A Wee Bit of Wisdom

I started working out daily again this week.  I got too poor there for awhile and had to put the gym membership on hold and, I guess, got bummed out in general about that.  I came up with excuses not to go for outdoor runs (which is really stupid because I prefer them anyway) and ended up taking too long of a break.  See, the problem is, every time I take a break from running I have to begin again - at least to a certain extent.  That might end up being short runs, but usually I try to go for longer run/walks until I can run the whole way.  Nowadays, however, it ain't that simple.  My stupid foot doesn't like walking long distances and my left knee has decided to turn on me on stairs (or squats).  I suppose it's all part of aging?  (Though my podiatrist claims it's part of running most all of my adult life, but what does he know?)  The funny thing is that nothing hurts when I run.  Not my foot, not my knee.  While I'm running, I'm pain free.  Even afterwards, my foot may bark in the wrong pair of shoes but my knee actually stays happy.  So a break from running actually makes me feel worse.  Now, finally, my brain kicked in (a rare thing) and I decided I had to get the running back on. 

Dia and I have this thing where I write out our 'to do' list for the day and draw little pictures of what we have to do next to the words.  She loves to cross off when we've done them - and she knows which ones to cross off from the pictures.  So everything from chores to playing Hungry-Hungry Hippo go on there.  For the past few days "work-out" has been on the list with a little drawing of a TV and me (sort of) on a mat (sort of) in front of the TV.  It's totally cool because she's all on board with this whole thing and so, every day, we're in front of the TV doing some work out video thanks to On Demand's Fitness TV.  I explained to Dia that I needed to get back in shape generally, but mostly so I could run again.

So today she said something about me being a runner.  I don't remember exactly what elicited it.  I think I went down the stairs faster than her or something and she attributed it to that.  Anyway, my response was "Well, I'm not really a runner right now."

Know what she said to that?  She said:

"You can stop doing what you are for awhile, but you can never stop being what you are."

Wow, child.  Just wow.

I'm Alive!

On January 21, 2002 I died.  It was Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday – or at least the day we celebrated it that year.  It’s a day I will never, ever forget.

In fairness, I was only all the way dead for 18 seconds.  I was undergoing a tilt test prior to a catheter ablation of my heart and it didn’t go so well.  The test began and I remember telling the nurse that I actually felt OK.  A millisecond went by and, then … no, no, actually I was going out.  The next thing I remember was experiencing freezing cold.  I was chattering and shaking and asked the nurse why I was so cold.  She said I had coded and they had to give me epinephrine when they restarted my heart.  “It makes you feel cold” she said.  “Oh, OK.” was my response.  As if that happened every day.

My dear doctor was quite shaken, actually, and went out to report my condition to my mom who was in the waiting room.  “Would she want to continue with the surgery?” he asked her.  Thank God Mom answered quite correctly:  “Yes.”

After a day in the ICU and a few more days in the hospital than originally planned, I came home very much alive and very much intending to stay that way.  Every year since, on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday I celebrate my “I’m Alive Day.”  It means more to me than my birthday and Christmas combined.  It is the fourth most important day of my life.

But let me back up a second. 

Way back when I still lived in Indianapolis the left side of my left side went completely numb.  After a horrifying and not recommended-for-anyone test called the EMG, which stands for ExcruciatinglyMegapainfulGram (no, that’s not it – I believe it’s actually called an electromyogram), the docs all decided that I truly had gone numb on the left side of my left side and took me very seriously which meant I went through a barrage of tests and fast.  Each one came back more or less normal and each normal result sent me to another test.  As I was undergoing an ultrasound of my carotid artery, the technician suddenly looked up and asked, quite urgently, if I felt alright.  I did.  Although there was that fluttery feeling I often felt that I thought must be some inefficient form of gas.  While that never ‘resulted’ in anything, I still didn’t really want to share with this perfect stranger that I was having a bout of gas but, since the point was to find out what my body was doing, I did fess up.  He just looked at me like I was out of my gourd and then asked me to wait a moment.  Next thing I know I was being seen by a cardiologist and eventually was referred to Dr. Corey.

