Apparently, I am intimidating (according to my family)

It has come to my attention that I am intimidating. 

While I don't know that this is a fact, it is an opinion that several members of my family---like all of them who live with me---agree on.

And it took me by surprise. 

I guess if I get out of my own head for a minute, I can see how they might be right. 

I am not intimidating to myself. And I don't think I'm intimidating to people once they talk to me a little bit, although maybe that's entirely wrong. I hope that my humor breaks any ice.

But I can see how a person who doesn't know me might be a little taken aback by my inability to not express an opinion. I'm very "out there" with what I think. As a general rule, I'm not going to just sit back and take it from anyone. 

I usually think I'm pretty self-aware, but my family's recent discussion of my intimidating personality threw me for a loop. How much else do I not perceive about myself?

I suppose that my ability to be intimidating (or to come off that way) is something I need to be a little more aware of, although I think my family gets the "unabridged version" of me that other people don't get. 

Do most people who meet me cower in fear or feel threatened by me? I don't think so.

Does my husband? Yes, that might be accurate. 

Does he expect me to bend him to my will? Of course. He's been letting me do that for almost 25 married years. 

And my two oldest kids have been scared to tell me they have boyfriends/girlfriends when I have been pretty open about "I don't care who you date. Race, religion, gender, whatever. As long as the person treats you with respect, I'm good." 

I think my family's view of me being intimidating is because I lose my absolute shit when they don't do something I've asked them to do 800 times. 

And what woman out there doesn't know EXACTLY what I'm talking about. 

Like all people who need outside input, I called on the hive mind of Facebook to ask people who know me. Some know me only online or knew me way back when or work with me or still talk to me every week or month. 

And I think the general consensus is that MY FAMILY IS WRONG.

Really, that's all I needed confirmation of. 

In all seriousness, it did do me good to step outside of what I thought I knew about myself and actually try to be objective. And getting feedback from others was helpful in that it helps me understand what aspects of who I am may come off as intimidating. 

I have always taken pride in being smart. Making sure I know what I'm talking about. Being well-read and prepared. I have always had high expectations of myself but this can, I'm sure, make others feel a little uncertain about what I will be like. Will I be judgmental? Am I exacting to the point of being unbearable?

I do have high expectations, but I have also learned to be much less judgmental over the years. I strive to put myself in other people's shoes and see the other side. 

Expect my family's side. They don't know what they're talking about.

Just kidding.

You get COVID, and you get COVID, and everybody gets COVID

Last Friday, G said he had a headache, but I didn't think too much about it UNTIL he woke on Saturday complaining of a headache and sore throat. I had an at-home test, and he had a faint positive line. 

We had been officially invaded (yet again). 

Now, I have been diligent as fuck to avoid COVID. D, N and I have been vaccinated three times. M had a natural infection in September and then got his two shots in October. G was supposed to get his booster last Saturday, but I had to cancel because he had COVID. We had been wearing KN95s since our trip to Vegas in December. 

But I definitely give the hell up once COVID is in the house. I'm not wearing masks inside my home, and I'm not banishing a sick kid to a room by themselves like they are Rapunzel in a tower. 

When it comes to symptoms in our house, it has been weird. 

G was fine by Monday. 

D began with congestion on Tuesday, which worsened on Wednesday, and he spent Thursday in bed with a headache and chills. On Friday, he worked most of the day in his basement office. 

My symptoms have been weird and changing every day. 

On Tuesday, my left eye was red (like a conjunctivitis-type look), but then cleared up by the next day. Was that COVID? Who knows. 

Wednesday and Thursday I felt fine. 

On Friday, my uvula was swollen but cleared up the next day. Was that COVID? Who knows. 

However, yesterday, I woke up and had no voice. I also had no congestion which was weird since usually congestion is what causes the lacking voice. By last night I had chills. No headache. Today my voice sounds better, but I have more congestion in my nose. 

It feels like my body is playing Whack-a-Mole with COVID. COVID tries to make a symptom happen and my body gets rid of that only to have COVID come up with a new and different symptom. 

N and M both woke up today saying they feel a little "not right." 

Of course, I'm assuming that D and I have COVID, but as contagious as it is, I'm pretty sure we do.

Now, we have only tested G for COVID because the kids were on NTI last week, D works from home, and at the cottage school, if someone in your house has COVID, you stay home whether you are sick or not so I taught virtually on Friday. 

This afternoon, all 5 of us are packing in the car and getting tested through the school district. I don't know if the district will go back to in-person class or not, but it seems likely that if they do, G will be the only one returning. 

Of course, I think I'm about over the pointlessness of testing for the following reasons:

1--If I test positive today, I have been feeling weird since Tuesday (with the eye) and then Friday with the uvula, which I assume to be COVID-related. But quarantine would begin as of today (or tomorrow if you're the school district; I have never understood why the day of the test doesn't count as a quarantine day). So do I go by test-date or symptom date? 

Even if the district says 10 days for quarantine, if I test negative before the 10 days, can I go like pick up shit from Home Depot? 

I am so the fuck tired of thinking about the logistics of all things COVID-related.

2--The test is only valuable right in that moment. I can test negative and then two hours later test positive. How is that in any way valuable, especially if I feel fine the entire time? N worked yesterday. She was three-times vaxxed and asymptomatic. If she tests positive but feels fine, does she stay home (while feeling well) and cause a massive headache for her already-understaffed job? Or does she go in when she feels fine but could possibly be positive (but where the fuck can you find COVID test in a timely manner so that she can know?) And she could test negative at 9:30 in the morning before work but become positive at 2:00 in the afternoon when she is still working but still not have symptoms. 

