Which translates into: if you aren't completely sure of the outcome, you shouldn't try something, because you might fail, and that would dishonor your family. This from a kid who took a risk to travel halfway around the world and live for ten months. But family is different. 

 

And then there is prom. Prom is both an intriguing event that represents the ultimate American teenage experience, and a complete nightmare for an introverted yet curious kid who sees the equation rejection=failure=dishonor front and center in his decision-making process. The whole situation is awkward and there really is no good way around it. I'm not much help, having last gone to prom almost 30 years ago. But he has learned that you have to plan ahead, you can't just decide to go for it and everything falls into place with something like prom. There's much more to it. Like who you are going with. And renting a tuxedo, which apparently nowadays has more options than girls have for formal dresses. And then there's the fact that you should actually ask the girl you have in mind to be your date to the prom before you rent a tux. Like, you have to actually speak to her. Even if you are just going as friends, and it isn't a real "date." Even if you are just planning to go in a big group of friends. You can't just assume it will all sort itself out and her thinking matches yours. Because it might turn out she already has a date. So yeah. That happened. 

 

Some things are harder to sort out than others. That rejection:failure thing can really sting, regardless of the cultural norm part.

 

The thing that has been the hardest for me to sort out is just how much work goes into having another teenager living in my home, especially when you are used to being a family of four. It isn't just one more kid, it's an entire life cycle. Another person who needs to be picked up or delivered to various places. Five people need a bigger table in a restaurant than a booth that is made for four. Another person to feed when making dinner, so you need more servings of everything. Another jug of milk each week. Fresh meat usually comes packaged in even numbered groups, so for five people you have to purchase six steaks. Canned biscuits come in packs of eight, so someone doesn't get two. To make sandwiches for five people requires almost an entire loaf of bread, and a weekly allotment of fresh deli meat grows exponentially. We often don't have enough clean forks in the drawer (I have a set of eight,) so we end up hand-washing some in order to even eat our dinner. Nevermind that at the same time that I had to adjust for having a fifth person at my dinner table, my own picky teenagers suddenly found their appetite. Yesterday in my fridge there was just a half gallon of milk, some leftover spaghetti that someone had partially eaten and then returned to the fridge with a fork inside (WTH? Who does that?), and some unsweetened cranberry juice. The meat drawer is always empty, the washing machine is always running, and forget trying to get a shower before ten o'clock at night. Mayhem indeed. 

 

We are moving toward the last six weeks of being a family of five. While it has been fun and interesting, it has also been exhausting, for everyone involved. We are looking foward to summer, and having our normal version of mayhem back. Whatever that is. 

 

 

 

 

 

Riding in Cars With Boys

I spend a lot of time in my car, driving teenagers to school, to sports, to Boy Scouts, and back home from all of these things. Riding in the car has always been a great place to get my kids to talk to me. It is reasonably safe, emotionally, because I can't spend time analyzing their face as they talk, I'm watching the road. Eye contact is scary. So it has always been the place where my kids drop big bombs of information. And I consider myself lucky on that front. So I don't mind all the driving. 

The extra teenager is warming up to this process, too. He's letting his guard down. He told me on the way home from his soccer game the other day that he likes knowing that I come to the game to watch him play, it makes him more comfortable. It was very sweet and vulnerable, and so earnest. So he's showing some emotional depth. He's also using cuss words. 

Well, okay he didn't really know what he was saying. Monday morning we got in the car to drop him off at the high school, which is on my way to work. On Mondays it is just the two of us, because my oldest has band practice before school, and my husband manages the middle school route. My friend got into the passenger seat and said to me, "Can I put this shit in here?" He was holding some papers that were in the seat and gesturing toward the glove box. (Why is that even the name of it? Nevermind.) 

Unsure if I heard him correctly, I asked him go repeat his question. Nope, I heard correctly. 

"Do you know what that means, the word 'shit'?" 

"It means papers."

"Well, no. Not really. It means poop." 

"Poop?" 

