Now that I’m settled into week three of Saga of Broken Foot, I am day by day making little adjustments to my routine and to how I view life in general. I suppose that I may very well by the end of this come up with a lovely post on How I Grew From This Experience or How This Made Me a Better (Gentler, More Patient? etc.) Person. I hope that if I do choose to do that, it won’t be filled with cliches, Pablum and/or platitudes; I would like to spare you all that tedium.
At any rate, right now I can say that this Experience might be reminding me that I truly need to learn how to Let Go and stop trying to Control Everything. Being off my foot and unable to do all I normally do, combined with the other lovely Learning Experience this year of having a wholelot of medium-sized and a couple of really big expenses hit me one after the other (jab! uppercut! jab jab jab!) should theoretically help me to be able to Let Go of my control issues. I dunno. I guess we’ll see how that actually goes.
In the meantime, I’ve learned to relax a little and at least enjoy my backyard pool. Those who know me will already be familiar with my general frustration with having said pool, mainly because it takes maintenance, which we tried to do ourselves for a couple of years and ended up just failing miserably at (and had to cave and hire a Pool Guy; I have a pool guy???!), and because it costs money just for general operating costs every single day of the year, even in the many months that we can’t use it. Thanks also to the shade we have in our backyard on the pool for a good chunk of the day every day, the water is generally pretty cool, so we really can only swim in there during the day (too cold even to skinny-dip at night. Drat!!!) during about three months of the year. So I spend maybe $2500 a year for three months of swim time. That just chaps my hide. But there it is. There is a pool, and we can’t let it go green or just empty it. Ah well.
SO. We have a pool. I’m not a big fan of swimming (irony, I know). I distinctly remember being about 9 or 10 and having a perfectly nice instructor at our school system’s pool (located at the high school) try to teach me some basics. I screamed bloody murder and did not learn said basics. Eventually, I learned to tread water and float and get around, but a pool or the beach is just not my first choice of vacation destination. I can take it or leave it.
But these past two weeks, being weighted down by a heavy boot on one foot and two unwieldy crutches, I have come to appreciate the utter freedom and bliss of letting the water carry me gently in its embrace. I can take off my boot and slip into the pool and either float like a water bug on the surface, light as air, or paddle around languidly under the water, letting it do most of the work. I love how gravity seems to just take the day off for me then. No longer am I tethered to the ground; I can snip myself free and glide and gently kick.
It’s been delightful. I’ve gone outside every day with my girls for about an hour and basked in the warm sun and the brief but amazing feeling of weightlessness. I have become a beach (well, pool) bum. I think I’m actually going to be sad to see the season end, which will be a new one for me in the three summers we’ve lived in this house.
So I might not have learned a whole lot of big Life Lessons yet. Whether I do or not, I’ve learned just a little bit to relax and let go of my body and my worries for maybe an hour every day. That’s good enough for me.
So a couple of days ago I wrote about my new normal, which is living life with a broken foot. It’s thrown me for a loop emotionally in a number of ways. The first evening after it happened and then most of my day the next day involved a lot of wondering and what-ifs and trying to plan for what was still somewhat unknown. It made for a stressful day, all run from the confines of my couch.
Yesterday was much nicer. I got my two oldest girls off to camp, and my husband took me to a specialist who could really tell me what would need to happen to get my foot back to its unbroken self. In short, the breaks are simple enough that I only need to wear a boot, rather than a cast (hallelujah for that removable piece of hardware!!), and I can put a little weight on it as I hobble about on crutches or the lovely walker my husband dug out of storage (he likes to collect these old things because someday they might come in handy). Partial weight-bearing actually helps my bone heal properly rather than resting it completely and letting it find its own sloppy way. Amazing. At any rate, my dear husband, who is a physical therapist, reminded me several times that this was the best news possible. I agree, with the addendum “in this situation.” The best news possible for me right now would be to travel back in time three days and tell myself to stop hurrying around so much, especially on uneven pavement. (Smack upside the head) But given that the deed is done and the bone truly is broken, knowing that at least I can just wear a boot that I can take off sometimes is great news.
So my new normal for the next week or so is pretty much what I’ve been doing for about the past 24 hours: sitting on the couch with my leg up and reading or using my laptop computer. That’s the nice part. The tricky part involves when I must move around. Yes, I still need to get up and go to the bathroom. I pull myself up onto the very stylin’ walker, grab hold and walk very lopsidedly, putting the smallest amount of pressure on my left foot, preferably the heel or toes. I try not to crash into the furniture that lurks all around me. I lurch down the hallway and … well, I won’t go into too many details about that. I lurch back down the hall and collapse back onto the couch.
End of the day is entertaining. The first night, my husband suggested I go up the stairs backwards, which worked but was also a workout. Man, it exhausted me. (He suggested before that that I just sleep downstairs, but I just wanted the comfort and semblance of normalcy that was my own bed.) The next night, after a comical but also nerve-racking shower experience during which my husband manhandled me in and out of the big shower downstairs and held onto me while I washed my greasy hair and stale body, I decided to heft myself up the stairs frontways, just kind of crawling. That was much easier. So I repeated that last night. At the top of the stairs, though, I still have to get myself back up from a crawling position into standing using the crutches. Not as easy as it seems, frankly. And last night, I went up without any help, so I had to crawl through my bedroom into the bathroom, which now has tile on the floor rather than carpet (thanks to our work of a couple of months ago, and which I generally prefer to the old carpet, but let me tell you in this case, it’s hard on the knees). By the time I’d made my way, pilgrim-like, into the bathroom area, my husband had come up with the crutches, and I pulled myself up rather like Gollum, via the chair he had also brought into the bathroom the other night, into a half-standing position.
