I Still Have Hives or Merry Christmas
December 20, 2012
I still have hives.
Maybe you don’t even know that I have hives, so let me explain; a little more than a week ago little strawberry bumps sprouted all over my body. From my ankles to my collar bone, welts were scattered across my skin like clouds, except really ugly, menacing, hot pink clouds. That itched. And still itch. A lot.
These are the days before Christmas. I need to shop, make lists, cook something and cover it colored sugar, I need to figure out what to do for my children’s teachers, (money to the room mother), our choir director, (gift card) and my supervisor at the work study job at the college I’m currently attending, (a really nice card and something in the muffin family.)
And all I want to do is find this mysterious itch that has been plaguing me for a week and scratch it. All I want to know is how much longer until my next dose of Benedryl.
I will get everything done. Every year there is something getting in the way of all that needs doing, and it always gets done. This year, all it is is a fervent desire to scratch. And I still have one more trip to the doctor’s, two refills for my medication and a couple of really good friends who will help if I need it.
Colin and Katy are in the Christmas pageant this year. On Christmas Eve, Katy will make her debut as a Wise One. Colin grudgingly agreed to take on the challenging role of Donkey. So I’ve got a minor skin disease. At least I don’t have to try to sleep on dried out straw. In a barn. With farm animals and all of the bugs that like to hang out with farm animals.
That must have been really uncomfortable.
I Can’t Sleep and I’m Not Sure I Ever Will Again
December 16, 2012
This past week was the last week of the semester at school. Classes ran long, finals loom. By Monday, I need to know where all the bones go, how to use a blood pressure cuff and be able to list the physiological benefits of weight training.
Wednesday brought us to the frantic search for a tree stand and a tree we could afford to put inside it. For the first time tonight, I strung the lights all by myself. It’s a beautiful tree. On it’s branches hang ornaments my children labored over every year since kindergarten. They are mixed up with with crystal sleighs, and blown glass icicles I bought before I found myself inside a life with kids and animals.
There were conversations with my kids about what happened in Connecticut.
In the middle of it all- the amazing, the time consuming and the tragic; on Tuesday afternoon hives sprouted on my body. Red welts along my back, inside my arms, on my ankles.
I went to the doctor on Tuesday, she told me I was having an allergic reaction. She gave me steroids, and suggested benedryl and oatmeal baths.
I still have the bumps. But now the drugs I’m on to get rid of them are keeping me awake.
I’ve got time now to study, sweep up pine needles, catch up on Thirty Rock.
I want to sleep. I need to go to church tomorrow. I need to study the endocrine system tomorrow. I need to stop by my friend’s house and decorate gingerbread men with my daughter tomorrow.
Instead my body is telling me to write a novel while I scratch the back of my left knee.
My brain needs some undivided attention.
And my heart, it beats. It carries me along. It sends me up the stairs to watch my kids asleep.
So I’m a little itchy and awake.
Tomorrow when I’m spent and sleepy, someone will tuck me in while another wipes me down with Benadryl. The people that I love will carry me.
December 14th, 10:54, Silent, Sweet, Sad, Sad Night
December 15, 2012
Tonight, the world doesn’t make much sense to me.
Our corner of the world has a Christmas tree with a crooked angel that opens and closes her arms, not enough lights and tinsel that seems to end up on the floor. Two kids are upstairs sleeping. Sophie the Wondrous and the Magical Dog is staring out the window, waiting for the return of Michael, the Delightful, Disappearing Cat. The dishwasher hums, the radiators rattle, the keyboard clicks.
My world makes sense tonight if I fill my mind with the noises here, right around me. For this, I know I am supremely blessed.
I want to offer prayers, that doesn’t seem to be enough. Hugs, oh my God, hugs? I want to fold the whole wide world inside my arms and have it all make sense and wake up tomorrow to a place where it all does. Make sense.
So tonight, I will pray. Tonight, many, many of us will pray, though some may call it something else.
Tomorrow we will wake up and watch the news, have difficult conversations with our children, shop, wrap, grieve.
And tomorrow night, we will pray again.
Until the night we forget because we are tired, or tipsy, or lost.
Or until the night, the prayers are heard.
We’ll see.
Tonight, the world doesn’t make much sense to me.
julierichmond 