And in truth, I must amend: the real hardest thing is that this post could be referring to more than one woman that I have little hope of ever getting back.

I’ve been spending a lot of time recently reflecting on that heady age of 23, when unadulterated joy was something I had access to (along with u.j.s darker cousin, unmitigated sadness). I was between relationships, a little fragile (had just been stomped on by someone who didn’t deserve me anyway), and looking for what, or who, would come next. I had a job that demanded very little from me mentally, but offered constant access to the one thing that sustained my emotional wellbeing: music. I was cleaning houses and could listen to whatever I wanted all day. I’d be scrubbing toilets, thinking about how I was wasting my brain and education, and then, say, John Linnell’s sweetly nasal tones would hit that upper register, resonate in my ears and right down through me, and everything was good and bright and right for those minutes. I’d put that toilet brush down and just drink it in–that musically generated joy that fills your chest so palpably you could reach right in, wrap your hands around it and give it a look-see. But why would you ever take it out?

One of my favorite bands came to play Chicago for the first time just then. From the minute my friend had put their first record into my hands, I was completely hooked on the smart-longing-lyric, jump-inducing perfection of them. They were all I listened to for a year, and they were coming to town. And she was visiting. Profound alignment. Truly. A sparkly perfection decorated every second from when they hit the stage until they left it. Their sound was even more delicious live, and they were tight. We jumped and bounced and spun, singing at the top of our lungs. So happy. So fucking happy. The music I loved being made in the room with me, surrounding me. And when the front man took note of us, two girls singing along with every word in a town they assumed had never heard of them, the joy intensified. He and I made eye contact–joy feeding joy–he making me so happy, my happiness making him happy–this crazy circuit of good and right and true–a profoundly deep connection between total strangers in those minutes of notice, one that carried the message “I am seeing you, YOU, right here, right now, and you are perfect.” Maybe that’s what other people are talking about when they say they’ve seen god. It certainly felt divine. The divine through the physical. We needed the loud and the sweat and the chords and the dancing to get there. I’ve rarely felt so in alignment with everything in the universe. Except the three other times I saw them play. Beautiful.

The eye contact intensified with each show, fed by a crush-y blush-y sweetness that I still miss. If there’s anything more intoxicating than someone looking into your eyes and singing your favorite song right on into you, I’ve never encountered it. Those moments sustained me during the weeks between gigs, helped me get over feeling like the left-behind loser shlub my ex turned me into. [My attempt to drag that connection out of context, out of its present, destroyed it. Now I think I'd be better able to leave it where it lived.]

You really can be in love for just a few minutes at a time. I didn’t understand that then–it was all or nothing for me at 23. Love defined as truth, of being totally present with another person, open and vulnerable but sure too. Connected. A flash that’s just enough to see by. When I see two people onstage that I’m compelled by, it’s because they’re tapping into this. Being a little in love with each other.

I refuse to accept the idea that because I’m 43 I no longer get to participate in that.  Not that I’m looking for some singer to flirt with me onstage. That’s not what I’ve been talking about, and that’s not going to happen anyway. I want communal joy access–the presence. Between friends, strangers, or whatever. Shake off this middle-aged, frumped out existence and reacquaint myself with THAT. Get the hell out of my own head and be here. Renaissance indeed.

I will admit to being utterly ambivalent about the whole enterprise. Sure, it would have been exciting—I love the Olympics (even with all it’s many faults), and watching the events in real-time with my teenage kids (yikes!), and being able to host out-of-town family and friends for it sounds awesome. But the simple fact is that this city (this administration most specifically) can’t be trusted with an event of this magnitude and expense. Chicago can’t even get the CTA to a functional place for its citizenry; I can only imagine the mess it would make of things trying to accommodate the Olympic crowds. And that’s just one small piece of the logistical puzzle.  We’d wake up some morning in 2013 to a headline that read, “Daley croney charters luxury cruise liner for staff with Olympic money,” or something similar. No thanks. Let Rio have it.

