Waiting to exhale......

It's 9:30 in the evening and I'm sitting in my computer chair typing this post because there is no way I can do anything else.

I'm waiting.

On pins and needles.

I have a pit the size of a basketball resting heavily on my diaphragm making it hard to breathe.

It all started with a phone call to our landline a bit ago. I didn't answer because I didn't recognize the number.

A couple of minutes later Daddio walked upstairs with my cell phone. Bear had just called.

He was calling to tell us that he was on the way to the hospital, his best friend since the first grade had been injured in a car accident.

With hands shaking so badly it was hard to hold the phone, I called Bear back.

"How bad?" I asked.

"His parents didn't know how bad mom" he answered. "They called me and weren't to the hospital yet."

Then he just about broke my heart when he asked "If he was dead mom would the hospital keep that from his parents so they could make it to the hospital?

I don't know. Do they do that? I didn't think they did that? Please tell me they don't do that.

"No, honey he's going to be fine" I said.

Suddenly I was scared for my own child.

Scared because he's driving and upset.

Scared about what he may find when he gets to the hospital.

Scared to think about how his life could change because his best friend got into a car accident.

Then I thought about his friend's mother.

And I thought about my own mother who lost her son to an accident one seemingly ordinary mid October evening.

And I thought about Bear and his friend's graduation ceremony tomorrow night.

These two boys who became fast best friends when they met in the school supply aisle at K-Mart the first day of first grade.

Bear and Metzie were in the same class and became a perfectly matched inseparable pair.

They would be best friends all their growing up years.

They planned to walk together to get their diplomas.

And now Bear was on his way to the hospital where Metzie was taken after the accident.

A couple of hours and lots of text messages later Bear called one last time to say he was on his way home.

"Anybody want any MickyD's?" he asked when he called.

"Bring your dad a big mac" I said.

"Nothin for you ma?" He asked.

"Yeah" I wanted to add.....go to the store Bear and get some party hats and some balloons. Stop by the church and kneel and say a prayer of thanks. Lets make a cake. And throw confetti. And blow kazoos. And bubbles. Lets dance a jig and sing some songs.

"No kid, just hurry home" I said "and be careful".

Bear's best friend is going to be fine.

Life goes on as planned.

Halleluiah, Hallehuiah......

Butterflies, daffodils, lip gloss and a chess playing beaver....

Well howdy do der, it's Monday and if I recall I promised that if you tuned back in on Monday I would share with you my nightmare.

I've always been a big dreamer, a daydreamer mostly.

I'm quite sure that is why I wasn't the greatest of students.

Every report card from my youth said basically the same thing, Elizabeth likes to talk and daydream. She could and should be doing better.

Who cares about times tables or nouns when there are butterflies soaring and daffodils dancing right outside your classroom window?

Or in junior high, an interesting hairdo or lip gloss shade to try and dissect, sitting right in front of you????

Not me, that's for sure.

The dreams of my slumber are not nearly as calming or enchanting.

I'll never admit to being so whacked out that I dream about watching Abe Lincoln and a big beaver play chess...(ever see that commerical???)

So I'll say I mostly dream about real stuff.

Like this.......

Frozen with fear, a deer in the headlights.

I'm trapped like an animal in a cage.

Unable to escape.

The anticipation of the wait makes me squirm and I try to sink down low, low enough to be out of sight.

I wish to slip off my seat onto the floor where I can slither like a snake against the wall until I reach the door.

Then disappear completely and forever.

Out of the corner of my eye I see him preparing.

Blue gloves covering his hands, he's holding instruments of torture.

There is no turning back.

This man has hurt me before, plenty of times.

And I hate him.

My heart beats in my mouth and in my stomach, adrenalin is cursing through my veins like a speeding train threatening to blow through my fingers, which are tingling and trying to disappear into my sweaty palms.

I feel my nails making gouges in my skin, and for a second wonder why I let them get so long.

The self inflicted pain, I control.

The other, about to come, is his to control.

My chest is almost heaving, my breaths so rapid.

I try to quiet myself so my fear isn’t noticed.

I close my eyes and begin a Hail Mary.

“Open wide” the doctor says.

When I'm done he attempts to give me something to take my mind off the abuse.

