Happiness and Regrets

One of the tv shows I enjoy watching is "House".  I was catching up on this week's episode tonight and had to write down this line as it seemed rather poignant.  The plot focuses on a woman who was a top cancer researcher and left her career to do something that would make her happy over something that she felt she "should" be doing.  Towards the end of the episode she's talking to one of the dr.'s treating her and he remarks that he often thinks about what he will regret when he's lying on his deathbed reflecting on his life.  She answers him, "You're going to spend one day of your life on your deathbed.  It's the other 25,000 we should worry about.  Go to bed happy tonight."

I often have to remind myself that no one will look back on my life after I die and say, "Gosh, she was a great Business Analyst." or "She really had a knack for redoing templates at work and project management."  At least I really hope that's not what I'm remembered for.  I'd hope that people look back on my life as being a good mother, wife, and kind person.  I'd like to believe that those things I do outside of my 40 hours a week at work make an impact on others and at the same time make me happy.

I would love to find a job that I could also count in the makes me happy column, but I'm not sure I'm ready for that leap yet.  For now I content myself with enjoying the people I work with (well most of them anyway).  

I do think I'll have regrets in the end; I'm guessing most people do.  I hope though that if I can confine them to the part of my life that falls lowest on the totem pole of overall importance that it won't be so bad.

It's going to be ok

I've spent a lot of time this past week convincing everyone that Alanna's surgery is going to be ok.  She's confident and happy and actually looking forward to her surgery and the multiple flavors of jello that Mommy is making for her to enjoy on Thursday before we go.

I have continued to go to work and put on a brave face.  I have been an expert in vascular malformations for family, coworkers, and teachers.  

I got the copy of the doctor's notes on Wednesday evening in the mail after a particularly trying day at work where a difficult coworker made my afternoon pretty miserable with her drama.  There's nothing quite like seeing in black and white that "Alanna's mother understands the risks of surgery include..... and has decided to proceed."  Of course, none of the risks of NOT doing the surgery were listed.

It hit pretty hard, but I picked myself up and went in to work yesterday morning.  The surgery preop nurse called and we discussed all of the things I need to remember next week and I answered all of her questions and held together really well.  That is, until the question about if there was an emergency in the operating room, would I want them to do everything possible to save my daughter.  The next hour at work, I hid at my desk and tried to see my computer monitor through tears.

But I sucked it up, made it through the rest of the day and made it through today.  I told myself all of the same things I've been telling everyone else.  

J and Alanna went to visit Grandma this weekend.  I tormented myself about if I should go with or if I should stay home.  This visit has been planned since shortly after Christmas and the intent was that I would get a Mommy alone time weekend.  In my mind I leap to the worse case scenario and how awful of a mother I must be to have an upcoming surgery for my daughter and to not spend as much time as possible with her before hand.  On the other hand, I know I can't live my life in fear of the worst outcome and that I'd be admitting I don't believe things will go well.  

I HAVE to believe things will go well.  But I've spent so much time telling everyone else that and I have no one to tell me that.  I just need to know it's going to be ok.  

Truly, I didn't intend for this blog to start off so needy and I apologize.  I promise once things do start to be ok that I'll rant about my evil coworker or traffic or how illiterate I am with my new cell phone or other mundane things.

Helpless

Tonight I feel helpless.  There's really nothing I hate more than feeling helpless.  I don't do well when things are out of my control.  I've learned how to cope with things that I absolutely can't control and to reign in the pieces of my surroundings or circumstances that can to make myself feel less helpless.  Often though it only serves to slightly reduce my anxiety and doesn't completely eliminate it.

For example, I know that my career path is one where things constantly are in motion and change is just a part of every day.  I've had to learn to live with the fact that the rules fluctuate and what may be the end all be all in one hour can flip 180 degrees by the next which may or may not require me to completely redo what I'd spent the prior 4 hours working on.  I've learned that I can control aspects of my work which makes the inner fluctuations more bearable.  I like my cube stagnant.  I line up my pictures in a specific place on my shelf.  I keep my emails in little subfolders.  I have a routine in the morning of what I work on first always. 