You see, I really didn’t have bouts of gas.  I had bouts of my heart racing at about 280 beats per minute.  Dr. Corey couldn’t fix it.  He knew of doctors that could, but felt the risk was too high.  He said there’d be too much scar tissue afterwards even if I made it through the surgery.  The worse news was that my heart could tolerate no more than 5 years more of this activity it was enduring.  If I didn’t die of eventual heart failure, a couple irregular beats would be all it took.  If I died that way, he said, it would be extremely sudden.  The good news was that it wouldn’t hurt at all. 

I never did wrap my brain around that news.  I can’t say that it ever sunk in all the way.  Every time I went back to Dr. Corey for a check-in, it seemed the old ticker was doing great.  I was a runner for God’s sake.  Of course it was doing great.  But that fluttery feeling never ceased.  Now I knew… it wasn’t gas.  It was bad, bad news.
 
Yet inside this bad, bad news was a very strange gift.  Quite literally every day when I woke up, I thought “Cool.  One more.”  It made me treasure all the little things that went unnoticed before.  It made me love the people in my life just that much more.  It also unfortunately honed the bitch in me as I had no tolerance for petty complaints and whining over trivial things.  I wanted to change my career and do something important or dear to me, but I didn’t have the luxury of leaving a good paying position for something more heart-worthy (so to speak).  The thing is, when you are given 5 years you can’t just bail out on life, cash out your life savings and go to Australia on extended holiday.  Not when you are a mom anyway.  I had to keep keeping on and pray for a cure or a miracle.  Yet each day was, quite literally, a gift.  Even on my grumpy days, I knew it and appreciated it.

Life went on.  I moved to California and met Art.  He was an insurance claims adjuster at the time.  When we got serious, I told him about my condition and he felt, quite appropriately, pretty freaked out about it.  He shared my story with a colleague of his and, in a wonderful moment of serendipity, that colleague just so happened to have a daughter with the same condition that just had a surgery by a Cardiac Electrophysiologist and was all better now.  The woman gave Art the name of the doctor up in Oregon who referred us to Dr. Bhandari in L.A.  He saw me Friday January 18th and, after an evaluation, said “I can fix this” with tremendous confidence, described the surgery and planned to schedule it for Monday.  Wow!  It was all so sudden.  I said I’d like the weekend to do some research on it and he said I could do the research, but waiting wasn’t advised because “You are going to die.”  Without missing a beat, I said “Sure, let’s go ahead and schedule that.”  And that’s what we did.

So here I am.  Alive.   And now it’s been 9 years since the surgery.  Nine years.   In those years I haven’t done anything important for society – I haven’t won a prize or been lauded for anything.  Shoot, I even failed at a pretty significant relationship, huh?  I suppose, in the Grand Scheme, I haven’t made a mark.  My living doesn’t really matter.

But it DOES matter.  And so very, very much.

In nine years I would have missed SO much.  The biggest thing obviously is that I wouldn’t have Dia.  No Dia in this world at all?  That would just be tragic.  After that?  Man, I would never have even met so many of my dearest friends.  I would never have gone to Scotland, England and France.  I wouldn’t have seen my daughter walk across the stage for her UCSC graduation.  I wouldn’t have seen Tim make it in his world so successfully. 

I wouldn’t have met the wonderful people my kids are dating.  I wouldn’t have seen the first African-American President of the United States.    And there are a million other moments – parties, holidays, weddings, births, moments of joy or uncontrollable laughter.  I would have missed them all.

The most amazing part of my whole journey is that there was a time in my life that if it hadn’t been for Tim and Cheyanne, I’m not sure I wouldn’t have ended it.   I can’t say for sure, but I know I had places in my life where the mire was deep and some void in me was almost desperate.   In a million years, I could have never done that to my kids, but I know I felt that kind of despair.  I can’t be so dramatic as to say that I was standing on the ledge and Dr. Corey came up to give me a push, but it wasn’t that far off of that.  By the time I saw Dr. Corey I was pretty far from ever feeling like I wanted to leave this earth, but at the same time the news he gave me changed my living.  He gave me my life back.  He gave me the perspective I needed to appreciate this moment, this day – whether it was an ordinary one or even a bad one … well, it was still a day.  That, I learned, was much better than the alternative. 