A  new purple toothbrush and a clean bill of dental health.

That's hardly worth the year of my life I lost anticipating, through nightmares, my visit with him.

Five and a half months from now the nightmare begins again.....

I'm having attacks.......

I have a lot of irons in the fire these days, maybe too many.

The past few days have found me in some kind of not so nice state.

I finally figured it out, I'm having apoplexy attacks.

An apoplexy attack, yes, exactly.

That phrase jumped out at me as I searched my mind for what word might accurately describe what I am feeling.

I hadn't heard it in a long, long time, and had no idea what it even meant.

Maybe I heard it when I eavesdropped on one of my mother's 1960's-70's conversations.

They talked weird back then.

I was relieved when a Google search popped up the word.

And theWikipedia definition fit.

Apoplexy is an outdated medical term, which can be used to mean 'bleeding'.

It can be used non-medically to mean a state of extreme rage or excitement.

Outdated, uh-huh.

Medical term, yep (a self proclaimed hypochondriac picks up on those kinds of words).

Bleeding??? Not recently. (In case you're new here, I'm mennnnnnnnnnnnn ah, never mind).

A state of extreme excitement and rage?

Yesterday at work I had a bit of both.

Standing around waiting for the magic moment we begin class I listened as the children (my loveable thugs) talked. The conversation centered around April 20th.

4/20

Wikipedia says this about 4/20,

4/20 is a way to identify oneself with cannabis subculture. The date 4/20 is sometimes referred to as "Weed Day" or "Pot Day.

Okay, sitting around talking about pot is not a normal in most people's lives, unless maybe you knew what 4/20 meant before I schooled you????

Then maybe you do sit around and talk pot.

Anyway, many conversations at my work center around pot.

Who dropped dirty? Who is expelled for thinking they could outsmart the staff and sneak outside and smoke a blunt?

They talk about other not so nice things too...

This is what you drink, eat, smoke, inhale, shoot up, to get high, to make your pee clean, to quench your munchies. To get higher than high.

Arrrggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Sometimes I wanna  hit them, honestly I do.

Instead, I just stop the talk and gather it around more appropriate things like measuring cups and funnels.

Today, before I could do just that, I had an apoplexy attack, which came about in the form of hysterical laughter.

One of my students, a blonde whose beauty may very well make up for her lack of grey matter stared wistfully skyward and whispered in her soft Marilyn Monroe like voice "I wish 4/20 was my birthday, wha'da party that would be, when I'm old enough maybe I'll change my birthday".

My mouthful of sugar coated Corn Flakes almost came out of my nose.

And that discussion turned into this discussion.....

"Did you see that? Miss Beth just choked on her Corn Flakes"

And onward our morning marched.

In class, we were short staffed.

And the strong smelled the weak.

After much coaching (begging) and encouragement (threatening) they did as they were asked.

And soon we were cleaning up the mess.

One very tall young man, who (somehow) wears the waist of his pants down around his knee caps was not in a very cooperative mood.

He'd worked, but I nearly had to do a handstand and spit nickels out my ass to get him to.

This morning's class was almost over, there was one thing left to do and that was to put the chef coats and aprons from the washer into the dryer.

I called out to him, as he was the closest to me.

"Come help me" I said

He looked at me.

"Come help me" I said again.

He looked at me.

"Come help me.. I need you" I said

He looked at me.

And then I had another apoplexy attack.

You would have thought I was home and with the children of my womb when I did what I did next.

I pulled out a pile of wet chef coats and I threw them at him.

They flew through the air, and when his hands failed to deflect them they hit him in the chest and rolled down his body till they hit the floor.

You might have heard a pin drop except the other loveable's collective sharp intake of breath made it impossible to hear anything over the sound of their shock.

They stared at both of us waiting to see what would happen next.

The big, tall, very angry loveable turned and walked out the door.

I was glad he choose that instead of pounding me into the ground.

I followed him and apologized for my lack of judgment. I told him that I was plain wrong to throw clothes, or anything, for that matter at him.

I let him walk it off, hoping he'd take in and accept my apology.

In the mean time the others were deep in conversation when I got back into the room.

"Miss Beth is going crazy" I overheard one say "this morning, she spit her Corn Flakes right out on the table".