Today, Alanna had her follow-up appointment with Dr. Wood.  We've known for six and a half years (ever since we talked through my ultrasound results when I was pregnant) that there was a very good chance she'd need surgery.  Today was the day Dr. Wood said it was time.  I think I'd spent so long convincing myself and her that her birthmark was just a "special bump" and that it was just fine that it was hard to allow myself to believe today that indeed it's grown and changed.  

I'm faced with accepting that surgery is our next step and convincing myself as I reassure Alanna that everything is going to be just fine and that this is the best course of action.  I know that in the grand scheme of things that my daughter is a beautiful, smart, wonderful little girl and we are very blessed that she is healthy and happy overall.  That there are children out there who are on transplant waiting lists and/or have terminal illnesses and my daughter's venous malformation is not life-threatening.  I know that her MRI showed a long time ago that she was a good candidate for surgery, that the lesion is not deep and very contained.  

I'm very very VERY good with facts.  What I'm having trouble with is that helpless emotion I can't control.  I've done all my research through the years.  I know we have an excellent surgeon.  I've gotten a second opinion from a highly respected panel of doctors at Boston Children's Hospital.  I've combed the web and been vigilant about keeping myself informed.

Even today I tried to maintain the things I could control.  I checked with insurance, I notified the grandparents of what was going on, I wrote a note to Alanna's teacher and prepared a letter to send to school to help answer questions.  

It's not enough though and I'm all out of sorts.  I'm only out of sorts by myself though as it's far more important to be together, reassuring, confidant and strong so that Alanna can see that. She's so mature about it all and is asking questions, but absorbing the answers very matter of factly.  

I don't even know if anything I've typed has been coherent so I apologize if I'm rambling.  I'm tired, moody, and trying to vomit words onto the page to help myself move forward.

Muscle Memory

When I went to college, my first major was Theatre.  I later changed Theatre to a minor and then eventually discarded it in favor of a double major in Law Enforcement and Anthropology.  

One of my theatre courses was Movement.  I remember distinctly a conversation in my Movement class about "Muscle Memory".  The theory was that you could place your muscles in the same position or tension they were in during an intense emotional moment in your life and elicit that emotion.  The example I remember is the instructor asking us to think of a time when we were scared and crying and to meditate on that moment.  Then to take note of the tension that built in our muscles while recalling the memory.  I remembered answering the door after my father had been in a car accident and had walked home.  His face was bloodied (broken nose) and I was probably about Alanna's age.  The exercise worked and elicited tears.

The practical application was supposed to be for use in acting.  You could then replicate the appropriate muscle tension to turn on the tears when needed.

I've thought about muscle memory several times over the years.  Not in order to make myself cry, but because I find that I sometimes have unexplainable emotional reactions to things that shouldn't be that big of a deal.

As part of our planning for the new year, J and I sat down and looked at our budget.  We decided that although we're doing just fine that in light of the economy we should really buckle down and make some changes just in case.  We figured out the numbers and a tentative three year plan of attack that would put us in very good shape to start saving more for emergency use, retirement, and Alanna's college fund.  

There was a time early in our marriage when we weren't doing well financially.  I worked two jobs, borrowed money from family, and we lived paycheck to paycheck.  We eventually even went through credit counseling.  It took us years to dig out.  Now I hate paying bills because even though we have money to pay them, it elicits emotions that harken back to the time we did not.  

I've been overly emotional over money the past week since our discussion.  We made the changes immediately and I'm drawn back to those moments of paycheck to paycheck panic.  I keep watching the checking account knowing that we don't get paid until tomorrow.  I keep waiting for the phone to ring and it be a creditor.  It's a complete and total muscle memory type reaction and it's unfounded.  We have money if there's an emergency, the creditors are all paid in full and on time, this is not a crisis it's a case of planning and saving by choice.  

I can't help but wonder if similar memory based emotions don't intrude at other points in my life when I find myself inexplicably depressed or moody.