Liralen's Adventures Through Life

Sometimes I think he's at school... or at work... or off to band practice... or at a game.  And it feels all right that he's gone, and then I remember, and it still feels all right. He's happy, he's safe, he's with a family he finds fantastic in a situation and culture he's learning about at a massive rate, and it was like he was just in the room with us, showing us around his new house and showing us the compact city just outside his window in a video call with us.  And then he's gone again when the call is done, but we know he's doing well and learning hand over fist and loving the situation he's landed in and it's all good. And, just like when he's away at school, at work, or even when he went off to Europe, Chicago, or other places on his down, I get back to doing all the things that I want to do with my life.  There will be more of that.  He will be back in four months, but then he'll be off to college and the rest of his life, s...

I put off a lot of things until after Jet left.  There was a two-fold madness to this plan. The first was to pay as much attention to Jet while I had him as I could, and then, when he was gone, to be too busy dealing with all the things I'd put off to miss him too much. It worked pretty well. Monday was pretty much a blur, and I got to do a lot of emotional processing while I was too tired to be defensive about it.  I also got in a full session at 911, with over 35 reports, which is an extraordinarily large number, and the management and Joe, my favorite IT guy for all of dispatch, was profusely thankful for my work.  I even went and got boba tea after, which was something I'd done all summer, getting Jet his while I got me mine, and it was good to just think of him. Tuesday I went into constructive mode, and was super busy. The biggest thing was that John and I started going through all our shelves and pulling out books that we'd never read again.  We pulled o...

Yesterday, at 4 am, we all got up and took Jet to DIA to deliver him to American Airlines and send him on his way. There are three things I really want to remember about seeing him off: When we hugged as he was about to go into security he grinned and said, "See you in four months!"  And he hugged me solidly because there was so much more going on than we could say, and that's kind of been my mantra of the last few days.  We'll have him back in four months. That he was really patient with me when I was doing the anxiety Mom thing while we were checking him in, including indulging me by putting his boarding pass in with his passport.  *laughs* And when he went through security, he actually turned back and waved.  Three times. There's this story we tell of Jet, when we went and toured the school before he went to Kindergarten and he found out that there was a bus, he really wanted to go on it.  So we signed him up. On the first day of school, we got there...

That's the easiest show and tell of the turn around. That and that my sleep went from averaging 6 hours a night to averaging a bit under 8. Well... and I can type more than a sentence and not be in pain, I can lift my sheets with the back of my left hand without a flash of agony, I can drive for more than a minute without having to curl my left arm against my chest to keep it from hurting to much, I can do more than two prayer shawl labels before having to take a break and stretch my neck and back and shoulder... I'm actually back to functional levels in nearly almost every way. I can swim, I can sleep at night, I was able to help in the long road trip to San Diego and up to Oregon and back home in rotation with the boys by the end of the trip. It's been a week by week sort of progress.  I'm now playing games again, judiciously, with the highest priority being playing with Jet before he leaves for Japan on the 20th of August. Yes.  Next week. And it's been...