So yesterday was February 12th. As you might know from the last two years this date has been a hard one for me for almost my whole life.
Major childhood trauma occurred on that date. And last year it was the day my pregnancy was officially over. (Though my body didn't fully return to normal until last month. It took until June for my heightened sense of smell to fade and allow me to eat mint, garlic, onion and tomato again. And my menses did not regulate in any kind d of perceived pattern until January 2015.)
So I had determined to try to not make anniversaries of hardships anymore.
Then my kidlet broke my heart.
She remembered last weekend that Thursday was the day we lost her baby 'sister'. And though we have spoken a lot about the pregnancy and what happened (filtered to what a little kid can handle) she was sad and needed to talk about it. So we did and we will any and every time she needs to process her loss.
So I spent the day yesterday battling my own heartache, using meditation and EFT (Check www.emofree.com) to work through my own knot of emotions. And I am happy to announce I did fairly well.
We had a good night. Lots of extra snuggles and longer story time. She told me she loved me about a 100 times and I told her I love her about 200 times. It was a healing thing. What we didn't talk about was the miscarriage.
So I am proud of us with how we all dealt with the hard day.
But then...
Dun dun dun! Traumatic crap phase 2 began.
Today is the 13th. A day that has a lot of superstitious baggage for a lot of folks. I am not one of those folks. But a year ago right now I was in a car accident. Not a bad one but really traumatic for me. I still have issues when being in a car. (I don't drive. But I panic with each twitch of the car. ) So when my Kindergartener tells me she's suspended from her bus today (Told me yesterday evening mind you.) I was triggered. The seeds to panic were very lightly buried.
Panic attack and fury dipped me into a cocktail of adrenaline and sweat. I went from zero to wtf in less than a milisecond.
We have been having issues with her bus. I believe that the driver is taking it out on my kid whenever I contact the bus company because each incident lines up perfectly with a call. Or in this case a call I didn't make. ( She was 20 minutes late last week with drop off. Normally I have called to just find out what's up. No biggie right? But that day the weather at rush hour was tricky and I never called because I assumed that the drop was delayed by the weather.) I told my husband that we'd get a suspension notice this week. But we didn't. No call. No letter. Nothing.
So then the kidlet drops her news to me that an adult at school told her that Friday she couldn't ride the bus I went full on red gaze angry. Not a call to the parents? A verbal messaged delivered via 6 year old. Are you kidding me?
So I immediately try to call the school. No one ever answers after 2:50pm. I call another number and leave a hot voice mail. Then I email the principal. No response At ALL last night. [Edit: The Principal waited until later today to contact me. She wanted to know what was the situation first.]
Our buses are not owned by the district they contact with several companies. There is district wide issues.
I am not saying my child didn't do something to be suspended. But since I daily talk to her driver shouldn't I have been told if there was bad behavior? What I was asked was did I call to complain about the lateness of the drop off.
What I didn't receive at any time was a call from the school or bus company giving me any notice of suspension.
I have not yet received in the the mail a suspension notice. [The last suspension, #2, I got the notice at 5 pm the day it was supposed to occur. My kid was out sick. I had called that week about a late drop off. The first suspension, for kissing a boy on day 13, came after I complained about the drop off I missed because the driver was 20 minutes early for the the drop off (we have to be there 10 minutes before and wait 10 minutes after the drop time)] [Edit: Today is Saturday and no notice. They supposedly mailed them on Monday. It was 6 kids who didn't get notice. The Principal is reviewing video before allowing the suspensions. ]
So there's a pattern of non communication and something fishy about the suspensions themselves.
But my real concern is for the Kidlet. I don't want her having bad associations with the bus. She was so sick with worry today when we put her on it. ( No way we will allow this to go further without push back.)
Here we are almost lunch and no contact from the school. So I hope that my child is now out of the loop. And the adults can fix the issues. As we should have been doing all along. [Edit: I got the call during my editing of this entry. I then spent the day on the phone. The saga of this experience shall be sung another time as this is about not creating anniversaries of trauma. But I do want to pause and say how grateful I am that the Principal of kidlet's school is awesome.] I add all this because I fear my kidlet will hold this nonsense as a specific point in time. I want her to have memories of glad times and to remember bad times but not enshrine them and give the painful parts of her life such a dark hold on her personal calendar.
So that brings me to why do we waste so much time and effort memorializing awful things?
The ending via surgery of my missed miscarriage is something to think about and be sad a bit about and remember but to work together as a family to heal our grief if it is there. It's not a reason to dread a date.
My childhood stuff I have gotten enough closure that if I don't get reminded I can completely forget that 2/12 was once a painful day.
That's healthy. I decided last year to not enshrine bad moments of life only good. I hope that is a lesson I can instill in my child.
So if today being Friday the 13th gives you reason to feel uncomfortable or unhappy please don't let it.
To me today is Friday. Party day for kidlet where she gets to proudly give her classmates her hand made valentines.
Tomorrow is a day I don't celebrate but is important this year to the kidlet so we will do something nice a s a family.
And Sunday the 15th is a day to celebrate! Clearance candy day!
Don't let a number on a page get you down. And have a Happy Clearance Chocolate Day Eve!