And to the Chicago man quoted by the AP as saying this “is the saddest thing I’ve ever seen,” hey asshole, have you never read a newspaper? What about a 16 year old beaten to death for walking to school? No? How about the fact that other kids videotaped it and put it on fucking youtube? No? The Olympics going to Rio still trumps that for you in the sadness department?

I see the AP replaced that quote in a more recent version of the article, so I couldn’t get the guy’s name. I can only hope he regretted those words as soon as they came out of his mouth.

This woman isn’t my regular doctor, something I don’t really have anyway, because every doctor I’ve encountered in the last 15 years has been mostly uninterested and/or impatient to get me out of the office. I used to have a doctor who seemed like she genuinely gave a shit, actually remembering me from visit to visit, but that was 15 years ago. Maybe it’s the fast food version of an office visit that the industry is forcing now, or maybe it’s the doctors own ambivalence, but either way it sucks. And it is not how the pediatricians operate, thank god. Which is why I want them to treat me too. Maybe I just need to find a family practitioner like the one we had when I was a kid. One who knew your family, and would give you a strep test right then if your kid had it and you had a sore throat. Instead of forcing you to make another appointment with someone else, pay for parking, and wait two more days to have that stick jammed down your throat—a stick that would be wrong on the first go round anyway.

So now, after finally getting the diagnosis days later, and being assured that a prescription would be called in for me, I’m sitting in my office waiting for a call-back from the doctor-on-call. Why, you ask? You, by whom I mean me, when I read this later? Because, when I called the pharmacy to check on my prescription’s status, they had no record of it. Because after I called the doctor’s office at 4:30 to find out what happened, I got the mf-ing answering service, even though the office (as stated on their own message) is open until 5. Because this is my only course of action if I want antibiotics before tomorrow, with the added bonus of being charged  the $50 phone-consultation fee for their fucking screw-up. Whoa to the accounts payable person I encounter when that bill comes due, let me tell you.

I know that there is a country full of really sick people who have to deal with this kind of bullshit all the time, and to you, I apologize. I feel a small particle of your pain, and I tell you, it fucking sucks.

She did fall asleep, finally accepting assurances that she is still a child, that the rhyme elves and other mythical creatures will still leave tokens for her–that the magic will not fade away until she is ready to let it.

Yesterday was the last full day she would have before her project was due, and I was determined to have her first homework assignment NOT be an 11th hour freak-out. We gathered clay and soil from our neighbor’s recently excavated yard (amazingly, our deep soil is full of clay, and perfect for this) helped set up her workspace on our porch. Once the brick cutting began, she hit the wall. She looked at the bricks, saw how much time it would take to actualize her design vision, and lost it. We had to ride her for two hours–coaching her absolutely against her will to get moving. J did most of the heavily lifting on that front admittedly; I escaped. The mother/daughter dynamic was insurmountably counter-productive.

Somewhere, about three hours in, she turned a corner. I think she could see that she would finish, and her desire to do well for her teacher and her classmates kicked in. By dinnertime, it was done. When I came home, she practically leapt into my arms, gleefully shouting, “Mom I’m done!” She was so friggin proud of herself–a complete 180 from who she was in the morning. It was another of those moments when I totally get what the curriculum is trying to do and see how effective it is. If they can help her not be the procrastinator that her parents are, it will be worth every penny.

The plot? Shocking their father when he came into their rooms in the morning to get them dressed because, get this, they would already be dressed!! Under the covers! Their excitement over this is still making me smile. I had to wake up early to get their clothes on before J woke up. And I’ll tell you, I now wish April first came everyday. They clocked in at about 7 seconds from dead asleep to completely clothed. Amazing. The only thing standing in the way of a successful surprise is the fact of J’s insomnia. He is almost never asleep at 6 in the morning. Fine father that he is, though, he played possum during the whispered proceedings and did a fine acting job, fooling even me into thinking he was actually asleep. I went downstairs where the glorious shouts of “April Fool!” echoed along with the time-honored sounds of fake parental shock.

The kids sailed down to breakfast, completely satisfied. Even performing their own fake surprise at the forks I had placed beside their cereal bowls–the only April Foolish thing mommy could come up with before having coffee. Har de har har.