Pleasant Woman, Interesting Problem.

I’ve been in a Four-Alarm Funk since this happened.  Agony does not bring out the best in me.  I am lucky my family hasn’t put me by the side of the road with a “Free To ANY Home” sign stuck to me.  I’ve been miserable all day, every day – for four months.  No relief.  I can’t even get relief from drugs.  Anything more badass than Advil not only makes me projectile puke but also causes me to forget where I live, wear my clothes inside out and demand to be called “Fifi.” 

The mind/body connection being what it is, my mind broke along with my back.  The one thing that connects me to anything that could even tentatively be called “sanity” is working out, and that has not been an option or even possible.  Pain plus insanity equals meltdowns of truly epic proportions.  I have been sent to eight medical professionals, each with a different opinion of this injury.  I have ugly-cried to every single one of them.  I have begged for my leg to be amputated. I have panicked.  I have shrieked like a howler monkey.  One physical therapist with a kind heart and soft voice put me in a dark room to rest mid-nervous breakdown and encouraged me to find a mental health counselor because “an injury like this can cause people to drink too much, do drugs and overeat.”  I was like HA! That’s SO two weeks ago. 

To get to the bottom of the mystery, I was sent for an MRI.  No one mentioned that meant having my entire body shoved into a tube and being forbidden to move for a half an hour.  “Go to your happy place and keep your eyes closed,” the nurse instructed.  Lucky for me, there’s a lot of making out and chocolate consumption in myHappy Place. I *really* wanted to get the information, so I reluctantly got in the tube.  For about a second and a half. I’m not a small person.  I’m sure from the control room me being slowly loaded into that tube looked like sausage being stuffed into a casing.  I tried to take a breath, croaked “ABORT MISSION!!” and got the hell out of there like my pants were on fire. 

 I debriefed with my sister.

 Me:  “I couldn’t do it. I freaked out.”

Molly:  “What?!”

Me:  “I’m allergic to suffocation.”

Molly:  “Oh my God Kate. You have to do it.”

Me:  “No. I don’t like dying.”

 From somewhere, my boyfriend’s voice rang out with his simple contribution:  “Train wreck.”  

 Eventually I did get the MRI and the answers I needed.  The next doctor I met with was a surgeon.  After speaking with him for a half an hour I decided I wouldn’t let him pick my nose, let alone touch my spine. Among other things, this conversation:

 Dr.: “When did you feel this coming on?”

Me:  “I didn’t feel it coming on, it was an injury.  A specific moment in time.”

Dr.: “What were you doing?”

Me:  “Boxing.”

Dr.:  “As in…..putting things in boxes? You were hurt this badly putting things in boxes?”

Me:  “No…as in…boxing……..”

 A couple of days after that meeting, I received a letter from him in the mail which was also sent to the doctor who made the referral.  The first line of the letter said “Thank you for referring this pleasant woman with an interesting problem.”  I read the letter in my office and yelled to anyone within earshot, “STOP THE PRESSES!!! My epitaph has been written.  This says it ALL!!”

The next doctor I went to looked at the information from the other seven doctors and said “This is all poppycock.”  It was so absurd that in some weird existential way, I was snapped out of it.  At that moment a sense of peace and clarity came over me.  As he rattled on about injections and surgery and options I just blanked out.  I suddenly realized that in my quest for answers and for someone to give me a quick fix to suddenly heal me, I hadn’t focused on healing myself.  In that moment I accepted that it would take time and patience and love for myself to get me unstuck. I said to him “You know what? I don’t want any of that.  I’m all set.  I’ll be okay.”  And I got up and left. 

 I’ll never know if it was just the timing or the fact that I took my healing into my own hands that made the difference, but about a week after that, I began to feel better.  I came into physical therapy and was able to laugh and not cry.  Well, except when I was able to do a very simple exercise that I hadn’t been able to do previously.  I cried then.  Because it was so good.  SO.  GOOD.  Last weekend I took my daughter to the park fly her kite.  It was the first unsupervised physical activity I had been able to do since January 6, 2012.  We both cried and laughed with joy.  Her kite is a big, colorful butterfly.  As I watched her smile and the kite dance against the gorgeous blue sky, I felt my heart fill with hope.  Healing the body is hard.  NOT healing the soul is harder.

