Intensivist Care

In the intermediate intensive care unit of the hospital in Atlanta where my dad is, there's a doctor on call 24/7 known as an intensivist. But I've decided that whether we deal with sick people or not, we're all intensivists. Think about it: when's the last time you went at a project in a relaxed way? Did anything at a leisurely pace? Took something lightly?

When I landed in Washington after an emotional week spent at my dad's bedside, I was, for the briefest time, Sam and Julia's fantasy mom. They were happy to see me and clung to me in baggage claim, full of news about what they'd been doing in my absence: a birthday party at a real fire house, a dinner date with their friend Benjamin and his parents, ballet class that ended with Julia's getting bear stamps on her hands (still visible), breakfast with Ralph, including hot chocolate with extra whipped cream. Time slowed while I took in the sight and substance of my beautiful, healthy family.

It didn't take more than about 1 1/2 hours, though, before I was back in intensivist mode, which is to say back in the trenches of mom-dom. Sam hadn't done his homework while I was away and wasn't in the mood to hear that he still had to, late or not. A skirmish ensued. But the truth is, life has moved on, because there's this week's homework to attend to. Last week is over.

The intensity at which we live is not just about parenting. A friend who is writing a book and trying to finish said she worked so hard yesterday that she didn't have time to eat until she looked up from her computer and it was dinner-time. Why do I do this to myself, she opined. Why do I wait until the last minute?

But we all do. The way our full lives are organized--or disorganized--we can't help but do things on deadline. As one of my sisters said recently, our lives are so based on a 24/7 time clock, we don't ask what day something is due anymore, we ask what time. She was referring to her son, who punched the send button on a college application related something at 11:59 p.m. before it had to be in at midnight.

And even though I bought Valentine's Day cards at the CVS across the street from the hospital days ago in an effort to relieve the tedium of the waiting room, it's not like I also mailed them in advance. No, I will scramble to do that today so that they'll arrive on Feb. 14, if the postal service cooperates. It's not the first instance I've been late. I have solved my latent tardiness before by spending $48 at FedEx on a $2.49 father's day card.

All this rushing makes it hard to stop and put things in context. To enjoy. It wasn't until I was looking at photos of Sam and Julia at my mom and dad's house last week and saw one of Julia at 1, standing diaper-less and defiant in her patent-leather party shoes in the front yard, that I realized I don't even remember that moment--don't remember Julia at 1--which was just 2 years ago. It had the effect of slamming on my interior brakes, just briefly, to luxuriate in the fact that I have a still-small child--in fact, two--to swaddle myself in. And then I had to turn my attention elsewhere.

I'm not sure there's a solution. I'm just musing--intensively.