Have I mentioned I am so the fuck tired of thinking about the logistics of all things COVID-related? Particularly when large swaths of people have, as I've said, been doing whatever the hell they want since March 2020. 

3--We are a family of 5 which means if I wanted to test everyday to check our positivity, I would need to buy 3 packages of tests for a total of $75 PER FUCKING DAY. And even if insurance pays for them, it covers 8 tests per person per month. And it seems kind of pointless since we're knee deep in Omicron right this second. And also, where the fuck does one find 3 boxes of COVID rapid tests? Last time I bought one, they limited purchases to 1 box which will test 2 people in my family. 

I'm tired of thinking about COVID and writing about COVID and worrying about COVID and have every decision become a fiasco as a result of COVID. 

A successful trip to the Gorge (unlike the one when I was a kid)

Lots of people have visited Red River Gorge (RRG). 

My parents attempted to take me, my brother, my cousin, my grandma, and my aunt many years ago when my brother and I were kids. 

We never made it.

Well, I guess technically we did make it because we drove around in the rain and fog on winding roads in the area that is called the Red River Gorge Geological Area.  

But we never saw an arch, a trail, a cave, a waterfall, or a big giant hole in the ground because my brother puked in the car (from said winding roads), and we all practically sat on my grandma's lap to avoid the puddle of stomach bile on the floor. 

That trip sucked, but boy-howdy was it memorable. 

When I started planning for a summer trip this year, I knew I didn't have the mental bandwidth to plan an out-of-state trip. Our governor has been very cautious about COVID, and some other governors acted like there hasn't been a pandemic going on for over a year, so I just didn't feel comfortable heading into some of the more bat-shit states. Plus, with my dad's health issues over the last 10 months, I didn't know what would be going on with him. I didn't want to be 10 hours away from home. 

Plus, we had a good time last year checking out several places in Kentucky that had been on my to-be-visited list: Cumberland Falls and Land Between the Lakes. 

I tend to not like to revisit the same places repeatedly, and RRG was someplace the kids had never been. I think maybe D and I had gone there while dating but that is seriously ancient history. And my childhood trip was a non-event. 

So we rented a house and took my parents, my MIL, my niece, and our crew and drove down. 

I think every family has a story or tradition of something they do or something one member does that everyone pokes fun of.

In my family of origin, it is my dad's notorious frugality. Now, I'm all about frugality, but I learned from my dad that paying for a halfway decent hotel or rental home is a very good idea. I'm not at all a big spender, but when you pay cheap, you often get cheap. 

In 1998, when D and I went to Las Vegas with my parents after we married, we stayed at what looked like a bordello. We could see the Bellagio, which was brand new, out our window. We looked longingly at the bells and whistles and newness of that hotel. 

In 1999, my brother, future SIL, our parents, and D and I went to Virginia Beach. My parents got the hotel. The pool didn't work at all and the hotel rooms smelled like someone sat in them each day smoking 3 packs of cigarettes. My parents STILL have not lived that hotel down. 

After that, my SIL and I have never allowed my parents to select the hotel or rental. 

In the family D and I have created, their story about us is that we pick the most remote, out of the way places to stay. Nearly every human who visits the Rocky Mountains stays in Estes Park. This was enough reason for me to rent a home clear on the other side of the Rockies. That side was just perfect for people like us who hate crowds and traffic. 

When we arrived at our RRG cabin, N (who drove with my MIL) commented on how we had to turn around 3 times because the roads didn't have roads signs so we weren't sure where we were going. She said, "This is so typical of them, picking the most isolated spot in the world." 

The weather was rainy quite a bit while we were there, but we still managed to find some dry(ish) times for quick hikes. Our hiking motto with G (who hates to hike) is also a perfect hiking motto when a 78-year-old who has had 4 surgeries in the last year is going too: easy and not long. 

I knew my dad was a tough old bird before this trip. He's had his colon removed, open-heart surgery, and the many surgeries with his cancer diagnosis from the last year. But I guess this RRG trip really brought it home to me when he hiked up the original Natural Bridge trail. It took him awhile and he had to stop to rest many times, but he made it up and back. He is not invincible, but he is the epitome of "As long as I can try, that's what I'm going to do." 

Four days away is about all we can handle with the kids being eager to return to our house and their friends and their devices. And truly, four days is all I can handle of coercing and listening them ask when they can return home. 

But those four days were pretty darn good.

Sky lift going up to Natural Bridge

Getting ready to walk through Fat Man's Misery. 

             

Angel Windows at RRG

Natural Bridge in background

Big honking native umbrella magnolias

The whole gang at Miguel's Pizza

The kid line up

There are few things I'm traditional about. 

Mostly what I've watched my family do is modify traditions through time. Things simply change, and the harder a person fights to keep things exactly the same (tradition), the worse it is. 

I think I learned from my mom that it makes more sense to adapt than to fight and then be angry that things haven't stayed the same. She was an adapter; she watched too many people in her family be unhappy trying to keep things the way they had always been.

I was never big on dressing my kids up cute for holidays. They mostly didn't cooperate, and I'm not a dresser-upper for holidays so eventually I moved on. I guess my tradition when it comes to dressing my family for holidays is seeing how much like hobos everyone looks. 

