On Facing Fears, and Former Students...

Unalome tattoos.  If it matters, mine is most like the far left image.  

We just returned from a week-long family vacation to the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  It's important to note that this is the first time we have attempted this as a family since the summer of 2009.  The significance of this is that that last summer trip really was a last summer trip for one of us.  That's not the focus of this post, but it does contribute.

I have this...problem.  Significant dates in my life, usually traumas of some sort, get tagged in my brain and remembered.  I have trouble remembering when the good things happen, but things that rip my guts out pop up in their little anniversary outfits and kick me in the teeth on a pretty consistent basis.  Sometimes the teeth-kicking is based on a calendar date, but other times, it's just the "oh, the last time I was here" thoughts that get me.  So, this was one of those things.  The last time we did this, Edna was still with us.  The last time we did this, things were very different.  The last time we did this, I was a different person than I am now.  But again, not the focus of the post, just the backstory.

Anyway, it was the same week seven years ago that we did this last.  To oversimplify, it's also a time of transition for me professionally and personally, and I also had some other "anniversaries" in my head rolling around, when I happened to come across an image of a tattoo that really called my name.  I've wanted a tattoo for a couple of years.  In fact, it was supposed to be my birthday present in 2014, but I just never got around to it.  No, that's not entirely true--I had plenty of time to get one, but I didn't know HOW.  The same fear, if you will, stops me from going to get a pedicure without backup from my girls.  I don't know how things are done, so I just don't do them.  Easy solution, but also the wussy way out.  So this tattoo yelled my name, and my ever-courageous (and sometimes slightly scary) baby sister made the appointment.

I could have chosen an ankle or a thigh or a shoulder for my first ink...but I rarely do things the easy way, and I chose my sternum instead.  Worrying about the pain a little, I had ONE cocktail before we left, and chose undergarments and a shirt that I thought would provide easy and modest access to the area. I had the distraction of a ceiling fan accident (another story) to distract me just before departure, and I was feeling pretty good, pretty decisive about the whole thing.  A rarity for me, so it had to be acted upon.  Not even learning that I'd have to disrobe before the procedure really slowed me down much--it increased the anxiety level, of course, but after all--these people are professionals!

Turns out, one is required to show ID before a tattoo, even if you're clearly over the age of consent, and when the artist read out my small town name as if he recognized it, warning signs went off in my head.  Nobody knows where this town is unless you've lived here, and if that's true, you've usually tried to forget.  But he knew it, and then elaborated by saying he grew up around here and...Went.  To.  My.  School.  You know, the one where I teach?  Oh, and, "You were my 7th grade English teacher!" And here are those band-aids to satisfy your modesty.  Band-aids.  The little teeny ones.  Which makes them the only little teeny things on my body, if you catch my drift.  I avoid the grocery store at home in order to avoid students and former students, and you're telling me I'm five hours away from home and about to set the girls free...and, eeeek!

If I've ever felt like dashing out of a place of business, that was it.  But I sucked it up.  I was on a mission, the tattoo was calling my name, and I knew if I didn't do it then, I'd never get that one OR any other one.  It had to happen.  So I sucked it up.  I held on to my shirt until the very last possible minute, covered up to the best of my half-naked ability, and counted holes in the ceiling tiles as I anticipated the pain that I hoped would distract me from my psychological discomfort.  And it.  Was a piece.  Of cake.  The pain was minimal, the artist was ultra-professional, even when I threatened to time travel and put him in silent lunch, and I love the tattoo itself.  (Shout-out to AJ at Wicked Parrot Tattoos in Kill Devil Hills, should you be looking for a vacation tattoo.)

Symbolically, it represents the path to enlightenment.  The curves and spirals are the difficulties of life, the challenges, the times we don't know where our paths are headed.  The top, the straight part, is where we figure our proverbial shit out, become "enlightened," if you will.  The dots at the top allegedly represent death, the end of the journey.  As I write that, I realize that it's like punctuation, and you know I LOVE that connection to the grammar queen in me.  I have dots at the bottom, too, which to me, mean that everything comes full circle.  Emotionally, it is even more significant.  It marks a time when I faced not one fear, but SEVERAL, and came out on the other end better for it.  It also marks this time of transition, a connection that I will always make when I look at it.  And it replaces some memories, or signifies them, in a way that I could never have done on my own.  Those are all my "squiggles," and my getting through them and coming out better and stronger on the other end is my straight line, my goal in life...and it's closer all the time.