Will Run For M&Ms.

The women in my family sport varying degrees of athleticism.  Some of us have been on sports teams from the moment we were allowed to be, some of us abhor effort and sweat.  Regardless of our levels of inclination and training, most of us can walk faster than we can run.  If you are giggling right now, I know you know what I mean.  Sometimes we marvel at this phenomenon.  Usually twice a year when one of us gets a wild hair and decides to start a running routine, then decides against it.  “It’s so weird. WHY would I run when I can walk just as fast if not faster!?”  And “How surprised is my dark alley attacker going to be when I break free and speed walk away from his clutches?!”  So we sort of lope.  Or amble.  Or whatever you call what it is my sister Molly does.  Ground is covered, to be sure, although seemingly by the mere determination and force of flapping arms.  What I find endearing about it is it is the exact same movement my Mom used to rock while dancing. 

In my case, I assume my inability to run stems from the fact that my boobs and my belly arrive at my destination roughly a minute and a half before the rest of me.  And my stride is about as long as a piece of licorice.  Nevertheless, several years ago a dear friend of mine convinced me that on Thanksgiving morning getting up at the crack of dawn, driving 45 minutes away from my bed and freezing my ass off in the name of something called a “Turkey Trot” was a good idea. 

It was a bad, bad idea. 

 The first mistake I made was assuming that just because I could go from a master spinning class to a body pump class and end with a little boxing in one gym visit made me capable of road running without any additional or running specific training.  Not so.  Also, the gym is a nice, warm, cozy place.  Outside on Thanksgiving morning is not.  My asthmatic lungs seized up to bricks after about 10 paces.  Long story short, I ended up *behind* a woman pushing a baby stroller who was also running with her son, who was *maybe* 6 years old if he was a day.  Adorable, sweet, blonde-headed Zane.  Zane was running and eating M&Ms.  I didn’t know Zane, had never seen him before.  But it was clear we were kindred spirits.  He took one look at me and started handing me M&Ms, bless his heart.  The M&Ms became to me what the carrot or rabbit are to a race horse.  Zane kept feeding me the chocolate, I kept running. 

 Finally after what was an ETERNITY I reached the finish line and instead of merely crossing it, I leaped across it with a dramatic flourish.  One of the race staff said “Now THAT’S a *finish*!!”  At that moment I vowed never EVER to do that again. 

Until I saw the Dirty Girl Mud Run logo on Facebook.  Before I could even get my thoughts together, a friend of mine started organizing a team.  I was hesitant to commit because of a recent injury I sustained in boxing class, which ended up being worse than I could even imagine when I wrote this.  But I figured in the seven months I have before the event I could get myself to the point where I could at least hobble the course.  Plus there is no denying this event has all the ingredients I need for a happy Saturday – mud, women and sweat.  Ok, there are other components, like a great cause.  And a challenge.  And friends and teammates.  And something to train for, a goal to achieve.   

So I am a proud member the Dirty Burgs team who will be tearing up the mud course on September 8, 2012.  Mark your calendars, lace up your sneaks and be sure to buy stock in the company that makes M&Ms.  Because I will need lots and LOTS of M&Ms.  So many M&Ms.

Ouch.

I hurt myself on Friday.  I was a year-round, 3 sport a year athlete as a youngster and have worked out fairly regularly all of my adulthood.  Amazingly this is my first sports-related injury ever, aside from those blows that landed squarely on the crotch of my ego.  My mother would say my body shook off pain like a dog shakes off water because I am “built like a brick shit house.”  In my life I have leaned more toward injuries related to doing things like driving cars and walking down stairs, activities that I deem very high risk and with good reason. 

