Another week has passed

It's been a long week. My brain has been in worry mode all week long, but one thing that being away is good for--I have so much work to do. On Thursday morning my department chair observed my class. It went well, and she said, "Good class!" before she left. (Aren't they always required to say such things?) However, the night before, I'd had Chinese with Bernadette, a colleague. I'd barely made it back to Betty's before the upset stomach cycle began. Fortunately, I managed to locate one lone ancient Imodium tablet in the bottom of my make-up bag, and that got me through my teaching presentation.

I haven't heard from either son, and neither has my husband. He has also been crazy-busy. This is the last week of candidates visiting (unless they don't get the ones they want). Even as I write, he's at school squiring around the last candidate. This afternoon he'll meet with the dean and make his recommendations. Once this phase is behind him, he'll feel like he has time on his hands.

Maybe soon we'll be able to settle into our new patterns. Each night that I'm in Big Rapids, we talk for a while on the phone, but for some reason, as I get older, I hate talking on the phone more and more. I think part of it is that I like to see people's faces as I talk to them. Another is that the years of having ear infections in my right ear have left me feeling as if I don't hear as well as I should. (Oddly, the hearing tests I've had usually indicate no hearing loss.) At any rate, all week long, I find myself thinking I wish I could tell my husband this or that. Then on Thursday night, I'm so incredibly exhausted that about all I can tell him is "Good night. See you tomorrow."

About the time we're starting to feel normal with each other again, it's time to start the cycle over again. On Mondays he heads off for his long teaching day, and I head for Big Rapids.

I've got a ton of grading to do this weekend. If I'm smart, I'll get started on it when I get back from having lunch with my friend Kelly. Fridays are also my only days for a social life, it seems, but often, those days are devoted to errands and dental appointments, etc.

They just interrupted the local morning program with a Special Bulletin. Bush will speak on the economy. Gee, why talk about it now that you've ruined it.

I guess we'll talk to our sons this weekend. Nothing will have changed, except perhaps the newly painful sting might have worn off a bit. My stomach still churns just thinking about all of it. I feel exhausted and despondent just thinking about it. Maybe one day, I'll look back on this phase of the "cycle of life" and think it wasn't that bad. Right now, it's like my landlady told me: "We are only as happy as our unhappiest child." If that's true, then I have every right to be one miserable mama.