Peter and the Red Shoes

Once Upon A Time, in a land far, far away I came upon a pair of magical red shoes. The name of the far away land is called Chinatown and the shoes are vibrant beautiful but hardly magical (as far as I know). But a little boy named Peter in Briarcliff Manor might be. Peter is two years old and recently learned that everyone wears underwear (as opposed to just him, the result of potty training) but somehow he knows of the existance of the red shoes. Two weeks ago, when he got to school Peter did what he always does, ask me to read to him as I began to do so. The story had barely started when Peter asked "Where are your red shoes?" I told him they were at home but wondered how he knew I had red shoes in the first place. On Tuesday he asked the same thing, only he added "I miss your red shoes." Mind you, I have never worn the shoes to work, in fact, I forgot they existed. Yet, Peter missed them. Huh? By Wednesday I was at my wits end (and maybe a tiny bit creeped out). When Peter asked again for my red shoes I promised him I would wear them the next day. But the question remained HOW DOES THIS CHILD KNOW I HAVE RED SHOES??????? Peter and I arrived at school at the same time Thursday morning. As promised, I wore my red shoes. Peter was thrilled, exclaiming "Yea, finally, your red shoes!" His father raised his eyebrows. I responded in kind and explained the exchange his youngest son and I had been having. "Why Pete?" his dad asked. Peter just laughed and ran ahead of us. Why indeed. ::Shrug:: I guess how Peter knew I had red shoes or why he cared is a mystery for Sherlock Holmes...or the X-Files.

Every Lesson Forms A New Scar...

My life used to be...shall we say...chaotic. I left San Francisco,the city I had wanted to live in since I was five years old, in a state of turmoil and things didn't get much better until about...an hour ago. Okay, that's not fair. I can't say exactly when things started to get better because it happened in stages; First I replaced CMI, a "job" that is best suited to affirming your belief that you are pond scum (and if you didn't hold the belief that you were pond scom, CMI would have gladly convinced you!) with Amazon, which provided stability and the ability to earn more money than Al Bundy. Until it didn't. The problem with Amazon is it's like playing three card Monte; can you find enough hours to support yourself? Can you keep up your UPH (length of time it takes to complete an order) without having a panic attack? The thing is, while I was doing all of this transitioning, I wasn't really worried about being happy, as I had long since stopped considering happiness to be a possibility, at least for me. Then, the weirdest thing started to happen... I traded being a shopper at Amazon for being an assistant teacher at a wonderful daycare\preschool and things started to stabilize. I mean really stabilize. All of a sudden I was able to do things; Give my mom money without having to go beg rides on mass transit. Buy Writing Rainbow supplies without budgeting a month in advance (though to be fair, I still have to budget two weeks in advance, but only because I get paid bi-weekly). Buy gifts for people that aren't from the dollar store! Also, my commute is now 45 minutes (as opposed to four hours) and there's a parent who praises me for, quote "dressing like a princess everyday." Yet I was hesitant to trust it. You remember the rubber band theroy? Yeah, that shit is real and it's just waiting to snap and destroy anything you've built. Or was it? As things continued to improve I was afraid to admit how good things were, believing that the second I did it would all come apart. I fought against, not the fact that things were good, but the admission that they were. About a month ago I decided to stop and embrace the new reality God has given me. Things are good. Really good and I owed it to myself and God to say so. So I did. When friends asked me how I was I answered 'good' instead of 'okay.' Because they were. Until last Friday. Last Friday I woke up to discover Antigone's (my cat) back legs didn't work. I called work and told them I would be there as soon as I could but I had to get my Tiggy squeek (if you knew her this nickname would make sense) to the vet. Turns out she had a stroke and by 8pm that evening she was gone. Just like that, my world shifted. The rubber band had struck. The second, the second I allowed myself to embrace the fact that my life was in a good place and on a good trajectory, I lost Antigone. Last week was hell, filled with anguish and depression, feelings I am all too familiar (though the anguish is new) with but don't have any idea what to do with inthis situation. Except learn the lesson, heed the rubber band, and make sure I stay emotional middle.