Hazy
It gets dark at 4:30pm and the last few days have been so hazy I haven't actually been able to see the sun. It is dark, and then it is a muted gray, and then somehow it is dark, again. Every once in a while someone will say, "Can you believe how early it is?" and gestures toward a black window. I will shake my head and sigh in agreement. I can't believe it, no matter who predictable it is.
I did not come home to the good news I had been hoping for and I ended up crying in a bathroom stall in the O'Hare airport. For a few minutes the only thing I was grateful for was the length of the bathroom and the absurdly tall plastic walls between stalls and the feeling that I was, for a few minutes, alone. But when I landed in Minneapolis and darted to Jeff's car in my flip-flops (having left my only other pair of actual shoes behind) I was able to laugh at my cold feet and when we went out for Thai food that night we bought a whole bottle of wine. It seemed indulgent, something we should have been doing to celebrate, though we didn't have much to celebrate. But when it came we agreed it was feel better wine, it was a feel better dinner, and we talked about our favorite TV shows and I told him about my trip and we acknowledged that we didn't feel perfect, by the end of it all we did feel better. Life is a series of victories and defeats and even though I feel like we've been dealt our share of defeats lately, there is still room to feel better, even on days preceded by breakdowns and awkward bathroom cries.
Wine and perfectly crispy egg rolls help.
My mom had surgery last week, to remove the mass that turned out to be a rare but benign thymoma. It's not a light surgery, as they had to go through her chest (like in an open heart surgery) to remove it, but it will most likely not require any follow up radiation treatments. Just many weeks at home on the couch. As weird as it sounds I think hearing first from her husband and then from my brother how well the surgery went will stand out as two of my favorite moments of 2011. (Topped only by the afternoon I walked in after work and my mom said, "Well, it's not cancer.")
The truth is, I think we are still waiting for the sun to break through the clouds. Waiting for the good news. Waiting for day lit afternoons. Waiting to get through the recovery. Waiting to be done waiting. Waiting for the predictably surprising short days to get longer. Someday, they will.
Monday, December 12, 2011 at 3:22PM
Reader Comments (3)
I'm sorry you didn't get that good news. I don't know what it was you were hoping for, but it wasn't too long ago that I was also crushed by a lack of good news that I'd been hoping for so fiercely for quite a long time. I reacted by crying, then taking a hard run through the park. (Does that mean I'm growing up or something, to react to shitty news in a healthy way by exercising?)
And I think drinking a bottle of wine sounds like a lovely coping strategy. Some day I'm going to blog about the bottle of champagne that's been in my fridge for over a year -- I call it my bottle of cham-shame because I haven't yet accomplished what I intended to in order to pop it open. Now I have set an approximate end date for it -- so if I don't get the good news by then, I'm going to open the sucker anyway and drown my sorrows in it.
But yes, the best news of all is about your mom. Thank goodness she'll be okay.
Oh...I feel bad when I've read this.. But, remember that everything happens for a reason. maybe you cry now, but tomorrow you'll smile. I'll assure you that! :)
I think wine is the perfect "feel better" drink. I'm glad your mom is ok, and here's hoping that the rest will start looking up asap!