A Mom's Life

When I was in elementary school I started having some breathing issues. In the evening, after the day's activities, I would start to feel tightness in my chest and shortness of breath. After telling my mom about this, after weeks if not months, she decided to take me to the doctor. After the doctor did a few tests, that all came back negative, he concluded I didn’t have any serious problems like asthma or a heart condition. He told my mom that it was probably some type of anxiety and that, after a busy day, I would settle down in the evening and start to worry about what it happened that day and what was going to happen the next day. Of course, this was a different time in our world. First of all, it was big that my mom even took me to the doctor because, back in the day, people didn’t run to the clinic for every sore throat, rash, or for tummy ache. Second of all, this was also a time when, if something wasn’t physically wrong with you, like blood gushing from your leg or somet...

My parents' living room was a rectangle and back in the day, before flat screens, our very square television was a solid 15 feet from the couch. They had a sweet La-Z-Boy positioned just a few feet from the TV but unfortunately, as an eight-year-old, I was never given permission to sit there. We didn’t have cable, and there was nothing to watch outside of Saturday morning cartoons, which I always enjoyed at my grandmother's house while I vacuumed and dusted her living room for her for a dollar and a doughnut. However, on summer evenings my parents would always watch a movie at exactly 8 PM. My dad would trek down to the local video store and pick the latest and greatest new release for us to watch as a family. I would gather a few pillows and a blanket and position myself alongside the La-Z-Boy. This spot in the living room enabled me to be an arm’s-length from my mom and the television. I thought the reason why I had to sit so close place because the TV was so small and s...