Every year I buy my baby sister a calendar. I always get her one of those desk top, tear away the page a day, kind. Not because she works at a desk, but because I know she likes tearing it off every day. It’s like a gift from me, every day of the year. I try to get her a calendar that will make her laugh or smile every day. She has a great smile. It makes the world a better place.

One year, I got her a calendar entitled “365 ways to get fired from your job.” Every day had a new and clever way to get fired. It was really funny….until she got fired. Not sure if the calendar had any hand in that, but it was totally not my intention!

I think her favorite calendar over the years may have been the “would you rather” calendar. Every day there is a choice to be made. “would you rather have extremely long nose hair or ear hair?” or “would you rather live in the world of Tim Burton or live in the world of Dr. Seuss?”  Some days, the choices are both so horrid…you just can’t decide. Usually tho, they are funny and even thought provoking.

This year, I bought two calendars. One of them was a Would you Rather and the other was a WTF calendar. The WTF calendar has an example of a different situation every day intended to make the reader of the calendar appreciate their own life more. Kind of a, “at least my life isn’t THAT bad” kind of thing.

I made the mistake of letting my kids see both calendars and Ethan made the decision that we MUST keep the Would you Rather calendar for ourselves. It so happened that my sister started having some really poopy days so, the WTF calendar was probably the best choice for her. Besides, if the Would you Rather page is a real good one, I usually take a picture and send it to her phone in the morning. That way, she gets to enjoy both calendars.

I was wondering about this “would you rather” concept today as I searched on the internet for reasons why my chest is hurting. It has been hurting for a few weeks now. It isn’t a sharp “OMG I’m having a heart attack” kind of pain, it is more of a “Dang, my trainer worked me too hard on chest exercises” kind of pain. The only problem is….I haven’t worked out in weeks. Unless you count walking like a peg legged pirate for the last two weeks a workout….(which I totally do) And even if you did, it may be working my butt but it isn’t reaching up to my chest muscles. I remember that old “hip bone’s connected to the..” song and there are quite a few connectors between butt and chest. It would have been totally diluted before it got up there.

Anyway, as I looked at one of those diagnose yourself medical sites, I saw all these horrid conditions that could cause chest pain. Honestly, I didn’t want to look at them. I started thinking about how blissful ignorance can be. I started thinking about the ‘what if’ I had something wrong with me. What about my kids. What about ……. yeah, too much. I shut down the internet site and went to look at puppies pooping on babies (How I met your mother season 2 thank you).

I don’t know if I am a totally scaredy cat or what. I used to think it was strength. As a kid, I was all about “mind over matter.” When I had my wisdom teeth out….no big deal. When I had jaw surgery and had my mouth wired shut for 6 weeks, no problem. Child birth? Please. I could handle anything. (Okay, I did freak out a tiny bit when I went to get my eyes lazered, but…thats my EYE! ) Even when I had my most recent accident where I cut my knee open down to the bone. It was like, “cool! I can see my bone! This is an awesome bag of ice! No, I can walk, don’t worry about it!”  It didn’t slow me down. Of course, it is taking fricken FOREVER to heal…probably because I didn’t slow down, but that is besides the point.

Maybe I convince myself I am strong and invincable because I am afraid to admit I might not be. I’ve always been a bit afraid of leaving my kids. I mean, when Mae was a baby….Brad had to physically pry me away from her to go on a date. And even then, I cried the entire time we were gone. I was sure she was only safe when she was with ME. I was always afraid of being the one that would die and leave the kids with Brad. Don’t get me wrong, he loved his kids and did what he could with them. I was just afraid he would not pay any attention to them and they would scatter like leaves in the wind. Now that I am the only one left, it is even a bit more scary to think about leaving. It’s a lot of responsibility to be THE parent. I know I’m FAR from being a perfect mom. I fail daily. But there isn’t anyone in this world that could ever love these kids more than I do. They are the most important things to me. They are all so amazing and so unique. It makes my heart hurt just thinking about how much I love them.

Maybe this chest pain is just my heart stretching. Stretching and growing because my kids get more amazing every day. They are growing up and just, getting more awesome! I can’t even contain how amazed I am with them. Every day. And with all that love comes a whole bushel of worry about them. Health, education, testimony, direction, choices, future,….the list goes on and on. I only want what is best for them.

I do what I can. When it comes down to it, they all have their agency and I wouldn’t want it any other way. I just want to make sure I stick around to see what they do with it. I will cheer for their good choices and suffer with them through the bad ones. Maybe one day, they will look at me and see someone that actually knows something. It could happen, I mean, it happened to me and my parents….

So, bottom line, I guess I will go to the doctor and see what this stupid chest pain is all about. Cause when the card says, “would you rather go to the doctor or would you rather die from something stupid”…..the choice is pretty easy. Cause I said so.