Body Talk

I have become a person who exercises.  This would have been unthinkable to me a couple of years ago, when I was far past my days of varsity crew and smack in the middle of my days of eating so little that climbing stairs was a dizzying workout.  And then came the long hard slog of running semi-regularly for more than a year before it finally clicked with me that running, hiking, yoga, lifting, and - most recently - Crossfit, are not things I do to lose weight but rather are things I do because my body rocks and is strong and because they keep me sane and they keep me honest and they keep me eating.  And all of those things are so much more important than how badly I used to want to be a size 2 again.  Like, bad enough that it kept me awake at night.

So all that working out did make me lose about 15 pounds.  It feels good.  I had gained so much weight (about 40 pounds) so quickly when I started eating again back in the spring of 2012 that I couldn't fit into any of my clothes and felt enormous and awkward and like I would never in a million years be comfortable in my body, or, more distressingly, figure out how to eat normally and not like a caged animal.  And the first year of nursing school did not help all that much.  And then finally, this summer, it was like all the being patient and gritting my teeth and refusing to starve myself and refusing to stop running all started to pay off and it felt easier to work out and easier to eat normally and actually possible to make good food choices consistently and to push my plate away when I was full.  You know, skills most adults have mastered long before now.

That said, as it started to get easier to eat better (consistently, and normal amounts, and a pretty decent balance of vegetables, proteins, etc.) I started to pay more attention to what I was eating and how it made me feel.  It struck me that while it was easy to feel like I was eating better - not bingeing, purging, or starving - I still was eating more sugar, processed foods, and "treats" than I maybe thought I was.  I've also developed some skin issues that have stubbornly stuck around for more than a year now, despite frequent doctor visits and medication regimens.  And I get bloated, crampy, and gassy at least once or twice a week.  Lightning bolts probably shot out of my head when it occurred to me that that wasn't entirely normal, and that it was also almost certainly preventable.

So today marks the first day of my own Whole 30 experiment (I know I'm late to the party, don't worry).  I'm really curious to see if cutting out all of the junky stuff from my diet clears up my skin, helps me sleep better at night, and gives me more energy.  Full disclosure: I've been toying with the idea of doing this since July, and never quite got up the nerve.  Last night, lying in bed, R. told me his stomach felt gross from eating pizza that day.  I asked him if he wanted to try this elimination diet thingie with me, for kicks.  He whined a bit when I told him no sugar and then said sure and asked me when we started.  I said maybe November 1st, so we'd have time to prepare and plus, it just sounded like a nice day to start.  He laughed and said that was ridiculous, we're starting tomorrow.  Gulp.  So we did.  And then we went to Crossfit this morning and I almost died and threw up and vowed that for the next few months, the midwifery goal can take a back burner to my singular and all-consuming goal at this time - to not be the last person done with the workout, just once.

(Kidding, guys, I'm still in school and loving it.  More posts to follow soon about the fact that - holy sh*t - I'm seeing patients on my own now, and I get to call myself a "student midwife" rather than a "student nurse" and I whip out pelvic and breast exams like they're no big deal when even two months ago I was all OMG VAGINAS AND WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING.)

So!  Follow along on my clean eating adventure and I'll probably come here to complain more than once about not eating all of the things that make me feel yucky but just taste so darn good.

Long Days

I hear the whispers outside the room in which I'm sleeping.  They float through my subconscious even as my body pleads, No, no, no it's not time to wake up yet, please no.
"Mommy, can I wake Cakey up yet?"
"What time is it?"
"Almost 6."
"Okay, but be gentle."

Tap tap tap.  I feel her feather hand on my shoulder and crack my eyes open to see her smiling face.  "Hi, Sage," I whisper sleepily.  She grins and flings herself in for a hug while I try to pull myself upright.  She is so grown up in daylight hours, eloquent and mature, and achingly in between childhood and adolescence, but at 6 AM on Thursday mornings, she is my sweet warm buddy again, crawling into my lap and telling me in excited whispers about her school's hiking and overnight trip she's going on today and do I want oatmeal for breakfast and how was my clinical yesterday and should we wake up June so she can see me too?

