a dream come true

I just booked flights for me and K to fly over to London to see Christine (my Aussie friend/colleague who is living and working there)! She’ll miss 6 days of school since she has some vacation time while we’ll be gone. I’m really super excited. It’s like I’m realizing some lifetime goal of taking my daughter to Europe — which I am! I brought that baby home from the hospital, and the first thing I did was take her into the part of the house where my map of the world hung on the wall. I promised that little 5lb. bundle then that I would show her the world. I intend to keep my promise.

allergist for me

I went to an allergist today. I’ve never been seen by an allergist nor have I ever been tested for allergies before. I’ve always wanted to know exactly what I was allergic to as I knew I had seasonal allergies. So, after completing full allergy testing for both children and living through all the complications of K’s allergies, I decided it was time that Mama got tested, too. I was stunned at the amount of information they found. They did 56 skin pricks on my back and 9 more intradermals on my upper arm. My back looked like I had been beaten. Huge wheals all over it. You get a “score” of 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4 as to how severely you react to the substance. I got 3s and 4s on a bunch of things. Basically I’m allergic to everything that is green. and then some. Here’s the complete list of things I’m allergic to:
Trees:
Elm, Hickory, Oak, Walnut, Poplar, Pecan, Beech, Birch, Maple, Pine, Sweetgum, Willow
Grass:
Italian Rye, Kent, Blue, Timothy, Bahia, Orchard, Johnson, Fescue, Red Top
Weeds:
Ragweed, Short
Molds:
Alternaria
Inhalants:
Cat Pelt, Feathers
Intradermals (allergens placed under my skin, not just “on” it) I tested positive to:
Weeds, Cat Pelt, Dog Dander, Dust Mite P

Basically I’m not allergic to Ash, Cedar, Sycamore and Hackberry trees. and I’m not allergic to Bermuda grass. But all the other trees and grasses, I am.

Unbelievable. So, they are recommending immunotherapy, which is shots. two shots (a pollen panel and a non-pollen panel) twice a week for as long as it takes to reach 40 sessions (20 weeks if I went every week, twice). I’m not totally convinced I want to do that right now. I have a prescription for Allegra and a nasal spray. I think I want to see what a daily antihistamine in my system for months on end does for me during my “season” of April/May. Then if maintaining a level of Allegra in my system doesn’t take away most of my symptoms, I might consider starting the shots.

life truths

We all settle. We all compromise. Continuing to think that I could do better is not entirely true. Jobs are a compromise, careers are too, marriages are, who you marry is. all that sort of thing. It doesn’t matter what choices I have made (schools to attend, subjects in which to major, whether or not to have children), I will have compromised and settled. Which is incredibly hard for someone who was taught, “You can be ANYthing you want to be. You can have it all.” I’m both sad about that and relieved. Sad that I really can’t have it all, but relieved that no matter what choices I have made, even if I made other choices, I would have still felt eventually like I compromised, like I was disappointed in that decision at some point. It lets me off the hook in a way; I don’t have to beat myself up that I keep making bad choices.

These thoughts were prompted by an article in The Atlantic called Marry Him! I’ve just started getting that magazine again — my secret (less secret now that I’ve written it here) dream or writing goal is to be published in The Atlantic one day. anyway. As I read it I realized — of course I settled. and even if I had married someone else, I would have felt that way at some point or at least about some things. I guess what I’m realizing is that you can’t have it all (realizing this anew, as I have known it/learned it in the past, but I keep holding out hope, I guess, that I really could). It/Everything doesn’t all exist in one person, one choice, one career, one house, one town, one child, one anything.

I am, in a nutshell, a very good consumer. I look for the best deal, the most efficient, effective, best whatever. Therefore I want the best job, career, decision about where I live, what I do, etc. I don’t like to settle. I don’t gravitate towards “settling.” Consequently I was not too inclined to like this article at first, but upon finishing it, it make a lot of sense to me. After all, I don’t revisit every decision I make, but I do for a lot of them.

Anyway point is that no matter who I married or marry in the future, there will always be something missing, I guess. No matter what I do to make money or what “system” I’m a part of (UMC, UN, some 3rd world government, the nonprofit world, etc.), there will always be some big disillusioning disappointment with it. No matter where I went to school (and I went to one really famous institution for one degree and ironically it is the one I question the wisdom of attending from time to time), I will always wonder what if I had gone somewhere else.