I was still roiled after my comeuppance with my son and had to find my equilibrium. I actually started yesterday morning when I woke early and began at once to fuss. You'd think after all this time (54 years) I'd have begun to accept the setbacks and the frustrated expectations, but I am naive in my hopefulness, also maternal and sentimental - words I used in my blog.

So I started thinking about those words, adjectives actually, and listed others ending in 'al', like fraternal and paternal, but I couldn't think of one for sisterly. Okay, "ly" more often is a suffix that makes a word an adverb rather than ad adjective: wryly, hastily, gaily, and so on. I love the 'ine' suffix used for animals: bovine, canine, feline, pavonine (nice one for peacock, isn't it?) and vulpine. but there isn't one for tortoise or turtle and I wish there were. How about 'tic"? Sympathetic, empathetic, hectic, frantic. Yes, but my favourites are very few and very old, as in olden, golden, oaken, wooden, leathern (very old) and silvern. also archaic, seen only in fairy tales.

All this while I was still lying in bed, not sleeping. But I felt better, more relaxed. Focusing on words helped. It usually does.

Just when I was waxing sentimental and maternal about my son Matthew, he turns me on my head - or heart. He has been coming for dinner Sundays for some time now, leaving his home at 4, arriving at my place about 15 to 5. I saw him yesterday and he confirmed today's plans. The Bloor line is often stopped up and supplemented with shuttle buses to get people to their destinations but not necessarily as quickly. So I didn't start worrying for a while, until I did, and then I started the quest, making calls.

He wears a MedicAlert chain around his neck because he is epileptic, controlled by prescribed drugs. If only I could put a chain around his conscience. Well, it's probably not conscience. The very trait that makes him resilient and forgiving is related to insouciance. Now, that's a word I seldom use. I looked it up to check that I was right. From the online dictionary:

insouciant |inˈso͞osēənt, ˌaNso͞oˈsyäNt|adjective showing a casual lack of concern; indifferent: an insouciant shrug.

He went to his girlfriend's because she asked him to, and he didn't bother calling to let me know. He says he's sorry but he isn't, really. "A casual lack of concern." It's his weakness as well as his strength. Well, I can understand it but I don't have it myself. I am never casual, never unconcerned. I put in a hard three and a half hours tonight worrying about my child, my 54-year-old child.

And that's all I have to say about that.