It is time to say goodbye. I've been holding onto this blog by the tiniest of strings for months now, and I've been ready to go that whole time. The project that was holding me here has now come to a close. I am ready for the privacy of my own thoughts and the protection of knowing absolutely for sure that I won't accidentally write anything in violation of other people's medical rights.
Thank you for being here with me. I'd like to be funny right now but after all the waiting and anticipated relief of letting this go, it doesn't feel funny at all. I will miss the feel of you listening. If you'd like to hear about future writing of mine, email me and let me know. I'll hit reply if I ever write that novel about love, gory hospital rooms and tranny rubber vaginas.
I'm at grundune@gmail.com
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Back from the nursing dead
Hi there. Oh, it has been a while. I've been busy trailing nurses around the hospital and gazing into wound sites, and also concluding my time with Michael, which was beautiful but is too intimate and raw to talk about here. I've returned, though, and while I'm still busy with the wounds, I hope to come more often.
I'm more and more stumped about how to write here. Personal life: too personal. Student life: includes the most private and difficult moments of other people's lives, all of which are rightly protected by HIPAA.
There is only so much I can say about clothes.
On the whole, nursing school kicks ass and is making my life better across the board. My self esteem is stronger, I feel secure about my financial future, and I am learning how to change people's lives for the better when they need it most. I'm tripping over cords and forgetting steps as I go, but I am good at talking to patients. I'm good at walking into a room and connecting to the people in it, and that makes me happy. So far the hardest part has been the early wake ups and, perhaps harder even than those, the horrible consequences of forgetting to pack a lunch on clinical days. Hospital food is slimy and wretched.
Thank you for being here.
I'm more and more stumped about how to write here. Personal life: too personal. Student life: includes the most private and difficult moments of other people's lives, all of which are rightly protected by HIPAA.
There is only so much I can say about clothes.
On the whole, nursing school kicks ass and is making my life better across the board. My self esteem is stronger, I feel secure about my financial future, and I am learning how to change people's lives for the better when they need it most. I'm tripping over cords and forgetting steps as I go, but I am good at talking to patients. I'm good at walking into a room and connecting to the people in it, and that makes me happy. So far the hardest part has been the early wake ups and, perhaps harder even than those, the horrible consequences of forgetting to pack a lunch on clinical days. Hospital food is slimy and wretched.
Thank you for being here.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Cracked
It's been two days now of school, of six hours per day in blue polyester scrubs and lots of new ways to go about things, and there was an atrocious hospital lunch in there and also I have been up every day at 6:15, plus my children have lives for which I am lunch packer and personal chauffeure. My brain is slightly fractured. After two days.
I am so pleased to be learning a trade, and especially one that will impact people's quality of life for the better, and I'm so proud of myself, and also I am so tired already. This picture is what's keeping me going right now. It's something I did this summer. I modeled in a local fashion show and when I finally got the pictures I felt like, Oh my god, I can look like that? Because, flaws and all, I'm pretty down with this girl. Every now and then I look at her again and remind myself, hey, I may be haggard now and my emotions may lack names, but I can do this thing here.
I am so pleased to be learning a trade, and especially one that will impact people's quality of life for the better, and I'm so proud of myself, and also I am so tired already. This picture is what's keeping me going right now. It's something I did this summer. I modeled in a local fashion show and when I finally got the pictures I felt like, Oh my god, I can look like that? Because, flaws and all, I'm pretty down with this girl. Every now and then I look at her again and remind myself, hey, I may be haggard now and my emotions may lack names, but I can do this thing here.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Autumn at the market
Today was the first blustery day of farmer's market, at which I arrived not in the lazy flip-flops and sunglasses of summer but in the jeans and wine-colored sweater of fall. This is my favorite season. The market was full of watermelons and late-summer berries, but also of winter squash, potatoes, onions past their sugary stage, apples, pears and figs. The air was clear and exhilerating.
Lunch for today after returning home:
Olive-oil grilled polenta bread with apricot-honey chevre
Fresh, unbelievably crunchy cucumbers with balsamic vinegar and black pepper
I am happily settled into the mellow, narcotic stupor of Menstrual Onset and want nothing more in the world but a bottle of wine, a friend, and a massage from someone with strong, tireless hands.
Lunch for today after returning home:
Olive-oil grilled polenta bread with apricot-honey chevre
Fresh, unbelievably crunchy cucumbers with balsamic vinegar and black pepper
I am happily settled into the mellow, narcotic stupor of Menstrual Onset and want nothing more in the world but a bottle of wine, a friend, and a massage from someone with strong, tireless hands.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
The transition is upon me
Here is my schedule for the next week.
