Jenny's play started Saturday night and IT'S A HIT. I'm so happy about that. She has worked so hard on it and I know she and Dave are relieved that it went so well. I can't wait to see it next weekend.
Since I have kinda turned this blog into a memoir, I will tell another "story" about my life. When Jenny was one month old, Jeff had just turned 3. We went to a 4th of July party at a friend's house. Everyone was gathered in the back yard and all the children were running around playing. I couldn't enjoy myself because I refused to take my eyes off of Jeff running around. I have a tendancy to be over protective and I just can't relax when he is out of my sight. MY BAD!!! So, this time, I made a conscious effort to just let him play and talk to my friends. I figured noone else is as neurotic as I am to be watching their kids and heck, the kids should be fine. What could happen...so, for a while I just tried not to think about it. At some point, and I'm sure it wasn't more than 5 or 10 minutes, I decided to "eyeball" Jeff just to make sure all was well. I didn't see him in the crowd of children. I looked in the house, checked the bathroom and then went into the front yard...No Jeff!!! by this time, I'm getting concerned. Jenny was in her baby carrier asleep, so I picked her up and ran to get John. I told him I could not find Jeff. I even mentioned it to several other parents and noone seemed concerned. So, John and I took off all around the house (with Jenny in tow) calling Jeff and received no answer. So then we started walking down the street calling his name. I was in a total panic and near tears. At first, John was calm and assured me that he couldn't be far and everything would be fine. We must have walked several blocks just calling his name. This subdivision was on the water so we were doubly concerned that he might have wandered into someone's back yard and fallen in the water. I checked my watch continually and was frankly, a nervous wreck!! At the 30 minute mark...I told John I thought we needed to call the police. At first he thought it might be premature, and then as we kept looking and kept calling, he finally agreed that we should go back to the house and take some action with the police.
I cannot tell you how distraught I was. You can just imagine!!! Just about this time, off in the distance, we see a man walking toward us with a little boy by the hand. Immediately, I could see it was Jeff. My heart began to beat again. I hurried toward him as quickly as I could, John by my side and Jenny at my chest. The man said that he had found Jeff walking down the sidewalk about a mile down the road and he asked Jeff where he came from and Jeff pointed down toward where the party was. I have always regretted that I didn't thank that man enough. I was just so happy to see Jeff I couldn't contain myself.
I asked Jeff why he left the party and he said the children were running in the front yard, and he saw a kitty cat and tried to catch it. The kitty cat ran down the sidewalk and Jeff followed. By the time he lost the cat, he didn't know which house we were at and he was walking in the wrong direction.
We went back to the party and needless to say, I didn't take my eyes off Jeff for the rest of the time we were there. I think this incident let to my being just way too protective of the children. I never let them ride their bikes out of my sight and just kept a tight leash on both of them for way too long. But it was something I couldn't avoid because of my fear of something happening to one of them.
When Jeff was about 12 he wanted to go to the mall with a friend of his. I knew all the other kids were going to the mall, but I just wasn't ready to let him. Finally, I agreed that he could go but only if I dropped them off and picked them up one hour later. I did take them and I followed them around every corner, and waited outside of every store!!! I wonder if I ever told Jeff about that. He was with his friend Mike, when we lived in Saratoga Springs, New York when that happened.
The big change came in my life when I started on Prozac in 1995. After that, I started seeing things more realistically. Say what you might about anti-depressants, but I know the Prozac helped me, and continues to help me. I wasn't depressed, but I suffered from panic attacks. I do believe that he panic attacks started after years and years of worrying too much, dwelling on things I could not change and fear of losing one of my children. It was after the breast cancer that the panic started. I tried several other anti-depressants and the Prozac was the one that changed everything. I will probably be on it til I die.
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