This is the post I haven’t written. It’s all the posts that went unwritten this past month, while I’ve been struggling with pain, tingling, numbness and frustration. This is the day when I sat down, despite the tingling arm and wrote anyway, because I need to, because I hate having gone so long without writing, for such a stupid reason. I’ve been to the naprapath 6 times. I’ve had several massages. I’ve been to the orthopedic doctor and next week I am scheduled for an MRI to see if it is a pinched nerve or if there have been any “discernable changes” to the discs of my neck and spine. This is me, hoping for the best, since the naprapath treatments ARE helping.
These are the photos I haven’t taken: the rise of a hill against the evening sky and a sudden burst of wings above it. The road up the hill in the fog on the way to work in the mornings. The stork that walked very slowly away from us, around the edge of the swampy bit over by the school. The pure black clear night shining with stars. The shiny, oily, rainbow-slicked feathers of the rook’s wing who was hanging out under our bird feeder recently. Multiple pictures of my kids, one of whom makes faces every time I try. The pots full of multi-colored pansies that I planted this past weekend. I’ll get around to that one, eventually.
These are the phone calls I haven’t made lately, for which I am sorry: My sister, whose daughter has been accepted to all three of her top choice universities. My mom, who is busier than I am and apparently never home. My brother, who was traveling on his birthday (though I did talk to his wife). My best and oldest friend, whom I miss entirely too much and who I think about much more often than she might guess.
These are the events I haven’t recorded for posterity, because I haven’t written, because time goes by whether you are paying attention or not: Our annual pie night, with fewer people and pies than usual, but the ones that were there were delicious and my fruit pizza is always so good, if I do say so myself! A lovely evening with my two best friends here in Sweden, at which I cooked a fantastic dinner of 20-clove garlic chicken and served brownie pie with fresh strawberries for dessert. A concert I sang in for Earth Hour in Eslöv, after which I came home with 15 minutes still to spare in the hour and driving through Flyinge realized that no one had turned off their lights at all…not even my own kids, who had completely forgotten.
This is the apology I haven’t made out loud to someone who probably won’t read this: I’m sorry. I’ll try to be better and not so selfish. I’ll try to say this out loud to you soon, because you deserve to hear it from me.
These are the things I’m avoiding thinking about: paying for plane tickets to the US. Leaving Martin in the US. Not seeing Martin for…who knows how long. Months? A year? … sigh. Shopping for a new bed, though I actually DID go to two furniture stores last weekend to start getting some idea of what’s available and how much it will potentially cost (too much). The actual MRI, because the nurse who scheduled it asked me if I suffered from claustrophobia (yes, under certain circumstances) which kind of freaked me out about it.
This is the rest of what I wanted to say, though I can’t guarantee it was worth waiting this long for: It’s officially spring, though it’s been rainy all this week and we lost an hour last weekend which still seems to be giving me sleep issues. Work is still insanely busy. I can’t even with the daily circus of news from the country that my firstborn is going to be living in soon. Anders is in South Africa for work, for a week and a half, which includes a 4-night safari hike in Kruger National Park and then gone again for a weekend hike with friends right after he gets back. Karin is studying to take the Swedish equivalent of the SAT this weekend, and next weekend is premiering as one of the leads in her high school play. Martin is tutoring sporadically, and is in the process of applying to be a substitute at the village elementary school for the rest of the school year. He’s still waiting to hear from the other 2 universities he applied to, and waiting to hear if he’ll receive any scholarship funds for the summer program he’s signed up for. The day after tomorrow is my last Friday off this month, as well as my sister’s birthday. I plan to spend it doing the most relaxing, self-indulgent things I can think of (sleeping in, reading the stash of new magazines I just bought, sitting in the sunshine if there is any) and making that overdue phone call.
This is me, otherwise, the same as before.