1. Continue to PMS and believe that peanut butter is my personal savior
2. See the return of The Girl's mama
3. Say good bye to The Girl. She is returning to India.
4. PMS more
5. Have a visit from my dad and his wife
6. Begin getting ready to part with Michael.
7. Spend my first day of nursing school in the hospital. For six and a half hours.
8. Bleed.
Everything is happening at once. There are tuition payments and tailored scrubs to be picked up, endless school lunches to pack and lots of 6:30 wake-ups. There is the beginning of something amazing and the end of something I will miss.
When Michael and I agreed to spend the summer together and then to part for six months, in which time we would finally, hopefully, have some room to grow without the culture of angst and sorrow that follows our splits, I was strangely blind to how it would actually feel. Now it is time for the parting.
Here's how it is. I grieve the potential loss of him, forever, just as I always do. The thought of other women being looked at like he looks at me, even coming within a ten foot radius of him, feels like acid in my intestines. I hate it. The thought of my children having to suffer his absence again hurts in a place more core than that.
Also, though, there is a breath of fresh air in front of me. Whatever I do next, it will be almost entirely mine. There is that knowing, of course, that in six months we will ask each other who and how we are, and I will have to answer with my back up straight. I will need to. Whether that means some part of these six months will still be his or just that I have assigned the face of my conscience to him is a little murky just now. I don't mind, though. I have been taking awesome care of myself and I am pretty sure of my internal compass.
Two more weeks or so, weeks that confuse me for their crazy in between-ness, and then: anything.
1. Continue to PMS and believe that peanut butter is my personal savior
2. See the return of The Girl's mama
3. Say good bye to The Girl. She is returning to India.
4. PMS more
5. Have a visit from my dad and his wife
6. Begin getting ready to part with Michael.
7. Spend my first day of nursing school in the hospital. For six and a half hours.
8. Bleed.
Everything is happening at once. There are tuition payments and tailored scrubs to be picked up, endless school lunches to pack and lots of 6:30 wake-ups. There is the beginning of something amazing and the end of something I will miss.
When Michael and I agreed to spend the summer together and then to part for six months, in which time we would finally, hopefully, have some room to grow without the culture of angst and sorrow that follows our splits, I was strangely blind to how it would actually feel. Now it is time for the parting.
Here's how it is. I grieve the potential loss of him, forever, just as I always do. The thought of other women being looked at like he looks at me, even coming within a ten foot radius of him, feels like acid in my intestines. I hate it. The thought of my children having to suffer his absence again hurts in a place more core than that.
Also, though, there is a breath of fresh air in front of me. Whatever I do next, it will be almost entirely mine. There is that knowing, of course, that in six months we will ask each other who and how we are, and I will have to answer with my back up straight. I will need to. Whether that means some part of these six months will still be his or just that I have assigned the face of my conscience to him is a little murky just now. I don't mind, though. I have been taking awesome care of myself and I am pretty sure of my internal compass.
Two more weeks or so, weeks that confuse me for their crazy in between-ness, and then: anything.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Bedtime
I am climbing into bed with 5 when I hear the snuffles in his nose.
"Baby," I say, "are you crying or are you just stuffy?" He has had knee pain today, and the rash on his face was stung by the lotion I gave him to make it better. He giggled uncontrollably every time I rubbed his aching knee, but still today has been a day of whimpers and moans.
"Just stuffy," he tells me as I lay on my side against his back. I wrap my arm around him and he pulls it in tightly. My hand is in his hands and they all are tucked beneath his jaw, so that we are snug together and I am breathing into his hair.
"Blast," says 9 from the upper bunk, again thinking he is too late. "Mama, may I please have a backrub?"
"Since I just laid down, the answer is yes." I sigh and settle back into the boy before me. He sniffles and mouth breathes into his monster pillow. I lay there in heaven, wrapped up in one son and looked for by another. When 5 falls asleep I pull my hand from his and as it drags softly across every one of his silky fingers, content settles over me and washes my bones in calm.
"Baby," I say, "are you crying or are you just stuffy?" He has had knee pain today, and the rash on his face was stung by the lotion I gave him to make it better. He giggled uncontrollably every time I rubbed his aching knee, but still today has been a day of whimpers and moans.
