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First of all, I can’t sleep.  Second, I’m forcing myself to be here.

I started this post over a week ago and this is as far as I got:

I was at church recently (I attend a Unitarian Universalist congregation) and the minister was speaking about the experience of young adult cancer patients in the context of finding a greater hope and recognizing joy.  He quoted a young woman who said something (unfortunately I didn’t write down the quote because I swore I would remember it later) along the lines of “at night it is difficult to get into my scary bed with my scary thoughts.”

Then, I stopped.  That’s as far as I’ve been getting lately.  Basically, the part about the scary thoughts.

I want to state right up front that I am not a young adult cancer patient.  I am not pretending to know what that feels like.  To be young, or old, or in the middle, and to be struggling with a terminal illness.

I did watch my youngest sister struggle with an eventually die from leukemia at the age of two.  So, I know it is scary.

When I am enveloped in fear, as I often am these days, I tend to remind myself that I’ve been through that.  That I’ve witnessed death and all of the subsequent destruction it can yield on a family when a child dies.  I remind myself to quiet the fear.  I’ve been through some of the worst already.

Still, fear has a way of creeping in on you.  Of hiding between the spaces in your breath and your thoughts and your molecules.  It waits there, vibrating, this evil, panicked thing.

And, it trickles down into everything.  Even, or perhaps most vividly, into your sleep.

So, I am awake.  And, I am forcing myself to be here.

Without going in a million sputtered directions or divulging the bit-by-bit breakdown of my situation, the source of the fear is simple.

It’s money.

I’m afraid that we will lose our house.  Or, perhaps, more frightening, I’m afraid that we will remain in our house eating peanut butter and jelly in the dark, huddled under blankets because we have no heat.

I wish I were exaggerating.

Now, that’s enough.  You see where the fear comes in.

But, that does not (or maybe it does) explain why I have not been here.  I still have Internet access for the time being.  I still have fingers.  I have plenty to write about.

So, here’s the trickle down part.

This panic has pervaded everything.   It has colored how I see myself.  It has made me fearful of the most basic of things.  Especially how the world views me.  It has made a bit of an ostrich.

I think I want to write then I think about how I used to have pizazz and spunk and humor.  I think about how I’m a dried up old fig.  Then I eat lots of snacky things and drink more wine and get pissed at myself because my jeans are tight.  Then I cry in the mirror wishing that I had the money to cut my hair.

It’s a vicious cycle.

But, I am here now.   And, I’ve gotten that off my chest.

Inhale deeply.  Exhale.  Good.

Now, perhaps, after coming clean, I can focus on the context in which my minster was speaking.  You know the whole greater hope and joy thing.

Silas has turned two.  He ran up to me, squealing and dancing, as soon as I got home today and begged me to play “Mommy Boat.”   Yesterday, his daycare texted me a picture of him in his overalls and his collared shirt, with his hair curling just the littlest bit, in front of a pile of pumpkins with that look of wonder on his face.

I love my boy.  I love the stage he’s in.  I love to spend time with him.  I love every little bit of him.

He is my greater hope and my joy.

He’s the reason that I am so fearful but also the reason that I am able to keep working through this.  No matter how much the money weighs on me or how badly I think I want to go down that path of self-loathing, there is always ‘Nuggle Time, and Mommy Boat, and the new Thomas movie, and doggy pillow, and Pookie, and that look of wonder, and kisses given with real loud smoochie sounds, and little chubby hands, and a head of just curly hair that sometimes still smells like baby.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 10th, 2009 at 2:06 am and is filed under Favorite Posts, Toddler Magic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.