Archives for November 2012

For the love of puppies, Sarah, not every day has to be full of deep thought and angst words.

After a week of chaos and unsettled mood and moments of heavy heartedness, I had an opportunity to lighten my mood over the weekend. Do you know what a relief it is to have moments to catch your breath when you’ve been living in the mode of waiting for the other shoe to drop?

Ahhhh.

Last night, I stood at my kitchen counter eating salted caramel gelato out of the container, savoring the sweet taste on my tongue. I thought of running a bath, of turning in early, of maybe reading a few pages of a book. For a change, I felt exhausted from the fullness of time well spent versus the exhaustion of living in stress-mode.

I could get used to that.

My grandfather has a long way to go and visiting him is extremely difficult and gut-wrenching but? I see progress. I have to believe it’s a good sign that the rehabilitation efforts are so extensive – it means that his medical team believes he is capable of recovering, at least somewhat. That reassures me.

I edited photographs from a portrait session – over three dozen images that I am pretty pleased with. Tremendously happy.

And things got better from there. Saturday evening was wonderful. Sunday was the way Sundays should be: full of sunshine with a slowed down pace and time spent with people who make you smile.

It’s not all stress, tears and frustration up in here, y’all.

I promise.

I write about the tough stuff to process it, exorcise it, think it through, release it from my brain. I write about it because it’s what I know these days. I write about it because this write every day for a whole month idea was a spectacularly dumb one and if I had known the ride November would take me on, I surely would not have pursued it.

But that’s life, you know? It’s a cyclical whacky experience. And there are going to be days that are good and there are days that aren’t and if you just wait long enough a good one will roll your way again.

I think.

I know nothing for sure about that.

What I do know is that this weekend there were moments I laughed really hard. I ate good food. I slept peacefully. I saw lovely faces. My grandfather called me “precious.” Hugs. All of the hugs.

Today begins a new week. Thanksgiving week. I have so much to be thankful for – and I assure you I am fully aware of that…even when it seems I’m not.

“Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.”

So says the infamous “wear sunscreen” speech from Mary Schmich, who originally wrote the piece as a column for the Chicago Tribune (I think).

The subject of love letters came up the other day and I remembered fondly that one of the best love letters (if not THE best) was one I received my junior year of college from a boy that was one of my dearest friends, but who I’d had a crush on, off and on over the years since the night we met at a campus party my freshman year of college. Our friendship had been a good one – we hung out regularly, talked quite a bit, emailed all the time, and at some point, he decided that his feelings were maybe different.

His timing was fantastically rotten as I had started seeing someone not long before (spoiler alert: that relationship fizzled after several weeks as relationships are wont to do when you’re 18, 19 years old).

ANYWAY.

In the midst of all of that, he had written me a spectacular letter.

It was handwritten in that delicious, fabulous way letters were before we all became tied to our iDevices (I’m not criticizing – as I type this, my iPhone is on my lap), several pages of ballpoint scrawl, front and back side of the page.

His words were the lovely and simple sort – full of kindness and attention to detail – detail upon detail that he culled from years of knowing me. And even better than a letter full of compliments, it was beyond the typical “You’re a nice kind of person” letter, but the quirky things he noticed were things that showed that he really and truly had paid attention over all of these years.

I kept that letter for the longest time.

And then I lost it.

And when the subject came up the other day, I wished that I still had that letter. Not out of any sense of mourning for what might have been (I’m actually decent friends with his wife who is AMAZING, also – politically and spiritually we could not be anymore extreme opposites than we are – it would have worked and of that, I have no doubt), but because it would be nice to read what it was about 18 year old Sarah that stood out to someone. See how 18 year old Sarah and 36 year old Sarah were similar and how I’ve (hopefully) grown since then.

(Dang, that was half my life ago. Sheesh.)

In 2011, I encouraged y’all to write a love letter to yourself. I wrote one to myself.

Without a doubt, it was one of the most difficult posts to write – it took me over a week. It seemed unnatural to bestow any kindnesses upon myself and I measured each word and thought over and over to determine if I truly wanted to put that out there, if I was saying things that people would read and think, no freaking way could that even be true, as if their opinions mattered anyway.

When I was 18 I read his words and not even a single ounce of me thought I was undeserving or unworthy. I took those words at their face value, believed them to be true and was certain he meant them.

