traceyh415

"Mommy- have you ever shoplifted?" This was an unexpected question coming through the darkness from the direction of my sleepy son. We recently had started a series of question and answer time before we fall asleep. Due to an unforeseen series of events, sleep has been evasive for me. The fan in his room provides me with just enough white noise to drift off into dreamland (until I wake up at 1am, 3am, then finally 5:30am for work). "Why are you asking me that sweetheart?" I don't want to be evasive but I am certainly curious where a seven year old heard this term. "and yes, I have shoplifted before..." The truth is, I was already shoplifting when I was his age. I had already tried weed. I had already drank. I am not looking for sympathy. These are simply facts. My upbringing was a complicated one. On the outside, things might have looked relatively normal. But the foundation had many cracks in it, just beyond what was visible. Stealing wasn't ...

I got up at 6:45 am this morning to head to the lab at my HMO. They said I had to fast 12 hours so of course I woke up every 30 minutes imagining myself withering from hunger. By 7:14, I took a number. I took my place on the hard plastic seats, a favorite furniture choice of medical clinics and waiting rooms outside county jails. I was holding labels for six tubes of blood. One to see if my food choices is clogging up my heart, one to see if my fatness is actually a medical issue, one to see if I have early markers for the cancer that killed my mother, one to reassure me that I did, in fact, clear the Hep C virus, and one to see if I have any signs of the DIABEETUS, My name is called. I have to explain to Ben the handsome Asian tech that I used to use IV drugs, I have no veins, and other sordid details. Mercifully, he agrees to stick the needle where I recommend. The blood starts to register, uh I mean rush, uh I mean pour in. I thank Ben for his kindness. I have a snack in the pocke...