But there is a tradition that my side of the family has done since our kids and my brother/SIL's kids were young:

THE LINE-UP

At first, it was easier to lie them all down than to try to stand them up and keep them in order. 

It got a little easier, but the two youngest didn't get it, and the middle boys were (and still are) complete doofuses.

N took a lot of pride for being the tallest....

but her one year-younger cousin eventually took the title of tallest grandkid (which he currently still holds)

And then the next cousin took her spot in the height of grandkids line-up.

AND, unfortunately, now her younger brother has taken her spot:

To make her feel better, we did a LINE-UP by age, and she was queen again:

Sad to see the pandemic go

Let me qualify that title a bit.

I don't think COVID is done with us even though people are continuing to get vaccinated. I would not be a bit surprised to see rates climb again after March and April spring breaks. 

I've read too many dystopian apocalyptic books to think things are just going to go totally swell (cause 526,000 deaths is not swell). And I've read enough Buddhism books to know it is all hopeless/emptiness, and I can't control it anyway. 

But I am sensing an "end-to-this" feel, and it makes me a little sad. 

Maybe it is just the spring weather?

I won't be sad to see sickness and dying go away.

But it saddens me to think that everyone is going to pick right back up exactly where they left off a year ago, perhaps none the wiser, perhaps having learned nothing or thought nothing about what was better about life in the pandemic.

As the months wore on, I heard people lament their kids being home, things not being normal, and I wanted to shake them and say:

In one year (or 10 years) you are going to be wailing about how your "baby" is going away to college. You have been given the gift of time seeing your child in ways you never would have had if the pandemic hadn't happened. You got a bonus. 

Our family has long been on the slow boat. That is always how D has rolled, and I have gotten more comfortable on the ride over the years. Our kids generally like being home and not doing much. Our lives in many ways didn't change much due to quarantines and the pandemic, but it changed enough that it was a gift. 

We took hikes last spring before N got a job. 

We always ate most dinners together, but now we were eating all meals like we would if we were on a vacation. 

D and I take walks together every single day, and sometimes twice a day. 

It wasn't all bad. 

And so now to think about going back to "normal" makes me cringe because...

I didn't miss the early mornings and the travel time.

I didn't miss the hours away from home and the homework when the kids got home.

I didn't miss being in my car and driving so much. 

I didn't miss the school functions and the paperwork that came home. 

I didn't miss the guilt that sometimes came with not attending school functions. 

I didn't miss the uniforms and the lunches.

I didn't miss the meetings.

I didn't miss the go, and the go, and the go. 

I didn't miss the small talk with people I barely know.

I didn't miss the being friendly when I didn't feel like being friendly. 

Once you become used to more stillness, the idea of returning to the buzz of sound and motion just feels like too much. 

The cancer has returned

Dad has a new and seemingly fast-growing tumor very close to where his first tumor was. He will have another surgery in 2 weeks. 

At this point, none of us knows what else this entails. 

Will there be more chemo and radiation? We don't know.

Since the cancer came back so quickly, are there trials for immunotherapy that he could do? We don't know.

Has the cancer spread beyond just that tumor? We don't know.

When dad went through his first surgery in the late summer/early fall, I did two things.

First, I tried to find humor in suffering because there is humor to be found if only if that humor is absolute absurdity. 

Dad's incision cut through the entire right side of his face so when I would call to check up on him I'd ask how Blackbeard was doing. Dad could have easily been a stand-in for one of the pirates on the Jack Sparrow franchise. 

He'd had to have his top teeth removed for radiation so I got him a pair of wind-up teeth for Christmas. 

The second thing I did was I worried and stewed. 

While my antidepressant helps me from completing stopping eating when I am worried, I had little appetite or desire to eat. I fretted about whether the first PET scan would find cancer riddling his body, making further treatments pointless. 

I felt such relief when he showed no cancer beyond that one spot on his face. 

And now I recognize that me worrying or stewing made not one iota's difference. (Rationally, I know worrying never makes any difference.)

I can actuate zero change in any of this. 

For the moment, I'm finding myself feeling very "whatever" about the entire thing. And by "whatever" I don't mean that I don't care; I mean that me fretting or worrying will change absolutely nothing. 

I simply feel sad. It devastates me to know my dad is suffering. 

I also feel angry at my utter lack of control, at the unfairness for my dad and for thousands and millions of people who are facing such things. I am angry for the Rwandans who faced genocide and the Jews who were forced into camps and the Native Americans who were viciously slaughtered without any "control" over any of it. 

I am angry at the human condition. And while some might say this is anger at God, I don't believe in sugar-daddy God who I can turn to for miracles. I don't believe that God makes things happen or that God's ways are beyond our understanding. 

If I subscribe to that belief, I am forced to believe that this God is also sadistic. 

For my own sanity, it is better for me to believe that nature is cyclical and sometimes there is no reason beyond the simple fact that everything dies. It is here that I have to chuck Christian God out the window and adopt Buddhist impermanence.

(And here is where I can make a shitty joke that God did "open a window," through which I tossed him to make way for Buddhist thought.)

However, I do find myself angry at all the people who might think or say stupid things like "Things happen for a reason" and "Pain has a purpose" and "God never gives you more than you can handle."

Because these are unmitigated lies. 

Life regularly gives people more pain than they can handle; they survive because their only other option is to commit suicide.

It is beyond stupid to be angry at the mindset of other people because I know people adopt whatever mindset they need to help them cope just as I am adopting mindsets right now to help me cope. 

