My Real Life

2015 has come to a close and I had set some goals for myself, and it’s time to reflect and see how I did.

However, I will say that, no matter how many of these things I have accomplished, it was a tough year for many people, myself included, and the fact that we all survived it is good enough for me.

1. Take the family to DisneyWorld. Didn’t happen. We watched many friends take their families, and, quite frankly, I just don’t know how to find the time or the money to get 6 people to Disney or Universal. Sounds like an excuse, but it’s the truth.
2. Participate in at least one random act of kindness per week.  There may have been a week or two when I missed the boat on this one, but I think, for the most part, I was able to succeed here.
3. Exercise at least twice a week.  Some weeks, yes. Some weeks, no. I actually just checked the MyFitnessPal app and I’ve gained 10 pounds in the last year, but I have a feeling that has more to do with my eating than my exercise.
4. Watch less tv.  I may have succeeded here. I did cut back on a lot of the shows I watch. However, I still watch a lot of tv. And I stream a lot. But, I like to be entertained, whether it is movies, tv or books.
5. Make $1,000 by selling on eBay, consignment, etc.  Maybe $100, but it wasn’t even close to $1,000.
6. Blog at least once a month.  I came close. I did. And some months, I blogged more than once. However, some months were empty, here on the blog. I had more than 12 posts for the year, so the average is once a month, but we all know that’s not really the same.
7. Read 50 books (and keep track!)  I actually read 60 books in 2016. That makes me very happy. They weren’t all deep and thought-provoking, but they kept me entertained.
8. Really go through my closet and be ruthless with getting rid of what I don’t wear.  I did this, but there is more work to do.
9. Play piano at least once a week. I did this and loved it. This was a great goal for myself. It makes me very happy.
10. Write in my journal more often.   I am looking in my journal right now, and I can see that I wrote in my journal twice this year. So, I’m going to count this one as a miss.
11. Get published, again.   Can’t get published if you don’t write. And I didn’t.  So, no.
12. Re-edit my novel.  It didn’t happen.
13. Shred and pare down all of our files. Did it. Feel great about it.
14. Entertain more. Um, yeah, no. I did not do this. I love to have people here, and I had a candle party, a work party, and hosted Christmas, but for 2015, that’s it.
15. Be kinder to myself. I don’t know. Part of me thinks I did this, but part of me thinks I didn’t. Probably the part of myself that is too hard on myself is the part that thinks I failed.

So, I guess you win some, you lose some, and when I look at this list, I see things that I want to carry through to next year. I don’t know what is coming in 2016, just like, in a million years, I couldn’t have guessed what was going to happen in 2015. Life throws you curveballs. All you can do is keep your head held high.

Real Man and I went to the movies, the other day.

While we were there, right before the previews, I realized I had to run to the ladies room.

While I was in there, I happened to overhear the woman in the stall next to me conducting a business meeting.

In the bathroom.

Sitting down.

We both emerged from our stalls at the same time, and as I washed my hands, she finished her call.

She hung up, moved forward to the sink, looked at me and shrugged her shoulders and held up her phone.

“Always on call, these days. Right?”

I smiled and nodded, and felt the weight of my own phone, in my back pocket, but I couldn’t help but wonder…

Does the amazing technology we have, today, mean that we can never, truly leave work?

—–

One of the things I tell my students, and their parents, is to email me their questions any time.

I always have my phone on me, and I’ll get back to them very soon.

I do this, because if they are working on something at home, and they encounter an issue, I want to help them get it resolved, and answer their question, rather than have them stop the work and not have it done.

I don’t have it with me during dinner.

I don’t bring it with me when I’m playing outside with the kids.

It’s not out when we are doing something as a family.

However, I check it soon thereafter, and do respond as soon as I get the questions.

In some ways, it feels no different than how I often spend the weekend grading papers.

In other ways, it’s invasive.

But, for me, it’s a choice.

I don’t have to respond after hours or on the weekend.

I want to.

But, for so many people, that phone…

It’s not a lifeline.

It’s a tether.

A leash.

A way for a boss to assign just one more case for you to work on and have ready for Monday morning.

A way to make sure that even when you are home, your mind is on work and the things that you have to complete.

My neck feels tense just thinking about it.

I mentioned in a previous blog post that I’ve been rewatching Sex in the City.

In the show, Miranda is a lawyer.

In the later seasons of the show, she is very conflicted about the amount of time that she spends at the office, and then the amount of work she has to bring home.

Every time I see her struggle, I think, “Thank goodness she didn’t live in the time of smart phones!”

You know, because she’s a real person.

I think about all the people that I see, nose in phone, everywhere I go, and I know that all those people aren’t on Facebook or Instagram all the time.

A lot of them are working.

And then I wonder…what are the jobs that don’t require you to be in contact like that?

Do sanitation workers have to respond to emails about the new trucks that they are using to pick up the trash on Monday morning?

Does my mailman have to respond to a group email that he receives on a Saturday afternoon about a meeting that they are having before running their routes on Monday morning?

I don’t know.

What I do know is that the blending of work and home time isn’t a healthy piece of progress in society, and we need to be careful that we don’t wind up working all the time.

