So far, 38 sucks....

...all this with my mom kicked in on my birthday. So, in my opinion, 38 sucks. Today I feel old. It's that time warp again - that one that pulls me into the moment, even though I don't feel ready for it yet. I realize, again, that this is the circle of life. But, I don't FEEL old enough to be hitting this stage. Clearly I am. My parents are 70 and 71. This is what happens. But, I'm not ready. Are we ever? No. Am I in a selfish place today. Hell yes.

Today, I had to discuss words like "Code C" and "Durable Power of Attorney." These are not words that I like. These are not words that I enjoy using. But alas, here we are.

I talked to my BFF this a.m. She is one of 6 kids. I have ALWAYS loved and admired the sibling relationships that are in that family. I'll admit - I get jealous at times. Today, I would give anything to have more siblings. Joel, my brother, is in Illinois. He, surprisingly (and I say that with all the love I have, Joel) was very calm and collected last night, talking me off the ledge. After receiving the phone call from the dr. that I needed to come down to help decipher things, I went into a complete panic attack. I called Joel and I told him that I was living my worst possible nightmare. He told me to take a deep breath and relax. And never, in all my 38 years (stupid 38) have I ever felt complete relief as I did in the voice of my brother. I actually did calm down. Huh! Joel...look at us! We're grown up brother and sister :-)

I also convinced my dad to go home for a bit today. That made me feel grown up too :-)

Today I had another thought flash through my head about my mom. Please try to follow along.....I recently attended a funeral at church for a man that lived 99 amazing years. Our pastor talked during the service about grief and love. That our gift to be able to love, no matter how much joy it brings us on a daily basis, will also cause us immense pain. It's basically a Catch 22. The more we love, the more we grieve. I wouldn't trade it in - I would not want to have missed out on Pat Beals as my mother, but this grieving part is awful. Realizing that there is a chance that she'll bounce back and be the mom that she was a week ago, I also have to start putting myself in the place of not having her like I did a week ago. I think that maybe this is part of my process? I don't know....I've never been through this......

At one point, I was looking at myself in the mirror today and I laughed because my hair is short now, and today it's super curly. And my mom's is super curly right now too because she hasn't been combing it. It's the one thing that people always say we have in common, which then in turn makes us laugh, because being adopted, I clearly don't have my mom's hair! One of the nurse's commented on it today and I found myself starting to giggle about it and then got really sad because my giggling cohort didn't hear it. I also caught myself, stupidly enough, questioning one of the terms that the dr. used. I immediately thought, "Oh, I'll call mom and ask her." This is the stuff that freaks me out.....the natural reaction to a situation might be "call mom" and now, I have to redirect all of my tendancies. Can you re-train a 38 year old (stupid 38)?