I canceled going to Canada to ski this month. Yes, I’m worried about the infectiousness of omicron and the need for constant risk-assessment once again. But what’s worse are the emotions swirling in my head as I think about certain friends and family members.
Hello. My name is Sharon and I am an addict. My drug was tobacco. Exposed early, by smoking parents, I tried tobacco in high school and was quickly dependent. It calmed me. It gave me something to do with my hands. I smoked out my window at home and, when I could, other places. I was not alone. This was 1964.
Two maxims come to mind when I think about parenting, maybe because I was pretty lucky until the teen years.
In the early years, I didn’t need maxims. As a single parent, I needed support and friendship, child care, a good job, health insurance, and a bit of luck–all of which we had as a family.
As for my undergraduate premed work, I viewed it as an experiment. If I didn’t make it to medical school, I still had my former career, even if I had decided it was one that would not fulfill me. My wonderful grandfather told me, “If you can’t see yourself happy in 30 years, leave!” He told me his own story: “When your grandmother was pregnant with your mother, and it was a recession, I was at lunch with a friend. I told him it was not the job for me. I did not even go back for my hat!”
My thirty-one year-old son had a newer laptop than mine and an iPhone 6. My iPhone 5 was a hand-me-down from him. (Prior to that, my iPhone 3 was given to me by a former resident, now friend, who upgraded to a 5 and was tired of mocking me for my flip phone.)
I have been paying my son’s cell phone bill since he died on 1/16/17. I told myself I would do this until I could get it backed up so I could have his contacts, pictures and music (most of the music that I do not even like) until I can face going through the contents. And then I could expropriate it to be my phone. It’s the same with his laptop: I don’t want to lose what’s on there.
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