Half an hour later, June is still not awake.  I sneak into her room, where she is splayed across her mattress, naked except for her wedgied pink underpants, blankets tangled about her feet.  I stroke her back softly, whisper, "Juney-Bee, wake up..."  She turns toward me blearily, her hair in her face.
"Mommy?" she asks.
"No, sweetie, it's Cakey."
"Cakey??!  Is it really you?"  Her sleepy eyes wide open now, she pushes her bangs away, sees it's really me and scrambles her hot little monkey body into my lap and wraps all four impossibly long limbs around my torso and squeezes till my eyes tear up.  She lays her head into my chest and sighs.  "I'm so happy you're here, Cakey.  I love you."
"I love you too, sweetness.  I'm so glad you're mine."

We eat oatmeal at the table and the chatter washes over me while I pour milk and slice apples and we talk about what to wear for school picture day and hiking trips and their mother, a former boss, and now a friend, smiles at me over their heads while I mouth, Thank you for all of this, and she only laughs and shakes her head and wraps me in another hug.

It's a long drive to Massachusetts every Wednesday afternoon for a clinical shift in a tiny community sexual health center whose two exam rooms are each big enough to touch all four walls while you stand in the middle.  I cram myself by the door while my midwife preceptor wedges herself behind the exam table and moves mountains for her patients and teaches them about birth control.  I leave with my face hurting from smiling and my stomach rumbling its emptiness.  I drive to the home of the only nanny family I still keep in touch with, where I bask in the light of being loved and needed and welcomed and family, even while I miss my own family so much it hurts.  I drive the two hours home, shower in a flurry, drive to work and prop my eyelids open for the rest of the day, momentarily panicking when I remember I have a midterm on Monday, a test on Tuesday, an assignment due Wednesday, and a mountain of work before clinical next week.

But today I got to wake up to my two favorite girls and for now that is more than enough.

Cake Fail

I follow a blog called The Bitten Word that does what I could only dream of doing - actually cooking the recipes from their monthly supply of food magazines.  Now, granted, the only food magazine I subscribe to is Cook's Illustrated, which comes every two months and definitely lends itself to well-intentioned stockpiling on the bookshelf with promises to myself of, "I will definitely make that someday."  Anyway, the folks at The Bitten Word issue a yearly challenge to help them cook every recipe out of the September issue of Bon Appetit.  I signed up this year, and was issued the task of making this: buttermilk cake with sour milk jam and gin-poached cherries (whew).

All my ingredients.

It was less than impressive.

It incorporated several elements of baking that I find vexing - like the need to go to Whole Foods for a strange and expensive ingredient (juniper berries?), the finished product requiring complex assembly, the use of three (3) separate complete elements, and a wholeheartedly unrealistic amount of time spent doing active work (not, say, cooling something on the counter or baking something in the oven).  So, not only was it a great deal of work, but it tasted gross.  This saddened me.  But!  (There's always a but.)  I had fun making something that I never would have made otherwise, and the cake part itself tasted delicious.

First, I planned.  I got most of the stuff I needed on a grocery run - in the process acquiring more dairy than our fridge has held in months: buttermilk, whole milk, and creme fraiche.  Then, I traded picking up a friend at her mechanic for a cup of leftover gin she had since I didn't want to buy a whole bottle.  (Meanwhile thinking to myself, isn't a cup of gin, like, a LOT of gin??).  Finally, I resigned myself to going to Whole Foods after class one day to buy a four-dollar jar of dried whole juniper berries.  I will be personally indebted to anyone who finds another recipe with which I can use any more of the (barely touched) bottle of juniper berries, by the way.

The cake part, like I said, was delicious and simple enough.  Just a yellow cake batter, using buttermilk, which gave it a lovely soft crumb and a delicately sweet flavor.  Scrumptious.

Then, I spent 45 minutes cooking down milk and sugar into a syrup of such sickening sweetness that even mixing it into 8 ounces of creme fraiche didn't make it not taste like a cavity.

Finally, I followed the recipe exactly and attempted to make a gin, sugar, juniper berry, and dried tart cherry syrup thing to also put with the cake.  Total fail.  There was nothing syrupy about it, and the cherries were macerated within minutes.  I took one taste after cooking it for at least twice the amount of time called for (in an attempt to reduce the vast volume of liquid) and it was like taking a shot of gin in a spoon.  I'm not in college anymore, so this made me gag.

