I still haven’t had time to complete my muffin top extravaganza.  But, it’s coming.

Oh, yes, it is.

Instead, I’ve continued to be plagued by guilt about Silas and the whole hospital ordeal.  It just seems like a really sick, ugly shame that I had this major family disconnect at the same time that Silas was so ill.   Of course, it wasn’t intentional.  But, you know, the whole road to hell and all that.

Still, and I don’t know if I can put what I was going through into words (or if I even want to put it into words), I’ve learned from that bitter lapse of familial bliss.

(If you’ve been reading you might be noting that “familial bliss” might be a poetic stretch of the imagination.  But, still.  You know what I mean.)

Anyhow, I don’t know if it was seeing my boy so sick or if it was my mom coming to relieve the stress or the fact that I’ve been regularly taking my medicine, but I’ve been through a major change.

I’ve been able to relax and enjoy!

And, with a two-year-old that’s just vital.

I’m not going to go into all the cute little things that I’ve watched Silas do lately.  About how particular he is and how he throws his head back when he laughs.  Honestly, all the wonderful is pretty much summed up in the picture.  (Yes, I finally broke down and posted a cute picture of my son.  Does that mean I’ve turned all warm and fuzzy?  Still, can you even try to resist that smile?!?)

So, I guess the good part of fucking up– as long as no one was seriously hurt along the way– is– yes, I’m going to be totally cliche and am going to try to use at least one more set of hyphens– is– okay, I don’t really have anything to add but the hyphens– is that you can, indeed, learn from your mistakes.

I’m sure I’m not the first parent who was overdoing it at work, was feeling stressed at home, and who decided to put the blinders on in a desperate act of self-preservation.

The good thing is, I’ve re-prioritized.

So yeah, that’s why I haven’t been here.  It’s not because I’m reading trash novels (well, I am) or because I’m watching trash T.V. (no, I’m really not– unless you count Thomas as trash) or because I haven’t a thing to say.

I haven’t been here because I’ve been playing with my boy.  (Well, and I’ve been working on my Nat’l Boards while he sleeps.)

Anyhow, may you live each day like it’s 1999.  Or, whatever.

Love the one your with.

~Em

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.

So, I’ve been sitting here, working on some posts, some poems, some new perspectives on my life.  Being 3:38 in the morning and a work night,  I was about to return to bed until I noticed the moon pouring through the “reading room” window onto my day bed.  (Ironically, spilling right onto my journal and laptop.)

I had to lie in that light.

And, now, at 3:40, I am wondering should I sleep in it even at the risk of offending my husband.

There must be something magical to absorb.

Silas was born on the night of a harvest moon– a big giant beast of a thing blazing in the sky like a she-god.  I am compelled to wonder what, if any, moon magic was instilled in him that night.   Although, I tell myself that I don’t believe in moon magic.  (But, then again, I am giddy with the thought of sleeping in it.)

Still, there was a time I believed in that magic wholly.

I was perhaps six, maybe seven, my bed pushed up against the western window.  Living in the country, I had a clear view of the sky.  I would take a deep breath and stare intently at the star that seemed most intense to me, most willing to grant my wishes.

I would wish the same wish every night– that I could transform into any being at chose, at any moment I chose, and shift back with the same ease in which I initially transformed. Sometimes, I would imagine myself a Pegasus, or a big fat tree, or a small, gentle creature like a rabbit or a mouse.  Most often, however, I fantasized about inviting the class bullies behind the school at recess where I would shape-shift into a Tyrannosaurus Rex and deny that I knew anything about it when they went screaming to tell the teacher.

After wishing, I would climb down onto the floor and curl into a ball, my head nestled between my knees.  “Make me a rabbit” I would say.  Each time truly believing that it might actually happen and gravely disappointed when it didn’t.

I am realizing, now at 3:57, that Silas is quickly moving into that age in which magic really is possible.  In which Santa Clause is real and wishing on a star doesn’t seem so silly.  I am thrilled and enchanted and desperate that the wonder wear off on me.

I wonder if maybe I, too, was born under a harvest moon.  If maybe I did ingest some of that magic.  And, I am smiling, however mischievously, as I realize that I can share that with my son.  That fierce tug of curiosity and imagination.

I could expound upon this– go on and on forever about forest creatures and tooth fairies, but I am sleepy at 4:04.  And honestly I am anxious now to wrap myself in the throw that my grandmother knit for me and to enjoy whatever slumber I have left under the last rays of the silver moon.

Good night and good wishing…