Why I Can't Sleep/Sleep Too Much

Yesterday was Cal's thirteenth birthday, giving me once again an opportunity to reckon just how amazingly he's grown since...well, since he was born, obviously, but also since last year, and the year before that, etcetera. He's officially a teenager today. I bought him his first batch of student's tickets, made him stick one in the till as we went through the turnstile at Coxwell subway station. At Sherbourne, he suddenly turned to me and, quite seriously, said: "Mom, this is our stop." I'd intended to go to Yonge/Bloor and ride the subway all the way around to King, but I asked him: "Do you want to get off at Sherbourne?" "Yes." "You want to ride the Sherbourne bus down to our building?" "Yes." "Okay." So that's what we did, and when I told him to show the bus driver his transfer, he did. And then we went back to Sherbourne and I fell asleep on the couch, utterly gutted by a post-adrenaline surge exhaustion that later gave me a massive sick headache. I feel like I haven't quite recovered even today.

Because the other thing about yesterday, of course, is that it began with an 8:30 AM pre-op checkup appointment at Toronto East General Hospital, where Cal and a bunch of other kids got a little lecture about what to expect when they got their tonsils and adenoids out. I and the other parents were given a small tour of the pediatric ward, told things like "the parent who goes in with him gets to stay through recovery, no one else"--because he actually does have to stay overnight, ha ha ha, which means so do I--and "this is a fasting ward, you won't be able to eat until they go in, so have a big breakfast before you get here." Then we saw the anesthesiologist, who was so kind and pleasant I started to cry at one point, without even vaguely knowing why. I've signed off on them sedating him before giving him the gas, because he sometimes fights it at the dentist. And then there's two weeks of after-care, pain and weirdness and the constant threat of infection, bleeding, whatever. That terrible sense that something has changed, permanently.

I don't want him to feel like we've tricked him or betrayed him, but he probably will. I can't see how he wouldn't. I'd give my right arm to be with him through the procedure, even though the idea of seeing them cut into him is...awful, horrifying. He's literally never been in hospital before, aside from that time they put him to sleep to remove four rotted baby teeth and a recent-ish trip to Emergency Mom had, which he got caught up in because I had committed to walking up with her and Steve wasn't yet home to take him away. They have a lot of toys there, at least.

I know it's the best idea, that is really does have to be done; shit, I fought for this, after all. But yesterday, when he literally exploded into song after we left, then did it again after our birthday dinner with Mom, I couldn't help thinking that we don't even know if he'll be able to sing anymore after this surgery. Or if his voice will suddenly change in some wrenching way--drop, maybe. He sounded beautiful last night. He sang "Beauty and the Beast" all the way through, maybe because he knows Mom likes it, even though Mom was already far behind him. He let me sing along with him, even though I don't have perfect pitch, like he does.

I don't want him to hate me, even for a moment. I love him. I need him to love me. To keep ON loving me.

So there we have it: why I can't sleep, why I sleep too much, why I'm finding it hard to write, why why why. Because my heart permanently lives outside of my body, forever stuck inside a piece of myself that they cut out of me thirteen years ago. Because I am a Mom, along with everything else, and goddamnit, it did change me. It made me better, and worse, and different. He made--and makes--me who I am.

Happy birthday, Callum Jacob Barringer.