"you must be so excited about school" or what I call the FREAK OUT
It's 3:30 a.m. My right hand and arm are tingling and keeping me up with tiny pricks of pain. It's been that way for weeks, after I immediately ruled out having a stroke and decided not to go to the doctor.
But now, at 3:31 a.m. I am realizing I really need my right hand to be good for Drawing 1 in 11 days, and I might just have to go to my doctor.
Laying in bed, I check my email on my phone with my numb hand and read a note from my drawing professor. Perfect timing. I scroll down the long syllabus in 3 point font on my phone and begin to wonder when mid-terms are since I have already booked a flight for mid-October for us to visit a school for Ben.
4:24 a.m. I lay in bed until the thought of coffee and the KVUE Daybreak morning show seem like a great diversion from the FREAKING OUT I am doing.
5:30 a.m. Steve is coming down the stairs and I have already planned our meal schedule, our car schedule and any other schedule I can think of for the school year.
"I guess Tuesday and Thursday can be frozen dinner nights - but good frozen dinners. I'll cook Monday and Wednesday when I get home at 5. Friday we go out and Saturday I will cook something more elaborate." You see how I breezed right over Sunday.
Steve isn't immediately replying as he is trying to figure out how to turn on the TV. "The remote is broken, all the batteries are bad and I think Syd broke the TV."
"Uh-huh," he says.
"I mean I like to cook, it's therapeutic, so maybe I don't do frozen meals, maybe I will have time those days."
Pause.
"The syllabus says I'll need 6 to 10 hours of studio time. I guess I'll do that on Saturdays. I don't want to be on campus at night, riding the shuttle to some parking lot."
"You'll be fine going to campus at night."
"What? I DON'T want to get attacked! How could you say that?"
"I'll drive you," Steve says.
"I guess I would be fine, But I do go to bed at 9. I'm not Syd Smith making metal jewelry at 12 a.m. in some studio somewhere. I should just go Saturdays."
Steve agrees. In 2 days we celebrate our 29th anniversary. He should get some kind of golden chalice filled with gemstones. Most agree.
1:45 p.m. I am at my chiropractor in hopes he can fix my hand. I also have a doctor's appointment scheduled for tomorrow at 12:45. Covering all my bases.
I have a sub for the chiropractor who asks "What do they normally do to your back?"
To which I reply, "nothing." Not the question you want to be asked by a chiropractor.
2:30 p.m. Much has been completed since the morning. I have emailed professors and checked calendars and shuttle routes. I've debated whether I need to put my photo on the student website. I decided no.
4:00 p.m. Steve is home early, and he joins Ben and I on a trip to Target to get Ben some school supplies. I find myself picking up different notebooks, weighing them in my hands, then pretending to write in them to see how they feel, how they lie open.
I decide on some, put them in my cart, circle some bins and then put them back in their places. I want them to be unique, but not cute, simple but not colorful. I guess you could say I am once again FREAKING OUT.
Ben follows me from the school supply area, which I have eschewed in favor of the stationery area. But this is Target - will I find anything I like at all here? Is this not all made in China? Sorry, China, but you are taking over the world. But I am coming, with my design savvy to make everything look like a French cottage. FREAKING OUT.
In the time it takes Ben to select and purchase about 20 things, I come away with a pack of Uni-ball pens and one black and one navy notebook with soft matte covers. I don't know how my family stands me.
5:30 p.m. We are at home eating Chick-fil-a around the TV, me with a salad, watching Phil Rosenthal eat his way through Bangkok.
"Maybe I can get a job in Bangkok, or at least an internship," I say out loud or in my head. It's been a long day.
An hour or so later, I get a text from one of my dear friends telling me her dad is getting close to being in hospice. It just makes my freaking out seem pointless.
I decided not to continue my youtube channel, because weirdos, but from time to time I may post a video here so you can see me crying in the girls room or dishing with my classmates.
Thanks to everyone who has said I must be so excited and that they think I am so brave. I don't feel either of those things today.