One big problem is that I cannot carry anything. Both of my hands are completely kept busy just keeping myself semi-upright and not too much in pain. So if I need to take one or two or three items from point A to point B, I must order around one of my minions. It’s astonishing how much we take for granted when all is working fine. It’s such a nice thing to be able to stand up, walk across the room, and grab a Kleenex. Or hop over to the kitchen for a glass of water (or some chocolate…). Or just GO TO THE BATHROOM, for pity’s sake.
So I think about this idea frequently, as I go about my business on sidewalks, in stores, at the gym, etc., but it came up in the news the other day. A woman was removed from a flight because her T-shirt had the f-word on it. Naturally, it seems that most people find this action unconscionable and un-American. What is this world coming to when a pilot has the right to remove someone because of a shirt? they write in outrage on their blogs.
Well, I’m going to write in support of that pilot and the airline. Good for them. I have grown very tired of being out and about and seeing all kinds of quite offensive material wherever I look. I run a website about offensive content in books, and there are plenty of places out there that give viewers information about offensive content in movies or TV shows. If any of us viewers complain about that vulgar content, the free-speechers out there respond indignantly, Well, you don’t have to watch it, then! Turn it off! And that’s definitely true. Believe me, I avoid a lot of stuff. (Although I would certainly appreciate if more producers would make content viewable by the majority of us, not a minority.) But what do they want me to do about offensive junk I see or hear just walking around in public places? Not leave my house? Not go to the store? Not walk around downtown? Become a recluse? Hm. I think not.
There are laws on the books in place for a reason, to protect the majority of people in a society who have a certain level of expectation for what they should be free to see or not see (or hear, etc.). There are also cultural norms and expectations. There is also what we might call “etiquette” or simply common decency or courtesy. Each of these comes into play in public areas. Businesses also have certain rights to make rules for their own establishments. American Airlines, for instance, doesn’t own the skies, but it does own the airplane on which this woman with her vulgar shirt flew. I believe that AA had every right to draw a line and say, no, that kind of vulgarity is not acceptable to us and our other paying passengers. I’m not sure what regulations might be for TSA (hard to keep up with them anyway), but the pilot did say that this woman should never have gotten through and onto her first flight as it was. I think that TSA, as a government agency, also has a right to draw some lines on what’s acceptable for people who are passing through its checkpoints. (Don’t get me started on its other issues; let’s focus on this…) In most public places, there are laws in place prohibiting public drunkenness or lewdness or nudity of any sort. Why should it be any different that very harsh language should be regulated in some way in those places?
Many people these days may not be offended by harsh language or images anymore. That’s their choice. But they have to recognize that plenty of the rest of us may still have some sensitivity (and rightly so) to offensive language. There are also levels of vulgarity: some words are just mild “curse” words; some are worse, and some are really bad. I brush off whenever I hear people using the mild stuff, and even the moderate stuff. But it still hurts my ears and wounds my soul to hear the f-word and its ilk used around me.
We as a society seem to have forgotten what it means to be sensitive to the needs and desires of those around us. It’s all about “me,” what “I” want or think is acceptable, and the heck with everyone else. They’re just being overly sensitive or it’s a free country is what people tend to say. Yes, it is a free country, and thank goodness for that. (And it being Memorial Day weekend, might I also add, and thanks be to our soldiers for that.) Liberty is a foundation of our beliefs here. But it seems too often we’ve gone far past that into licentiousness and freedom at all costs, no matter how our choices may affect people around us. Laws and societal rules/expectations are there to try to balance the needs of the one against the many. I think we’re just a nation of “one”s now, who forget there are the “many” surrounding them.
Yes, many “old-fashioned” values have gone by the wayside, and more and more that is vulgar has now become acceptable and appropriate. But the f-word, for example, still stands as an offensive word, and it is not used in everyday conversation in regular settings (most workplaces would frown on that kind of language, for instance). It still causes movies full of its use to be rated as unviewable by children younger than 17. It offends most people. American Airlines, the government, any number of “public” entities have every right to draw a line and say that it does not belong in that public arena. I wish more would take that stand and act on it more frequently. It would make me a lot happier about being out and about, let alone exposing my children to it.
Thanks to my girls, I’m pretty familiar with the tween movie “Aquamarine,” about a teen mermaid who gets some time out of the water. In one scene, she introduces her new girlfriends on land to the earrings she wears, small starfish that “compliment her.” And no, she doesn’t mean “complement her.” She says, “They literally give me compliments. They talk to me. Starfish are notorious suck-ups. They love to give me compliments.” She picks out a few great specimens from the sea and proceeds to attach them to her earlobes and those of her friends. The starfish latch on and very pleasingly spout many sweet sayings into the girls’ ears. “Aquamarine is soooo lovely. She is awesome. And she is so smart, yes, like tuna.”
I’ve often thought it would be perfectly wonderful to have my own set of starfish earrings. Every woman, especially busy, harried mothers, needs that kind of encouragement on a very regular basis. Some men are good at being starfish for their wives or girlfriends; many are not. This doesn’t mean that women don’t need to hear good things to buoy them up through their busy days.
Me, I like to hear that I’m still pretty, though I’m older and thicker around the waist. I like to hear that I’m smart and talented and capable. I especially need to hear that I’m doing OK, that my efforts for my family and my community and my own interests aren’t unappreciated or just going to waste. I want to know that I’m needed, that what I do matters, that my choices have been good ones, even though sometimes the outcomes haven’t been what I’d anticipated. I need those encouraging words like … well, like a fish needs water.
