Tick Check

79 Weeks

We know it's going to happen, the day we have to pull a tick out of our son's perfect skin. We live in the country and we're getting to know the bugs. For some reason—perhaps the bombardment of anti-Lyme messages—Greg and I have put all of our fears regarding Ren's loss of innocence in the head of a future tick bite. The terror that we won't be able to keep Ren safe. That a tiny little thing will creep into our lives and cause us the deepest pain we will ever know.

When I was 27, I moved from Los Angeles to New York City. I drove all of my belongings in a rental truck to my parents home in Texas. It took a day and a half. I never stopped to sleep and felt like I'd run a marathon when it was over. I remember a lonely 3 a.m. gas station, standing in a daze under buzzing fluorescence, holding an ugly, novelty figurine that I had to own. It would be my talisman. It would ward off the truck driver at the corner table simulating the peeling off of my cloths as he tore strips down the side of his paper cup. I had gone through a divorce, a bad rebound, bad music videos, bad TV, Hollywood, a broken down car—a broken down me. I reached my folks, recovered for a few days, and then flew to LaGuardia to start over. I had never been to New York City before. With $500 dollars and a friend's couch on which to sleep, I survived by the grace of my family's support and dear friends who literally walked me to the subway after finding me a place to work. For my entire first week in the city I got lost, daily, to the point of tears. In LA, "downtown" isn't south, it's the bullseye. LA is a circle with bumper cars. NYC's a grid with wormholes. And this was before smart phones. This was before smart me. 

I don't know how my parents ever got any sleep.

I suppose there comes a time when you realize you'll hurt your kid more if you keep your kid from getting hurt. You can't live their lives for them. I wouldn't wish any of my dark days on our little guy, but today, I'm happy I had them or I wouldn't be me. All I can do is hope that I can be for him what my friends and my folks were for me—there.