Dec. 8: The new “normal”

Compared to recent days, today was kind of a busy one. It’s not that I’ve been lazy and sticking around the house lately, but today I had a few early appointments; I couldn’t get up and drink my coffee leisurely, catch up on Facebook and emails, and browse through my Google Reader feeds like I do most mornings. In fact, I didn’t even turn on my computer until 4:00 this afternoon (I did check everything on my iPhone, though—I’m not totally uncivilized).

This morning there was a PTO board meeting at Peet’s, and I really wanted to be there. My fellow board members are a great group of people, and even though I see most of them outside of school activities, it’s fun when we get together as a PTO to discuss upcoming events, make plans, assign doodies, etc. Today’s meeting was the first one I had to miss because of cancer-related crap; I had my echocardiogram scheduled for this morning. Even though I couldn’t stay for the whole meeting, I needed to at least drop by to hand over a DVD we’ll be showing at this weekend’s Movie Night. Figgered while I was in Peet’s, I might as well get some coffee too.

When I got there I ran in and knew immediately that I had not dressed warmly enough for today. It was, like, a hundred degrees below zero today. I am almost not kidding. But all my PTO girls were inside, warm and toasty with their hot beverages, and it made me happy to see them, but also very, very sad. I wanted to hang with them too.

When I went back out to start my car again, it made a little ding sound I’d never heard before and a weird symbol lit up on the dash. The symbol looked like a thermometer in a puddle of water. It also kind of looked like a puppy because Germans can’t draw. But the snowflake light was blinking, and I’m no dummy—I know that one means “watch for ice.” So even my car was bitching about how cold it was this morning. I sat there, letting the car run for a few minutes before I took off again.

And while I sat there, thinking about how cold it was, how much I wished I could be warming up in Peet’s wit’ my PTO peeps, that I should probably run home and grab a heavier coat before going to the hospital, and how DAMMIT I had forgotten to buy coffee, I suddenly got super-duper bummed out.

I missed “normal.”

“Normal” for me is a balance of work, fun, home, PTO, blogging, reading, family, and friends. This time of year, it also includes lots of shopping and planning, preparing our annual Christmas CD and writing our very silly Christmas letter. There is no room for cancer and pain and short hair and echocardiograms and missing meetings and non-silly Christmas letters in my normal. But apparently I’m not in charge of my normal, and can I just be honest with y’all for a sec? I don’t like that one bit.