I share all this, not only as a Thanks Be To God, but also as a message.  I know life brings challenges and sometimes more than any one person should have to endure.  Right now I can think of friends that really have way too much on their plates.  Certainly I wouldn’t try to sell those friends on my Pollyanna Happiness Prescription.  It would be both disrespectful and presumptuous of me.  I know that sometimes it’s just too hard to appreciate what we’ve got, you know – to count our blessings.  When it doesn’t feel like there are blessings to count, what’s the use? 

What I want is for those friends and for anyone who might just be going through a bad couple of days or who haven’t seen their dreams come to fruition yet or who feel this life is just a meandering path leading to nothing much… to all of us humans just trying to catch a break… Well, I’d like to let you in on a little insider info.  Here’s the worst part of knowing you are going to die:  It doesn’t feel like you are dying.  It feels like everyone in your world is dying.  You are losing your parents, your children, your friends, even the people you didn’t much like.  Every single thing in your world is going to be gone. 

At least that’s what it felt like to me. 

When you think about life that way, it changes it.  How would you live today if you knew it was the last day you’d ever see your spouse, or your child, or even your dog?  Well, I found that changed things more than anything else.

So, to all my dear readers and all my dear friends – pick a day.  Any day!  And celebrate it.  Declare it your “I’m Alive Day.”  And if you can't find it in you to celebrate your life, celebrate the people in your life.  Let us be happy just to be alive and spread joy and love!  This, I’m quite certain, is the purpose of life.

Winter Blast from Dogs Past

Today my dear friends in Indianapolis (and various other frozen parts of the Midwest) are suffering through a cold front and a snowstorm while I bask in the brilliant sunlight of Southern California.  I am sipping hot tea, as the temperatures dropped a dramatic 10 degrees overnight and chilled me a bit, but I'm not the least bit unappreciative of the fact that I am in a light cardigan, no heat on in the house, and am considering clipping some flowers from my garden for a late-fall bouquet.  

This appreciation, however, is hard-earned.  Just in case anyone thinks I forgot, I give you a journal entry from February 23, 1994.  As background, the kids and I were living in the Landings near Keystone at the Crossing; I worked at Very Special Arts of Indiana; and the dog in question was Pauly, my English bulldog, who we all loved dearly, but not without pain:

"February 23, 1994 -Well, THIS has been a special day already and it's only 10:30 a.m.!

I woke up on time.  I had a good stretch.  I didn't feel overly tired.  And then? BOOM! My streak of good fortune ended.  I swung out of bed and placed my foot -- no, not on the floor as one would think -- but instead into a huge hill of vomitus material that Pauly had strategically placed as a kind of editorial comment on Purina's particular recipe of dog food.  Pleased as I was with this discovery and having been set into a fabulous mood for the day, I swiftly escorted him to the balcony where I left him with every intention of letting him rot.

After cleaning this mountainous heap (which had an odor second only to that of toxic waste), I got a second rare and wondrous treat of scooping up yet another pile (this time of a substance of which I'm much more familiar) outside on the balcony before the lovely mixture of ice and rain that was steadily falling dissolved it into an as yet undiscovered alternative to the gas chamber.   As I was more than a tad bit annoyed, I vowed to leave Pauly outside until Hell thawed (being that this IS Hell and it's already frozen over), when he expressed a difference of opinion and began a mild, however persistent, barkfest (at 6:30 a.m.).  His receipt into my home, due entirely and exclusively out of respect for my neighbors, was immediately limited to the bathroom where he was sentenced to twenty years hard time with no food or water.

The peace that followed his imprisonment, however, was short lived.  Cheyanne posted bail, as she needed to primp, and he was released on his own recognizance.  Upon serving breakfast (less than 5 minutes later), I noticed the err of my judgement.  Underneath what used to be called my piano, and now is more aptly termed His Toilet, there lay a steaming fresh pile...

My patience tried beyond its limits, Pauly was promptly incarcerated and left, once again, with no provisions.  His objections went unheeded until the necessity to use the room prevailed.  A jail break had obviously been planned and immediately upon the opening of the door, his head, ducked low, plummeted directly into my right ankle as he attempted to plow past me to freedom.  My nimble reflexes alone (albeit the door wedging his head into the frame assisted) saved the escape from coming to fruition, yet not without both harm and foul.  I was bound for desk duty, benched for the season, a 2" purple, black and red bruise my medal of valor.

