Tales from the Shark Tank

Usually I do a pretty good job of keeping perspective, or at least of remembering that whatever is stressing me at any given time is temporary. Back in college, the internal mantra (or sometimes not so internal) was “This too shall pass”, a thing I realized when a girlfriend down the hall came to my room in tears one day and asked me to remind her of it. “You always mean it, and you’re right” she said. “And I need to hear it; my fiance just broke up with me.” That day I hugged her and let her cry on me first, because even if it wasn’t going to hurt forever, it hurt right then, and the reminder would have been a cruelty without the acknowledgment. Right now, though, I’m having a hard time keeping that in mind, perhaps because I’ve learned that some things pass harder than others. It’s easier to hold such a philosophy at 18 than 48, y’know?

Dad’s been in hospital with pneumonia these these two weeks past. Each time mom’s been told he should be getting out in a day or two, something’s gone wrong. The last such side-step involved surgery and a couple of days in the ICU last Thursday and Friday. Yesterday she told me they were talking about it again, but as of today he’s still in; I gather there’s something of concern but no one’s told me what. I was in Indy until yesterday, but I’ve obligations here to take care of as well, so now I’m home. If all goes well, I’ll be back in Indy along about Saturday. I’m unutterably grateful the car replacement project was accomplished in time for the worst of this.

So now I get to wait. I went through this with my grandad, but it is not only because it’s my father and the relationship has always been complicated. My son is nine and needs his mom, and I’m no longer in the same city as my parents. And for all my efforts, I still haven’t mastered the trick of being two places at once no matter how much I want to be.

Any way, gentle readers, please bear with me if my blogging is a bit thin on the ground for awhile. I’ll be spending most of what would be my writing time running up and down the interstate.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 27th, 2006 at 9:38 pm and is filed under Life as I know it. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.