that scares me, too

It's New Year's Eve.  Technically, It is New Year's Day.  I was determined to stay up for New Year's Eve.  I was determined to ring in the new year and yet, I fell asleep around 9pm with the TV and every light in the downstairs blazing and didn't wake up until 1am.  I woke up disoriented and wondering what day it was, wondering why the whole house was lit up like the christmas tree, dying in our living room.

I walked out to the front porch and listened to party revelers walking towards their cars.  I looked to my left and into a house on the cross street of 25th.  There's a party going on in there.  A man and a woman stood just outside, the door held open by both of them and they seemed suspended in mid-motion.  I stood there watching for what seemed like forever before I realized they were kissing.  It was at that moment that I finally felt like writing.

I also felt like a voyeur.  I turned around, came back inside and grabbed my laptop.

So much has happened recently, I find myself sitting here wondering where in the hell do I begin?  I've been so silent lately, have I not?  This is unusual, even for me.  But the truth is, I have reached this point where I haven't written anything in so long. I really didn't even know where to begin.  It's kind of like when you have an old friend with whom you really need to catch up, but there never seems to be enough time to sit down and give them a call because your life has been so crazy, it feels like it would take years and years to even update them on yourself, much less hear how they are.

So, you put it off for a time when you can truly devote yourself to it.

Except that time never seems to come to you.

This is how it is with me and writing lately.  I wish I could say I haven't been writing because life is uneventful.  I wish I could say no news is good news.  But the truth is, it is not.  Life has been anything but uneventful.

Max and I spent Tuesday through Christmas Eve in the hospital last week.  Rather than going through the entire thing, let me just say he could lose his kidney due to a virus he's contracted which has gone to his kidney and is causing damage there.  If he doesn't lose it due to the virus directly, he could lose it to rejection because his immunosuppressants have been lowered to try and help his body fight this.

We've spent the last week and a half in the midst of a Max crisis and the truth is, I had gotten way out of practice.  I had been lulled into a false sense of security.  Somehow I had foolishly let myself believe there is a 'happily ever after' out there for Max when there really isn't.  Even if things are good, a horrible shoe can drop at any moment and I need to stop expecting any lasting relief for him.  Stop assuming we have years of relief ahead of us and instead, realize that nothing is ever truly safe in the life of a transplant patient.  Just because things have looked fabulous for months, does not mean a microscopic virus can't attack and put every single thing in jeopardy.

This is the ugly truth and one I had best not forget again.  When you forget and are then confronted with a reality you thought you had left behind, it makes it that much more difficult to deal with.

I would never have thought I would be in the hospital with him on Christmas eve this year.  Never.  And yet I was.  He was.

What makes it worse is that I don't know what is going to happen.  I don't know what is happening now.  There is nothing I can do to influence things one way or the other.  I just have to wait and wait and wait, possibly for months, before the full magnitude of the situation presents itself because damage can only be assessed over time.

I find myself repeating, "I cannot control this.  I cannot control this.  I cannot control this.  I do not know what is happening.  I don't know when I'll know," over and over again.  It's best to remind myself of this mantra as often as I can because my natural tendency is to reach out and try to fix it, try to control it, manipulate it, turn it around and there is absolutely nothing I can do....

but wait.

And so here I am, waiting.  And I am scared.  I also feel a little numb inside.

And that scares me, too.