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Pipe Dream Gone Sour

I should have known better. The post from yesterday was another post that spoke of hope and spoke of dreams of a life of calm, predictable, day-to-day routine. As of course I was too dense to recall... that is not the life I can lead currently. My life is framed around chaos.

I had a good day teaching the special workshop on Organization of Life to the middle and high school teachers who signed up for this enrichment workshop. When I ended my participation for the day at noon, I went for a brief lunch (~30 minutes) and afterwards sat outside beneath a tree in a wooded area of south campus and had a pipe and a Frozen Coke. When I arrived back into my office at 1pm, ready and actually eager to tackle some long-delayed work projects, I decided to check in on my elderly mother before I immersed myself in my books and files.

I asked her how she was feeling.

She told me, "Not well."

"How do you mean?"

"I don't really know. My legs are swollen, my arms and chest feel tight, my breathing is difficult." she said very quietly.

I became very alarmed.

"When did this start? You were fine this morning when I left. Your legs looked wonderful... no swelling." I stated.

"Oh, it started a couple hours ago...."

"Why didn't you call me or my secretary?!?!?!" I asked incredulous, frustrated, angry, and frightened.

"Oh, I thought it would go away, but now I think I should go to the hospital."

"I will be right home!"

With that, I of course closed up shop in my office and went out the door to my vehicle and rushed home as quickly as I could manage through traffic. I arrived in 12 minutes.

I immediately took her to the emergency room. It was roughly 1:45pm.

I arrived home from the hospital at 9:45pm.

I will write more of her condition in my next post. But rest assured she is again stable.

When will I learn to accept my role, my fate? I want to stop slipping into moments where I dream, plan, or have goals. I have to fail at them far, far too often. It would be better to have NO DREAMS, NO PLANS, NO GOALS and to just drift through life... buffeted by whichever wind is strongest until I am worn away and all my individual rough edges are lost as the hurt smooths out my features, my creativity, to do anything else.

PipeTobacco