Long story short, I went to throw a right punch (in a gym, not in the street) and hot, searing pain tore through my back from my right hip to my left hip and shoulder blade as if I had been shot with a bullet made of lava.  Stopped me dead in my tracks.  For one excruciatingly long minute, I couldn’t move.  I was telling my legs to move, they just wouldn’t.  I could hear my coach’s voice but it sounded very far away, even though he was holding on to me.  I can honestly say there has only been one other time in my life I have ever been so scared or so paralyzed. 

I lost track of the rest of that day and the day that followed.  I finally came to at some point yesterday.  I must have disassociated.  I can’t take any pain medication or muscle relaxers, so I can’t even blame it on a good old fashioned drug induced black out.  In no particular order, here are some thoughts and observations that have come to me since the fog lifted.

1. A really good emergency room doctor doesn’t even flinch when you yell “WHAT THE DUCK DID YOU JUST SAY?!?!” at him.  No, I didn’t say duck. 
2. Being physically unable to do things like put my own clothes on and pick up something I dropped on the floor is frustrating to a degree that defies description.  Saying “I can’t” is not really my thing and I have found it humbling and humiliating.  And then when I got whiney, I remembered that there are people who can’t do those things on their own all the time and that I should shut up. 
3. Needing to ask for help is about as comfortable for me to do as stick toothpicks under my fingernails. On purpose.
4. I am at the age when medical professionals start to use the term “when you get to a certain age…..”  and that is a very hard pill to swallow.
5. You use muscles you had no idea you use when you poop.  This becomes glaringly obvious when those muscles are broken. 
6. You really do find out who your people truly are when you are down.  Surprising and a teensy heartbreaking.
7. Trust your instincts.  If that little voice is telling you something, listen to it.  Mine was telling me not to go to the gym that day for a variety of reasons and I went anyway.  I have always believed in my instincts, just haven’t always listened. 
8. ALWAYS WARM UP BEFORE EXERCISE and cool down and stretch after.   Yes I know it’s not the fun stuff but it matters.  A lot. 

Do me a favor.  If you CAN move your ass today, move your ass today.  Before the choice is taken away from you for a minute, a week or Goddess forbid, forever. Don’t take the ability to be mobile for granted. 

 Yes, I know I’m not usually this serious, but I have found the biggest impact this has had on me is on my emotional well-being.  BUT. I’m sitting here dressed for work with an ice pack tucked into the butt of my underwear which I fully intend to wear out in public all day.

 I’m healing already.

Size DOES Matter, Especially When You’re Trapped Under It.

Over the weekend, Chris and Eva and I were at a stop light at an intersection across from a Behemoth of a Vehicular Monstrosity (BVM) with a Christmas tree bungeed to the top.  All appeared normal at that angle, and I smiled, as I do when I see families preparing to deck their halls.  The light turned, and the BVM turned left in front of us to reveal the smallest most pathetic Christmas tree ever, giving the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree a real run for its money.  Chris and I were like “Whaaaaaat” and Eva giggled.  I said “Wow, THAT is a story I want to know more about.” Chris, ever practical and maniacally tidy, said “It’s so they don’t get needles in the car.”  I retorted “What needles?!” What few there were would probably blow off by the time they got home.

 Whatever their reasons for putting a branch on top of a vehicle just short of a Hummer Stretch Limo, it got me thinking about the year of the Overcompensating Christmas Tree.  My Mom had died in early December and I was sad. Christmas was her THING and our family has a history of trees that defied laws of logic, sanity and gravity which required my father’s best Mcguyver-esque maneuvers to transport them and erect them safely in our living room.  And I am totally air quoting “safely”.  Both of my parents were gone now, my sister Robin was staying with us to take care of Eva who was 3 years old at the time, and I decided that Christmas would go on in a BIG way for my family, dammit!!  So I went out and got the biggest tree I could find. 

 The first time it fell, it was during the night and my sister had the daunting job of breaking the news to me in the morning, complete with a roster of the Dead and Decapitated ornaments.  According to her, I walked into the bathroom after the shower with a wet towel in my hand and was set to blow dry my hair.  Apparently when she gave me the news, I simply put the towel over my head and face and walked right back out, wordlessly. 

