The Unbalancing Act Read Online Free PDF Page A

can’t shut up for one minute. Times that by three. Now, see if that doesn’t make you want to fling your shit like a chimp at the zoo. Yikes!
     
    “Boys, would you do me the best and biggest favor and draw me some pictures?” I ask.
     
    This is one of my glorious tactics to get them to stop fighting and calm down. It works. We all sit at the big rectangle table and draw. Eric tells me that nothing has been going on and that things are pretty dull around the house. My mother and his mother have been helping him with the kids. He tells me that he doesn’t want me to worry about a thing. I just need to concentrate on taking the time to get better so I can come home strong and healthy and focused. I just smile and change the subject to things like his job and some projects we’ll want to start when I get home. At this point the boys are doing fine. Ben has drawn what looks to be a ninja of some kind. Max has a piece of paper with six oval shapes and a vertical line down the middle of each one. I don’t have a clue what these are but I don’t want to hurt his feelings, so I just smile.
     
    “Your pictures are awesome boys. You guys are the best artists I’ve ever met and I love everything you make!” I say. They look at me with proud eyes.
     
    “Mommy, what’s that smell?” asks Max.
     
    “I don’t know baby, maybe Jordan needs a diaper.”  I check and he’s clean. I really don’t smell anything, but start to wonder if I am just used to the smell of this place. It’s not necessarily bad, kind of smells like a new bandage when you take off the wrapper.
     
    “Can I keep these pictures to hang by my bed so I can look at them when I miss you guys?” They nod. “And Jordan, can I just keep you here with me to use as my pillow?”
     
    The boys all laugh as I take my darling baby and pretend to be asleep and snoring on his tummy. Jordan laughs and I kiss his belly and then his sweet cheeks that smell like baby soap and vanilla wafers. I love that smell.
     
    “But Mommy, don’t you smell that?” Max is insisting.
     
    I tell him again that I don’t smell anything and after much hugging and kissing and “I love you’s,” Nurse Katelyn comes in and says I have to go to my group session in five minutes. As I am watching the loves of my life walking towards the door, I blow kisses and tell them I will call them and that I’ll be home soon. Max stops and looks up at me. I’m feeling so much guilt and I think he is going to cry for me to go home with them. Oh no! This cannot be happening, because if he has a breakdown, it will kill me and I will have to give this place up and go straight home.
     
    “Mommy…I know what that smell is,” he yells with a smile “it’s all those butt cracks I drew on your picture.”
     
    Nice.
     
     

My First Group
     
        It ’s time to start some “real” therapy. The time I’ve spent here so have far has been mostly answering questions and filling out forms. Things are about to get a little more complicated now. I head down to the Solarium, which is actually a very beautiful room. They hid it on the back side of the nuthouse so that we can see out, but the curious people who want to get a look at the crazies can’t see in. The hospital owns a lot of land behind here, and you can’t see anything but nature from inside these walls. The room looks out over a sparkling pond with small, manmade waterfalls on each side. Flowerbeds and birdbaths and cheerful things decorate the courtyard outside. However, I do find it odd that there is a giant weeping willow that almost seems the centerpiece of the landscaping. I mean really? Really…or not? Did it not dawn on any of these people that a weeping willow is a really bad fucking choice? I don’t know why this strikes me as such a fail, but you take a bunch of wackos who are depressed, anxious, suffering from post-traumatic stress, and God only knows what else and then put a big weeping willow in the middle of