The pride I delight in dog ownership runs just slightly ahead of the sheer joy I am afforded by the experience of living through yet another Indiana winter.  Trying to salvage some semblance of sanity, I went out after my morning paper envisioning coffee, toast, and the sports page as the perfect cure to my frustrations.  Outside, a fresh blanket of white stuff covered the ground and the sound of ice chipping filled the air.  My neighbors were lined up, hammer and chisels in hand, creating ice scuptures out of what used to be their vehicles.  "So" I think to myself "I've got THAT to look forward to..."

I sent the kids out after the bus alone as I had no desire whatsoever to walk the dog anywhere but straight into the lake with, say, perhaps, 110 pound weights wrapped around each leg, but within 20 minutes they were back.  The bus hadn't come, probably due to the fact that the school system was on a two-hour delay -- a fact of which I had been completely oblivious and neglectful in researching.  I DID observe, however, (solely due to by implacable fashion sense), that the woman I saw - upon my awakening peek at the outside world - who was wearing bright white tennis shoes with a straight-line black skirt and a stadium jacket and standing outside next to her equally bright white Bronco, was now standing against the garage shielding her face with her hands.  At this interim, she'd been out close to 2 hours.  I called to her and asked her if she wanted to come inside, which she did, and I was told that she had locked her keys -- ALL her keys -- inside the Bronco - WHILE it was running - when she had gone out to warm up the truck.  She couldn't get back into her apartment, nor into her vehicle, and had been standing out there waiting for her husband to come home from work.  He worked the night shift, got off at 7:30, it was now 8:30, and she thought he must have stopped off at the store rather than coming straight home.  He had the only other set of keys to the car.

By 9:30, I had to leave.  Hubby still had yet to show, and I felt a little blessed (however selfishly) because my troubles weren't as bad as hers.  By this time, though, the leasing office had opened and she could get the keys to her apartment and at least wait in her own environment for the missing spouse.

A little bright spot proved that I hadn't been entirely abandoned of God's grace, as the kids and I made it safely to school and work respectively without much car trouble or traffic problems.  Yet, I was immediately reminded of His rath as I walked into my office only to be greeted with a "nice of you to make it" by the Board President, John Delaney...

Ah well, such is life."

Hope you enjoyed this little blast from the past!  Stay warm!

Randomness

This is just completely random stuff.  Enjoy:

Dia:  Why I named him Balloony?
Me:  Shrug
Dia:  Because it’s a good name for a balloon.

One of my favorite things right now:  Dia says her imaginary friend’s name is spelled “O-P-P-O.”  Then, when someone says “Oppo?” she says “No, it’s Owo – the “P’s” are silent.”   

I saw a billboard the other day for Crown Royal.  It said “Back with a vengeance.”  I wonder if they thought that one out.  Do they mean the next morning?

Sephora Lash Stretcher is the greatest mascara I have ever tried.  And with a $15 sticker price?  Brilliant!

Ever notice the side conversations we, as moms, have with our kids while we are trying to have phone conversations?  Here’s a few of my favorites:
    “That’s a garlic press, dude.  You don’t put cookies in it.”
    “How did you get chocolate on your foot?”
    "Oh no, sweetie, let go of the kitty ... What? ... No, darling, you can't bite the kitty."

I got a Coke that had been in the fridge for some time and took a sip.  It didn't taste right and so I looked at the bottom of the can.  I told Dia "No wonder this tasted like dirt.  It's expired."  She said "I had dirt that tasted better than that."  I laughed and asked her "Where is that from - a movie?" and she said "No, real life."  I said "Oh, you just made that up?"   She said "No, real life."   (Footnote to this one: I do not believe she's ever eaten dirt in real life.  She was being witty.)

Dia was explaining why she couldn’t fall asleep and said “My eyelashes aren’t weighty enough and when I close my eyes they just fling back open.”

That's it for now.  More later I'm sure!

Prince Charming

Maybe I’m too embedded in fairy tales and Disney Princesses, but sometimes I truly long for my knight in shining armor.  Wistfully, and probably too often to be healthy, I wish for someone to magically find me and for us to fall madly in love.  I’m not talking about physical love so much, but more that elusive connection to someone that might want to walk this life hand-in-hand with me.

