Time is on my side, yes it--no

G. over at DaddyZine wrote this a few weeks back about his toddler daughter’s trip to the emergency room.

Then you realize there are really only two units of time: healthy-time and sick. The two are mutually exclusive and while wading around in one the other remains an abstract concept like surplus value or charmed quarks. You read the words on paper but they make no real sense.

Its accuracy alarmed me. I’m not operating on sick time anymore, but my head still feels stuck there. I suspect that’s because my life and mind have been changed as a result of Mom’s death. The fact that she hasn’t been buried yet may play a role.

The truth is that I’m worn out from human interaction, but my interaction level is on the rise. My best friend from childhood is flying out this weekend to see me, and I don’t think I’m going to handle it well. I love her and miss her, but I haven’t had any time to myself in the last month and a half, and before that, it was few and far between. After being at work for a week, we decided to rejoin the flock and go to the church dinner last night. No one had heard from us, and a few seemed a little put off that I had been back for more than a week and didn’t call. We’re hosting knitting on Thursday, and Heather is arriving on Friday. The house has to be cleaned, there’s dessert to be made, and I just want to go to my room and shut the door and not come out.

But my body is back in healthy time, even if my mind isn’t ready for it.

I’m doing everything I can to stay close to Mom. I’m wearing her sweaters, and I snagged her leather coat with coordinating fleece hat, gloves, and scarf. I’ve been wearing something of hers every day. Her jewelry too. I just want to give it all back and drive to my parents’ house and curl up with my mommy on the couch. We would rub each other’s feet, and I would rub her head with the nice vitamin E lotion and she would stay okay forever.

See? My mind isn’t back yet. I can get my work done and function adequately, but I don’t want to. I actually want to go back to that sick time when I had my mom, because she was there and I wasn’t here.