I am angry at my uselessness to effect anything that will make this go away. It is easier to put a name to my blame. 

So when I am able I am reminding myself to simply sit with my anger and my sadness and feel them in all their misery. 

On the banana peel / How God is like the Trump Administration

My dad is 78 years old, and my mom is 82. The average life expectancy in the US is 78.87 years (2019).

As my mom said the other day, she's got "one foot on the banana peel."

At this point, with dad having cancer surgery, chemo/radiation, and as of yesterday, emergency surgery for a twisted bowel obstruction, he's got one foot on the peel and is doing a little jig. 

It has made me aware of how I hear of other people going through "hard stuff" and think to myself, "How do they manage that?"

The answer is complex:

1. You go through what you have to because what choice do you have?

2. I think a lot of the time you aren't aware you're going through it until it is done. (Except me, who recognizes we're going through a hot mess at the moment.)

The other night, when mom and dad were in the ER, and we didn't yet know what the diagnosis was, I laid in bed and had angry conversations with God.

Well, not really with God.

God is not my sugar daddy. I don't plead for stuff. I don't wish for things. For my own sanity, I cannot have an anthropomorphized God in my life because he/she/it makes me furious. 

My anger at that instant was directed at people who do the whole "God is good" song and dance when they get the answer they want (no cancer or whatever). But they don't do the "God is an asshole" thing when the answer is not what they want. Then they do the "God's got this" thing.

I'm not poking fun of them because if this gets them through the muck, then have at it. 

But it doesn't get ME through the muck. It just makes me think that God is like the Trump Administration--taking ALL the credit for the good stuff and none of the blame for the bad stuff. 

After lying in bed for several hours, I finally decided that for my own mental health I had to look at Dad's situation as just nature happening. His aging body doing what aging bodies do. Nature is not good nor bad; it simply is, and it does what it does. It is much more calming for me to think this way about my family's shared existence at this time. 

Of course, while all this is going on, I've been interviewing people who have been throwing around preachy moralizing at me, and it is aggravating as hell. 

I'm the doubting Thomas who never gets to put his hand in Jesus' side. I'm the Paul who doesn't have the conversion. And I'm the Carrie who resents other people throwing their "God is good" and "God's got this" into my face even though I know they have good intentions. 

The road to hell is paved with those.

Captain's log: It's all meh

 It's day "Who Knows" here on the ship.

I'd like to tell the world and Mother Nature that me dealing with perimenopause is a TERRIBLE time to also have a worldwide pandemic meaning I have zero time alone in my house. 

Someone is always around...even if they aren't bothersome. And sometimes just being not bothersome but around is really, really annoying. 

Also sometimes the pre-teen comes upstairs near my former-dining-room-now-office with his headset on yapping at his friend, and it is all I can do not to strangle him because of all the dumb that is seeping out of his mouth and into the air. 

The kids are doing ok with online school. They like sleeping in. They like not being in a school building for 7+ hours. 

I'm ok with online school because it is giving some structure to their days. 

We're not setting the world on fire with genius over here, but we weren't before the pandemic either. 

I have actually been subbing 3 days a week for the past 3 weeks, which is ok. (Although I will not be sad when it is over because, whether it is online or not, it is still subbing. I don't do it for the joy; I do it for the regular paycheck.)

My left eye is red today which may be due to getting a flu shot yesterday, or it may be due to not sleeping well on Sunday night. Sometimes that happens, and it is annoying.

My dermatologist had to cut a spot off the back of my leg. She asked me if that was ok. I told I didn't want it to begin with and she could have it. 

My dad had a big ole cancerous spot cut out of his face last week and has been doing his best impression of an extra on The Pirates of the Caribbean movie (in terms of big slashy scars on the face). While the cancer hasn't spread to lymph nodes or beyond, his doctors want him to do chemo in addition to radiation. While we are happy it hasn't spread and things could be worse, the word chemo just feels heavy even if it is preventative. 

G becomes an actual full-fledged teenager in days, and he is all kinds of almost the same size as me. He is wearing a size 9 wide men's shoe now, which is trippy as heck. 

And N is talking playing field hockey in college which is only like minutes away.

Someone from a recruiting outfit called me and didn't seem to understand that "I don't like sports and haven't videotaped my kid play because that would interfere with the READING I do at her games." 

Yes, I totally said this to him. I'm pretty sure no one has ever said this to him based on his response.

I have a dentist appointment this week.

So life is not bad by a long shot but it feels so, so meh. 

Adjustment to online school during COVID (and what school is and isn't)

Before the district made the decision to go to full online school, I had asked N how she felt about the possibility of going to school in-person.

As the oldest and most social of my children, I felt like she would be the one most impacted by being at home. 

Her response surprised me.

She said she didn't trust fellow students to make smart choices for themselves and others and that going to school in person would cause her anxiety.

I had determined that if the district went back in person I was going to have my kids do online work and resign as a sub. 

Things for these first days have been somewhere between alright and crappy, depending on the moment, which I think sums up the entirety of 2020. 

It's not fantastic; it's not knocking anyone's socks off, but we're hanging in. 

If nothing else, the kids have a routine again.

And there ARE positives to this online school thing, such as not having middle and high school students wake up at 5:30 in the morning in order to be at school by 7:20. 

I'm enjoying not driving all over creation all the time.

