Trauma and a first

OK, before I take massive amounts of drugs and go to bed ... I'll catch you up.

     Today was actually going well, in spite of losing the tennis match this morning.  I think we played well, the match could have gone either way, but it turned out to be their day.  I was pleased with my game, which is much different than last week.

     And then I went to the dentist.

Oh my gosh.  

I was expecting a 30 minute, impression-making appointment.  You know, where you have to bite down on the gunk and not move for 4 minutes?  No pain, no harm -- no foul.  Well, mostly. I really hate going to the dentist (no mattter how much I like him as a person;  he's a very caring, loving, Jesus-loving man who cares a lot for me and my family).  In fact, when they took my blood pressure, which is always very, very low, it was 139 over something.  I can't remember the something because I was stunned by the 139.  That's how stressed I get when sitting in that chair.

But even though feeling the usual stress, I knew that it would be a quick, relatively easy visit. 

Boy was I wrong.

I didn't realize (don't ask me why) that he had to drill out the temporary filling from the root canal first.  Or that he would be doing injections into my jaw that were deeper and more painful than anything that has happened in my mouth to date.  It felt as if those injections were going all the way through my jaw and out of it.  I half-expected to see Novocain shooting out of the hole in my jaw onto my chest.  It was horrible.

And totally, 100%, not-even-an-inkling, unexpected.  

And then he drilled.  And had to push way down into my gums (with only ONE side of them numbed) and push and probe and push some more.  It hurt at the time ..... it is mind-numbing, I-want-to-hit-something, killing me now.  

He warned me that I would be in pain tonight.  

He was NOT kidding.

And then ...... as we waited for something to do something in my mouth (I have no idea what) he asked my about my grief.  

He is not only my dentist but a friend of our family.  So it's not our first time to "discuss" things.

But it was just bad timing today.  

He asked me what "stage" I was in.  I told him that I don't believe in the "stages" gunk (add it to the list).  There are no clean-cut stages that you progress through.  It's not that neat.

Those feelings are all there ..... sometimes all at once, but you don't move through them.  You experience them whenever and wherever they hit.  All of the time.

I told him that and told him there was no easy answer for that.  It just sucks ... all of the time.

I don't talk about it much anymore, in my day-to-day conversations.  There's a lot I don't talk about it.  I have to live with it inside of me and deal with it day in and day out --- I do NOT want to talk about it.  I want to hear about other things and other people's lives.  I want to live vicariously through you.  

So consequently, I talk a lot less these days and I listen a lot more.  

Not always a bad thing, in my opinion.  Though some of my friends miss the talking me.

That may be part of the "me" that is not coming back.  I know people like to think that the "before me" will be back some day ..... as good as new.  But she won't.  She really did leave with Jim and she will not be returning.  That doesn't mean the "after me" will be less of a person, she's just different.  Not in all ways, but in many.  

And I think that's OK.  It has to be.

Let's see .... what else?

Oh .... I cannot get Son #2's D.I. to answer my e-mail so I'm not sure how he's doing, especially after I informed him (by letter) that he will be staying there next semester.

I am very frustrated by the lack of communication and the guilt that I feel for even asking the man for information.  I have not ever, nor am I now, a "helicopter mom".  But not being answered and having to re-send e-mails makes me feel like he thinks I am.  

I could be wrong.  He could just be ignoring me because that's just the way he is.

But it still frustrates me.

     And here's a first --- or at least a "first" that I noticed.  I was in the drug store today and saw someone who knows me totally ignore and work very, very hard to avoid me.  No kidding.  And this was one of Son #3's teachers.  She knew who I was.  She knew Jim.  But she made her eyes look at everything else in that store except me.  She worked hard and did a great job.  If I were a mean-spirited person (my mouth was still numb at that time!) I would've gone up to her and said "Hi!" very cheerfully.  I also would've added, "I promise that if you just say hi to me I won't have a nervous breakdown and just start bawling all over you."

But I'm not (or I wasn't at that time .... the wearing-off of the Novocaine has changed that now) and I didn't.  I let her think I didn't notice.  My first time to notice that someone doesn't want to talk to me or have me even notice that they're in the same room with me.  Oh I'm sure it's happened plenty of times over the years, but this is the first time my "after" has noticed it and knew that it was because of my "after" and for no other reason.

     There have been some other things going on today, but the final straw .... the event that topped everything, the thing that scared the crap (I'd love to say s--- here but am trying very hard to rein it in) out of me, was when one of the sons got a flu shot today and then had a seizure.  It was very small, but it's never happened before and I thought I was going to die during those few seconds.  Literally.  

     That's all I can write .... my reins are slipping.  My mouth hurts and I need a box of Kleenex.

Here's hoping that tomorrow is a wee bit better.

Thanks for "listening".

UPDATE:  Just received an e-mail from the DI, apologizing for not getting back to me.  He gave me a wee bit of encouragement -- said Son #2 appears to be doing better but that his attitude still stinks (to put it mildly) and that he thinks Son #2 is trying to play on my emotions and wear me down (ya think?!! I am STUNNED by that revelation!!) so that he can achieve his goal and leave the academy.

He said that "we have to guard against that".  

I told him that Son #2 has no idea how much more stubborn I am than he will EVER be and that we are, indeed, on guard.

Swords ready!!!!