"Just stuffy," he tells me as I lay on my side against his back. I wrap my arm around him and he pulls it in tightly. My hand is in his hands and they all are tucked beneath his jaw, so that we are snug together and I am breathing into his hair.
"Blast," says 9 from the upper bunk, again thinking he is too late. "Mama, may I please have a backrub?"
"Since I just laid down, the answer is yes." I sigh and settle back into the boy before me. He sniffles and mouth breathes into his monster pillow. I lay there in heaven, wrapped up in one son and looked for by another. When 5 falls asleep I pull my hand from his and as it drags softly across every one of his silky fingers, content settles over me and washes my bones in calm.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Anchor
9 and I fought on both ends of the day. He has a habit of talkingtalkingtalking without a lot of attention to his conversational partner, and while Michael would gladly tell you just exactly where he learned this habit, I cannot stand it in my child. Probably because it comes from me. I adore this kid so much and so I always want to pound out the habits that could hurt him. Shhh, sit, stand, suck it in! This is how I try to protect him.
Both times when he was busy with words I snipped at him and built him a smaller box for himself. Get in here, this will make you right. Doesn't fit? Just take smaller breaths, baby, everything will be fine. This is the way we're supposed to be. This is what makes me envy the mamas who only have little ones. The euphoric idealizing is changing as 9 and I age together. The falling in love is a different beast. His feet take up half the bed and he has secrets from me, I am sure of it. Girls, maybe, and fears which I just wouldn't understand.
"Let me tell you something," Michael said the other day when I said that 9 was maybe just a little over me at this point. He used a word I can't say here because it has connotations that 9 year old boys don't like. The point was: the sun rises and sets with me, still, in the unguarded moments. "He will never be over you."
Tonight at bed time I asked if I could lay down with him for a bit. "Blast," he said, thinking he was too late for his own request because I have rules about when requests are made relative to when I become supine, "I was hoping to ask for a backrub." He says things like blast and I have no idea where they come from. This is an odd feature of joint custody. They learn things out there that I did not plan and execute for them. Add in school, tv, video games and friends, and it's enough to make a mother lose KONTRROL of her babies.
I promised him the backrub and asked if he was cool with me laying down for a bit, and we had ourselves a deal. I cracked him up within minutes of laying down, the sound of which is my very favorite thing in the universe right along with a) 5's cuddle technique, b) Michael's smell, and c) sitting alone in my clean house with the candles lit and the windows open. We talked about dogs and the definition of the word diva, and which arcade we should go hang out at. I got to kiss his cheek while hugging him.
I've felt him drifting further out to sea recently and it has been lonely on the mama dock. I've wanted to throw a carnival or maybe swim deep, find the anchor and yank it as hard as I could. Anything to bring him back. Turns out: I just had to ask.
Both times when he was busy with words I snipped at him and built him a smaller box for himself. Get in here, this will make you right. Doesn't fit? Just take smaller breaths, baby, everything will be fine. This is the way we're supposed to be. This is what makes me envy the mamas who only have little ones. The euphoric idealizing is changing as 9 and I age together. The falling in love is a different beast. His feet take up half the bed and he has secrets from me, I am sure of it. Girls, maybe, and fears which I just wouldn't understand.
"Let me tell you something," Michael said the other day when I said that 9 was maybe just a little over me at this point. He used a word I can't say here because it has connotations that 9 year old boys don't like. The point was: the sun rises and sets with me, still, in the unguarded moments. "He will never be over you."
Tonight at bed time I asked if I could lay down with him for a bit. "Blast," he said, thinking he was too late for his own request because I have rules about when requests are made relative to when I become supine, "I was hoping to ask for a backrub." He says things like blast and I have no idea where they come from. This is an odd feature of joint custody. They learn things out there that I did not plan and execute for them. Add in school, tv, video games and friends, and it's enough to make a mother lose KONTRROL of her babies.
I promised him the backrub and asked if he was cool with me laying down for a bit, and we had ourselves a deal. I cracked him up within minutes of laying down, the sound of which is my very favorite thing in the universe right along with a) 5's cuddle technique, b) Michael's smell, and c) sitting alone in my clean house with the candles lit and the windows open. We talked about dogs and the definition of the word diva, and which arcade we should go hang out at. I got to kiss his cheek while hugging him.
I've felt him drifting further out to sea recently and it has been lonely on the mama dock. I've wanted to throw a carnival or maybe swim deep, find the anchor and yank it as hard as I could. Anything to bring him back. Turns out: I just had to ask.
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