Someone who totally didn’t have to last night forgave me for something I did 24 years ago. I cannot tell you what a gift that is to me.
I’m all verklempt. People can be so amazing.
Archive for February, 2009
So, it’s been a long time. It’s been a long time for a lot of reasons. One of the major ones is that I don’t feel comfortable blogging about school and, expectedly, school is pretty much my whole life at the moment. It’s what I do from the moment my eyes open in the morning, often until I fall asleep. When I’m not doing actual work, I’m thinking about it. When I’m not working, I’m feeling guilty about not working. That’s my life.
I have issues with professors and drama goes on regularly. I think this would surprise no one. On the other hand, I want to get and hold a job and so I don’t feel comfortable publicly writing anything about my experience. It’s not nice to diss your bosses, even when they deserve it. I didn’t talk much about my former job, other than what I did or some non-sr. level drama. This feels the same. I’m not Dooce. I will not Dooce my schooling.
Another reason is that I’ve changed and I think I’ve been afraid that what I write here will be very different in tone than what came before, and I’m not sure I’m at all interesting to read anymore.
Lastly, as those two things converge, I have lost a bit of myself in school.
I’m not the world’s greatest mother right now, although I’m doing what I can and might get worse grades this quarter than last quarter. I’m less willing this quarter to abandon my family. I’m also not the world’s greatest wife. I begrudge every minute that I don’t have to read read read or write write write. I spout angry tears about every bit of cleaning I have to do, which is petty because at least I’m around to clean. The Troublemaker works so, so hard to keep us afloat. It’s petty to be pissy about housework. At least I’m not making money and seeing it all get flushed down the drain by my unworking spouse. Hi, Honey!
But, more specifically than I’m simply stretched thin by life, this whole experience is being a lesson for me in priorities and having to make decisions that I do not like making.
This Christmas break I was home and got a FedEx package unexpectedly. In March of 2008 I signed up on the bone marrow donor registry during their free month (Check it out this year and sign up, by the way). The folks in charge of the registry sent me a letter notifying me that I was a match on two out of eight necessary areas for someone in need of marrow. They needed to know, ASAP, if I was available to go on to the next step, but also that I needed to know that going on to the next step meant that if I was a match I would be pre-agreed to go all the way to donation.
My first reaction was “of course!” because that’s what I signed up for, right? I have a rare blood type and it didn’t surprise me that I’d been contacted. I’m guessing the pool of folks who can use my marrow is smaller but more desperate. I looked at the paper, happy that I would be able to help someone out, but before saying yes I called the registry with some questions.
Peeps. It was no good. They couldn’t say when I’d need to have testing done. I’d lose two or three days on testing, two or three days on the procedure, and at least a week or two afterward recouperating. If we could work even just the base testing so that it happend during a spring break…. but even then…
My quarters are 10 weeks long. I had pneumonia again earlier this month (FOUR FOR FOUR FOR PNEUMONIA IN FEBRUARY! HOORAY DOGBITE!) and I missed one day of classes and two at my offsite practicum. I’ve already gotten all the nastygrams I care to take as well as terminally behind in schoolwork, and that was three days, not a week and a half. My school is teaching me more than I have ever learned in my life all put together, and it grants very little quarter. Some of the professors grant virtually none. Every day I need to be on my game. Mondays alone are 10 hours of classes. Ten hours of learning.
If it was just me? Fuck it. Work with the administration, beg, do what you have to do. That person who needed my marrow, they are someone’s child. Possibly someone’s parent or sibling. Almost assuredly someone’s best friend. I had only a 1 in 12 chance of being a full match, but I’m one of only a small number of folks that can donate to this population. Who gives a shit about my schooling when we’re talking about someone’s life? Who gives a shit? Mondays? Ten hours? What does that even mean in the face of a life?
But the sacrifices my family has made to get me this far… The way I’m barely holding on to sanity by my fingernails. The sheer amount of work it takes to get anything like a passing grade.
They could not tell me when the person would need me. They couldn’t tell me anything. It wasn’t something that could be scheduled conveniently or in advance.
I agonized for 24 hours and then realized that the stakes were too high in either direction. I made the call in favor of the people I love in my house who are suffering having me gone both physically and mentally for long periods of time. I owe them both everything I have. They are mine and I am for them and I would be criminally neglegant if I failed out of school, even for as noble a cause as this.
But it is not a “me” decision. It is the anti-me decision. Since that day in December, I have felt less like myself and more like someone who does bad things because they are more convenient.
If you are now aghast and horrified and judge me and feel that all of my angst and worry in the face of someone’s life is unconscionable, you’d be absolutely right.
If you can see how a person’s first responsibility is to their family and the communal sacrifice going on in our house at the moment is something that has to be honored, you’d be absolutely right.
And if you think that by putting myself on the “unavailable” list until I get out of school I have set myself up for some fairly heavy bad karma and deserve everything that is coming to me, I fear you’d be absolutely right.
I made the wrong decision. Unfortunately, they were both wrong decisions, and I have to look into the eyes of my son who misses me like fire every day.
It doesn’t make things easy. Nothing about this experience has been easy. It’s an investment, but the price is heavy. My heart is heavy. And I have no excuse.
Howdy! It’s been a while. I have some stuff to tell you, but right now the biggest thing is that Samson was adopted and our new fostor dog is very silly, but very happy and adorable.
Introducing Penelope the Puggle!
That blur at the butt is her tail. She is ten bundles of puggly joy.
GOOD GIRL, PENNY!
Sorry for being gone so long. I’ll try and be around a bit more.
xoxo
KP
