wake up... life is calling you home
9:30 am, Monday, February 18th.
My phone rings and Dad is on the other line; he sounds like you sound just after a car accident, scared and out of breath. I am not fully awake yet, as we do not have school on President's Day. What I comprehend out of the conversation is Mom... hospital... some high numbers, blood pressure... another big number, heart rate... doctors don't know what's wrong... love you, bye. click.
I sit stunned for a moment in my bed before my entire body shakes and tears trickle down my cheeks. I get out of bed, take the few steps to the door of my room, turn around, get back into bed. I look at Rochelle, asleep, and for some reason I don't want to wake her. Instead, I text Eric to see if he is awake yet. No answer for what seems like forever. My mind is racing and my senses are screaming... who else would be awake right now? Weston. I text him the same thing, he responds right away. Where are you?... Third floor lobby.
I get down out of bed, grab my jacket and slip out of the room. When I walk up to Weston, I give him a hug before he can even look up from his physics and begin to cry. He immediately puts me in his lap and I spill the story... how my mom is in the hospital and I don't know what happened, or what is going on, or when I will hear from them again. He works on calming me down and distracting me from the situation. My phone buzzes. Eric. I call and ask him to come to Knowles. Is anything wrong? Yes. I'll tell you when you get here. Bridger appears in the lobby and quietly sits down across from Weston and me. A few moments later, Eric walks up the stairs in the T-shirt and pants he was wearing yesterday. I can't recall words for a short moment, then I spill. My mom's in the hospital. Something wrong with her heart. This brings on a new wave of tears and I switch over to his lap. I'm sniffling, the tears are rolling, and I'm shaking on top of it.
I grab my jacket and a tissue from my room and we walk out of Knowles. Eric takes me to a bench in the sunlight by the river. I grasp my cell phone in one hand and his hand in the other. I can't stop shaking. We sit for a while looking out at the river. At some point, we decide to go downtown to a diner for something to eat. He orders a stack of blueberry pancakes and we split a Black Forest shake.
We walk out of downtown to the hospital to see Sarah, who was in the ER the night before with a stick through her neck from a skiing accident. She seems alright, a little loopy on drugs, but recovering. Dad calls me while I'm in her room and I walk quickly from the room. He tells me that Mom thought he might have scared me this morning and that she is fine... well, not fine, but... okay. The whole time I just want to hear Mom's voice, to know that she is still there. It's not enough to be told that she is stable, I guess in the back of my mind I need the reassurance the sound of her voice would give. But she is still in ICU, so I won't get that today.
Eric and I walk back to campus... he has frisbee practice. When I can finally bear to let go of my phone, I decide to take a hot shower. Joe and Rochelle have figured out that something is up, and bring me food from Staggering Ox. Then Rochelle, Joe, Eric, and I go to the ice rink. We skate for an hour, maybe more, and it helps take my mind off the situation. I am actually smiling for the first time since I woke up that morning.
My thoughts wander between how my mom is doing, how my dad is taking it, and how I would handle this without someone there to hold me. The fact that Eric is there to give me a shoulder to cry on and an arm to cling to means so much. It seems ridiculous to try to put it to words, words aren't enough. All I can say is thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for worrying with me. Thank you for everything.
takin it easy
so i am fairly sure that no one checks this anymore, but that is ok... i am going to try to write again.
updates:
i finished my first semester of college and am throwing myself into my second.
life at the dorms really isn't so bad, although i am definitely looking forward to next year when my roommate and two of our friends get a 4-person suite... that means i get my own room again!
rochelle seems deathly ill the last few days and it really sucks for her... because tomorrow is her birthday! i hope she feels better tomorrow, because we have a surprise for her that i think she will really enjoy... at least i hope so.
i am not getting enough sleep for my classes this semester... call me a slacker it's probably true. unfortunately i don't seem able to balance my need for sleep and my need for activity.
i think college has just as much drama as high school did, and i cannot seem to get out of the way, although it is cooling off for the moment.
speaking of cooling off, i live in montana now! and it is too damn cold here all the time... as of right now, it is snowing... a blessing because that means it is slightly warmer than it could be outside...
i can't wait the warm weather to come back, sometimes i wonder if i wouldn't have been better off going to college somewhere in the south after all. i do love the southwest, i just wish i could have found a program i liked. but then i wouldn't know all the people i know now and i wouldn't see my family at all.
jason goes to school here too, and it usually is a good thing, although he seems to dislike me lately and there is nothing i can really do to change that.
i am finally playing soccer again for an intramural team, and i think i am realizing that i would rather play the way we used to... four of us fooling around in the old stadium at 10 o'clock at night because that's when the humidity finally lifted enough for us to breathe... i am a competitive person, but i don't have as much fun as i used to.
sadly one of my favorite classes this semester is precalc... i didn't realize how much i missed math until i got back into it and actually wanted to do my homework.
my other favorite class is called the sociology of alternative religions. that's code for cults. the only problem is that it is 3 hours long on a tuesday night... but i find it easier to stay awake for the entirety of that class than i do for my hour long classes.
today i skipped my 8 o'clock class so i could be awake for physics and precalc... we had a test in precalc. i was sitting in physics listening to a discussion over who knows what (it is a class about the theory of relativity and i think it might be way over my head...) when i heard the professor say, "and Caitlin's trying to take a nap back there..." i hadn't even realized my eyes were closed. that should tell me something... if i sleep without even knowing i'm doing it, i am probably doing something wrong. my precalc test went ok, i didn't study last night and i really only didn't know two problems on the test, i think that might be my highest grade this semester.
i realized the other day that i am a time bomb waiting to explode. and if not me, then my kids, if i have any... what i mean is that my family has a bad history. my grandmother died of skin cancer this past spring, her husband had kidney cancer, my other grandmother had breast cancer, and her husband died from heart failure. we have aunts and uncles with depression, alzheimers, and so many other problems that it's not funny anymore.
on a happier note, college is turning out to be a positive experience so far. things are going fairly well, i'm staying active, and i have a good set of friends. i have a job working with the foreign student office and i'm just starting to feel comfortable in what i do, although it's not terribly exciting. i do hit the party scene occasionally and i feel comfortable with the people i go with and the fact that i don't drink, don't smoke, etc. etc. i'm fairly organized and in control of my life, except for the sleeping thing, but i think that comes with the territory. all in all, life is going as smoothly as it probably could be, at least as much as i would like it to be, and i've got no complaints.