I'm glad my kids are not having to do the reams of waiting that is just part of in-school school. Waiting in the gym before they can go to their classes in the morning. Waiting for announcements to begin. Waiting to line up and then waiting in line for the doofuses to get in line or stop talking. Waiting in line at the bathroom. Waiting in line in the cafeteria. Waiting at the end of the day after they've gotten their stuff ready. (I don't think most parents have any clue how much time in school is spent not doing "learning" as they envision it.)

And that's not all the waiting. There is also the waiting that kids do whether they pick up things quickly, in which case they finish up and are told to "read to themselves" which is also known as "waiting." The kids who don't pick up things quickly have to wait for the teacher to move on from another student that needs individual attention.

I'm not saying this to suggest in-school school is bad. What I'm saying is in-school school is imperfect. And just like when someone is deceased (which in a way is what COVID has done to in-person school), many people are making in-person school out to be the GOAT. We've now endowed sainthood on something that really didn't deserve it; we only act this way because we don't have it now. 

I have modified some of my expectations about things I want my kids to know and do mostly because I'm becoming very good at asking the question, "WHO DECIDED?"

Like "Who decided that it is the failing of civilization if kids don't learn cursive, and why am I allowing myself to think this is the case?"

So I'm having the boys practice their full legal names because, really, this is all they will ever need to sign in most cases. 

And if they decide to become scholars of primary source material they will be motivated on their own to figure it out. 

I think COVID can be an opportunity to parents, students, and really, anyone, to have the opportunity to ask "Who decided?" about a lot of things.

Parenting advice in a pandemic as it concerns school and normalcy

I hesitate to advise other parents what to do because as a mom of 3, I am winging it just like everyone else.

However, I keep seeing a totally understandable yet problematic thing that parents keep saying socially that has to be seeping to their kids, even if they aren't directly saying it to their kids' faces.

Things like...

"I hate this for you that school won't be..."
"I wish you could have your regular...."
"Maybe you'll be able to have your prom, graduation, whatever like normal..."

(Some parents have even held "small" proms that the local newspaper published pictures of, which just looks like a petri dish of COVID and helps ensure that we won't be able to go back to normal because they keep trying to make life normal now.)

Again, I get it.
As much as I complained about substitute teaching, I would give up my foot to make COVID disappear and go back to life pre-COVID.
I would take an unruly class over this uncertainty and fumbling about trying to create a "new world."
I don't relish the idea of doing virtual learning for my kids.

COVID has cost me income (of my 4 part-time jobs, I am currently doing 1, and I'm thankful as hell for it.)
COVID has impacted my mental health.
And I'm freaking privileged and can put food on the table and pay my mortgage because D still has his job.

But pining for the way things used to be right now is an effort in futility.
Wishing things could go back is not helping your kids adapt.
Promising to give them pre-COVID experiences to assuage their loss (and YOUR loss) is not helping either of you.

As Elsa says, LET IT FUCKING GO.
(Ok, that is the non-Disney version of Elsa.)

I only play a therapist on tv, but what I have been trying to tell myself is that we will adapt.
We'll adjust to whatever.
School may look different, but my kids will get used to it.
We will find that there are benefits to the new way of doing things that we wouldn't have had the opportunity to discover had we not gone through what is unarguably a suck-ass experience.

My hope is that my forcing myself to let whatever "normal" was and looked like go is going to help both me and my kids move forward.

Because wallowing in what was and what we'd like to be is pointless.

The close-to-home vacation during COVID

We had originally, back in December, hoped to go to Yellowstone and Grand Tetons in 2020.
However, we had been hemorrhaging money in 2019 so decided a big trip was irresponsible.

In January of this year, I booked 4 nights at Land Between the Lakes in western Kentucky at a private home for June.

When COVID came along, we didn't know what we were going to do.
Eventually, we decided that since it was in-state, we wouldn't be violating any executive orders.
We also determined that even if we sat inside that house doing exactly what we'd been doing inside our house, it was, at least, a change of scenery.

We had planned to take my MIL, my niece, and my parents, but in March, April, and even May, we didn't know if that would happen.
Heck, to be honest, we didn't know how things would shake out for certain until we were on the road.

Ultimately, we told them that the five of us were going, and we left it up to them whether they felt comfortable going with us.

Our trip was nice.
We took our own food and never ventured to a restaurant even for curbside pickup.
I stopped in a small corner store for Hershey chocolate bars (for s'mores) and wore a mask.
I used my gas-pumping gloves the one time we stopped for gas.
We wore masks when we went into LBL buildings/nature stations and kept our distance from others.
We spent most of our time at the house, swimming, fishing, kayaking, or eating.

Was it the most stellar, scenic, mind-blowing trip?
No.
Was it simple and relaxing and based on realistic expectations?
Yes.
And in a year like this one, that is downright delightful.

My thoughts on COVID have changed in some ways since March.
What hasn't changed is my feeling that it is serious, warrants life changes, and requires vigilance.
What has changed is my feeling that being careful cannot equate putting life entirely on hold.
If my parents, or kids, or I end up getting COVID, I will be glad to have had special memories of time spent together.

Fishing with Pa

 Masks were at the ready before we walked inside. 

How childhood returns when the old folks pass

My uncle died last week; he was 94.
He had been wanting to die for a year since his common-law wife died in February 2019; he was simply undone by regret and grief.
With a long life behind him and a desire to die, I cannot possibly be sad for my uncle.

What I have felt is a profound remembrance of my childhood of which my uncle played a strange part.