I don’t think I was particularly more well adjusted then, but maybe I was because how well adjusted is someone who assumes every kindness is a fabrication?*

I wish I still had that letter so I could remember what kinds of things it was that made a boy get out a pen and paper and sit down and give me his words. Is that funny, that I don’t remember all of the words but just the way it made me feel? Because I don’t remember the words, I do remember the feeling and ugh, does anyone even write love letters anymore?**

*Not EVERY kindness. Most of them though because surely you’re just saying it to be nice.

** They’re probably all texted now. “U R so GR8.” *gag*

Today is the birthday of the girl I was best friends with in junior high. She was the biggest fan of the New Kids on the Block and she especially loved Jordan Knight. She swore she’d move to Boston someday where she would marry a New Kid. When I moved to Michigan, she would send me cassette tape letters – bits of her talking on tape interspersed with stuff from California radio, as it was (and probably still is) eons ahead of Michigan radio as far as music. She actually did go to college in Boston. Didn’t marry Jordan or any of the other New Kids.

And it’s not just her birthday I remember. Seems like I have all of these days floating in my head – even people I haven’t seen or talked to in years. And all of these days throughout the year conjure up memories of people and times and sometimes it’s enough to trigger me to reach out and say hello, though often I just smile at the memories and move on with the day.

In three days, it will be the birthday of my very first best friend who lived two doors down from my family when we were in preschool through early elementary school years. I am actually still friends with her, still friends with her family and saw them when I was in California last summer. She was then and is now a free spirit and very direct. We used to play act “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” even when it wasn’t Halloween. I remember making bead bracelets with our names on them when her younger sister was born. I remember her teaching me inappropriate versions of nursery rhymes long before Andrew Dice Clay was a name I’d ever heard.

Or May 3, the birthday of a college boyfriend who wore too tight pants, was obsessed with Smashing Pumpkins, and quite possibly lived with his parents until he turned 30. (I kid. I have no idea where he ended up. Somehow I don’t think I’m wrong though.)

Or June 23, the birthday of one of my closest friends who always used to know the good music first and introduced me to some of my favorite artists. She and her brother shared a birthday and they were the first siblings I ever met that were actually friends. I always envied that. They taught me how to find constellations.

Every year and on various days these people and their birthdays run through my mind and I wonder if it will always be that way, if I will be eighty years old in a rocking chair remembering the birthday of the first boy to tell me he loved me or my high school cheerleading coach’s. There are so many I have forgotten, I wonder why these stay.

Do you know how much smarter I would be if I could have that space in my brain back?

Sometimes in the face of stress, it is the little things that make the biggest difference.

Retail therapy isn’t really an option these days because money is just dumb and did you know that bills don’t pay themselves? I don’t even like to go to the mall or anywhere near a Target anymore because a) too tempting and b) sure Sarah, why don’t you just spend money and give yourself something else to stress about?

And the funny thing is – I’m really okay with that. There’s not a whole lot that I need. I could mindlessly wander around a store and find item after item that I want, but maybe one of the best things about being more financially conservative these days is realizing that I can live without it.

I have to find other things to cheer myself up:

This week, the girls and I made cookies. Ate one fresh from the oven. DELICIOUS.

Texts with friends.

Taking a photograph I love.

Getting a Birchbox in the mail (okay, this one costs money, but it’s just ten bucks a month and this month’s box had cool stuff in it – to me it’s worth it. While I’m not blowing money on stupid stuff, it keeps me from feeling deprived).

Bubble baths

Soda and lime (with or without the vodka. I’m without these days, not because I’m out, but because sometimes you have to treat your liver nicely)

Making a spectacular quesadilla

A mailbox full of catalogs and not a single bill

Coffee and doughnut day with the kids

Finding the glove you thought you were missing

Hugs

More hugs

Catching up on Netflix

I admit, I was more than a little giddy about the Twistband (it’s orange! so cute) and mascara from the Birchbox. Who doesn’t love a little retail therapy? But, I’m really trying to keep it a little simpler. And I’ve found that all of these other things are just as gratifying – if not more so – than a cart full of stuff that will just take up space and collect dust.

Hey. I might finally be growing up.

Who knew?

Two years ago, I wanted to hire someone to plow my grandparents’ driveway during the winter. My grandpa had slipped and fallen on the ice and I didn’t want him to take that risk anymore. Well into his 80s, there was no need for him to be shoveling his own driveway – but he insisted: I was not to hire a plow service. He would do it himself.