I have a whole bunch of things swirling around in this brain of mine right now, and it's making me sort of dizzy.  Chalk it up to a rough time of year, or a seasonal change, or exposure to too many fluorescent lights, or coming down off the "high" of a long weekend vacation, but whatever it is, it feels...unsettled.  This blog has always been a great way for me to at least put a finger on "the thing," but I'm also inspired today by a professional book study in which I'm participating.  Ms. Super Teacher who wrote the book talks some smack about how she's Queen of Teaching Writing and also finds time in her day to write for at least fifteen minutes daily.  I might not be able to publish a book and tell everyone I know the right way to teach writing, but I can at least sit my butt down here for a few minutes a day (aaackkk!) and get something flowing.  Maybe.  It might not be pleasant, but maybe it will be good anyway.

So, it's fall.  Officially.  And I don't really hate fall...I don't.  But it makes me very sad.  As if the leaves turning brown and the flowers dying weren't enough to do that, this time of year will always and forever be The Time of Year In Which Edna Died.  There's nothing I can do about that.  But on beautiful afternoons like today, on which the sun is shining and the air is warm, I will always, always, ALWAYS feel that there is something ugly and catastrophic waiting just around the corner.  There were many afternoons like this one that I spent in the car on the way to the hospital or my parents' house after school.  I'd be listening to Rick Springfield sing about being "one passenger" on the train of life, or about time standing still, or many of the other songs on that particular album that seemed to be so apropos at the time, and I would have to pull over and cry.  There was, and is, something about the grief that I was already feeling even before her death and the striking beauty of the colors and the angle of the sun and the music...and I would be overwhelmed.  And then I would have to collect myself, fix my face, and go and be the strong one who handled things and pretended it would all be okay. 

And my birthday approaches.  I never was big on birthdays--even the monumental ones, like 16, 18, and 21, were always sort of awful.  41 is not good.  I don't like it, and we are not friends.  I'm staring down the barrel of my child-bearing years being over, when they never really started.  I'm looking at wrinkles and crows' feet around my eyes.  I'm listening to creaky knees and adjusting to being old enough to be Big Time Rush's mom.  I'm sure this is probably as much to do with my character and personality as anything, but birthdays have always sucked.  At the risk of sounding like Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles, it has just always felt like an anti-climactic bunch of nothing.  No one asks me what I want to do, or what I want...and when they do, I can't even tell them, because I don't want to do anything, nor is there anything I want.  But then I get upset when they listen and I'm nonplussed.  Edna was the only person that ever did my birthday right, ever.  And she did it without asking, which is amazing.

We did just return from a fabulous three-day beach trip, and I'm grateful for that.  But, of course, it also has its flip side, which is that I'm really sort of angry that this is the first time we've been since 2009.  We should have been going all along, and seeing the absolute joy on Andrew's face as he played in the surf, or ran around the very windy beach with a beach towel flapping out behind him as he pretended to fly like a superhero really makes me wish we had.  I love the lake, and our days there far outnumber any beach vacations we would have taken.  But having and maintaining a place there (humble though it is) takes our resources--both money and time--and there simply isn't enough of either to go around.  My dad talks about the memories Andrew will have of the lake for a lifetime, and he equates it to his own childhood memories of spending summers on the Jersey Shore with his extended family...and I WANT Andrew to have that, I do.  But I also want him to have other experiences, so at some point, I guess we're going to have to examine the issue and decide what's more important.  Ugh. 

Ah, well.  In the words of Scarlett O'Hara, "Tomorrow is another day." 

A random shot to brighten your Tuesday...

This is from a business trip I made to the eastern side of Virginia on Monday. I was just happy to know that the Atlantic Ocean is where we left it back in June. This was shot at Ocean View Park in Norfolk.

With the school year starting and many things up in the air for us, it was nice to see it with my own eyes. I fear I might not see it again for a long time.

Tam, thanks for cutting me some slack and understanding that I needed this "mental health" half-day. This picture will be one of the things I cling to as it starts to get cooler.

Good luck to Tam and the educators who read this blog on a great school year!
---J