 During this dreadful time, Eva and I had decided that we would become each other’s cheerleaders and that whenever either one of us was having a hard time we would literally start cheering for the other.  This made us giggle, and helped us ride the rough waves of despair.  One evening, she and I were alone. I was tempting fate and getting too close to the tree, no doubt to try to re-hang a Gorilla Glued piece of history back on a branch from where it had previously been ejected across the room.  In slow motion, but too fast for me to escape, the Tree fell, trapping me under it.  Like *really trapped*.  Eva thought this was the most hysterical comedic event I had ever put together.  I tried to impart to her that it was serious, without causing her alarm and panic. 

 “Eva. Mommy is stuck, please go get the phone.  To which she replied, in her best Cheerleader voice, “Go mommy go! You can do it mommy! If anyone can get out YOU CAN!!!” I doubted her, since I was unable to move anything but my arms, which flailed about uselessly. 

 Ok here’s where you don’t ever want to be.  Trapped under a Christmas tree, which is getting heavier and heavier and you can sort of name the organs that are being crushed one by one as the pressure increases.  Branches are impaling you, ornaments are shredding your clothes and skin.  Your child, thinking she is doing the right thing, is adorably and totally ineptly cheering for you, complete with little jumps into the air and waving pretend pom poms.  “GO MOMMY GO!!”

 I grew a tad more nervous.  “Eva honey this is serious, can you please go find the phone and bring it here.”  *pitter pat pitter pat* as she runs looking for the phone.  *pitter pat pitter pat* as she comes back in.  “I can’t find the phone! Go mommy go! You can DO IT!!”

 Oh God.

 Then by a Christmas miracle, the phone RANG.  “Oh Eva honey follow the noise, can you follow the noise and find the phone? PLEASE?!?!?!”

 She found it, answered it and it was my friend Tony.  Tony is fromTrinidadand Tobego and has this beautiful accent that I can hear clearly as the two of them chat each other up about the holidays, what’s been going on in their respective lives, and gossip.  I’m about to have a full on nervous breakdown.  Finally Eva says to Tony, “Mommy is under the tree! It fell on her!”  I hear Tony reply. “Is she bleeeeeding?”

 At that point, I must have blacked out.  To this day I’m not certain how I got out from under that tree.  In the interest of self preservation, I can’t recall much of that month or how many times the tree did fall before we finally rigged it to stay up somehow.  The details are unclear. 

 While I still like a tree that means business, I no longer go for the ones that require remodeling to accommodate them.  Or that a safety plan be in place.  Just one that is pretty and smells good and makes my family happy. Go Mommy Go!

 

 

There is a place in this world for people who bring the rolls.

I’m not sure at what specific point in time I was deemed a Culinary Liability.  It could have been years ago, when I neglected to put cake mix in the mixing bowl and wondered why the batter was so runny.  Or it could have been during what is now referred to as “Ill-Fated Low-Fat Velveeta Mac and Cheese-Gate.”  Don’t ask.  It was a horror show. 

So the holidays are upon us.  My family has get-togethers, to which everyone brings something or many somethings.  My Sister The Organizer and I have this dance that we do prior to each gathering that goes something like this:

 Her:  “Ok so everyone come around 4-ish, and we’ll have this, that and the other delicious thing that everyone will work really hard all day or possibly weekend on.”

Me:  “Ok, what should I bring?”

 Her:  “Well…..let’s see……I think we’re covered for most things….um……I dunno…..maybe……I know, ROLLS!!! We totally need rolls. You could bring rolls!”

 We both know this is how the conversation is going to go, but we have it each time because it offers up the illusion that I *could* absolutely whip up something amazing to bring if it was necessary, but by the time we talk everything has been spoken for and I really do have self worth as evidenced by the fact that we need rolls, and I am just the person to bring them.  And sometimes?  Soda too. 

 This year, as my Mom would have said, I got a “Wild Hair” and decided to make a pie.  Then I decided I was going to try to make her from-scratch mac and cheese recipe (no Velveeta in sight.)  I was going to make it for just the little Thanksgiving meal I had with my boyfriend and daughter (7 years old), you know, to test it out.  I wasn’t feeling ready for the Big Show yet.  I announced to them:  “I’m going to make a pie.”  Their responses:

 Boyfriend:  “What do you mean?”

