Wednesday, November 10, 2021

Here We Go


This lovely was blooming in the little garden patch beside the kitchen door today. It shares space with the bananas and some pinecone lilies and assorted other completely unrelated plants. I think that's the prettiest rose I've ever seen on that bush. It gets well fertilized in that area because I throw out kitchen scraps there and the chickens scratch and poop and what they don't eat breaks down and if you ever need any worms, that's the place to look. 

I've spent most of the day doing domestic goddess chores. I made chili and did some ironing and laundry and made cookies- all of this in preparation for me leaving my husband here alone tomorrow and heading off to St. George Island again, this time with my two best friends from nursing school and another good friend of one of them. I imagine that after this weekend, she'll be a good friend of mine too. 
This is what I was talking about when I mentioned being very anxious at the beginning of the week. I feel completely ridiculous even talking about it because my GOD! I love these women. We went through everything together in nursing school. I can't even begin to tell you. Vicky and Terry were just starting college and I? Well, it was my second stab at higher education and I'd already been married, divorced, and had two children. I felt ancient at the age of 29. But somehow, we found each other, so different in so many ways, and yet absolute kindred spirits and my house became our study place, our getting-ready-to-go-out place, our eating place, and sometimes everyone's sleeping place. We did our clinicals together at Chattahoochee, the state mental hospital where we literally feared for our lives until we realized that all of us are insane, just in different ways. We learned how to give bed baths on each other, we sat through lectures on everything from Anatomy to Death and Dying together- and always in the back row of the room and we were absolutely the worst behaved students and some teachers loved us for that and some hated us but by god, we were serious about nursing school and we did pretty well. There was so much laughing and there was plenty of crying. There was dancing at Bullwinkle's the local college bar. Sometimes with two of our teachers. There was kissing of boys and there was style advice. We went through all our romances together, we confessed things to each other that we've probably never told anyone since. They were there when Glen came to my house the second time and they were at my wedding. When we graduated I was pregnant with Lily. Then we all studied for our state boards together and took them together and passed them together. 

And we all began different lives in different places and we've only seen each other a few times since then. 
Here's a picture of us from when Terry's daughter Christie was a baby. 

Christie, Vicky, Terry, me

Now Christie's a grown-up married woman and her two younger brothers are grown men. Vicky's two children are grown too, for the most part, the younger one at FSU himself now. Terry's nursing career has led her to being a hospice nurse and I believe she was born for that. I can't imagine anyone I'd rather have midwife me into death. Vicky got her masters degree and is a Nurse Practitioner, still working. 
And you know me- sixty-seven years old with five grandchildren, still married to the man I met when we were all in school together thirty-eight years ago, canning vegetables and shoveling chicken shit. 

Recently, one of us has had a pretty severe medical scare and that has been the impetus for us to get back together for a visit. 

So. Why am I so anxious? 

Who knows? Not me. 

I do know that my social anxiety has gone through the roof lately. As I told Lis on the phone the other day, the most talking to anyone outside my family I've done recently was when I was getting an appendectomy and I was on morphine for most of that. 
"This is going to be so good for you," she said. 
And I know she's right. I told her so. 
But. 
I'm just that kind of crazy. 
I think I love them so much and after all of these years, I want them to still love me. Maybe that is the long and short of it. And I feel like such an odd duck these days in my overalls, living in this old, old house with chicken shit on the porch and on my shoes. My hair has grown so thin, my body has grown so NOT thin. I hardly have a neck at all. I know they are older too but I feel positively and absolutely old. Aged. 
And please don't bother to tell me that none of this matters. I know that. I know it in my bones and in my heart but some part of me feels like maybe they'll be shocked and disappointed in the reality of me now. And part of me is already teared up because I am thinking of so much that we shared and perhaps I'm just afraid of the emotions that I know will be evoked when we get together. That they will be too big for me to bear. 
There will be crying. I can guarantee you this. 
Crying. Laughing. Drinking. Stories. Memories. Catching up. 

I've never been one to have a huge group of friends. I've never been interested in casual friends. I fall in love with the people I give my heart to. And I fell in love with these ladies almost forty years ago and the thought of seeing them is truly overwhelming. 
Phew. 
Well. I'll be reporting in, I'm sure. 

In very good news, here's the email I got today from the imagining center where I got my mammogram:

"Dear Ms. Moon: Thank you for choosing TPCA for your health care needs. We are pleased to report that your recent mammogram and/or ultrasound showed no signs of cancer. Early detection of breast cancer is very important. Although mammography is the most accurate method for early detection, not all cancers are found through mammography. Therefore, if you have not had a recent physical examination of your breasts by your clinician, see your physician or other health care provider. All of your mammogram results will become part of your medical file here at Tallahassee Primary Care Associates, PA for at least 12 years. Patients are responsible for informing any new health care provider or mammography facility of the date and location of this examination. It is our pleasure to serve you at TPCA. We hope that we met your needs and made your visit as comfortable as possible. If you should have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us. Thank you, Tallahassee Primary Care Associates, Diagnostic Imaging Center"

So there is that. 
And here's a picture of August, getting his covid vaccination today. 