Both my mother and father came from large Catholic families.
My mother was the youngest of six children; my father was the second youngest of seven children.
Both my mother and father were older parents; my mom was 35 and my dad was 31 when I was born.
This means that most of the cousins whom I remember as a child, the ones I played with, were actually the grandchildren of my aunts and uncles.

My uncle who passed was divorced from the mother of his children and lived with my grandma when I was a kid.
What this meant is that every visit, every week, to grandma's house was also a visit to Uncle Ed.

I remember the shed behind the house that we weren't supposed to go into but that held a magical allure for us because Uncle Ed kept his gardening stuff there (and maybe dangerous stuff, or at least that is what we surmised.)
I remember watching my dad and Ed work in the garden together.

While they worked, my brother and I regularly jumped in the compost bin that was behind the garden, right by the fence that demarcated grandma's property from the drive-in where my dad had worked as a teenager.

I remember thinking my Uncle Ed was old then.
He was in his 50s, I guess, but he had lost his hair, and he just kind of always had a grumpy personality.
(Although given what his childhood home had been like, I suppose that isn't so unexpected.)

He drank Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and would give me and my brother sips of the last dregs of it, which was always a thrill when we were kids.
(Now, in the midst of a pandemic and given my germaphobe OCD, the idea of drinking my uncle's backwash is almost more than I can stand.)

I remember not fully understanding the situation between Uncle Ed and Aunt Louise when I was a kid. (Aunt Louise the girlfriend and eventual common-law wife, not Aunt Louise the sister of Uncle Ed who was my actual by-blood aunt.)
But I didn't spend a whole lot of time wondering about it.
She was just always there if there was any kind of family gathering or fried chicken dinner.

(Of course, I didn't fully understand that Ed's ex-wife lived one house away from my grandma. I remember being a little confused because in my head, I always thought of Aunt Louise as his wife.)

Next to my grandma's house was a run-down shack in the midst of overgrown weeds and grass that we were not allowed to enter.
One time, Uncle Ed put a sheet on and ran out of it to try to scare us kids.

My dad and uncle owned rental property when I was a kid, so we often saw my uncle when my dad cut grass at the apartment.
It wasn't uncommon for them to work on a project together.
Uncle Ed helped my parents finish the basement in my childhood home.
They bought a home together to rent that had at least seven layers of wallpaper on the walls.
I can still smell the heady mix of vinegar and adhesive when we went there to attempt to scrape it all away.

I don't know that I thought much about how he and my dad were brothers, despite a 17-year age difference, but I can still hear him say my dad's name.
Usually, it seemed like he was saying, "Now Donnie," as the preface of something my dad was doing in a way that Ed didn't agree with.

When I was older, in college, my parents would take me to eat at a VFW Post, where we would often eat dinner with Uncle Ed and Aunt Louise.
I spent many a Friday night in their company during college.

I can't think back on my childhood without Uncle Ed feeling like a pretty significant part of it.
And that doesn't sadden me as much as make me realize how much further it is in my past than what I'm usually aware of.
It is like a time period stays the same in my memory until someone from that time period dies, and then that time period somehow destabilizes.
The memory is still there, but slightly more fuzzy, the edges a little blurrier.

Family milestones (change that sneaks up on your ass)

Various situations of late have helped me recognize that our family is changing.

Now, on the one hand, this is absolutely plain to even the most obtuse person.
Every year we celebrate birthdays, and time moving on means change.
As Billie Eilish would say, "duh."

But it is different from that.
It is that the changes within my kids are impacting the family dynamic.
This has happened before, but it is more appreciably noticeable now.

Much of it I recognized on vacation.
Like N losing her mind because the cell signal was so bad that she couldn't Facetime her boyfriend on the beach when we first arrived.

N losing her mind, in general, is not something she does often.
Sure, she was tired of being in the car for two days with her brothers.
But it was crankiness coupled with boyfriend angst and technology and knowing that she was going to be away from her life for two whole weeks.

I mean, just boyfriend angst alone is a relatively new situation that has pushed me (and the family) into all-new "WTF" territory.

And then there was G who has always loved the beach.
Loved the waves.
Loved the sand.
He's almost 12, and evidently, those days are over.
He even complained about being away from friends for two weeks.

The kids are simply getting to an age where the things that keep them sufficiently occupied for extended periods of time years ago no longer do the trick.
I myself do not wish to sit and play in the sand for hours every day on the beach.
That is a very childlike thing to do.
Adulting, in many cases, means it takes a lot more to keep you entertained.

I've noticed that they are all starting to like more adult things, like Stranger Things, which isn't a "little kid" show at all.
And adult music.

Yesterday, M got braces, which N also had when she was around 9 or 10 due to a lovely familial underbite issue.

When I took both boys for an orthodontic check in early June, M going into braces was not even remotely on my radar.
And now it is not only on my radar but installed and paid for.

This photo just screams, "BABYFACE. I AM STILL YOUR BABY, MOM!"

One hour later

This photo screams: I AM NOW A TEENAGER. OFF TO COLLEGE SOON, MOM.

And don't get me wrong: I'm not sad that my kids are growing up. 

I'm not sad that they can fix their own lunches and stay at home while I run errands.

I'm not sad that they no longer through tantrums because I gave them a red instead of a green sippy cup.

If there is anything I'd hate about being a Duggar-style family, it is being stuck in what feels like a baby/infant/toddler/preschooler cycle for freakin' ever. 

What we're having to do as a family, though, is submit to the changes that are happening and accept their realities. 