I have some friends who are particularly great starfish. They give me that encouragement, those sincere words of appreciation and caring that keep me going. I just wish that I could carry those wonderful friends around with me in my pocket or attached to my earlobes! But I’ll take what I can get. Their love and support keep me breathing, keep me moving on, keep me strong enough, just barely, to persevere through busy and frustrating days and weeks. I salute you, my dear starfish. You are my lifeblood. I hope I can be as useful and loving a starfish to you as you have been to me.
As I have gotten older, I’ve realized just how much it means that we as human beings have choices in our lives. I believe God put us all here on this earth for a certain number of years for a reason, and he gave us the gift of choice. He allows us to do what we want to do, and we get to learn from what we decide to do and be.
In saying that, I think much gets made of that part of the equation: hey, we have free choice! Whee! We can do what we please! It sounds so exciting, so liberating. And it is. But the flip side of that “free” coin is this: once we make a decision, we are faced with the consequences of that decision, be they “good,” “bad,” or “neutral” consequences. And part of those consequences is that once we open a door and go through it, we can’t go back through it the other way. Life is constantly moving forward. Once the door opens, it closes behind us, and here’s the kicker … if we’re standing looking at choosing among ten different doors, or just two, we can only pick one. And we can’t go back and pick one of the other doors once we’ve gone through the one we chose.
Let me try to explain and qualify: yes, we may face many doors during our lives that are pretty much the same ones we had to choose among previously, but they’re not exactly the same doors; time is always moving forward, and things change in small and big ways. We’ll never choose again, at age 18, 3 months and 5 days, which college to attend. We may decide a year later, at age 19, 3 months and 10 days, to switch to a different college, but it’s not the exact same choice. We’re not the same people, and we don’t have the exact same options as before.
I think of life as this path along which I walk. The path is constantly branching off, and there are forks always. Some are big, with large roads to choose among, and some are just little footpaths with grass tamped down by a few travelers. But we’re always at some kind of crossroads. And at each of those decision points lies a door we pass through, which closes behind us.
Me as a baby, with my mom: my whole life was ahead of me.
There are infinite numbers of paths the younger we are, from my experience. And as we choose paths and corresponding doors, we tend to have fewer big paths to choose among, and doors tend to shut more permanently the older we get. Sure, we hear “success” stories about people becoming athletes at decidedly older ages than usual, or becoming famous painters at 80, or some such thing, but those are well-known stories precisely because they are rare and unusual. (News means something out of the ordinary, and that’s what stories like this are: news.) For most of us, once we choose at 20 to pursue a career in business as opposed to chasing a dream of becoming a pro baseball player, the sports door is shut tightly behind us, and we won’t see it ahead again.
I think back on all the things I did as a young person. I acted in plays, sang, played piano, played French horn in band, went to various competitions for different academic pursuits, took all kinds of classes, dabbled in drawing, wrote, read like crazy, and baked and decorated cakes. I went to college as a chemistry major. I stood on the threshold of university life full of hope and excitement and the thrill of embarking on a grand adventure, a dream.
1988: My dad and I on our way to the airport to get me to college.
But once I was out of college, I had shut many doors behind me. Acting, playing French horn, academic competitions, drawing, even chemistry were all behind me. I still baked, I still read and wrote. I just changed my mind about being a chemistry major and focused on journalism. As life progressed and I made decisions to major in journalism, my other minor interests had to be sacrificed as I took more and more classes in my major. Then when I graduated, I worked 40 hours a week as a copy editor, further narrowing my journalistic interests, at least for the time, on editing rather than writing. As an adult and a college graduate, I had work to do. I had less time to explore and be general. Of a necessity, some interests had to be sacrificed.
My life further was changed when I decided to marry and when I decided to have each of my four daughters. Each of those choices opened up gorgeous paths with all kinds of interesting and beautiful plants along the road (not to mention some thorns and hills, let me add). But when I chose those doors, many others closed behind me. There were just certain things I would never do.
As a mother with children all at home, some teens, one just about to start school, and one in the middle, I have a road full of carriages to push along or to supervise. I can’t leave this path and try another one. When they’re all grown, I’ll have some different paths open up to me, some different doors to try out. But they won’t be the exact ones I might have tried before I went down those paths at ages 18, 23 and 26, for instance.
Sometimes I feel the loss of those paths never taken, considered but left behind. I admit I do envy others on different roads, on occasion, when my choices and their choices have put us past very different doors. Some have what I might consider “exciting” or “glamorous” lives. No, I am not talking about celebrities or anything like that. But I might have really enjoyed going into the foreign service as one friend did. I love to be in different places and get to know them, as well as the people populating them. I love languages and find different cultures fascinating. I would have loved to be a book editor at a big publishing house in New York. But either of those options would have been very difficult either with children or with the lifestyle I have decided is the way I’d like to raise my children, and where and how. (Yes, there are diplomats with kids or editors with kids, but I don’t see myself doing either of those jobs the way I’d like to do them at the same time as raising my children the way I’d like to do it. It’s as simple as that.)
I know there are still some interesting doors ahead of me, and I look forward to them. But I am now trying to really come to terms with the fact that the doors coming up are not going to be as plentiful or the same options as the doors I had ahead of me 20 years ago. I think that’s much of what aging and maturing and growing up really means. We come to grips with the naked truth that we are not who we were when we were young. Life is not an endless stream of possibilities anymore. We’ve already chosen many of those possibilities, and they are no longer dreams ahead of us but memories behind us. Our bodies are not the same as they were, our faces and hair not the same, our hearts and minds are not the same. On the first count, our society today, unfortunately, doesn’t allow us to gracefully accept that our bodies and faces are going to age and not look “fresh and young” anymore. In fact, society is urging us to do all we can to fight that fact. But all we can do is postpone it for a bit, not ignore it or stave it off entirely. On the count of our hearts and minds, however, I would like to think that despite missing some of those fun things I dabbled in as a young person, and just having the entire panorama of possibilities still ahead, that now I can be mostly satisfied with the paths I’ve chosen and where I am now. I got a good education, I’ve done some interesting work, I’ve traveled and lived in a variety of places and met many wonderful people, I’ve raised (so far) some amazing daughters. I’ve loved and been loved. I’ve experienced life, and I’ve been happy.
