Here I Am, Moving

So, I've skipped every single weekly feature I assigned myself over the past few weeks and I've been feeling kinda bad about neglecting this here blog. So. Here I am.

When I disappear from the Internet, or parts of it anyway, I always imagine what people might be thinking I'm doing. "Has she run away with the circus?" "Gotten divorced and thrown all of the technology out the window in a fit of man-and-computer-hatin' rage?" "Is she dead? And if so, will her ghost start ghostwriting on her blog to help us solve her murder???" I realize, of course, that anyone who didn't give birth to me probably doesn't give a 2 week gap in blogs from me that much thought, but, you know, what fun is it to be a realist when I could be an egotist instead?

The truth is that I've actually sat down to blog several times and just haven't managed to. I either set out trying to write something goofy and it ends up sounding forced because I know people know I'm dealing with some real shit right now and they're going to think I'm just putting a brave face on, or I sit down to write something serious and it ends up too maudlin or it depresses me, so I stop.

It's a super-weird thing, waiting for medical news that might be bad (tumor) or not so bad (treatable infection) or not news at all (epilepsy, dur). It's especially weird when that news or not news will be about your child, and he's currently cheerful and snuggly and generally not looking at all sick other than having more trouble walking than usual. I'm busy and stressed and happy and calm and angry and worried and bored and contemplative by turns and for large chunks of the day I often forget about the whole my-kid-was-just-in-the-hospital-again thing entirely. And I know I'm not dealing with this, because, honestly, there's nothing to deal with yet and there may not be anything new to deal with. We already knew he has epilepsy. If the tests show nothing more than that, well, that's something I've already dealt with...sort of...

Because in some way you don't get the luxury to "deal" when you're a mom and something bad happens to your kid, especially when they're small and have a small sibling and there's still the massive load of day-to-day work to do - the cooking of meals, and the brushing of teeth, and the endless picking up of small socks (seriously, I know I don't put as many socks on their feet as are littered about my house every night. Where are the socks coming from?!). I can't fall apart for a weekend and lay in bed crying and watching depressing movies and killing off my Sims families in various terrible "accidents". And, if I did, not only would I feel massively guilty for doing so and depriving my kids of their mom, but I'd feel downright silly. That stuff doesn't help you deal with something like this. And my kid is alive and he has certain chronic medical conditions, but for all I know he's pretty darn healthy. Who the hell am I to wallow in bed covered in candy wrappers and smudgy mascara? Shouldn't he be the one wallowing if anyone's going to wallow? He's happy as a clam (if that clam enjoyed stimming on pieces of plastic fruit, that is)!

I get a lot of undeserved credit for being "strong" and "brave" in the face of all of this scariness and for going on with it all, but I'm here to tell you it's not strength that keeps me moving. It's fear and habit. I have to keep life the same. I need my routines and my identity as the superhero autism mom and I need to find things to do like sanitize every toy in the house or put Ry on a new diet that has me in the kitchen every day doing things like making almond yogurt from scratch or boiling a whole chicken for 4 hours and painstakingly shredding the meat in the soup into Ry-edible bites. I can't sit down and think or I'll start to get scared and if I start to get scared everything falls apart.

So I just...keep moving. Maybe when that MRI and LP come back next week I can stop. Maybe.