A few weeks ago, I woke up and found a strange lump on my clavicle.

Well, not on my clavicle, but above my clavicle, at the base of my neck, a bit to the side.

And, it wasn’t just a little lump.

It was a big one.

I apologize for the visual, but the best way I can describe it is that it was like someone put a breast implant on top of my shoulders.

Weird, right?

It didn’t hurt, but it was unnerving.

And embarrassing.

It wasn’t yet sweater weather, but I started wearing a sweater to work to cover it up.

And then, after two days, I went to the school nurse.

She was stumped, and called the FastER in town, and put me on the phone with the doctor there.

He, too, was stumped and wanted me to come in for a closer look.

So, I went.

He poked and prodded, brought in another doctor to check it out, and in the end, put his hand on my shoulder and said “Well, you are just strange!”

I could have told him that without the $10 copay.

He was no closer to knowing what was up, so he ordered bloodwork and told me, if it hadn’t cleared up in two days, to call the local imaging center for a CT scan.

Two days later, not only hadn’t it cleared up, it had gotten bigger, so I called and scheduled the CT scan.

The next day, I got a call that the bloodwork came back and was clean.

So, hurdle one, cleared.

—–

The next week, I went for the scan.

It was a CT scan with contrast.

They hadn’t been sure that they were going to do the contrast because of my shellfish allergy.

They had me bring my inhaler, take Benadryl, and were prepared for disaster.

That really set me at ease.

The woman warned me, beforehand, exactly what it was going to feel like when the IV fluid was going in.

She said it was going to be hot, and then I’d feel flushed and hot from the chin to “the groin” and I’d feel like I had peed in my pants.

“The dye can’t actually make you urinate, but you will definitely think you did.”

Sounded lovely.

“The most important thing,” she told me, “Is that you don’t move. Not even a fraction of an inch.”

Okay.

I lay back in the machine and closed my eyes, and the table began to move me through slowly.

From the other room, she pushed the button that began the IV.

I felt it creeping up my arm, but it was freezing, and not even a little warm, like she had said.

I figured this was it.

The end.

I was having a reaction to the contrast, and that was why I was feeling it as cold instead of hot.

That my body was beginning to shut down.

To paralyze.

I was turning to stone.

And then…I began to flush.

My face felt hot and sweaty, and it traveled down my body until…

Oh no.

She was wrong.

I was the exception to the rule, and the dye had made me pee.

All over the table.

I was mortified.

I lay there in a pool of my own urine, and tried to figure out how to extricate myself from the situation with grace and just a little bit of dignity.

But, I never moved.

Finally, the table slid back out of the machine, and she came in.

“All done!”

I sat up, ready to explain what had happened, when I realized, I was dry.

And all the weird sensations were gone.

“How was it?” she asked.

“Great,” I responded. “I barely noticed a thing.”

—–

Fast forward a few days, and I get a call from the doctor.

“So, the results are in,” he says. “Everything is clear. There doesn’t appear to be anything there.”

“Wow! That’s great!” I say. “So, um, what the heck is going on?”

“I honestly don’t know,” he said.

“Hey!” I said. “I have an idea… maybe it’s bunched muscles or something? I recently started working out with kettle bells, and it works different muscles than usual, and it’s possible, right?”

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

“Right?” I asked, again, a little more desperately this time.

He hesitated, and I couldn’t help but wonder what it could possibly be.

Not cancer…the bloodwork was clear.

Not a cyst…the CT was clear.

So, what was it that he was so terrified to tell me?

What could it be that had him, a trained doctor, trying to find the words to say?

He cleared his throat and spoke softly.

“Actually…I think it’s just…fat.”

Now it was my turn to be silent.

Finally, I mustered an “Excuse me?”

“I think it might be a new pocket of fat.”

I thanked him and hung up and sat there, at my desk, incredulous.

Grateful, believe me.

Very grateful that it wasn’t cancer or anything dangerous or anything that would require surgery.

Yet…

I was dumbfounded.

Fat?

On top of my freaking shoulders?

I no longer have to just worry about my butt, my thighs, and my belly.

Now, I need to worry about collecting fat on top of my shoulders?

And so, if you need me, I’ll be doing bench presses in the basement so I don’t wind up having to wear a turtleneck bathing suit next summer.

But, hey, maybe if it’s migrating from other parts of my body,  I’ll fit into skinny jeans sooner than I’d hoped!

Monkey Girl has always been tall.

In nursery school, she was always the tallest kid in her class.

In elementary school, she towered over the boys.

By middle school, some of the girls had caught up, and by the end of 8th grade, the boys had generally caught up, and her friend group included some supermodel tall young ladies, and she was no longer walking around, hunched over, trying to appear as though she wasn’t the Big Bird to the Bert and Ernie’s of her peer group.

But, I will never forget those early years.

Because she was tall, everyone expected her to behave like an older child.

In stores, if she was acting two, when she actually was two, people would look and shake their heads, because they would assume she was four.

When I would pick her up from nursery school, they would say “Well, she was sucking her thumb again. We talked to her again and are trying to figure out a reward system to help her stop.”