Me and my daughters, 2010. So much promise, so many doors.
Now, I see all the doors standing open to my daughters and feel pangs of memory of how it feels to be in their shoes. But I am excited for them and all that lies ahead in their young lives. I’m doing what I can not just to make interesting choices among the options available for me, but to support my girls as they make their own choices. What a gift that is.
I think about the idea of “enough” so often that I considered using it as part of the name of this website. In the end, obviously, I didn’t, but the concept comes to my mind frequently.
I’m not the type of person who wants more things. In fact, I’m usually working to get rid of things. Years of moving have taught me to pare down wherever possible. (I’m not a minimalist, however: I love my kitchen gadgets, and I use them. That’s a topic for another post.) I’m satisfied to keep a computer for seven or eight years or a TV for 10 or 15 years, even if they’re getting snazzier, wider and thinner. I have some clothes I’ve worn for years; I have a sweater I just adore that I bought in high school (guess it’s stretched out over the years…). So “enough” doesn’t apply to stuff. Well, it does, actually: I can say with confidence I have enough stuff.
No, “enough” applies to actions. I worried in high school if I had enough on my list of activities to show my dream university I was fit to enter. (I did.) Mostly, I’ve worried over the years if I’ve done enough. As a mother for about 16 years now, I think I worry the most if I’ve done enough for my four daughters, who are truly the most precious gift I’ve been given. I have generally been of the opinion that children will do best if given plenty of free time to find their own way, to keep themselves occupied and use their imaginations and their own inner resources. I haven’t scheduled them in lots of activities or sports or lessons. I haven’t spent all of my free time finding ways to keep them busy or happy. Even knowing that this strategy seems to have worked pretty well for them so far, I have moments of wishing I could just do more or be more for them because they are so amazing, so talented, so delightful. Because they are my only offspring, and these years I have of them living at home with me are my only chance to raise them: I just get this one shot. Because they deserve everything I can offer, everything the world can offer. Again, not stuff, but opportunities.
I’ve given my girls time. I’ve read with them, countless hours curled up on our beds, usually at bedtime, with countless books, many of which are now well worn, pages slipping out of their bindings, bits torn off corners. As they’ve gotten older, I’ve just sat and listened to them talk, telling me about their days, about their friends, about all kinds of thoughts swirling in their heads. I’ve not generally considered that a sacrifice, especially now that I have a high-schooler. She in particular has so much to say, so much that’s entertaining and interesting, at turns humorous and sweet. I cherish these tete-a-tetes. We’ve had “the talk,” we’ve talked about life and the big things, about faith and family; we’ve also talked about all the hilarious things that boys do and all the tasty morsels she ate for lunch. It’s been a pleasure; it’s been a treat.
Perhaps it’s a direct result of that time I’ve spent with them that I feel the urgency to do more, to give my girls the world. I’ve seen inside their souls and seen all that is possible, and I want to give it to them. Now that my oldest has realized how much she enjoys dance, she’d like dance lessons. But when would we fit those in among the band concerts and rehearsals or church activities or that extra class she’s taking in the evenings? Or as I see how much is lacking in our educational system nowadays (thanks to legislation, lack of funding and the bad economy, you name it…), I wish I could home-school or supplement with some somewhat structured lessons of my own. Oh, there’s so much I wish I could do.
But time limits me. Energy certainly limits what I can give. My budget limits me. My own needs, weaknesses and limitations keep me from being able to give all. (If you read about my struggles with my mental health, this will seem even clearer.) The number of children I have limits how much I can give to each, in some ways (I can’t be two or three places at once, sadly). But those things don’t limit how much I love.
At the same time, I know when I think about it seriously that my limitations are just part of life, even part of my children’s lives. They live in the same world I live in, where you can’t get everything you want, where you can only do so much, where the people around you aren’t perfect. No one should be handed everything on a silver platter, now or ever. Life isn’t perfect. There are always disappointments, always choices to be made between two or three good things. Giving my children everything would be doing them a disservice.
So I know in my head that I really am doing pretty well by my girls, that they are happy and well-adjusted, that they truly feel loved and secure. It’s just I struggle on some days when particular things crop up that I wish they could have or do. I wage a battle in my mind and — eventually — conquer my feelings of “not-enough” with the knowledge that they are happy, that they are loved.
I also struggle with that feeling of doing or being enough outside of my small family sphere, with the wide world around me. Every day, I see people and organizations that desperately need help, that need money, that need volunteer hours. There are children all around the world who need food; who need clothes and shelter; who need a strong, loving parent. And I don’t have to look far to be aware of those children. Teachers I know have those children in their classrooms. My daughters have these children as peers. Every time my oldest, in particular, mentions to me how grateful she is that I cook healthy food for her, that she has a comfortable house and plenty of clothes, that she has two parents in her home who love her, it’s because she has been reminded at school that all too many other kids don’t have those things. And my heart breaks, it just starts opening wide and trying to send feelers out to all those other children who don’t live in my home, to show them that someone cares. Oh, how I often wish I could parent so many other kids. Practically, however, I know I’m at my limits with the four I have right now.
