Walk it Off

 My wonderful son is EIGHTEEN, despite my efforts to keep him tiny and cherished. I can remember him chasing cats around the kitchen in his walker, and changing his diapers, and holding him when he was scared.  We had such wonderful conversations when I drove him to and from school with him securely strapped into a car seat.  We would talk about God and the whole world.  Now he actually drives himself to school while I say a silent prayer that he gets there safely.  

When I was that age, I didn't see myself as an adult.  I moved into my college dorm without a care in the world, thinking that college was just high school, part two.  Mom and Dad were there to take care of any emergencies that popped up. The first time I ever got sick while in college, I called my Dad. Any time I got sick, I talked to my dad, because he would say, "Meh, it's nothing, walk it off," and I knew that I would survive.  Except that is not what my Dad said this time.  

"What do you want me to do about it?  I'm a few thousand miles away." 

And I remember thinking a bad word, because Dad, in his infinite wisdom, was right.  That did not solve my dilemma, however. My stomach really hurt, and not in the way a stomachache has you laying on the couch sipping Sprite and eating crackers while watching soap operas.  This was actual pain, knives poking into my gut repeatedly. Never happened to me before, so I freaked, of course.

My anxiety immediately went to the conclusion that I was going to die.  

I eventually realized that there was a clinic on campus, and I walked there, slowly, in the dark. I saw a person at the clinic that may have been a doctor, but maybe not.  This person looked at my pale, tearstained face, listened to my tale of woe, gave me a prescription for what was probably Prilosec, and sent me home.  No emergency room visit.  I was fine the next day.   I probably could have just walked it off, but I was eighteen.  

So now my boy has been having stomach issues, but I am right here to share the wisdom of my Dad, and the OTC Prilosec.  And my son did indeed go walking, and his stomach stopped hurting.  There's a lesson in there somewhere, maybe about problem solving or pausing for a breath before freaking out.  I'll let my child figure it out.

Walk it off.  

Are You Experienced?

No one in my family actually ever said a word to my brother and I about college.  There was no discussion because it was assumed that we were going.  There was only the matter of choosing which university to attend.  As naive as I was in high school, I pictured college as something very similar to high school, complete with a bell schedule and lockers in the hallway.  Not much would change I thought. 

Boy, was I wrong. 

That first taste of faux adulthood was heady, an intoxicating elixir of fun and freedom.  No one to tell me to get up in the morning.  No one to holler at me to finish my homework.   Nobody telling me much of anything.  It was MY responsibility now!  If I wanted to eat the last piece of chocolate cake, I could! If I wanted to sleep in and skip a class, I could! Decisions were no longer made for me. 

I made my own decisions. 

Of all my experiences away at college, I loved the independence the most.  I felt free to sow a few "wild oats", which included things that I would never have dreamed of doing while in high school.  I made a few mistakes, of course.  Everyone does.  For example, I learned that ceiling fans are not for recreational usage, no matter what the movies say.  (I also learned that one does not chug a bottle of Jack unless one is named John Belushi, but that is a story for another time.)  I figured out the hard way what my limits were, picked myself up, and carried on.  I learned to balance myself on that line between earning a degree and having a great time. 

In other words, I did it my way.


1.) Talk about what you loved most about your college experience.

Those College Classes Come Back

I learned a great deal in college.  I was one of those students who sat in the second row and took notes and turned in my homework, so I paid attention.  In my psychology classes, we discussed the great Sigmund Freud and his stages of childhood psychosexual development.   Problems in one of these stages led to issues in later life, said Freud.  I dutifully wrote down the stages--oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital--and I can remember thinking that Freud seemed to think that everything was about sex.  (And most of what he posited has been deemed faulty, but Freud was swimming in uncharted territory at the time. Nobody had done what he did before.)  The phallic stage is the stage of development where we have the Oedipus Complex brewing, which has received a great deal of negative publicity for obvious reasons.  

Last weekend Zane and I were left to our own devices while Larry went off to do soccer stuff.  We were playing with cars, and I was admiring the little Shelby Cobra, when Zane put both hands on either side of my face, so he and I would be eye to eye.

"I love you, Mama."  He smiled so sweetly. 

"Awww!" I hugged him tightly.  "So sweet!  I love you, too."

"I'm going to marry you."  Zane was still smiling angelically, and so was I.

Inside my head was a different story.  At first I was confused, and then I panicked, because I wasn't sure how the heck to respond. What do you say to that, that isn't going to completely screw up a kid's head?  Even if you don't say anything, your silence could be misinterpreted. Then I remembered my child development classes. Statements like this are developmentally appropriate, I realized, as a boy begins to figure out his place in the world.  Apparently, I was paying attention in that college class.  I immediately noted that Zane was in the phallic stage, according to the age ranges. Not that I agreed with Herr Freud.  The boy is figuring out the boundaries, I decided. There was nothing to be concerned about.  After all, I thought, Zane will grow up and be an adult, he'll get married and have a family of his own.  No reason to freak out, no reason at...Holy cow!  My child is going to grow up!  He's going to be an actual adult!  He's going to be married and have kids of his own!  I took a deep, calming breath so I wouldn't hyperventilate.  I remembered my promise to myself, to try and live in the now.

"No son," I kept my voice neutral.  "When you are older, you will meet a nice girl and marry her.  Then you will get your own house and live there."

There. That was pretty benign, right?  No.  

"Noooooo!  I want to marry YOU and live with YOU and Daddy!"  Zane threw himself down on the floor, signaling the beginning of a major hysterical conniption.  I just laughed. This was the drama that I know and love--Oscar winning material, for sure.  I went for the distraction, knowing my son's love of chocolate chip cookies. 

"Hey, let's go make cookies, okay?"

"Okay."  He was down the stairs before I knew it, the little toot.

RemembeRED: Mentors

Prompt: Do you have a mentor, or are you a mentor for someone else?  Now write about an experience with your mentor (or the person to whom you are a mentor) that shows us what that relationship means to you.  




Abnormal psychology is one of the required classes for a psychology major, but I would have taken the class even if it wasn't my major.  The professor sort of reminded me of a larger version of Teddy Roosevelt, with the mustache and the little round glasses.  His name was Ed.  He not only talked about the disorders of the mind, he talked about actual people with those disorders, such as the artist Louis Wain. Somehow, that made the symptoms we learned seem more real than they would have been with just a text book and a lecture.  I thought that Ed was a great professor,  then I moved on to the next class.

After I graduated and taught high school for a year, I realized that I didn't want to be a teacher. I impulsively quit my job.  Then I freaked out a little, because I had never done anything quite that impulsive before.  I didn't have a clue what I was going to do from that point on.  I flailed about, looking for a job, but really I was looking for a direction. Then I ran into Ed.  I don't remember where.  But he remembered me, and since he was the kind of person that people told all their problems to, I found myself unloading about my lack of a career goal and my seemingly directionless life. It was as if I opened my mouth and an avalanche of words that I had never spoken came pouring out.  I may have even cried.  Ed listened to it all, although he must have had other things to do. 

Ed suggested that I look into a post graduate degree in school psychology, and explained a little about the field when I looked puzzled.  I could work with kids who had disabilities, Ed told me.   He said that it would be the perfect career for me.  I was intrigued by the idea, but I needed to think about it.  Ed gave me his card and told me to call if I was interested. 

I called.  I had to jump through all of the hoops to get into the graduate program, but Ed was always there, pointing me in the right direction.  He guided me through my first administration of an IQ test and made sure that my reports were not too long-winded.  He even helped me get my job.  I could always talk to him during those years, and he always listened. 

I miss that.