LetMeBeClear

CC had her first classroom trauma. She has lived 8 years without this feeling. I am sorry that it found her. In class, her teacher was putting math problems on the board "for fun" they don't do math at her school. CC tried raising her hand for every problem and knew the answers to all the ones going up. The problems kept getting harder, and she kept raising her hand.

When she was finally called on, she got nervous. Her palms got sweaty. The problem was 55 - 36. She knew it needed borrowing, so she mentally removed one from the first digit, did that subtraction and wrote down a 1 on the tens place. Her face was flushed, she wasn't thinking. Everyone was staring at her, she added the second two digits together instead of subtracting, remembered she had already taken care of the tens place, and wrote down a 1. Her answer was 11. She looked back in time to realize her mistake, but before she could tell her teacher that it should be 19, (Here comes the worst part) the teacher said - "That's okay, You probably haven't gotten to that level yet."

Oh. The worst part is that the teacher thought she didn't know how to do it and felt sorry for her. Her tongue tied in knots, and she couldn't speak. We've all been the victim of our nerves. All I could do was hug her and tell her that she is human and it happens to us all. My poor baby. She kept raising her hand to try to redeem herself, but didn't get called on again.

Tonight I rebooted Three servers. It is funny, all of the times I have rebooted servers as part of my job, I still get a little sick nervous feeling. Its a fear that I rebooted the wrong one. I have only done that once - probably. Hundreds of servers and dozens of years, and I still get the same feeling. OOps, did I do the wrong box?

I am an insomniac. I didn't refill the prescription for the sleeping pills yet. If I take them every night for too long, then they don't work as well, and I am going to need them to work. Last week I slept without them at all - if you call that sleeping.

This week I switched to an herbal sleeping pill. It has me sleeping. Now I am dreaming. I think I know what is bothering me. Why I am curling up inside. Every night I dream about my son going to away. Twenty Three more days. He will take his one-way ticket and his student visa and get on a plane and not comeback until May. And that will just be for a visit. And that is not even definite.

I feel pressure to make this Christmas extra-special. But that goes against my nature. I have worked hard to make Christmas something that is not filled with fake happiness and real anxiety.

I feel pressure from people telling me how I should feel. I hate that.

I feel pressure from people who want to "remind me" of all the things that still need to get done before he goes. He needs to clean his room. He hasn't packed. He is going to be in for a shock when he has to start doing his own x.y.z. People who have never been anywhere or taken any BOLD steps are not allowed to criticize him and definitely not allowed to criticize him then say they are just trying to help.

I feel like the person in my life that I have known and loved for the longest is leaving me and I am happy for him and proud of him. BUT he is still leaving me and it still hurts. And yes of course, others love him. And he is just going to the other side of the world. And all of this makes rational sense to me.

Reason doesn't stop you from curling up into a little ball inside of yourself. Reason doesn't help you sleep at night. sleeping pills do.

I was Almost going to go with Bronte, but Shakespeare won this month. It probably had something to do with the 16 inches of snow and the 4o mile per hour winds I enjoyed at work today although the snowball fight with the family before work was much more fun. I do like the snow, but the wind blows.

As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII [Blow, blow, thou winter wind]
by William Shakespeare

Lord Amiens, a musician, sings before Duke Senior's company

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That does not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remembered not.
Heigh-ho! sing . . .