There are so many worthy organizations out there that I could give time to. It’s hard to limit myself to just a few. Even as I say yes to one, I know there are many others I simply must say no to. It makes me feel bad to have to choose, to say no. It breaks my heart. The need is great so many places right now, especially, with our economy the way it is, but the need is always great in terms of hearts that need healing, souls that need to be nurtured.
I can only keep reminding myself of a story that I’ve heard a few times over the years. A man goes walking on a beach early one morning and finds a young man on the shore, bending down and picking up starfish and throwing them into the ocean. He keeps bending to the sand, grasping one starfish at a time, and throwing. The beach is just covered with starfish, who are likely going to die if left where they are, washed up on the sand. It seems a ridiculous endeavor, this picking up starfish one at a time and throwing them back. So the man asks the thrower, “Why? Why do you bother? You can’t possibly save them all. This won’t make a difference.” The young man’s reply, as he threw yet another starfish wide into the ocean, “It made a difference to that one.”
That’s the philosophy to which I cling in those times my heart breaks because I can’t possibly save the world. There are so many people in need, so many causes that are worthy. But I have to tell myself, what I do matters to “that one.” I just read about Mother Teresa’s similar thinking: “If you can’t feed a hundred people, feed just one.” I am making a difference to the four children with whom I’ve been entrusted. I hope to make a difference to the women I’ve been assigned to watch over in my church’s visiting teaching program. I hope to make a small difference in what I write here, that if what I say helps just a few readers, I’ve spent my time wisely. You, my friends, are my starfish. I wish I could rescue all the starfish lying on the beaches of the world, but I’m throwing back one at a time.
I watched this video for the first time yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it. I hope that I can just make one person’s burden lighter each day because I’m willing to share. Enjoy this beautiful, inspiring message.
Over the years, I’ve come to realize that the doctor-patient relationship is vital to good health. As with any other relationship, it must be built on effective and clear communication, understanding, compassion, and just mutual “liking.”
Unfortunately, it’s hard to find a really satisfying doctor relationship. It’s hard enough to find friends out in the wide world of people, to find someone who just clicks, who is fun and understanding and supportive. When you’re narrowing down the pool of potential medical mates to perhaps 50 people in your town who are qualified and approved by your insurance, then finding that kind of chemistry in that small group is going to be a real challenge. And it’s not as if those 50 potential mates are sitting in one room, giving you an afternoon to interview them and get to know them. They’re holed up in an office somewhere, with crazy schedules, spending 5 minutes with each of their already existing patients, and walled in by receptionists who take messages and aren’t necessarily great conduits for starting relationships or even investigating the possibility.
So I don’t really expect my doctor relationship to be as close and mutually satisfying as a great friendship. But it still must have a few of those qualities for it to be most effective.
Here’s the thing: I know my body best. I’m not a doctor; I don’t have medical training. But I’m not completely ignorant when it comes to medical issues; perhaps that makes me one of those frustrating patients who knows just enough to make me dangerous. Perhaps it’s helpful. At any rate, that’s where I am. I do know that I’ve been in charge of my own medical care for 20-plus years, and I’ve taken all kinds of medications over the years, seen a number of doctors and some specialists, had some tests, and had a LOT of time to ponder on test results or effects of what I’ve taken or tried. I’ve been smack dab in the middle of my own personal lab experiment for all this time. I’ve said for some time now that it’s really unfortunate that I don’t have my own control group. That would make things so much easier. But I’m one person and I’m the control group and the experimental group in one. It doesn’t make for good experimenting. But that’s how it is.
I know these things: over the years, I have come to appreciate that any hormonal changes in my body really reverberate and effect my whole being, emotionally and physically. Female hormone changes can make me irritable or emotional; they can make me tired; they can make me bloated, and they can make all kinds of other waves I don’t even register in my consciousness. I know that I have a mental illness that requires medication, and that is also a very delicate state of being, to get to where medication helps me but doesn’t knock me out or make me feel numb emotionally. I know that if I don’t feel “right,” then I should look into whatever options there are.
Unfortunately, again, since I’m not medically trained, and I don’t have authority to write prescriptions for myself, I need a trained doctor to step in and work with me to find possible problems and possible solutions. We need to be a team. I will respect your training and experience, but I need you to respect that I can feel things in my gut about myself that you can’t. We don’t have a few hours for me to use all the words that it might take to express why I might feel something particular just “in my gut.” I have to figure out how to get it across in about two minutes. And if I can’t do that, then we’re stuck.
I know if I’ve gained weight. You don’t need to point it out. Believe me, I’m all too aware of it. And if you’re a petite woman who runs marathons and doesn’t have a problem with overeating, then I’m going to instantly feel that you won’t understand where I’m coming from, unless you put me at ease otherwise and try not to judge. I eat healthy, mostly, and I exercise every day. I’m doing the best I can. Pointing out I’ve gained 20 pounds and sighing and shaking your head won’t make me feel any more motivated. It will only depress me. Not only that, it will make me dread having to come in and see you. That’s never good. If I dread coming in to your office, then I’ll put it off, and everyone knows that putting off important medical care is bad. Plus, being anxious anticipating what you’re going to say will probably elevate my blood pressure readings while I’m in the office.
