Just around the corner

Today, Janessa is at the high school for sophomore orientation.  School starts in less than a week.  Tomorrow, a more experienced senior friend will escort her through the empty halls to find the best path from class to class.  I know it will ease J's nerves.  Thursday, she will also get a new hair-do, thanks to one of her awesome Young Women leaders.  I will merely sit back and watch a pro at work (and not have to listen to complaints after!).  Friday, we will make a quest to finish up clothes shopping...and then, we're ready.  It's just around the corner and I have mixed emotions.
She and I have shared a lot this summer.  I'm grateful that she is the kind of kid who is content to fire up her laptop and write stories all day long.  She is also semi-permanently attached to her iPod, where she watches YouTube "vlogs" (video blogs), checks her Twitter account every five minutes, catches up on reruns of "Reba", and follows her "boys" as they perform at concerts and get mobbed by paparazzi & crazed teenage girls.  Somedays, she and I skip putting on makeup or doing our hair and just watch Netflix movies.  We've slept in, stayed up late, had Panda Express take-out a few times, and seen a few new release movies in the air-conditioned theaters.  If not for the fact that I've been trying to heal from surgery through all this "fun", it would have been a perfect summer.  I think I would have gone crazy without her.
Now, she'll go back to school and I'll try to put in more time at my job, chorus, church responsibilities, and melanoma worries.  Two days after school starts, I go in for my quarterly scan.  I don't know how to feel.  I'm honestly afraid that if something else has grown, I won't be able to handle getting it taken care of.  I don't feel physically ready for another surgery and we're definitely pushing the envelope of medical expenses.  I'm already on a payment schedule that will go into 2014--and no doubt there will be more added to it in 2013-14.  What do you do in those situations?  There is no light at the end of the tunnel because the tunnel goes on for miles and miles and miles.  On our old insurance, I was "paid up" by this time last year.  This year, though our statements say differently, we are not.  Don't get me started...it only gives me a headache.

I know nothing stays the same.  Change is constant.  Soon, the weather will turn cooler, I'll start making soups and casseroles again, I'll (hopefully) sleep better, and our carefree summer will be a wild ride of high school comings & goings.  It's just around the corner...