"Yep. People sometimes use it to refer to stuff, like papers. But it is technically a bad word, a curse word. Not that I care if you say it, but you should not say it at school or to a teacher."

"Oh. Okay. So can I put this shit in there?"

"Yes. Yes you can." 

I mean, he's 17, Not nine. He can say what he wants. He probably heard it from me in the first place. 

 

 

Four Five Seconds...

Three day weekends always seem to be harder from which to recover. You'd think starting the work week on a Tuesday would make it all easier, only four days of work and all, but somehow it is harder. Or maybe that's just us. In the span of a week we discovered that the new (to us) car we bought for my teenage son to drive might have a problem that will cost over a grand to fix. I'm somehow already so overcommitted I can barely see straight, and it's only early September. The extra teenager in the house is doing great, but he's also busy, playing soccer and doing debate. My husband is in a high travel period, anywhere from 2-4 days per week on the road. So, my oldest teenager is basically acting as the other carpooling parent in the household. Did I mention the car is suspect? 

The good news is that I'm the only one really freaking out underneath it all. Everyone is doing great. School is great, job is great, the kids are alright. We are getting into a good rhythm. The only problem I foresee in the near future is that our friend from Korea is going to need new clothes. He's 5'7" -ish with a 28 waist, according to his laundry. (He actually does his own laundry, but I sometimes switch it over. I'm no Mommy Dearest here.) He's taken to helping himself to ice cream after dinner, which is totally fine, I want him to feel like it's his home. He also really likes Rice Crispy Treats as snacks. But when soccer season is over, and our American eating habits catch up to him, it might get interesting real quick. 

 

 

All's Well That Ends Well.

So odd to suddenly remember that this site exists. I mean honestly, to see that in the sidebar I've posted here less than ten times since the last Presidential election, which, for the love of Peter, is happening again and it is quite the shit show. But we knew that would happen. Or at least, Mike Judge knew. 

Anyway, I think I might be able to get back into a reasonable writing schedule, because there are things about this year that I am going to want to remember later. It isn't that this year is all that different from others. My oldest son is a junior in high school, the same high school I once attended. My youngest son is in 8th grade, one final year of middle school. The dog is almost ten years old and going blind from the cataracts, so much so that he can't see in the dark and will freeze if he cannot see. The boys are in band, Boy Scouts, and play soccer. The husband travels for work, often. Not so different, but still busy. 

What is different about this year is that I have a new job. In the 12 years since I first decided to start blogging under We're Not In Kansas Anymore, Toto, a name I adopted because of the new experiences gained from moving to Southern California, no year since that very first has been as different as this one. My first as a certified teacher, in a private religious school, surrounded by a culture and a language with which I am not fluent. 

It is also different that I have a new child living in my house. Three weeks ago on a whim I noticed some information about foreign exchange students in a community newsletter. I mentioned it to my husband. He did not say no. I emailed the local contact for details and filled out the online form. Approximately six days later, at 1:30 in the morning, we met a boy from South Korea at the airport. He comes from a culture and a language in which I am not fluent. He isn't fluent in our culture, but is close to fluent in our language, and honestly by October he will be. He is a delight, and I think we are adjusting well to being a family of five for the next 10 months. We are slowing down our own speech, using fewer contractions, and sitting down to the dinner table politely (somewhat.) We may still be in the honeymoon phase, but I'll take it. 

So. Lots of new, lots of not all that new. In just the few short weeks since school started, I have already learned so much, both from the language and culture of my new school, and of my new family member. I've learned about things that are taken for granted in our culture, that are simply too foreign to make sense in theirs. For example, school lockers are a device that must surely line the doorways of Dante's Seventh Circle of Hell. Having free time to play video games is ridiculous, when one is used to the school day ending at 10 pm. And the word zombie in Hebrew? Still zombie, at least for the 6th graders having giggling fits playing with filters in my Graphic Design class.

It's gonna be a great year. 

 

 

Watershed.

