January 28, 1986

I drafted this post yesterday but forgot to hit "post". Oops. Anyway...better late than never?

January 28, 1986 was a defining day in my childhood. I remember what I was wearing. It was exactly a week after my 10th birthday, and I was wearing the outfit my mom had gotten me for my birthday - those flowered jeans that were ALL the rage among fourth graders in 1986, along with a yellow shirt and irish cardigan...and of course my LA Gear hightops (a gift from my grandmother for Christmas that year). I don't know exactly why my outfit is so clear in my memory...although I remember precisely what I was wearing on 9/11 too, so maybe it's just a "thing" with me?

Anyway, I remember being really fascinated in the lead up to the "Teacher in Space" - first, because the teacher selected was from nearby (she grew up 10 minutes from my hometown and taught about an hour away), and second because the thought of going into space was, to me, terrifying, even then.

I remember coming back from lunch, and some kids talking in the hall about the shuttle blowing up. I said, "Did they die?" And the boy with the locker across from mine, John said, "Would you die if you were in the space shuttle and it blew up?" "I guess, probably," I said. It just seemed so surreal to me that these astronauts, not to mention Christa McAuliffe, could be dead.

We went into our science teacher's classroom and turned on the TV. And what I remember, really, really vividly, was watching Christa McAuliffe's son keep turning back to look at the sky again and again with a bewildered look, as if he half expected his mom to reappear somehow. To this day, 25 years later, the memory of his face can bring me to tears. He was pretty close to our age then, as I recall, so at the time, I remember relating to him and being unable to imagine losing my mom in any way, let alone in such a surreal one. While watching. And now, as the mother of a little boy, it wrenches me all the more to think of the pain of a little boy losing his mom that way.

I also remember thinking, even at 10 years old, that the TV people should leave that kid alone. It was my first realization of how inappropriately invasive TV news could be. They couldn't even let a little boy have his moment of shock and grieving in peace, and it made me angry. It still does.

That was a really sad day. And for those in my age group, it was a loss of innocence. And we'll never forget that day.

Update

Well, I promised "more" yesterday, but long story short, it didn't happen. So, here we are TODAY, instead. Here's the scoop.

I'm pregnant again, which I'm guessing most people reading this already know, but there it is. And I am (and we are) so very, very, overjoyed and excited. Truly.

But (and you knew there was a but), I'm having an extraordinarily difficult time getting past the miscarriage-induced anxiety. I really thought once I got past the point when I lost the last pregnancy, I would relax. But that didn't really happen. So, then I thought once I got past the 12 week mark, I would relax. And I guess I did, a little, but...not entirely.

Monday morning, I got myself so worked up into a panic attack that I had to call my mom, who of course came up immediately with my sister (and nieces) in tow. She talked me down from the ledge and then they took all the kids (B included) out for errands and lunch so I could just rest, since I've had brutal, chronic insomnia pretty much this entire pregnancy thus far.

Yesterday, we had our first trimester screening. So, we got to see on the ultra-sound that everything is a-ok in there. Sequel, as we've taken to calling him/her, is growing great (in fact, a couple days ahead right now) and the heart is beating well and everything looks peachy. After the ultra-sound, I had my check up, and the nurse midwife was wonderful, and sat with me and talked over what I was going through. She reminded me that, statistically, if a pregnancy's going to end, it's exponentially more likely to do so before that 12 week mark, which is precisely WHY they wait until then to do the screenings, etc.

And the thing is, logically, I KNOW all that. I KNOW this baby is fine. I KNOW this pregnancy is going to be fine. I feel it in the same way I felt the last one was off. After the miscarriage, I wrote about feeling B from the beginning as a tenacious little presence. And I feel that again with this one. It's as if there's a little voice inside me saying, "I'm NOT going anywhere!" But that's the thing about trauma of any kind, isn't it? You get gun shy. You bring that trauma along with you, and you have flashbacks and you get terrified of it repeating itself. In fact, I think the main contributing factor to my panic attack on Monday was anxiety over the ultra-sound yesterday. Even KNOWING it was going to be fine, I kept remembering the ultra-sound during which the poor (and wonderfully kind) tech had to tell me there was no heartbeat.

It's not that I'm entirely without reason for my nerves. I've had a couple of issues with this pregnancy that, while entirely different than last time, at least REMIND me of last time. And it's been scary.

So, it's an ongoing process, I guess.

Today

Today was a roller coaster of a day. More on that tomorrow.

But most importantly, my best friend had a son today. And that trumps whatever silly neuroses are going on with me, by A LOT. I'm so filled with joy and pride on her behalf. I have another newphew(ish type person)! Woohoo! Welcome to the world, Tiny S! And congrats to Roasted Beat and S!

Sigh...

You know what's got my goat this morning? (Oh hi, by the way. I know I've been MIA through the holidays. Hope yours were great. Ours were chaotic and fraught with Internet issues, which is why I haven't been around.) Anyway...what's got my goat is the fact that the majority of people on Facebook who feel compelled to launch into angry political rants in their status updates are a) misinformed and b) possessed of exceptionally weak grammar skills. Ever notice that? I'm sure you have. But if you haven't, I apologize in advance, because now it's going to drive you up a wall.

Look, we all have political ideologies that we (for the most part) feel strongly about. Inevitably, some of these ideologies are conflicting. Even within the same FB friend circle, you're going to get wildly varying beliefs. And we all have a right to them, and a right to express them. I have no issue with that, even though sometimes, the things people say regarding those beliefs can annoy me, offend me and even make me question whether that person is someone I even want on my friend list. I have yet to un-friend anyone for expressing an opinion (although I have BEEN unfriended for voicing my opinion on gay marriage. Which is that I think it should be legal. So. Yea.)

I thought about giving some examples of this here, and had even drafted a version of the post wherein I did so. But the thing is, my goal in this post is not to call out any individual or to embarrass anyone. It's to, maybe, hopefully, call your attention to your reactionary ranting and the fact that, in the face of your emotion, you're...missing the point entirely, a lot of the time.

But it does annoy the crap out of me when people take a political stance in a very public forum and are...misinformed and in some cases, downright INCORRECT. Might I suggest that if you're going to get your panties in such a wad that you simply MUST voice your disapproval publicly, that you at least make sure you have your facts straight? Pretty please? And I'm not just talking to the folks I disagree with (who do tend to be the most egregious offenders here, recently). Even if I agree with you, I don't want you putting inaccurate stuff up, since that makes people with my political leanings seem ignorant and uninformed. See?

And finally, regardless of what you're posting about, can we all please agree that grammar on FB is appalling and frankly frightening to someone who used to teach it? I KNOW you all had English teachers who taught you the differences between contractions and possessive pronouns. If you can't remember that lesson, LOOK IT UP AND APPLY IT. You look like an idiot when you disregard rules you learned in elementary school and so help me, if you learned grammar from me and abuse it on FB, you will be corrected. There, I said it.