He has not been one to rest on his laurels. Ever. He has always been an active man, a busy man.

That is why seeing him like this has been so devastating, not just for me but for the entire family. We’ve seen him in the hospital before, but this time feels different, this time he seems different. This time there is an air of helplessness coupled with intense frustration in his demeanor. This is not a man who does helpless well.

The dietary department walked in with his dinner last night, a plastic bottle of strawberry Ensure. He didn’t want it. “Maybe you can get him to drink some,” my aunt told me.

Grandpa started asking me about Pumpkin – am I able to keep up with her, is she adapting well to stuff – he’s clearly enamored by my youngest daughter. Thinks she’s the bee’s knees.

“Here grandpa,” I said, holding out the straw, “let’s have a sip.”

“No,” he replied. “You don’t work up an appetite doing nothing.”

“Oh grandpa, if I can handle Pumpkin, I can surely handle you. Just a sip.” I held out the straw again. He took a small sip. Victory.

“I could eat a cheeseburger!”

“You have to start somewhere. Keep drinking this and you can work your way up to cheeseburgers.” Another sip.

I was able to get him to take four sips of that awful smelling strawberry flavored garbage. As I drove home, I could still smell that artificial strawberry on my hands. I don’t blame him for not wanting it.

After I left, he didn’t drink any more of the pink goo.

I worry.

“You’ll have to excuse me,” he said, “I just had a stroke so I don’t remember, did we have sex last night? … Last year?” My grandpa said this to my grandmother shortly after I walked into his hospital room. I thought I might need to bleach my brain. It was precisely the goofy kind of thing grandpa would say and it was precisely the reminder (albeit a tremendously disturbing one) that although his body looks weak and he looks fragile, the man we love is still there. His mind is sharp, for the most part, save for some brief bouts of confusion. He can still make a crowded room laugh.

**

I deliberately left my camera bag in the car when I got to the hospital. I thought it’d be weird. I take my camera every where but I didn’t know, would he feel like a spectacle if I were to take pictures? I didn’t want to make him feel anything negative.

“Where’s your camera, Sarah? Don’t you want to capture these moments for prosperity…pos-posterity?” And so I followed his lead and I took my iPhone out of my pocket and I said, “Okay! I’m taking your picture now!” and he smiled, only the left side of his face barely moved.

**

I stood by the side of his hospital bed, on his right side. He hears better on that side. His eye had been filling with goop and he had been blinking furiously. I asked my mom to get a warm wet cloth and once she brought it to me, I slid his glasses off his face and gently wiped his right eye clean. “Theeeeeerrreeeee…” he said. “That’s so much better. Thank you. I love you.”

He grasped my left hand in his right and held it to his face. My heart cracked in half.

**

The plan is to move him to a different facility for rehabilitation today. Nothing happens quickly, but that is the plan as of last night and so we’ll see. I am hoping that wherever he goes next feels less sterile hospital zone and more “let’s get you on your feet, healed and sent back home!” I’m sure the atmosphere matters. I hope they let me smuggle in a cheeseburger. I wonder if that’d help.

**

I put my hat back on, buttoned up my coat, slipped my phone back in my pocket. I said my goodbyes for the night – to my grandpa, my mom, her husband, my aunt and lastly my grandmother. As I leaned in for a hug she said, “Thank you for getting him to eat.”

I walked back into the cold night air and navigated back to my car. I climbed in, started the engine and sat in the dark, devastated.

I was going to write a different post – a post about boundaries and a post about how we teach other people how to treat us and how we don’t have to say that everything is okay if in fact it is not. And then I decided not to.

Families are tricky business, aren’t they?

And families that talk a lot – well, it doesn’t mean they’re actually saying what’s important.

My family never shuts up but sometimes it takes some huge epic thing to get the real words to come out. While the process sucks, I’m grateful that at lest the words do come out at some point.

I was upset yesterday – something my sister had done had triggered some feelings in me – I was sad, mad, and a little bit devastated. In fact, it tore at my mind all day. The difference between Sarah now and the Sarah from even a year ago is that instead of choking on my feelings and never saying anything, I let her know I was hurt.

And there was an afternoon of silence.

Last night she sent a long email – about the day’s events, about other stuff, about ALL OF THESE THINGS – things she’d never mentioned, things I never knew were bothering her and while it was a hard email to read, it was a relief to know what she was thinking.