But it is true that God's love gets rid of fear, and that is what centers me. Not the fact that I decided every day I will wear a Gap black or white t-shirt with jeans and red lipstick (although this is a good decision), but the bonafide truth that God's peace runs like a river through me. It really does.
But now, at 3:31 a.m. I am realizing I really need my right hand to be good for Drawing 1 in 11 days, and I might just have to go to my doctor.
Laying in bed, I check my email on my phone with my numb hand and read a note from my drawing professor. Perfect timing. I scroll down the long syllabus in 3 point font on my phone and begin to wonder when mid-terms are since I have already booked a flight for mid-October for us to visit a school for Ben.
4:24 a.m. I lay in bed until the thought of coffee and the KVUE Daybreak morning show seem like a great diversion from the FREAKING OUT I am doing.
5:30 a.m. Steve is coming down the stairs and I have already planned our meal schedule, our car schedule and any other schedule I can think of for the school year.
"I guess Tuesday and Thursday can be frozen dinner nights - but good frozen dinners. I'll cook Monday and Wednesday when I get home at 5. Friday we go out and Saturday I will cook something more elaborate." You see how I breezed right over Sunday.
Steve isn't immediately replying as he is trying to figure out how to turn on the TV. "The remote is broken, all the batteries are bad and I think Syd broke the TV."
"Uh-huh," he says.
"I mean I like to cook, it's therapeutic, so maybe I don't do frozen meals, maybe I will have time those days."
Pause.
"The syllabus says I'll need 6 to 10 hours of studio time. I guess I'll do that on Saturdays. I don't want to be on campus at night, riding the shuttle to some parking lot."
"You'll be fine going to campus at night."
"What? I DON'T want to get attacked! How could you say that?"
"I'll drive you," Steve says.
"I guess I would be fine, But I do go to bed at 9. I'm not Syd Smith making metal jewelry at 12 a.m. in some studio somewhere. I should just go Saturdays."
Steve agrees. In 2 days we celebrate our 29th anniversary. He should get some kind of golden chalice filled with gemstones. Most agree.
1:45 p.m. I am at my chiropractor in hopes he can fix my hand. I also have a doctor's appointment scheduled for tomorrow at 12:45. Covering all my bases.
I have a sub for the chiropractor who asks "What do they normally do to your back?"
To which I reply, "nothing." Not the question you want to be asked by a chiropractor.
2:30 p.m. Much has been completed since the morning. I have emailed professors and checked calendars and shuttle routes. I've debated whether I need to put my photo on the student website. I decided no.
4:00 p.m. Steve is home early, and he joins Ben and I on a trip to Target to get Ben some school supplies. I find myself picking up different notebooks, weighing them in my hands, then pretending to write in them to see how they feel, how they lie open.
I decide on some, put them in my cart, circle some bins and then put them back in their places. I want them to be unique, but not cute, simple but not colorful. I guess you could say I am once again FREAKING OUT.
Ben follows me from the school supply area, which I have eschewed in favor of the stationery area. But this is Target - will I find anything I like at all here? Is this not all made in China? Sorry, China, but you are taking over the world. But I am coming, with my design savvy to make everything look like a French cottage. FREAKING OUT.
In the time it takes Ben to select and purchase about 20 things, I come away with a pack of Uni-ball pens and one black and one navy notebook with soft matte covers. I don't know how my family stands me.
5:30 p.m. We are at home eating Chick-fil-a around the TV, me with a salad, watching Phil Rosenthal eat his way through Bangkok.
"Maybe I can get a job in Bangkok, or at least an internship," I say out loud or in my head. It's been a long day.
An hour or so later, I get a text from one of my dear friends telling me her dad is getting close to being in hospice. It just makes my freaking out seem pointless.
I decided not to continue my youtube channel, because weirdos, but from time to time I may post a video here so you can see me crying in the girls room or dishing with my classmates.
Thanks to everyone who has said I must be so excited and that they think I am so brave. I don't feel either of those things today.
But it is true that God's love gets rid of fear, and that is what centers me. Not the fact that I decided every day I will wear a Gap black or white t-shirt with jeans and red lipstick (although this is a good decision), but the bonafide truth that God's peace runs like a river through me. It really does.