Like, in a couple years, we likely won't have family vacations as we have always known them.

We may not even have "vacations" since they may be glorified college exploration trips. 

Once G is off at college and M is home at high school, we may reconsider our "absolutely no friends on vacations" rule. 

Always having had an older sibling around may make M want/need a buddy to hang out with. 

Our family has always been in a state of flux, but the flux is more apparent now.

Mortality reckoning

Mortality hit me in the face yesterday.

Not my own mortality, of course.

I'm not writing this while deceased.

Since the end of February, my family has dealt with...

• the death of my uncle's longtime partner.
• my dad's open heart surgery, pacemaker implantation, and soon-to-follow defibrillator implantation in July. 
• my mom's breast cancer diagnosis and surgery (and to-be-determined treatment plan).
• my nephew's surgery for pectus excavatum.

Up until yesterday, I had emotionally handled all this stress just fine until my dad texted me that my aunt (his sister) had only hours to live.

We knew that hospice was being called in, but we had been told on Saturday that it would be weeks.

By Sunday morning, it was hours.

She passed away in the wee hours of this morning.

My parents, my brother and I went to the hospital yesterday morning to see her a final time.

And my sadness wasn't for my aunt.

She was 86 years old and had a good run.

She had been in declining health for at least six months (as had my uncle's partner, who I considered an aunt).

But what hit me, and still hits me now, is the reality that I am having to deal with all of these "grown-up" issues.

Because inside, I don't feel my age. 

I am still the young child Carrie.

I am not the 45-year-old Carrie with parents in their late 70s and early 80s who are beginning to have health considerations. 

Watching my aunts pass away, women I saw fairly frequently during my childhood, means watching that childhood slip away. 

It is fast becoming, truly, a thing of the past. 

A piece of history.

Seeing my cousins come unglued at the hospital weakened my resolve and sucked any reserves and composure I had felt all these months.

When my brother and I left the hospital, I started talking in the elevator and just couldn't hold back tears.

They were, of course, tears of sadness for my cousins and for my dad and uncle.

But they were also my fears coming out, knowing that my brother and I will be in the midst of actively dealing with this situation in the coming years.

Aren't we just kids, me and K?

How is it possible that we are grown?

Because what's the point of worrying (said my medication)

If ever I've recognized that my antidepressant medication is working it is the last four months.

Dad had his open heart surgery in February and while I was concerned, I felt like things would work out ok.
I felt this way even when Mom called me back to the hospital because they took Dad back into surgery to ensure he wasn't bleeding.
They were being precautious, not necessarily indicating that something was definitely wrong.
It was better to do this before his breathing tube had been removed.

If ever I've realized my meds work is when Mom told me a few weeks ago that her biopsy came back showing breast cancer.
Unlike the first time, 22 years ago, I didn't go into shock.
I didn't put a hold on my life and plans (which is what I did when D and I were engaged).
At that time, I stopped wedding planning.
I stopped talking about the wedding.
I had to compartmentalize my life because there was no going forward until I knew what was up with Mom.

My ability to just keep swimming probably has a lot to do with being a parent now, too.
(Although I think the medication is the bigger part of it.)
Life just doesn't stop for me because I have three other people whose lives don't just stop.
Since I am the coordinator of and driver for those three lives, I don't get to hole up and die.

Our family has one more major surgery coming in June--my nephew has pectus excavatum and will undergo surgery, a hospital stay, and a pretty significant recovery period.

I am hoping that this completes the cycle of "Stressful/Bad Things Come in Threes."

During all this stuff with my parents, I have been pretty open on social media as a way to keep our family and their friends informed.

These postings present me with a mixed bag of feelings primarily because, thus far, I've had good news to report.
While I know people want to know, and it is easier for me to communicate via social media, I feel a bit of "survivor's guilt."
Dad came through surgery well and has done a bang-up job in recovery.
Mom's node is benign so we expect her treatment beyond surgery should be minimal. (Possibly even just medication.)

Posting something socially as a way to keep folks informed makes me think about the people I know who have had to report unpleasant, scary, and downright sad things about their family members.
I know my thoughts of them are cold comfort.
I don't feel pity, but I wish they hadn't gone through pain.
Of course, we all go through pain.
It is the timing and the specifics of that pain that differs from person to person.

I don't and won't say things like "Praise God" or anything of the sort in relation to my mom's or dad's surgeries.
Or my nephew's.
I have asked people at church to keep them on the prayer list (because I do believe, if nothing else, prayer allows for a sense of community and a show of support).
I'm also "out-there" enough to believe that the energy of combined prayer can have mystical effects.

However, social media easy communication makes me think overthink about what I write when I post.

For example, I have always, always felt horribly uncomfortable with the notion of praising God when news is good.
I don't do it.
I feel uncomfortable when I see other people do it.

Because if I heap the praise on God when all goes well, what do I do when news is bad?
Praise God that this whole mess sucks ass?
Because if we're honest, I'm not loving having both parents deal with such MAJOR stuff within 3 months.

How do I praise God that my dad survived open heart surgery when someone else's dad doesn't?
That my mom's cancer hasn't metastasized when someone else's mother's cancer has?

(I realize faith and logic are not the same things.)
(But I am a logical person, so faith does not come easily for me.)
(I'm not even sure where the idea of fairness is supposed to come into this dilemma.)

