The shaggy-haired cabbie glanced back at me in the rearview mirror. “You know, speaking as the father of two, mommies have got to take some time for themselves. You’ve got to put your own oxygen mask on first.”
Validation comes from the strangest places sometimes, no?
Today was one of those days. One of those days when it feels like all the oxygen has been sucked out of the atmosphere and you can’t breathe. At all.
I don’t often feel like this, and as our days have been going lately, I wouldn’t say today was a particularly bad day: I made cupcakes, made food for Richard O., kept pretty well on top of his BG numbers for the day, had an eFeed appointment with the people from St. Joseph’s, made phone calls, attempted to control the mess that is my house. Ordinary stuff.
But today was one of those days when I realized that a lot of my “ordinary stuff” is just alien to most of the people I know and interact with. Most parents don’t have to setup a webcam in their home so they can feed their child in front of a panel of specialists several hundred miles away. Most parents don’t have to obsessively weigh and measure every morsel of food and drink that crosses their kids’ lips. Or inject them with a miniscule amount of a protein to keep said kiddo alive. Or make their kid bleed onto a test strip anywhere from 10-15 times a day.
Yes, I felt a little sorry for myself today.
All of it came crashing down on me this afternoon like a tidal wave, and I needed to just get out. Escape. More than anything, I wanted to just feel like a normal person for a few hours and do normal person things, and forget everything I’ve had to learn about diabetes and feeding and insulin pumps and nutrition and growth curves.
I pulled myself together, brought Richard O. down into the basement, and told Hubby that I needed to get out for a few hours. Hubby acquiesced, but it was clear that he was anxious for me not to stay out too long.
I grabbed the keys to the Explorer, skipped out the door, and went to see the new Indiana Jones movie by myself. And loved it. Loved being in a movie theater for the first time in over a year, loved being able to get engrossed in a fictional story for a few hours, loved just letting go of my burdens for a little while.
Alas, in my haste to get out of the house, I didn’t remember that Hubby mentioned the Explorer had been acting up lately. Or that I had the only key to the mini-van on my key ring.
The car wouldn’t start after the movie, and Hubby was stranded without the car key, so thus it was that I was in the backseat of a University Taxi, talking to the cabbie about my night out on the town. And I was on the border of feeling sheepish and even a little selfish when he said, “You know, speaking as the father of two, mommies have got to take some time for themselves. You’ve got to put your own oxygen mask on first.”
And I did. And I can breathe again.