un-reveal

That particular trip with my mother to the neurologist was a little more than a year ago.  Cut to the chase: I'm sitting in the doctor's office with my mom, and she looks me in the eyes and says, "What's your name?"

I did not cry then.  I think I smiled kindly and answered her.  Some watershed moments are so dreadful.  Whether it was a watershed moment or not, I have interpreted it that way.  And I remember being stoical that day.  All day.

Sometime later that night, I was sobbing and sobbing and sobbing in some corner of the house. My wailing noise was drowned out by the washer or dryer or a thunderstorm or something.  I remember being so utterly relieved that some other noise was covering mine up.

I had essentially become the emotional and moral manager of my family of origin.  A fog set in.  I have shed only a few tears since then.  There's a kind of numbness most days.

I stopped writing much for this blog.  I have been preoccupied with the care-giving and care-taking.  My thoughts have been, "This can't be happening. This is happening. What do I do?  This isn't happening. What do I do? What do I do?"

The cast of blog characters (actually real, interesting, wonderful people) certainly remained on my radar, and I would read through the blog regularly just to see what they were doing and saying.

My mother is still a dear, kind woman with so much determination to move forward.  She really is.  And I love her so much.

So one of the questions on my mind has been this:  If I can no longer even get my mother to remember where the bathroom is, then why do so many of those administrators truly seem to think that I can make all my students wiser?  After all, I don't love them nearly as much as I love my mom.  I cannot be as committed to them.  And, frankly, she still has more energy and drive than so many of my students.  But the brain is what it is--for Mom or for my students.  For her, we use the word "Alzheimer's" and we accept that.  Yet we can and should and must push the students and get them to "succeed"--as if they, too, are not limited by their own brains?

I'm oversimplifying, because I'm tired.  But that's the heart of what I feel.

So here's the deal:  We've had this great opportunity to use the blog to pursue the truth through our various crazzzy ways.  We've tolerated each others' opinions and explorations.  We've deliberately refused to be gaslighted by the "best practices" and the newest, shiniest technologies to improve "student success."

It's like Stendhal said: "Almost all our misfortunes in life come from the wrong notions we have about the things that happen to us.... To judge events sanely, is, therefore, a great step towards happiness."

"Sanely" is a bit of a stretch for some of us sometimes.  But some crazzy kind of sanity is what we have here at this blog.  We escape the wrong notions of the too-often pathological higher education community.  We've had compassion and decent moderators and open-mindedness and some other good stuff--and I am happier because of y'all.

As long as the blog endures, I'll keep coming back to read.  It does make me happier and helps me to keep my sanity.  Thank you.  There is something to be said for bourbon, virtue, poetry, truth, and such things that those old French artists embraced.  Thank you.  And when the lights go out, then so it will go.  I will remember it (mostly) fondly.  Until I don't.

Thank you all.