Daughter:  “What if you burn the house down?!”

 My other family members on the other hand, acted similarly to how I imagine they would act when I announce my Nobel Peace Prize. There were exclamations of pride, congratulations, wonder and well-wishes.  Wow, I thought. 

 The day before Thanksgiving, I had to bring my daughter in to work with me for a little while.  She told anyone and everyone there and then in every establishment we went to that day “My mom is going to make a pie.  She’s probably going to burn the house down and we will be hobos the next day.”  I was like geez, it’s just a chocolate pie, and it’s not like I’m going to make the crust, I’m leaving that to the geniuses at Keebler and their graham cracker brilliance.  I explained to her that I was only going to have to heat pudding, from what I understood.  She exclaimed, panic shaking her voice “Yeah, but you’ll have to be near the stove!!” 

 The morning arrived, and I was ready.  I started with the pie.  Boyfriend did an excellent job of lurking around without making it totally obvious he was making sure I didn’t blow myself up.  He offered support and encouragement and giggled appropriately when I snapped a hundred pictures from every angle when I poured the pudding into the crust and it looked beautiful.  When I moved on to the mac and cheese, he did more subtle monitoring, although sometimes he would look over my shoulder and exclaim “OH MY GOD!” and I’d jump and stop what I was doing and say “WHAT?!” and he’d say, catching his breath, “Oh! Nothing!! It’s just that…..well…..you’re just so….*cute*! That’s all!”  Suspicious. 

 It would be fun to end this story with vivid descriptions of projectile puking or other food related bathroom emergencies, but there were none.  The pie was delicious, although only two pieces were eaten because it got left out too long and sort of ended up like a soggy chocolate sponge.  The mac and cheese was, for my first attempt, nothing short of a triumph.  I reported back to my sister, who immediately wondered who had kidnapped the *real* Kate.  I said “I’m here, and I didn’t blow anything up!!”  She said “Great! You can bring more than rolls next year!!”  “Hmmmmmmm” I said.  “Let’s not get crazy……”

This was written back when people used pay phones. And calls cost .10 cents.

November rots. Rots like the jack-o-lantern decomposing on my porch. Or as my 7-year-old daughter would say, it sucks eggs. I know I’m *supposed* to be all grateful and thankful for each and every particle of air I inhale like everyone else seems to be in November. But November brings out the spoiled brat in me, the me that wants to have a tantrum fitting a 2-year-old when they aren’t getting their way or want something, complete with throwing myself on the floor, pounding my fists and kicking my feet. My family has experienced great loss and trauma in November, and as rational and positive as I can be about the cycle of life, sometimes I care as much about being rational and in control of my emotions as I do about why oh WHY Jennifer Aniston isn’t married yet.

That being said, sometimes I come across an item or get a “sign” that reminds me the people we have lost, whose bodies are no longer here, are still with us in our memories and our hearts and in my case, in a house full of 40 years worth of their stuff. I was sorting through some of it over the weekend and I came across a piece of writing I completed in college. I went to college in 1990. No one had computers in their rooms. No one had phones in their rooms. We had a pay phone on each wing of our residence hall and we took turns calling our families on Sundays like convicts. There was BIG excitement when my roommate’s family gave her a word processor for her birthday. A *word processor*. So that is the context in which the following was written. If I had to guess, this was my Senior year in college, when I was a sociology major and all up in the grill of feminism because it was submitted for an assignment labeled “Girl Project.” I called it “My Mother’s Daughter”, and I share it here today because it’s some darned good advice, and because sharing my Mom with others makes the fact that I can’t pick up the phone to talk to her right now to hear her voice rot a tiny bit less.

