Me-Time

Hubby's been sick, so going to bed early has been easy; he doesn't feel like staying up and I fall asleep after 5 minutes of reading. So, I go to bed at 9:20, fall asleep at 9:25 and DING! I'm awake at 6:30, ready to start my day. Until 7am when the kids get up and start asking me for time, energy, attention, supervision, food, help, discipline, and chocolate, then I'm ready to sink back into a coma. I really just like time to myself sometimes. I wonder what is worse, sleep deprivation or lack of me-time.

Almost five years ago, in the fall of 2007, I had a 2-1/2 year-old boy, a 1 year-old girl, and had decided to finish my associates at the local community college. The kids were experiencing their first daycare and I was feeling more freedom - and subsequent guilt - than I had in 3 years. I was still a smoker at the time, a fact that I find harder and harder to believe as time goes by, and money was so extremely scarce that I often questioned my decision to attend classes. Gas, daycare, books, tuition... how selfish of me to want an education. I almost cried every morning that I said good-bye to my children, but then again, I almost cried every morning before that, when I woke up with two children and nowhere to go.

It was November of that year that I quit smoking. I'll never forget it. When you're a smoker, sore throats and hacking coughs are everyday occurrences, so you never really know when you are on the verge of getting sick. But those particular days in November of 2007, I came down with what I recognized as Bronchitis. It was bad and I did something so incredibly stupid that it bares repeating. On the second day of my feeling like flattened, scraped and bagged roadkill, I realized that I was also running a fever. I had only just dropped my kids off at daycare and was heading to my first class. I knew that I should not go in. I knew that I needed a doctor and some antibiotics, but I went to class anyway. My school and the kids daycare was 30 minutes away from Wichita. My doctor was in Wichita. If I decided to go to the doctor, I would not make it to the appointment and the pharmacy in enough time to pick up my kids from daycare. Also, because I was getting tuition assistance, I couldn't have the kids in daycare any day that I didn't go to class. I still can't believe what an archaic system they have to "help" returning adults. If I wanted to see a doctor, I would have to make an appointment, keep the kids out of school and spend the day driving two toddlers around town to the appointment, to get my meds, and then spend a not-so-relaxing afternoon caring for them and myself. I simply didn't have the energy. In those days, it was easier to go to school, even dog-shit sick. I loaded myself up on Tylenol, went to class and spent the rest of my time in the second-story library, on a couch, sucking on whatever warm liquids I could find enough coins to buy. For three days straight, between short naps in the library, I read required material, worked on homework and monitored my fever making sure to take a dose of Tylenol, 30 minutes before picking up the kids so that I could make it home with as little pain as possible. I desperately hoped no one would notice how sick I was. I was embarrassed at being so stingy that I didn't want to pay the money for a doctor and a prescription, and I felt incredibly guilty for not wanting to take care of my kids while I was sick.

The first time the Tylenol kicked in, I tried to smoke a cigarette, but my throat felt like it would jump out of my neck and head for the hills. I didn't dare try again for the next three days until my fever broke and when it was over I no-longer had a nicotine addiction. Crazy how that works. I just figured, well, that's an extra $30 a week if I never go back. So, I kept the open pack of cigarettes in my purse, until one day I missed the space and moved them to my glove compartment, then to my desk drawer at home. They stayed in my desk for about a year, where I snuck a cigarette every-so-often and more often when my Grandmother was dying, until I finally decided that that was the old me and pitched them into the trashcan.

One year later, I was at the university getting straight A's and changing my major to English Literature. For the record, I haven't had bronchitis again since.