wednesday night. workday cut short by migraine headache which appears, at least temporarily, to be worked out--thanks to large amounts of extra strength tylenol and a dark bedroom for a few hours. crisis averted. sitting here next to my daughter who is not in bed at 8:12 drinking chocolate milk after just finishing her second strawberry yogurt. her tests that i was obsessing about in my last post came back totally 100% normal. my sons slept thru the night last night with only a mild cough.

today one of my childcare providers called me in the early afternoon--the site of this number on my caller id unexpected can send me into immediate panic. i remained calm. she went on to explain w/ panic in her voice that her child was sick and she would need to be closed tomorrow. she sounded awful. i felt awful, immediately i felt her pain, fear, worry almost as if it was my own. imagining it was my child who was being admitted to the hospital, not hers. i hung up. i tried to be grateful that the call was not about my son or daughter. i was a little but mostly i just felt reminded that life in its weird and strange ways can twist and turn in just the direction that we are least likely to see coming.

a good friend of mine, and fantastic writer, commented on my last post. she touched on this topic too. this fear that comes w/ being a parent. in "operating instructions" i remember anne lamott talking about how after she had her son she had this fear/realization that she had finally created something which she could not bare to lose. that sentiment has stayed w/ me for years--mostly i guess bc it captures rhe essence of my own fear so well.

is there an answer to any of this? i dont know. i do know that while sitting in an AA meeting last night a man was talking about how his children have their own higher power and it is not him. this helped me. i think about how no matter how many times i rehearse my worst fears probably, as ame pointed out, to somehow immunize myself from them--it doest ever really work. i feel more scared not less.

driving home last night--from the meeting i attended to try to get away from the hospital i had been in yesterday and from the tests which ended up fine. i drove. sky dark. stars everywhere. i felt us all connected. i felt that no matter where i live or go--i am connected, i am myself, i stay the same and bring all of the love i have found and can give with me. i felt at peace. it was only a moment but it was there.
xx