The Usual Chaos

What will you do if they make it? Cry. What will do you do if they medal? Cry. What will you do if they break the record? Cry. They did it. They studied and memorized and quizzed. They met and worked and practiced. They rehearsed      ... to walls, in cars, for peers, on time. Together. We traveled to places near. We negotiated about eating. We ate and ate and ate. We LAUGHED. We sang in voices high and loud and We danced awkward dances. We ate gummy bears. Their words... A little light Abhorrent Cacophony Dank Shawshank And then I came into the picture! A band. Ultimate party song. Angels. They did it. I told them I was proud. I told them how amazing and witty and fun they are. I told them they are warriors. But I didn't cry. Now, I cry. Exhausted, fulfilled, overwhelmed, I sink into my couch and my emotions and the tears stream.  They did it. They really did.

I often wonder why horrific things happen to genuinely kind people. I wonder how I will cope when my parents are no longer alive. I wonder what my own children will one day become. I wonder.  Last week, I wondered with my students. I explained my wonders and "what ifs" and then let them write. Bravely, they each took a deep breathe and began scribbling in their notebooks. Some were short. Others filled every minute. Next, students wrote their biggest wonder on a notecard and anonymously turned them in. I read them aloud.  "What if I don't make it in college? "Why does everyone have such high expectations that we will ALL go to college?" "How do I make good friends?" "Death" "What's really in outer space?" "I worry that we will run out of money to pay medical expenses." They were deep. End-of-the-pool-with-the-high-dive kind of deep. And then, they talked.  We ran our usual Fishbowl Friday, exc...

You wouldn't expect a healthy looking eighteen year old to have major, invasive surgery. But I did. I have scoliosis. It evidently runs in the family. It spreads from girl to girl, generation to generation like chicken pox in a pre-vaccine kindergarten class. And I was fortunate enough to catch it like the others. It made my hips uneven so that jeans fit funny and those groovy 90's wide belts were always crooked on me. I knew a little about scoliosis. My cousins who are eight and four years older than I am had surgery a decade before me. They spent weeks in the hospital. They wore body casts and then body braces. They did school from home for the better part of a year. So when I learned that I had it too, I was petrified. Luckily, medical technology is rather amazing! A mere ten years later meant that I spent under a week in the hospital with no cast or brace at all. Then, my therapy was to walk, increasing daily, until I could walk the campus on my first days of colle...