If I tell you I’d like to consider some alternate therapies or tests that you don’t usually use, I’d like your support. Sometimes, those require your signatures and authorization. Please don’t refuse because you think these things are a waste of time or money. If I feel that there’s something going on that your regular tests and medicines don’t seem to be addressing, I’d like the opportunity to waste my own time or money. At least I’ll know I’ve tried. I’m not way out there trying really bizarre things. So try to have a little bit of open-mindedness. Yes, I know where you’re coming from. But please understand how frustrating it is to feel “not right” and not have any answers. Rather than making a face and flat-out refusing, you could at least explore more why I’d like to try something else and perhaps find a way within traditional medicine to address that issue. You support my going to an acupuncturist. So let me try a compounding pharmacist, for example. But the second you squeeze up your face into a disapproving look and shake your head and refuse, you’re going to earn my ire (anyone who knows me would know that will just set me off). At least try to make me feel that you’ve heard my concerns and figure out a way to address them your way; at least make me feel that I’m an active partner in my own care. Don’t make me feel judged or condescended to or brushed aside. Work with me so I can feel validated and part of the team.
Listen, I understand that working in health care is tough these days. Doctors especially have huge debts from medical school and have to jump through all kinds of hoops just to get reimbursed halfway reasonable amounts for the work they do. Yeah, it stinks. I appreciate that. My husband works in health care, though he’s not a primary physician. So I’m not completely ignorant. I understand that you need to be true to the science you were taught that was thoroughly researched. But you have to appreciate also that the knowledge we do have is still pretty limited, and that a lot of research that has been done either used men exclusively as the experimental group, or averages have been calculated using the data from a variety of people. We also know that some research ends up being faulty or rushed and has to be reversed later on, with great human costs. Don’t blame me for being just a little bit skeptical sometimes. And simply averaging information gathered from groups of subjects and mathematically deciding that data then should apply exactly to my individual body chemistry and internal workings is not what I’d call the most effective use of scientific inquiry, either.
Most of all, please understand that how I feel is not just physical symptoms, but emotional. It’s all part of one big whole. If I try to take a few minutes to explain or ask for further help or thinking out of the box, please indulge me if you possibly can. If I don’t feel you’re hearing or understanding me, I’ll get more emotional. It’s natural. Don’t blame it on my “being mentally ill” or think immediately that I must need a higher dose of medication for my mental illness. “Normal” people have a wide range of how they express and show emotions, and it’s natural to feel frustrated when we feel we’re not being heard. It’s natural to feel emotional if you don’t feel well physically and there doesn’t seem to be an obvious reason. Please validate my feelings rather than telling me that I don’t have the right to express them in any way. I work hard to be kind and civil and understanding, but I am not devoid of emotion, and I cannot stay completely poker-faced when I feel frustrated. Don’t write me off. But when you say we may not be a good fit, you know what, you’re right about that. But sometimes we patients don’t have the luxury of finding a great fit. I just have to make do with that little group of doctors in town that my insurance will pay for and who are taking new patients. But if you know another doctor who might be a good fit for me, then by all means, please give me a name.
I would very much like to find a doctor who will be on the same wavelength with me, at least in how I communicate with words and body language and a little show of emotion. I’d like one who maybe even has a little sense of humor or likes to banter a little. Maybe with the way our health care system works today, that might be impossible to ask for both of us. If that’s the case, that’s very sad. And on a political note, if that is the case, then just making our health care system bigger won’t solve the problem. It needs an overhaul; it at least needs tweaking and adjusting. Let’s not just make a really ineffective system bigger so more people can be frustrated. Let’s dig into it and see how to truly make it BETTER.
Thanks for your time, former doctor and potential new doctor. I know you have a tough job to do. Thanks for going to medical school and doing the work you do. I just hope that we as a society can figure out how to do better in matching patients to doctors so this process of finding optimal health can be a little easier.
This post is dedicated to all the writers out there.
I have been published quite a bit in newspapers, I write for my own book review website, and I’ve contributed to other websites and book review publications here and there. But some other outlets have eluded me. I’ve written two articles for our church magazines (one for the Ensign and one for the children’s Friend) that the magazines have accepted and paid me for, but which have yet to see actual publication. Over the course of probably 5 to 10 years, I frequently tried to pitch story ideas to magazines but never got one to bite (except for once, and that was at the very beginning of the journey and I didn’t realize what had just happened, so I somehow dropped the ball and never followed through: perhaps I’m being punished karma-wise for that…). So I’ve essentially stuck to newspapers and their online counterparts more recently.
And then there’s the book project. I started working on a nonfiction book about mothering when my now-almost-16-year-old was about 3. Over the course of a year, I would get an idea and rush to my computer in the same hurried manner as one who is nauseated would rush to a toilet. The book is a series of vignettes that tie together my observations of how my little girl saw the world and how I remember being as a child myself, and then connecting my realization that I could understand finally what my mother had always related to me about her feelings and experiences raising me. For me, raising this amazing preschooler and her infant sister, it was all revelatory. I hoped that perhaps the ways I phrased these insights and the positive message would resonate with other women, whether they were mothers or grandmothers.
Well, I’m not the type of person to write strictly for the pleasure of writing. I mean, I do love the process, but I’m a goal-oriented, type-A personality gal. I don’t just dive into the creative process and emerge refreshed and satisfied with my work; I feel it must have some sort of audience (Along the lines of the truism if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?, one could say I think, if a writer puts pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and those words never see human eyes, did they ever exist?). Someone must read my words.
So. Getting the words to an audience is the hard part. Writing is generally fun, occasionally frustrating, to be sure, but mostly a pleasant creative burst and satisfying work. Even editing is fun for me. But putting them in a forum where those sentences can be appreciated by other humans is a most unsatisfying business. It entails poring over websites, Writer’s Market tomes, and so on trying to find publishers or agents that will even consider my genre of writing. Then a perfect query letter that captures the essence of what I’ve tried to say in my book has to be crafted and sent to carefully vetted editors and agents. It entails a good number of trips to the post office. (I was on a first-name basis with some of the postal service workers in the office close to my house in Alabama while I was sending out packets in the push for publication of this book.)