Hidey-Ho lovely people. I'm going to pretend there are actually people here reading, even thought I know at this point I've lost everyone to some other intellectually stimulating thing, since this is mostly abandoned. Ten years I've had this blog, ten years last September. A lot is different. Even more is not. 

 

It is Christmas Break again, I have finished my last semester of graduate school, and starting in January I will student teach at a middle school nearby. There is a lot of negative that has happened during this exercise in More Education, but I'm trying to let it go and just get what I need out of it. I am not worried about the student teaching, I'm simply wanting to get it over with, so I can get on with the business of actually teaching and being paid for it. I've said goodbye to all my friends at the elementary school which I adore working, at least until I return in April, a shiny new for-real teacher. Except there isn't anything shiny and new about me, just a muffin top and gray hairs that stubbornly refuse to take any color. 

 

New year, new beginnings. See ya on the flipside, folks. 

 

 

The widening gyre.

Almost a year. I think that's enough of a break. I haven't had much to say. Well, actually I don't even know if I had much to say in the last year, because I haven't really had time to think about having much to say. I've been too busy just trying to hold my head above the water, just trying to suck in enough air to keep from drowning. 

But it is indeed summer again, funny enough it always comes around, and I get a little bit of a break. Maybe it is just shallower water, where my feet can touch the sandy ground, and I can stand up and breath slowly without fear of salt water leaking into the corners of my mouth. 

I finally felt like writing again, just recently. I'm not taking any classes this summer, so I'm not wasting my creative writing time on journal reflections and papers that nobody cares about but that must be checked off a list of required submissions. I do need to study for the Praxis exam, which I will hopefully take later in the summer. It seems like so far into the future, August, but really it's practically tomorrow. No, I'm not ready. 

Instead I'm taking naps in the afternoons and watching old movies on HBO and cleaning out a drawer or a cabinet here or there, and getting the boys packed for Boy Scout camp. They are both going this year for ten days of glorious Lord of the Flies living in the mid-Missouri Ozarks. Meanwhile my husband and I are going to the beach for a few days, our first getaway without children in nine years. I haven't started packing for that, either. No, I'm not ready. 

I saw a woman at the grocery store the other day trying to put bags into her car and strap a bucking, screaming toddler into a five point harness, her hair in her face and sweat on her brow. I thought, wow, that was so long ago for me. I feel for that woman. But I do not wish to be her again, I'm perfectly content with my insolent and bitter teenager. 

I no longer have elementary aged children living in my house. Instead I have two young men in only slightly different stages of puberty. They are like young goats on a rock, constantly climbing up and knocking the other off. I'm quite certain the only fresher hell than two boys in puberty would be girls in the same stage, but that is not my hell, it is someone else's and I'll take the hand I've been dealt, thank you very much. 

I'll take my two beautiful sons, both boy scouts, both soccer players, both musicians. One is in his last summer before entering high school, one heading into middle school. New buildings, new bus routes, new teachers, books and friends. New pencils. I can smell the wood and graphite from here. Same old anxieties. No, I'm not ready. 

Sometimes I get the feeling that what is coming in this next year as I try to finish school and be Supermom again will be even harder to manage than the insanity of this past year. I am not Supermom, we've established that before. I look back over this past year and wonder, how in the hell did I do THAT? How can I ever handle more than this? Dare I tempt fate and think these thoughts? Probably not. Yeats' poem plays over and over in my brain. It is the screensaver on my phone, lest I forget the fragility of my hold on all of the things for which I allow myself to be responsible.

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

It is summer, and I am standing weakly in shifting sand instead of treading water for a few short weeks, then we start it all again. No, I'm not ready. 

 

Conversations with an almost-teenager.

    (Scene: riding along in the car, The Grateful Dead's Touch of Grey comes on the radio.)

Me: Now, this is a band you need to get to know at some point. Something to keep in mind for someday. This was their only real radio hit, and not the best song, but its a good start. 

Him: Um, if this is their only radio hit why are they so awesome? 

Me: Because the radio isn't an indicator of good music. Its simply an indicator of what other people think is good music. 

Him: ...