My Mother’s Daughter

Always keep a dime in your pocket in case you need to call me. There’s safety in numbers and remember to leave me a note when you leave so I know where you are. Go at your own pace, don’t let anyone push you around. Throw plates against the trees in the back yard when you are mad; never discuss anything when you are angry. Don’t take trips down memory lane by yourself. If you really love it you should have it, if that’s what you really want to do then you need to do it. Do whatever you need to do in order to survive, make the best of a bad situation, don’t make promises you can’t keep, be ready to sacrifice yourself for someone else, protect your children. Take in strays, be prepared to be able to live independently, learn from experience, teach by example, use your best judgment. Let music give you goose bumps, grow flowers around your house. Celebrate difference, don’t grow up to be just like anyone else unless you want to. Appreciate the spiritual side of life, don’t hide your scars, never say good-bye, only see you later and always do wonderful things for people just because it’s wonderful and if you do there will be stars in your crown in Heaven.

I really said “The fact that I was doing the dishes was a freak accident.”

In my last blog post, I told a story of doing the dishes and getting so caught up in the act that I spaced time and place and my daughter missed her dance class. It appears that in the same post, I inadvertently gave my boyfriend Chris a bad rap. I did not mean to make it sound like he does nothing but sit around being adorable all day while I walk around with myself nailed up on the Cross. Although quite frankly, he *could* sit around all day doing nothing but being adorable because he really is. And he is a delightful human in many ways, not just that he is a Domestic God. I wrote this about him yesterday in response to an inquiry regarding if he helps with chores and children and whatnot:

“Of course he does. He does them all (chores), actually. Cooks, cleans, does the laundry, runs errands, does the shopping, takes care of Eva like she is his own. The fact that I was doing dishes was really a freak accident. Somehow, on my watch, we managed to dirty 100000 dishes in a matter of a couple of hours.”

Before Chris moved earth and sky in his life to come live with us, Eva and I had been independent women for a long time. We were unruly, messy and lawless. We were having a blast and while we weren’t living in squalor per se…let’s just say organization and neatness were not top on my priority list as a single mom working outside of the house who was on total damage control from a life that had been turned upside down, twirled, shaken, rolled around and dropped mercilessly at my feet.

So when Chris moved in he had expectations that we conduct ourselves with some sort of decorum. Do things like pick up after ourselves, flush the toilet on a regular basis and eat meals at a table and the like. There was shock. There was awe. There was backlash on multiple levels.

On one occasion early in the transition period, after being told to put whatever she had gotten out to play with away Eva said to me, under her breath and on the down low something like “I don’t get it. I mean, I’m just gonna have to get this out again anyway. Why can’t I just leave it here where it’s an eyesore and where people would step on it and slide to their broken hips? What’s with the rules?” I recall responding with a shrug of my shoulders and something like “Yeah I dunno.”

Eva was not used to having to systematically clean up after herself. She was used to “cleaning up” meaning Mama running around cleaning (and by cleaning I mean shoving things in closets and drawers, sometimes under beds) like a cat that got it’s tail stuck in a socket because someone was coming over for a holiday or something. Full scale cleaning was an emergency, not a regular occurrence.

I remember one other time I did the dishes. She was in Kindergarten and I was driving her to school and from the back seat I hear her sweet, angelic voice singing “Wake up in the morning feeling like P Diddy. Grab my glasses I’m out the door I’m gonna hit this city. Before I leave, brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack….” I remember thinking “Oh fantastic. My five year old kid is going to skip into school singing Ke$ha and the teacher is going to wonder what the hell is going on and hotline me, and Child Protective is going to come to the house and I better do the dishes!!!!” That is how we rolled then.

We live a more civilized existence now. I suspect we are still far and away from fulfilling Chris’s neat and tidy expectations, and we are as perfect as any other family out there, but we have all learned to meet each other in the middle. Eva has learned very useful life lessons and skills and rarely has to be reminded to pick up after herself – no more or less than any other kid. I have managed to train her in The Things You’re Allowed To Say At School and The Things You Can Only Say At Home. Chris has come to laugh at us, mostly. I’m still a work in progress. Most importantly, since he has come to live with us, our walls that seemed so sad and empty have become a home again, filled with laughter instead of tears. And that is worth doing all of the dirty dishes in the world to me.