Things might be looking up

Yesterday, Saturday, was a strange day, emotionally. I didn't get enough sleep the night before, something that's been happening a lot recently. Staying up too late reading (had to finish Grant, then had to read all sorts of other books, endlessly), having trouble falling asleep regardless of how tired I've felt during the day, an actual alarm going off four days a week because of the twins' school (Wednesday they have Late Start, so I don't have to set my alarm that day). 

So I slept a bit late, but was up in plenty of time for my 10 am Zoom call with my old grad student friends and our advisor. We were joined on this call by a former visiting scholar who we all like, and, new this time, another old professor of ours (who doesn't look the least bit old), who we also all liked back when she was our prof -- and, no surprise, she's still delightful. 

We talked about this and that, everyone was very sweet to everyone else. And I was struck, over and over during the call, and afterwards, thinking about it, how much I like all those people. Each and every one of them individually, and also the group as a whole. Grad school for me was a very happy time, even though it was also a very hard, stressful, depressing time, in parts. I don't think you can get through a PhD program without a heavy load of angst. But at the same time it was so fun! because I had so many friends! Every moment, another good friend might call -- maybe to invite me to go see a movie or a band, maybe to cry on my shoulder about a bad grade or a harsh comment from a certain advisor, or maybe just to chat. When I walked across the Diag, I always saw several people I knew and they would call out hi. 

But these particular people on the call, they were all special, even in the midst of all the special people I knew. I thought so then, I think so now.

This struck me yesterday because I've recently had an extended interaction with an old friend that didn't turn out so well. I know I mentioned this a few weeks back, the old high school boyfriend who found me via LinkedIn. We talked pretty intensely over email for several days and then something I said triggered him, and he began spewing white supremacist bullshit, and I responded, and now I doubt I'll ever hear from him again, nor do I want to -- and I was left thinking, what the heck? Was he always like that or did the black hole of Trumpism suck in another good person?

The more I think about it, I think he was always like this, or maybe more accurately, always in danger of becoming like this. It just didn't show because when I was in high school, at least at my high school, very few white kids were thinking about Black people, or about civil rights. It wasn't considered a major issue. We thought Black people already had all the rights they might need. And also, I don't think I did a very good job of judging his character. He was cute, he played the guitar, he said interesting things, he loved me and respected me. Who digs deeper than that, at 17? 

I started grad school when I was 28. Thinking back, I don't remember myself as a terribly mature 28. I had been working for several years, but I was kind of stuck -- living in a shared house with some guys, had hardly made a friend since college, hadn't been in a romantic relationship in years, spending most of my money on psychoanalysis, still quite dependent on my parents in many ways, although I was paying my own way. But then I went to grad school and I made all these wonderful, wonderful friends. Was I a better judge of people by then or did I just get lucky?

Probably the latter. In grad school, every time I turned around there was another great person to meet. Michigan in the late 80s to mid 90s -- just a special time.

After that happy Zoom call, I pulled myself together and got ready to go to an in-person meeting at 1:00 pm. I could have Zoomed into that meeting too, but I prefer to go in person if I can -- Boulder just reinstated a mask mandate, and who knows how much longer we'll be allowed to meet in person. It felt weird to be there in a mask -- last month our faces were all visible -- and some of us, including me, kept taking our masks partly off to speak, until one person asked very gently if we could keep them on. I felt terrible! Have I turned into an anti-masker? No, just a tired-of-masks-er, but it was still bad. I vowed not to do that again in any situation until the mask mandate is over.

I can't talk about that meeting because of confidentiality. I'll just say, it's always sad, there's always a lot of crying, but this was over the top. A lot of sad stories. I've gotten used to weeping my way through the meetings, but this was tough. And yet it's so rewarding. I can't explain. Maybe it feels good to cry. And good to connect.

While I'm thinking of it, I want to include a link to a really good article about grieving the loss of a pet: https://www.outsideonline.com/culture/essays-culture/pet-loss-dog-grief/
It's so well written and everything it says is so true, although it's also really sad and will make you cry. There was also an article in the New York Times about pet loss earlier this year, not sure if I can find it, let's see... here it is: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/03/health/pets-death-lessons-strength.html?searchResultPosition=1
I do not recommend the NY Times article -- I hated it with a passion -- it seemed to be recommending having a pet die so that you could become a stronger person. I know it wasn't really saying that, but anyway, yuck. The article in Outside is much much better. Highly recommended.

So anyway, after those two meetings, plus all the craziness going on right now with the Texas abortion law (plus Afghanistan, plus Hurricane Ida and the flooding deaths, and let's not forget poor Haiti, and then there are all those people dying of Covid because they think getting vaccinated will somehow affect their freedom), I was an emotional basket case, and I ended up taking a nap from 5:30 to 7:30 pm, which messed up our dinner plans. We usually eat out on Saturday, but by the time I woke up, I couldn't face dinner. So Teen A and I went to Trader Joe's and got some stuff, I fixed chicken nuggets for the kids, and we decided we would eat out on Sunday instead (that's tonight). 

I had another bad night -- went to sleep around 12:30, dreamed about both my meetings, and woke up with a start at 4 am, then couldn't get back to sleep for a long time, and when I did, I slept until 10 am. Who knows how tonight will go. I have to work on this!

But here's the thing: when I finally woke up at 10, my hands weren't shaking. And they still aren't. I keep stopping what I'm doing and holding my right hand out, to see if it will shake. It doesn't shake. It holds steady, for the first time in weeks.

Am I better? Did my parathyroid glands finally wake up after six weeks and two days? I don't know. I don't know if this is permanent. I'm going to go on taking my calcium exactly as I have been, and I'll try not to get my hopes up, but it may be that this little nightmare is over.