I'm heading back to Columbus today after a week of staying in Cincinnati with my mom during and after her chemotherapy. Yesterday I wrote no less than seven emails to my brother and sisters (who will be coming down for consecutive chemo therapies) listing foods my mom likes, things that seem to help, calls for a different approach after the learning curve of this time. I went to the store five times yesterday. I bought enough protein bars, chicken noodle soup, ginger ale and crackers to feed at least five cancer patients. In a fit of hyper strength I moved a queen sized box spring from my mom's basement to her guest room for future guests. Then I blew up an air mattress and made it up in the other extra room. Then I added clean pillow cases. I did the dishes. I vacuumed.
All of this reminds me of when the girls were littler and I would type two and three (single spaced) page letters when they would go to Iowa for a week to visit my family without me. I included their lotions, their medicines, their special blankets and special bears. I reminded my relatives that the girls like chocolate milk in the morning, keep them away from cats, and never, ever, ever spank them. No matter what.
It's a bunker mentality. I'm surprised, in hindsight, that I don't actually have a bunker in the backyard. It would fit my personality completely. In all my years of teaching I've never forgotten a book or a handout. Not once. I did once forget the book I needed for a class I was taking, and I was so horrified I began to cry as I searched the building for the professor to tell her ahead of time what I had done. Look at what I have done!
I remember my therapist once asked me what it would feel like if I got a B in a class. I started to laugh. Not only can't I imagine such a feeling, I wouldn't even try. I remember talking to a mentor about some of my students who were earning Bs and Cs in my class, and being worried about them. "They're not you," my mentor responded. Enough said.
I like to believe this level of perfectionism doesn't touch my children. They are perfect to me-- they don't have to run through the world proving it (as I do). But then I think about two weeks ago when my daughter had a loose sheet of paper in her bag (fifth graders have like seven folders--color coded-- to keep themselves organized. This brings me so much joy.)
"Uh-oh," I said, pulling out the piece of paper. "We've got a loose one. Remember, the goal is organization! Where does this one go?" Yes. I actually said this. It seems funny now, but I'd do it again. I can't seem to stop myself.
My oldest daughter, perpetrator of the loose sheet, is enough like me that she quickly found the paper's place. My youngest daughter amuses me to no end because she's not a fan of my bullshit, and she'll call me on it. "Uh-oh," I'll say to her. "Your papers are not in your take home folder! Now they're all messy!"
"Yup," she responds, not even bothering to look at me. "But they're in my backpack. You're lucky they got here at all." And I know it's true. Because she was just as likely to throw them away, leave them in some one else's mailbox, or just turn them into paper airplanes and watch them fly away into the blue future.
I know what all of this is about (I'm the worst kind of crazy-- I know I'm crazy, and I know why I'm crazy). If I miss a piece of paper about field trips or PTA meetings or Curriculum Night I am powerless. As I've said to my kids before, "I can't do anything if I don't KNOW!" If I slip up and miss a signature somewhere the school will find out, and when they're counting signatures I'll go on the list of bad parents. Parent of kids that should henceforth be ignored or possibly abused, because their parents don't really care about them at all.
So I buy twenty-five protein bars and stack them neatly by type in a bowl on my mother's counter. I ask her repeatedly if it's OK for me to leave today. I vacuum the floor again. I mop the upstairs once last time. Because all of this will forestall the universe. Oh, there's action in that house. Let's leave that lady alone-- we won't make her sicker or make the chemo not work, because somebody cares enough about her to sweep. All that noise and action scares the bad spirits away. If every thing's clean and tidy and organized nothing bad can happen. All the papers will be in their places.
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