Jessie said he cried and said that it hurt and I know it must have or he would not have said it. But we are all so proud of him. And Maggie and Gibson are getting theirs tomorrow. 

So once again, that's the news from Lloyd. My husband will have leftover chili and soup to eat and plenty of cookies to snack on. I imagine he will survive. I will miss him. But it is very much time for me to pull up my big girl panties and do something that is hard and that is wonderful. 

Love...Ms. Moon


22 comments:

  1. the rose, OMG. And the get together with your dear friends.......the anxiety will melt away once you hug each other and have a good cry. *Good* cry! Enjoy!
    Susan M

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  2. My goodness ... You have all gotten older and those ladies are probably having the same thoughts and fears as you! Relax and just enjoy your little reunion ... Fun is the order of the day!!
    If the kids end up with sore little arms from their shots, have them hold a little icepack on the sore spot ... that seems to help a lot! Tylenol helps, too!

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  3. Don't be a silly billy Ms Moon! You will have a wonderful time with your old friends and you will laugh and cry together and wonder where the time went. It will be great. By the way, you were a doll back then. Mr Moon was lucky he snared you but of course that's what hunters do.

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  4. I miss being young too sometimes. I didn't appreciate it at the time of course. What is that saying? Youth is wasted on the young. We think it will last forever and then we wake up old one day.

    I hope you have a wonderful time with your friends. I don't have a lot of friends either but I cherish the ones I have.

    And Mr. Pudding is right, you were hot stuff.

    Sending hugs.

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  5. ty ty ty for your brave children and grandchildren. they had a vaccine clinic at my building last friday and i was moved to tears to see a line of parents and children out the door, rolling up their sleeves to keep us all safe.

    xxalainaxx

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  6. YAY you!! have a great time, I know you will.

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  7. I understand that reluctance so much. And I know as you do that you'll all have a great time. So do that!

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  8. I too get your reluctance and wish you a fabulous time!!

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  9. At the moment here, only children over the age of 12 are being jabbed for covid. Have a wonderful time with your friends....lucky you to be able to see them. Not seen any of my "old" friends for years!
    PS Our newest grandson has finally got a name (it took over 4 weeks but they had to make a decision as he needed to be registered). He is Felix.

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  10. They already do love you, Mary. And that's all that matters. All.

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  11. I have been thinking about this all night - I understand how you feel. I have felt that way too in seeing someone again after a long time. Your feelings are your feelings.

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  12. When you have a friendship like that you will absolutely just pick up from where you left of with a "so, where were we"! Have a wonderful time - but I know you will anyway!

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  13. You will have a terrific time and it will be like you have never been apart.

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  14. Oh Mary, once again I see we are the same person in different bodies. I so understand your social anxiety, your loving these women and being anxious about seeing them at the same time. All I can say is that the anxiety will vanish two seconds into greeting each other, but I know you know that, and I also know it does not help one iota before then. Here is my hand, friend. Know that you are beautiful, aging and all, and also know that my God, I have these same thoughts, the VERY SAME thoughts all the time. I love you.

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    1. I have these thoughts, too, and they actually get stronger, the older I get. I dislike this part of myself, and I don't know how to stop.

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  15. The thing is, I really absolutely do not care what people I have loved, who I haven't seen in a long time, look like when we meet again. I only see them, their inner spirit and glow. Why cant it trust it will be the same for others?

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  16. Also, brave August. I know it must have hurt in that tiny arm.

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  17. You will delight and enchant by them with very things you are worried about... Thank goodness and all the goddesses that we are not all cookie cuttered from the same cloth! Onward oddballs and eccentrics and introverts! Oh, and let's not forget the weirdos, which is what I was always called..!

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  18. I'm so excited for ya'll. And I'm so jealous of them. For getting to hang out with you.

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  19. I think Lis is right. This will be a terrific escape for you, and a chance to bond again with some sisters who mean so much. Have a great time.

    Poor August! I got a shot once when I was in first grade and I got sick immediately afterwards, and then I was terrified of shots for several years after that. But I think he's tougher than I was. :)

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  20. Not many of us still have friends who knew us in the young and silly times. These ladies are special. Enjoy.

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  21. Isn't it so strange navigating this Crone-hood territory? Mourning the loss of beautiful skin and embracing the feeling of not giving a fuck all at once. And here we are, killing it, wearing overalls and shoveling chicken shit. Love you Mary Moon.

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Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.