But right now there is a ton of problems with that. 

Issue 1:  I gotta' be honest with myself: I might only want new love.  Romantic love doesn’t stay happy for the long haul.  OK, in fairness, I have seen it here and there, or at least I know couples who put up a good public persona, but it’s just never worked for me.  Eventually I always feel like I’m not just compromising things to make it work, I’m compromising ME.   Maybe I'm twelve types of selfish and only viewing this through that filter, but historically it has always felt like I'm the one that has to chop off big parts of who I am to keep "us" happy.
I also hate the taking for granted part.  Like hate, hate, hate it.  Truly despise it.  I saw a little saying once “Take for better or for worse, but never for granted.”  I think I’ll tattoo that on my forehead if I ever get in a serious relationship again.

Issue 2:  I may have stopped believing in love at all.  Or at least in the way I need it.  Specifically:  I may have stopped believing that someone could make my life better than it is now.  Salt on my potato I used to call it.  Perhaps this is a symptom of how great my life is these days and that’s certainly not something to complain about!  I’ve said on more than one occasion that I’m more blessed than a person has a right to be.  So asking for more just seems greedy, doesn’t it?  But that’s where I stand.  I don’t want a man for the sake of having a plus one or whatever.  I want to feel like life is better because he exists in it.  Back to Issue #1, new love certainly feels that way, but over the long haul I have yet to experience that life-is-better feeling persisting for very long (mostly due to Issue #3 below).

Issue 3:  No offense to the sane gentlemen out there, but too often the divorced or never married men my age come with cargo planes worth of untreated baggage.  I once wanted to be a therapist for a living, but I passed on that long ago.  There’s no part of me that wants to be an in-home version of that.  I definitely do not feel like paying for the crap some ex-woman put them through.  Now, before you go hating me, I’m not saying it’s even possible to get to adulthood without more than a carry-on.  I’m simply saying that more people should consult a psychologist at some point in their life.  The process of dealing with your scars is underrated and under-utilized and nowhere near as scary as folks think it will be.  At the very least it gets the baggage into a more portable suitcase.

Issue 4:  It feels like love is for the young.  Are people over 45 ever depicted in ads/videos/movies falling madly in love?  (I can think of, like, 2 movies.)  No sir.  Love is a youth-oriented industry and I feel like I’m way past that expiration date.

Issue 5:  No romantic love will ever compare with the love I have for my kids.  I had Tim way too young and fell way too in love and the only love I’ve felt on par with that since were for my two daughters.  Now I've obviously been in love and intensely at that, but I know that even at love's best it will never be what a mother feels for her children.  At this point in my life if it doesn’t come somewhere near that, how will I find the energy necessary to cultivate a new relationship and the incentive to put the work in to maintain it? 

Issue 6:  This is simply logistics.  Where and how the hell can I even meet someone in my current world? I work mostly from home.  The online dating scene is not an option for me.  I don’t have any extra-curricular activities and I don’t plan on adding them for a while.  This is a problem I’m creating for myself for sure, but I have this beautiful hindsight in knowing just exactly how fast Dia’s childhood is going to fly by.  I don’t really want to miss more of her life than I already am while I’m at work and, besides, all my babysitting budget is used up for the aforementioned job anyway.  So, my Prince Charming will have to fall in love with me at the zoo or the park or the museum, Dia in tow.  What’re the chances?   

BUT… before you go all psychoanalytical on me here, I should assure you that this void I feel generally occurs only after viewing a romantic comedy (which should be banned anyway).  My life is so filled up with love that asking for more is almost ridiculous.  But there are aspects of romantic love that my family and friends cannot fill, so I definitely want to have that love someday. 

Honestly,  I have this feeling that it will happen.  I’ve lived too long and paid attention too much to not know that Divine Timing is much smarter than my timing.  As I’ve just admitted, I don’t really have the logistical ability nor the motivation at this time to jump into a relationship and be a good partner anyway.  Soon enough, though, I will be.  And then?  I’ll have dispelled all these doubts; I’ll believe in love again, and we will live happily ever after.

May you all love and be loved exactly as you need it.  (And I hope you find yourself disagreeing with me on most of my points because that would mean you've already met your Princess or Prince Charming.)
- KEC