Me: Anyway, they were a great band, and they had thousands of concerts for twenty some-odd years and some people spent their lives following them around going to all their concerts. They recorded live shows and sold tapes and it was a really grassroots thing, how their music became part of popular culture. And people just loved them, and their music, and they danced...and they did a lot of drugs. 

Him: ...wait, what?

Me: Like, A LOT of drugs. Some of those people can't eat soup off a spoon now, they did so many drugs and it killed too many brain cells, but hey, the music was good. 

Him: Nice. 

Me: So if anyone ever tries to get you to do drugs, just remember, you want to be able to eat soup off a spoon when you get old.

Him: Mom, I'm not going to do drugs. But that won't be the reason why. 

Me: I don't care why, as long as you don't. That's as good a reason as any. Besides, when you're in that situation, and you will be, and someone is trying to get you to do something you don't want to do, sometimes it helps to have a funny reason to stand your ground. It diffuses the stress of the situation for you. 

Him: This song is kind of lame, mom. 

Me: ...

 

(And, scene.)

 

Maybe I should have listened to Tina Fey. *

Ho-hey, hi there. Not much to see here, sorry. I just keep swimming, swimming, swimming, like a little blue Dori fish, flapping my little fins trying to keep going. It's been an extended winter, and its APRIL, people, and they are still threatening that snow may fall here on the plain. This is not amusing anymore. 

So yeah, in February I went back to school. It's a weird feeling, to be back on a college campus trying to figure out in which building is your class located, or how to get get a copy key in the library and make copies of a presentation that's due in 15 minutes. The good news, I suppose, is that this campus is well-known for its graduate programs, and so there are very few preppy little coeds with perky boobs bouncing around, at least when I'm there in the evenings, it is mostly old people like me trying to revive the muscle memory of how to study and learn and write papers, while maintaining a full time job and four soccer practices, two music lessons and 2-4 soccer games in any given week, plus feed the dirty little soccer hobbits occasionally, and perhaps even do some laundry. Not that I'm bitter. About the boobs, I mean. 

I may have told my oldest last week to fish his soccer uniform out of the bottom of the hamper and put back it on for a game. I suppose I could have told him to spray it with Febreze or something, but he didn't seem to care.  

But! A light at the end of the tunnel. Yesterday I turned in a giant final project from class number one, and am halfway through class number two. It's nice not to have all that hanging over my head, that is a feeling I remember well.  I'll be done with this semester in two more weeks, and then summer classes start May 20th. 

In the meantime, the vertigo has come back a couple of times, enough that my doctor referred me to a neurologist, who sent me for an MRI and another nasty test called an ENG. If you have never heard of an ENG, it is a test where they shoot water into your ears to see if they can activate the vertigo so they can get brain readings off of it. Turns out, it's not IF they can activate the vertigo by shooting water into your ears, its HOW MUCH and HOW BAD. The answer? Very, very much, and worse than I ever imagined. Even though I knew it was coming, which I thought would be a better scenario than when it hits me out of the blue, it was bad. They did it four times, twice in each ear. I haven't felt so vulnerable and overwhelmed and in pain since the last time I had a baby.

At this point, they think the vertigo is actually a form of a migraine, just with the floor falling away from me instead of pain in my head. I'm unsure which is worse. I haven't had migraine headaches in years, other than the one I had this past September which the doctor now says was definitely a migraine, but the vertigo, this is a problem. So that's been fun. What isn't fun is realizing that its only April and I've already used up my medical flexible spending account. 

It is possible that I've got a little too much going on. After all, those are the times when my body tends to fail me in fantastically epic ways. I'm channeling my best Sweet Brown. (I know it's old, but it's still funny. And true.)

So here we are, enjoying a nice rainy night of cancelled soccer practice, eating dinner in our pajamas, avoiding the news, and going to bed early. Take it when you can get it, I say. For tomorrow, life goes on. 

 

*Advice from Tina Fey - "By the way, when Oprah Winfrey is suggesting you may have overextended yourself, you need to examine your fucking life."