Impatient...with issues

I'm getting impatient for my upcoming trip. I've been making all the necessary preparations, and now that it appears everything is in place, I want it to happen - now! I know the prevailing wisdom is that half the fun (at least) is in the anticipation, but I've had a lot of anticipation about this for a long time. I'm done with the anticipation part. I want to BE there!

Besides, I keep thinking that something is going to happen that's going to mess this up for me. Something's going to come up and make it not happen. Oh, I really don't know if I could take that...

I suppose if I get a job, most employers would probably be understanding enough to let me have off the two days for a trip that's been in the planning for a long time now. I mean, I'm not asking for a week or anything. It's a couple of days, that's all.

Of course, I've got other issues that could throw a wrench in the works. I might need to be around to support my mother, for one. She's got five sisters, and of those, one currently has pneumonia, another has H1N1 and COPD, and a third - worst of all - has pneumonia and quite possibly lung cancer. Just yesterday, the family finally managed to talk her into going on a respirator for four days so that the doctors can take the tests and do the procedures that they need to do. She had to be convinced that it's not life support and that if something went wrong, she wouldn't be left hooked up to a machine sustaining her life. I'm not particularly close to my aunts, but my mother is a wreck right now. That is her baby sister and probably the one she's had the closest ties to her whole life, despite the fact that she profoundly disapproves with the way her younger sister has chosen to live her life. I have some ties there too, beyond the "just blood" ties, that is. Her daughter - my cousin - was probably the one of my many cousins I was closest to while I was growing up. We don't see each other very often now, but we still consider each other to be the closest among the cousins.

It probably sounds selfish of me that I'm putting this in terms of my upcoming trip. You must understand that, for me, my family has been my mother and me for almost my entire life. She was and is very close to her family, but I have never been. Now, my family is my mother and my children. Beyond that, it's fairly loose and incidental almost. I believe after the passing of my grandmother several years ago, that last real tie among the families of the sisters was lost for good. It's not just me. It's that way among all the cousins. My main concern in this is the well-being of my mother. She's the "rock" of her family and the one everyone turns to for help (which is often). She has a more motherly than sisterly relationship with her sisters most of the time, especially her three younger sisters.

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