Over the course of a year, I wrote the body of my grand oeuvre. Then I edited and reworked and re-edited. I changed the title. I overhauled. I went to a writers conference and had the manuscript looked at by a well-known agent. I reworked. I submitted countless query letters; I read books and articles and posts giving tips on how to craft the perfect query. In short, I was consumed by trying to get published.
There were a few bright spots in which a couple of agents requested more material after a query, but overall, I collected an astonishing number of rejection letters. They stuffed a file folder full. It was depressing, frustrating work into which I poured my whole soul and countless hours and stamps and got pretty much nowhere.
After those few years of work, I finally decided to self-publish. This was nearly 10 years ago, before the ebook, but at a time when you could easily self-publish using print on demand. But I had seen some “self-published” books that had gone through this quick and cheap process and I was not impressed with the result. They looked cheap and unprofessional, and if I was going to do this, I planned to do it right. So I decided to do it the “old-fashioned” way. I hired a book cover designer to create my cover; I investigated printers and finally selected one; I chose paper and materials. I edited and re-edited and did the layout myself. I ended up with a pretty nice-looking product. I chose to have 2000 copies printed because it wasn’t much different in cost to 1000.
I then researched how to market. I did the best I could to find outlets for my book and tried to snag a distributor, but that was just as difficult as finding a publisher! So I carried my book to some stores that were local and independent and were willing to consign the books or buy them outright. I did book signings in Birmingham and the Gulf Coast at cute indie stores. I set up a website and sent out tons of emails and put my book on Amazon.
I think I sold 200 copies. Now, I have boxes of books sitting in my garage in a neat stack in a far corner. I wonder if I should torch them. Or just recycle them. Because honestly, when I go back and read my writing, I hate it. It sounds trite and goofy. It sounds like the cheesy, earnest books that somehow did get published that I generally disparage. Some people really did enjoy my book and my writing in general. But not nearly enough to empty all those boxes. I’d love to make room in my garage and clear those books out, but it just seems like I’d be throwing away money. Those boxes represent a few years’ worth of my life, of toil and sweat and (copious) tears, of unpaid work and investment of my husband’s hard-earned money. So I’ve kept them through one move to a different house in the same town and then a move all the way across the country. There they sit.
I’ve moved on. That project is behind me. I suppose I learned a lot from it. I’ve been able to help some friends who write and hope to get published as well; I’ve learned how the system works through my own trial and error and know how to help them. I am probably the harshest critic of my own work, as well, but from what I read, that’s not uncommon for any writer. I remember reading somewhere when J.K. Rowling published one of her Harry Potter books that she commented something like, “Well, it’s done, and it’s been sent to my editor, but I’m not really satisfied with it. I just know I’m not editing it anymore.” We as writers get sick of the same passage and still may not like it, but there comes a point we’re just done.
I’ve worked on a few other projects; I wrote a children’s book I thought was pretty clever and went through the whole process of query letters and rejections yet again (talk about soul-sucking and draining and depressing) with no result. My 9-year-old loves the story, though. I thought perhaps that was supposed to be my niche. Apparently not. I tried writing a young adult novel, and dedicated a month and about 70 pages to it and then took a break when my dad died. I never resumed because I just thought it was crap.
I’ve since decided my real talent is in writing nonfiction. I love to research and interview people. So I wrote a couple of articles for a large online news organization and have tried to do more research to make it a book. But that’s stalled because I haven’t found more people to interview.
And so goes the life of a frustrated writer. I absolutely must write. I must create. The urge to set ideas down on paper (or screen), to distill, to organize, to make something out of raw materials, is all-consuming. It just is who I am. I feel empty when I don’t write. The keyboard is an extension of my fingers and allows me to set in stone what are just swirling ideas in my consciousness. I don’t just enjoy writing; it is who I am. I’ve managed to write the whole time I’ve been a mother, despite interruptions and crazy schedules and the important needs of my family, because I wouldn’t feel whole if I didn’t.
So the process satisfies that part of my self, my personality. But the publishing is still something that eludes me. I desperately want to traditionally publish a real book. It is my end-all, be-all, pie-in-the-sky dream and goal. I’m almost 42 years old and I’m still stretching and striving toward it, shedding tears of frustration and wanting to hit walls with my fist (or head…) because it hasn’t happened yet. But I keep trying.
Here’s to goals. And dreams. And a toast to all those who are still striving for their own, whatever they may be. You writers, my fellow travelers, this tear’s for you.
So many talks have been given, quotes made into cute signs, and so on about gratitude. I am sure I have absolutely nothing new to say on the topic. Nonetheless, I’d like to take a few minutes to share some of the things that move me and leave me with a sense of gratitude for the abundant, luxurious life I live. I am not wealthy, just fairly middle-class, but I recognize that I am rich compared to so many people across the world, even in our own relatively wealthy country.
First, I am frequently very grateful for the conveniences we take for granted in our first-world life. Aren’t running water and electricity amazing? I love having a climate-controlled home. I don’t like the heat too much, although at this point, I’ve lived 25 years in warm climates where there isn’t much snow and the summers are either very hot and dry or hot and so muggy you might as well be in a steam room. I don’t mind the cold; I like bundling up, but I have come to appreciate not having to navigate around with snow on the roads or sidewalks. I appreciate just being able to go about my business unhindered. So I appreciate air conditioning and heating. When I moved to the South as a 10-year-old from the cold climes of Pennsylvania, I went to an elementary school that still didn’t have air conditioning. I sweated through the first month or two of school (August!) and walked home in a haze from the bus stop to my (finally!) air-conditioned house. Mom would often be waiting with a Popsicle. How sweet and wonderful that was.
