“fine”

Today was one of those days where I just didn’t seem to have it together. I told myself that I was fine. I even wondered if I should have gone back to work this week instead of taking the extra time off. You see, BoBo had asked what do I do all day, and it just didn’t sound like I was doing enough. I wrote out a lot of thank you cards, and also wrote down 22 more names of thank cards that needed to be sent. I called on Tom’s 401K from the company that laid him off many years ago (*that* was a turning point for him in terms of financial security). I was told to call his old employer…who told me to call back Fidelity…who told me to call the old employer. It just doesn’t seem like I am actually accomplishing much – if anything at all.

Still, I keep telling people, who ask how I am doing, that I am “fine.” I then began to wonder about my being “fine” when I showed up at the Social Security office 24 hours prior to my appointment. Come to find out, my appointment for tomorrow (rather than today) is actually a *phone* appointment. I could very well have screwed up on Wednesday too, had I not found this out. I suppose that I could take credit for finding out this information on time even though it seems like I should have had it clear from the beginning. Now, is that a product of how I am now, or how I was when I made the initial call to the SS office?

Later on in the day, I showed up at BoBo’s baseball game, glanced at the field and determined that the players looked too big to be the Frosh-Soph team. I didn’t walk far enough in to examine the dugout. I would have seen BoBo if I had done that. Instead I made the leap that I was at the wrong field. I made a phone call and was told that the game was at another school.

I went to the other school, watched for a 1/2 inning when I discovered that the guys in the white jerseys weren’t our team. The other team on the field was in red. This was very puzzling because BoBo doesn’t have a red jersey. I looked around and saw familiar parents (not that I have been to enough games to know our team parents).

A minute later, BoBo’s football coach came over and sat down beside me. He asked me how I was doing and I replied fine. I still thought that I was. Then he said, “This is the varsity game, Julie.” I tried to recover by saying that I heard that the nachos were good here, and took a bite of YaYa’s nachos.

There just was no recovering. I guess sometimes it seems like all is well when it is just a facade. What-EVER. It is actually just good ol’ Julie (without her Outlook Calendar or PDA) in action. Oh well, at least I got to run today. Something good had to come out of it.

There are other things that are coming out all right besides running. I cooked dinner tonight for the first time a quite a while. People have been dropping by meals for about a month now. Even though they aren’t coming every night, the portions are large enough to feed a small army. But tonight I was determined that I would not serve leftovers again. Even after getting home later due to the baseball game, we ate at a decent time.

After dinner, as I was trying to fold the three loads of clean laundry that had piled up, YaYa came into the room crying. He was sad about his Dad. He just couldn’t do his homework. We talked for a minute and then I suggested that he make a picture. We got out his water color paints, some Q-tips, and art paper. He painted a bike in memory of Tom.

I asked if he wanted to paint sadness but he said that he didn’t know how. I painted an eye with a tear falling from it. YaYa joined in on the painting, and then he painted a cookie. He cried up a storm thinking of how much pleasure Tom seemed to have in eating fresh baked chocolate chip cookies while he was sick.

After that, I helped YaYa get half way through his homework. Half done was enough for me. I think his teacher will understand too.

It’s not very much, but it is a little success and I’m taking credit for it. Before long I *will* be back at work, and who knows what time I’ll have dinner on the table or if I’ll be able think about good ways to work through the pain.