Which goes back to my medication, which has allowed my anxious mind to quiet, to find peace.
And that wasn't nebulous floating God from the heavens sending a nebulous floating cloud of don't worry down to me.
That was God in the form of other human beings helping me.
Because praying to nebulous floating God didn't work for me, even though I tried and tried to make it work that way.
For years.
If I believe that each person is uniquely different, then I believe that God reaches us in uniquely different ways, with uniquely different methods and timeframes.
Your way is not my way.
My way is not your way.
Each of our ways is right.for.us.

I just now found this quote from comedian Peter Holmes who used to be an evangelical, and I find this resonates with me. I don't think God is Santa Claus or a Fairy Godmother. He's not going to grant my wishes.

I see God is as awareness. And it's something that we're not equal to, but that we're participating with. And the best chance we have at experiencing it and feeling it is not just having an ecstatic experience. It's finding your dignified, inherent place in its flow, through using myth, metaphor, ritual, chanting, meditation.. We're trying to wake up not just to a new set of beliefs, but to our place in the river. And there's all this resistance. And that's all ego stuff. And there's all these, all these, like, you know, headaches and whatever. And when we're quiet, and when we quiet that stuff down, and we can feel and identify with our piece of "divine awareness" then that's when you'll kind of find your flow.

One reason why I love my dad

My dad and I are as bull-headed as two people come, which is why we butted heads A LOT when I was growing up.

Dad likes things Dad's way, and I like things my way. 

It took me until I was 30+ years old and a mom before I finally felt like I understood my dad as a human being and as a dad. He's a reserved guy, so he doesn't share his deepest darkest fears or dreams.

He's in the hospital now, having had open heart surgery yesterday.

Last summer, his doctor asked him if he'd ever told dad that he had a heart murmur. Dad said no. 

Dad was sent to a cardiologist and after six months and many tests, the doctor determined that dad had a pretty severe leaky aortic valve. Up until December, Dad never had any symptoms.

Even after he developed symptoms, he and mom still walked every day at the mall, taking 3 laps around. Prior to this, Dad walked and went to the gym nearly every day. He also gardens and plays golf in good weather. Dad is not a sit-on-his-duff kind of guy. His doctor said had he been that way, he likely would have had to have this procedure done 10 years ago.

When he had all the pre-tests done, including checking his carotid arteries, the technician said if he was her dad, she'd have nothing to worry about. 

For being 76 years old, dad is in pretty fine shape. 

Yesterday was rough, as is any open heart surgery. 

He had 3 bypasses that the surgeon took care of, even though they were minor (50% blockage). The doctor figured if he was in there anyway and could treat them, he might as well. 

The surgeon also discovered that dad's tricuspid valve was leaking, so he repaired that. 

(Apparently, this happened as a result of the heart having to work harder because of the aortic valve issue.)

Of course, this was rough for dad since he was going through it, but he was being pumped with all sorts of sedating drugs.

My mother was not, and she is so adept at worrying she could win a gold medal if worrying was an Olympic event.

Dad was taken back into surgery last night as a precautionary measure to see if all the blood draining from his three chest tubes was an active bleed. Fortunately, it was not.

D has been up at the hospital with my mom. 

He said they gave dad a breathing apparatus to use to improve his lung function and keep goop from building up. 

The doctor told dad he'd be lucky to get to 500 today.

Dad started breathing and when D asked what he got to, Dad raised his hand up: 5 fingers. 

Don't ever tell dad he probably won't be able to do something because he will then take absolute delight in proving you wrong. 

It got him through two knee replacement surgeries. Six weeks after one of them he was hiking with the family at Empire Bluff Trail in Michigan. 

It got him through back surgery when I was a kid.

It got him through melanoma surgery when I was pregnant with G.

It got him through 20 years of ulcerative colitis and then the removal of his colon when I was newly pregnant with M. 

This determination and pig-headedness are attributes of my dad that have always driven me crazy when they interfered with my own determination and pig-headedness, but when it comes to recovering from surgery and not giving up when you can still fight, I'm so appreciative for it.  

Papaw's house (how we left it, and how it looks now)

Yesterday I saw my cousin's post on FB about Papaw's house, which my MIL and her brother sold in the spring.

Papaw had lived in it for something like 50 years, and to say it was dated is an understatement. But it was Papaw's house and we loved it, even if the carpet contained 80% of the dust on the planet and there were grease stains in every corner of the kitchen.

G requested that my MIL take photos of the rooms before it sold so we could remember it forever, and while I often roll my eyes at his insistence on documenting everything including the most mundane, I am glad now that we have photos of what it looked like just 6 months ago.

My cousin's post showed the house after renovations. It is now on the market, and it looks amazing! I almost can't believe it is the same house.

I showed the kids, and even G, who wants things to stay exactly the way they are until the end of time, was happily surprised by how wonderful it looks.

As we come up on the one year anniversary of Papaw's death, I have been thinking about him a lot and feeling a little down, but seeing these photos made me smile and feel excited. I even asked D if we could sell our house and buy Papaw's, but we'd be losing many square inches of sanity space.

Life is all about loss and rebirth, and Papaw's house is a good example of how life carries on.

This is Papaw's living room and eating area as we left it. 

This is how it looks after renovations and staged for sale.

This is Papaw's bathroom as we left it.

And after renovations.

Papaw's attic BEFORE.

Papaw's attic NOW

Papaw had a sunporch right outside the eating area.

Now it is an all-season sunroom with a pass-through to the kitchen area. 

Papaw's kitchen

The new and improved kitchen 

(you can see the pass-through in this top photo to the sunroom).