Choices

Me circa 1974

I was "talking"with (Facebook Messengering) an old friend the other day.  She knew me when this picture was taken in the fall of 6th grade.

This friend and I were best friends.

We hung out together most of our free time.  We would sit in her parents' cars and imagine ourselves all grown up and gorgeous solving mysteries and dating all the hot guys. (Of course we changed our names because, duh, ours were BORING!!)   We would go to the Surf Club (tennis and swim club) and complain when it was Adult Swim and they made us leave the pool. We ate frozen Snickers bar and dreamt out loud about the future.  We would sneak around during our parents' parties and grab the "good" snacks.  We had sleepovers.  We must have had a gazillion sleepovers.  We tortured her sisters or my brothers depending on our location.  We'd giggle on the phone even though we only lived a block apart.  We played on the old swing set in her backyard even though we were much too grown up for that sort of thing.

Then, tragedy! (Scary music in the background)

We were torn away from one another when her father got a job in Germany.  My friend spent her high school years in Europe. I missed her greatly when I wasn't being all envious about the living in Europe thing. (Sue me.  I'm human.  I wanted to live in Europe too.)

My friend came back to the United States after 4 years, attended and  graduated from University of Michigan, met a guy and got married in my dream wedding church (Ha! Like I owned it.  I did not think often of getting married in junior/senior high but if I was to get married it was going to be in that church!), settled down near the area where we used to live, and is now happily living there.

She lived my life.

Now wait a darn minute before you get all judgmental on me!! 

She lived my life the way I felt my life should have gone when I was 16.  The life I had planned out when I was 13 years old.

One of the terrible and wonderful things about getting old is looking back and second guessing life choices.

I am old.  

No really, I am Jurassic Period OLD.

Just ask my son, McArmy (who's all of 23).  He'll be delighted to explain how decrepit and wizened his mother is.  

He'll tell you what a miracle it is that I am capable of rational thought since I should be ravaged by Alzheimer's.

Yeah, he's a brat.  No doubt about that.

He gets that from his father's side of the family.

It is not the choices I have made that show up in my dreams.  

I own those choices.  They are made, it's the past, and for the most part I am good with them.

It's the choices that were taken away that haunt me.

I did not get the choice to live in Michigan after 16.  My parents made the decision to move us to Southern California.  It was the 1970's.  Parents did not consult their children when making these life changing choices.  

I am pretty sure they did not choose to move to squash my dreams and crush my future.

That's what happened. ;)  

But that probably was not their intention.

Because of money and location issues I never got to choose University of Michigan for my education.

I may have hated UM.  I might have flunked out there the same way I flunked out of UCSD.....

Nope.  I don't think so.

I would loved UM.  I adore that campus.

UM is what a university is supposed to be.  Brick buildings.  Sororities.   Football games.  Liberal arts majors.  It is gorgeous and everything I could have asked for in a college at 16 years old.

I'll never know for sure because I never got to make that choice.

I had to choose a university in California.  We moved when I was a junior in high school.   I knew nothing about schools in California except that is where UCLA and Berkeley were located.  Pfffftttttt to them.

When I took my SATs in 1979, I had to pick 3 schools where my scores would be sent.  I played ernie, meenie, miney, moe because I did not want to go to college in California.  I disliked California.

It was too sunny.  

There weren't enough trees.  

The people were too pretty and tan.  

Mostly I hated California because it wasn't Michigan.

Looking back, I can clearly see my attitude sucked.

I freely admit my attitude sucked.

I even admit that I spent years making my parents watch me be miserable.  I'd go cry in my closet because my dad would get furious at me for being so devastated (aka whiny, spoiled brat).

While I did not get to choose the university I wanted to attend more than anything, I did get to choose how I reacted.  I just wasn't wise enough to realize I was making that choice.

I threw a 2 year long temper tantrum without knowing I did not have to be so angry or so sad.

My parents tried to tell me that but I was determined not to listen to them after they imprisoned me is a state where Three's Company was situated. (Stupid show=stupid place.  Oh come on! I was 16!)

I ended up choosing a university based on distance from my parents (had to be far enough away so they could not just drop by.) and how close it was to the beach.

That is how I ended up at a university without a football team, without a Greek system, knowing no one so without a support system, that was constructed entirely of grey concrete, but damn, it was super close to the beach! (If you leaned out my dorm window just right you had an awesome view of the Pacific!)

On second though, maybe it is the choices I made that haunt me once in awhile.

How do you feel about the choices you have made and/or the choices you did not get to make??

What's The Point?

Today.

Today, it all seems pointless.

Being a nurse is not even close to what I expected.

Apparently I am not the nurse employers expect me to be.

So, seriously, doesn't that mean it's pointless?

Emotions

I have a bipolar relationship with fall.

It has always been my favorite time of year.

Fall is the beginning of the new year because it is when school starts.  Even though I am not in school right now, the school year schedule is the one I follow.

September through February 2 is also the time my youngest became ill, was in and out of Children's, came home to die, and then died.

While I adore fall for the weather, the trees, the concept of a new beginning, since 1995 this season also reminds me of that time.

Some years I am good.  Usually years I am gainfully employed and have less time for my brain to meander back to the awfulness that was Brennan's illness.

The hardest lesson I learned was I truly had no control.  As a mom, I was a natural control freak.

Brennan taught me the my first lesson is helplessness.

He did not intend to teach me that but having a child with a terminal illness is a major lesson in helplessness, futility, and the fact that I do cannot control what happens to my children.

I adore the changing colors.

I love the cooler temperatures.

I revel in the briskness in fall evenings.

I even welcome the return of the rain.

My memory/dreams this time of year can bring back the fear I felt 19 years ago.

I just spent 30 minutes crying after watching a documentary about a busy ER in Vancouver Canada where a boy died after a ski accident.  The social worker was tasked with finding the boy's identity and then notifying his mother.  WHAM!  Cue the sobs.

Cue the sadness.

I am a medi-geek.  I like to watch medical stuff on You Tube.  Mostly that does not not make me sad.

I love to watch surgical procedures and things like incision and drainage of abscesses.  I know GEEK!

I don't think there will ever be a time where the pain will be non-existent.  That's ok, mostly.

I have learned to live with that and it doesn't usually slow me down for long.

I think I will not skip the ER documentaries for awhile.

The sadness will be transitory.

But for now, I am sad.

I miss him.

.