I’d say “I’m fine with her sucking her thumb. She’s three.”

And they’d smile at me and say “She has to grow up sometime, Amy.”

I’d smile back and say “Yes. Some day. But not when she’s three.”

And when she was five and she was ready…

She stopped.

—–

Well, now I’ve got another tall one.

And he’s only gonna get taller.

But, right now, he’s only 11, (and he’d kill me if he ever heard me say this), 11 is little.

I’ll say it again…when you are 11, you are a little kid.

Granted, 11 today is different than 11 when we were kids, but at the end of the day, they are still pretty new to life and need to be treated as such.

And that’s hard to remember when you are eye to eye with the person you are trying to teach a life lesson to.

I curb the impulse to say “Knock it off and act your age” because he usually is acting his age.

He just looks like a 15 year old behaving like an 11 year old.

Age is not a license to act like an idiot, but it definitely is a reason why silly can sometimes be okay.

—–

I dropped him off at a 6th grade social tonight.

He walked in among the other kid; head and shoulders above them all.

I whispered in his ear, before he ran ahead of me “Make good choices,” and I think he probably will.

But he looked so grown up with his hair gel and size one million sneakers, and in my head, I finished my thought “…and if you don’t…let the adults remember that even though you look big, you are just a little kid.”

—–

So, if I was going to wrap up this post in a neat, little bow, I guess I’d do it by reminding you not to judge a little, tiny book by it’s great, big cover.

Being a teacher and a parent, the one thing I always make sure to remember is that all of my students are someone’s babies.

Even the ones that I have to physically look up to.

I never watched Sex in the City when it was on.

It’s a show that I came to in reruns, and in the later seasons.

So, I never really got to see the beginning of the show, the genesis of certain relationships, or the evolution of the characters.

I simply knew them, as they were, in the end, and I enjoyed watching.

I saw both movies, and at the end of the second one, decided that the stories had definitely run their course.

Amazon Prime recently announced that it had the entire season available for streaming, and I was in need of a new treadmill show, so I decided to watch from the beginning.

And, as much as I liked it before, I like it even more, now.

I’m even obsessing, a bit.

Obviously, it’s not for the faint of heart, and is over the top with the adult content, but what I like about the show is the friendship.

Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha are friends.

Real friends.

And, while it bothers me immensely that they complain endlessly about not being able to find good men, and then when they do, these women are the ones who mess it up, at least they always have each other’s backs.

It reminds me, very much, of my friendship with Kim, Erin, and Michaela.

If we were all single and living in the city, that is.

However, even though we are all married, some of us with kids, some of us not, living hours away from each other, we’ve always got each other’s backs, and I think that is the heart of the show.

The relationships with the men are secondary.

But the relationship between the women takes center stage and I love it.

It’s a lot like why I love Buffy the Vampire slayer.

Yes, yes…I’m a fan of the supernatural, but it, too, is a show about friendship and that is the string that lasts through the entire show.

It even saves Willow’s mortal soul, at one point.

But, that’s an episode for another day.

I do, also, love that the women aren’t willing to settle.

They know what they want, and are willing to say goodbye to relationships that are “just okay” in order to find what they need, and what they deserve.

One of my favorite lines comes from the an episode in season two.

Carrie is leaving Mr. Big at his engagement party and she says (to us) “Maybe some women aren’t meant to be tamed. Maybe they need to run free until they find someone just as wild to run with.”

Love that line.

Not that I consider myself wild, but I understand the sentiment and, again, the idea that “it” is out there for everyone.

On another note, I will admit that the writer in me can’t help but love when Carrie whips out her laptop and starts typing her column.

I’d have loved to have been a columnist.

I used to write little newspaper columns all the time, when I was a kid.

So, it’s very satisfying to see her words appear across her screen as she writes, each episode.

People write the show off as shallow, as too much, and as nonsense.

I disagree.

I think there are some deep thoughts in there, and while I don’t think a lot of the behavior that is modeled would be anything I’d ever want my daughter to learn from, there are definitely lessons to be learned, and relationships to be observed and remembered.

So, we bought Monkey in the Middle a phone.

It was time.

Over the summer, he has started to play further and further away from home.

While, in my childhood, I was out of the house from the moment I ate my last bite of cereal until the streetlights went on and my parents had no idea where I was, we live in a different world.

I’m happy to let him play away from the house.

But I want to be able to get in touch with him.

Also, there are all kinds of opportunities for him to have to stay after school, now that he’s in middle school, and yes, I work in the same school, but we actually don’t see each other all day long.

It’s great if he can shoot me a text and tell me what club he’ll be staying for.

So, we bought Monkey in the Middle a phone.

And, yes, he has texted me to let me know where he is.

And, yes, he has texted me to let me know when he’ll be coming home.

But my guy has a very short patience period, and so, often, when I pick up my phone, the screen looks like this:

Or, he thinks I’m bored and he wants to entertain me:

Then he discovered the camera, and started videoing himself pitching in slo-mo so he could perfect the process.

Very productive.

Then he decided to start taking pictures of me.

Not productive.

Then he discovered memes.

Except this meme says otherwise.

So, yeah, he got a phone.

God, help me.