And plumbing. To have hot water or cold water whenever we want it, without waiting, without hiking to a well or going outside to a pump. Wowee. And toilets: it’s pretty nice to flush the smelly stuff right out of your house and not have to use an outhouse that always smells (no trips to said stinky wooden shed in the middle of the night either when it’s dark and who-knows-what might get in the way).
Technology never ceases to amaze me. Sure, we’re living in a media- and tech-saturated society, which isn’t always a good thing, but I’m in awe of how much good can be done with what we have. I just think it’s cool if I or one of my children has a question we can just take a quick moment to run to the computer and Google it. When I was a kid, the only immediate sources available were my parents and the encyclopedia. If neither of those all-wise repositories of information had the answer, I was sunk, just stuck with a question and no satisfying solution.
All of these little things are just a sampling of blessings I appreciate on a daily basis. Of course, what matters most to me are my family and friends, my experiences and memories, the things I’ve learned. I have a husband who has his imperfections and little quirks that can make me a little crazy, but he is just overall a kind and unconditionally loving man who has been better to me than I could ever have imagined these past 19 years. My daughters are astonishing in their beauty, their talents, their sweetness, their good natures. I wish I could just sit down and enjoy them non-stop, but my own needs to be alone and do things for myself as well as just the daily needs of a household keep me from doing that. But I do enjoy the moments we have, even the hours, in which we talk, read, play or otherwise have fun and share together. I also have some wonderful friends whom I admire and love a great deal, who I wish could all live on my cul-de-sac and be available all the time for fun and commisseration. There have been many other people who have been kind and good to me over the years, and I hope that any good I do can just “pay forward” in their honor.
Finally, I am grateful for my faith in and assurance of a God in heaven. It is always comforting to know that he loves me and has a plan for my life, in this mortal existence and afterward. I try to live to show him how much I appreciate his goodness to me in so many ways.
Sure, it’s only March, but every day can be Thanksgiving Day, can’t it?
Life is full of all kinds of things. Here, I will write about whatever else just strikes my fancy, because, hey, this is my blog. Just expect this page probably to fill up with all kinds of odds and ends and miscellanea. I suppose this is the web version of that catchall drawer everyone has in the kitchen and/or office: you never know what you may find. Here’s hoping that whatever you do find here, you find it to be entertaining, uplifting, inspiring or informative in some way, or a combination of all of the above.
So I’ve been thinking lately again about all the things I’ve found interesting over the years. With my children getting older and finding their own interests and getting involved in activities, I am telling them what I used to do. My oldest, who turns 16 in a few months, plays clarinet in band and has been loving that. She also plays piano and is quite good at it, considering how few official lessons she’s had. She doesn’t really feel passionate about singing, though. She also loves art; she’s loved to draw and paint for years, and her creations are just astonishingly beautiful and true to life. My third daughter, who is going to be 10 in a few months, has decided she wants to run track at her elementary school (they do this for fourth grade!). It cracked me up a bit when she said she wanted to try shotput. My girls are petite little things, willowy and trim. So when the 9-year-old said, “That shotput is heavy! My arm is feeling, well… not very strong,” I had to laugh. I said, “You’re not exactly a beefy kid. The people who do shotput are usually a bit beefier than you. You, well, you’re more veggie.” But, hey, if she wants to try that (and the long jump and high jump), then great.
This younger one also decided that she may very well be interested in drama. I’ve taken her to see some plays, and after the most recent performance, she voiced her interest. Not surprising. My oldest has never shied away from public speaking; in fact, she’s quite good at it. But she’s never wanted the spotlight or wanted to perform in that way. But the 9-year-old, well, she is more of a spotlight gal. I think she’ll be great up on the stage.
These burgeoning interests are reminding me of all that I used to do. I performed in community theater as a young person; in fact, as I informed my 9-year-old, I was the star of a play at the university where my dad taught when I was in 7th grade. It was great fun. I helped out stage-managing and performing at our Playhouse in the Park in high school during the summers; I would have acted more, but I had band camp and other activities during the summer that interfered with the schedule. I marched in band for a couple of years. I played piano. I enjoyed singing.
Talking about those activities now with my girls, I miss those days of involvement. Now, I’m just as heavily involved in life, but with different kinds of pursuits, more “adult,” “responsible” things. I work a little, editing other people’s writing. (That’s at least something I get paid for.) I write and review books (a pursuit for which I am not paid). I volunteer with a variety of organizations, right now the band boosters. Mainly, I run a household, which is pretty demanding and complex work, but it’s not focused on me; it’s focused on my husband and children. But sometimes now I miss holding a French horn in my arms and creating lovely music and being right in the middle of a band that’s surrounding me with all the harmonies of 60 instruments working together as one. I miss standing on a stage and reciting words someone else has written that inspire or amuse because I’m bringing them to life. I miss all the cool stuff I did that brought out all my creative juices.
Now I’m exercising my abilities to bring out my children’s juices (hey, I’m a juicer!); I’m refining my interests and learning to manage my time and resources, exercising restraint. I can’t do it all, not at once, but I can do a few things that really inspire me the most. For now, that works for me.
But these past two weeks, being weighted down by a heavy boot on one foot and two unwieldy crutches, I have come to appreciate the utter freedom and bliss of letting the water carry me gently in its embrace. I can take off my boot and slip into the pool and either float like a water bug on the surface, light as air, or paddle around languidly under the water, letting it do most of the work. I love how gravity seems to just take the day off for me then. No longer am I tethered to the ground; I can snip myself free and glide and gently kick.
Life and Lims 