If we don’t tell people what’s on our minds they can’t ever truly know. If you spend any amount of time face-to-face, surely you should pick up on something, but my sister and I have busy lives and we’re not often in the same place these days – and I had no way of knowing the things that were bothering her.

(I should also mention that problems were exacerbated by our mother who isn’t exactly known for minding her own business – as some of the things my sister was upset about were second hand inaccuracies.)

It’s only recently that I have stopped worrying so much about the effect my words might have on people. I don’t want to make people feel sad or bad and I don’t like to see anyone hurting – but the thing is, stuff generally works out somehow if you just tell it like it is. Doesn’t mean you have to be a jerk. Doesn’t mean you have to choose the meanest words your vocabulary holds. Quite the opposite really.

Maybe I didn’t handle things the best way yesterday. I don’t know. My heart was achey and my feelings were hurt and I felt unsupported by my sister, someone I care about. I felt that she should be on my side and that her actions were contrary to that and I kinda said so.

And when she wrote back, she told me why she had done what she had done, but instead of leaving it at that as she had in her texts, she apologized and said it was never her intent. She meant well. That it wasn’t worth this, this negativity we were both feeling. That she loves me. That she wants me to be happy. That she appreciates that I’ve always been one of her biggest cheerleaders. But that she’s always been here for me, rooting me on, and supporting me through all the garbage. And she has.

And I replied.

The thing is that sometimes we don’t know all the hurt someone is carrying with them if they don’t say so. And I’m glad, despite the ugliness that preceded that she could tell me how she was feeling.

It’s amazing, this life. People. We’ve all got our own stuff going on. And how would you even know?

I’m sensitive lately, that I know. And my sister said that she’s probably more sensitive than I – sounds kind of like a recipe for disaster, no? But – we know this about each other now. That’s something.

(There’s no neat way to tie up this post – have you noticed that I have that problem?)

I’d love to keep on being conflict avoidant but I think this way is better. The hurt feelings? We’ll get past it. We’ll know each other better because of it. Maybe treat each other with a little more kindness and sensitivity.

I hope.

My grandpa had a stroke yesterday and I am convinced that the universe is telling me something this week. The universe is wanting me to pay attention.

Perhaps that is too self centered a view, but I can’t help but think that when so many things go wrong in a small span of time that there’s something I am supposed to be learning.

I don’t know yet what it is.

I am hoping that my grandfather is fine – that the doctors are providing him good care and that his road to recovery will be smooth. It is my hope. I am keeping cautiously optimistic because they were able to administer TPA in time to break up the clot and within a short span of time he went from being unable to move the left side of his body to touching his nose with his left pointer finger, from no speech to slurred speech to clear speech. To being able to state his full name and birthdate as well as where he is. To asking me about my children.  To trying to boop my nose.

My grandfather overcame stomach cancer in the 1980s – I was a kid then. I don’t remember the details much. He had part of his stomach removed. Chemo. We were in California. We were far away.

He is a funny little old man and I love him and I have said often that he’s my favorite man in the world – I don’t think it’s an exaggeration. When I was a kid, he’d send mail addressed to “Haras” (my name backwards) and he always had a roll of Lifesavers on him to share with us kids, and he’d write me letters and I’d write back. He’s never stopped telling the story of the time we drove down to Carmel and I cried the whole way. Nor has he stopped telling about when I was about to start my first job out of college and how nervous I was about it – but he’s always quick to say he knew I’d be fine, and look how well I did.

He loves my kids. Like he did for me, he pays Ten for the As on her report card (and he better heal up because that girl has a paper full of straight A’s to show Great-Grandpa). He puts the emphasis on the wrong syllable of my youngest daughter’s name in a way that is unique to him. And every time I see him he says, “That’s a nice lookin’ family you’ve got there, Sarah.”

So, he really needs to be okay.

This week has been one thing after another but this makes some of those big things feel small and maybe that’s my lesson. That what really matters is the health and love of people I care about and the rest is just… extra. That stuff will work itself out.

I don’t know.

This is the kind of week that makes one weary, that’s for sure.

Not sure what is in store for grandpa in the next few days, but I’m hoping that he quickly makes his way out of the hospital into whatever rehabilitation program they deem will best suit him.

He’s a survivor. He’s made it through so much. He just has to keep hanging on because I’m not ready to let go just yet.