The finished product.

I took one bite of it all together, threw the sour milk "jam" and the alcoholic cherries in the trash, said a silent apology to the friend whose gin I'd wasted, and ate a piece of the cake with my hands.  Whomp whomp.  I'm very curious to see what others who made this recipe thought of it!  And I was at least happy to note that my instincts when looking at this recipe (looks complicated, and, is that seriously going to taste good...?) were spot on.

Anyone else had some recent cooking adventures they'd like to share?

Summer's End

Summer has abruptly and unceremoniously come to an end.  On my run the other day, I realized with a start that my bright sneakers were shuffling through dry leaves and there was a hint of woodsmoke in the air.  Unequivocally, fall.  It's still 85 degrees during the days here sometimes, but the chill of the evenings and early mornings are insisting, nope, fall.  I love it.  I also hate fall, but as we've discussed, I'm a fan of strong things in opposition.

This guy built a web across our entire front porch.

Basking in his grandparents' love and attention.

Tomato chutney, freshly canned.

I miss this.

School has started again and it's a heady mix of Oh my good god, how can I possibly keep up with this insane workload? and Babies! Bellies! Fetal heart tones! Leopold's maneuvers! Holy jeebers, I can't believe we're actually learning all of this!

It feels both surreal and like the most natural thing in the world, all at the same time.

Happy Radish, RN

This radish is licensed to nurse.

One year down, two to go.  Bring on the babies!



Thank you for all of the support, encouragement, laughs, and wisdom that you all have shared with me during this past year.  This blog has always been my outlet, but that took on added meaning over the past twelve months, and I am, again, grateful for everyone who reads and roots for me in my tiny corner of the internet.
xo
Cait

Things I find

I've been seriously neglecting this blog, of late.  I take my boards tomorrow though, so hopefully I'll have more to say once that's over with.  In the meantime, some favorites from the past few weeks:

Sunset over Brooklyn

I found this fascinating, largely because I applied for Teach for America during my senior year at Smith, and made it through several rounds of interviews before being cut.  I felt a little dejected and snubbed, but found something else to do.  Looking back, I am so, so glad that I didn't get accepted - here's why (and here, too).

Birth is expensive.  During my pediatric rotation, I spoke with a family who had just received their hospital bill for the birth of their second child.  They had insurance, and they were shocked at the price tag on her epidural, in particular (I think it was around $10,000).  They asked me why it wasn't covered and I told them probably because it's an elective procedure.  The mom looked at me like I was crazy and said, "Well, what was I going to do, have the kid in my living room?"  I smiled angelically and suggested she consider that with her next child before giving her the name of the Connecticut home birth midwives' group (who charge around $4,500 flat fee for all your prenatal, birth, and postnatal care).

I liked this piece about - as a woman - being your own story, not just the supporting character in somebody else's.

Grandmothers cooking - and some beautiful photographs of food and women and kitchens.

Lots of people I know are obsessed with Netflix's new show, Orange is the New Black.  Several of these friends then ask if I'm watching it, knowing that I went to Smith (the alma mater of the series' protagonist, Piper Kerman, who wrote the autobiography on which the show is based).  I am not, and here's a pretty good explanation of why.  [Full disclosure: I tried to read the book a few years ago, and the author rubbed me the wrong way.  Probably because my best friend in college volunteered in a prison, did a Fulbright looking at prison systems around the world, and is now getting her PhD in sociology at Berkeley focusing on this same topic.  Suffice to say, I was better educated in the idea of prison reform and our country's messed up system than would have allowed me to tolerate Kerman's self-congratulatory and blatantly racist memoir.]

Expecting a lot of new mothers is something the US is particularly good at.  What if we looked at how everyone else in the world did things?

Timing Is Everything

I love the word ambivalent.  I loved it long before I even really knew what it meant, which did nothing to curb my use of it.  Thank goodness for the movie, Girl, Interrupted or I probably never would have learned that I, like Susanna Kaysen, had been using it to mean the equivalent of "I don't care," when in fact, "ambivalence suggests strong feelings...in opposition."  Armed with my new knowledge, I used ambivalent when several other words would have sufficed: to describe the fact that I was indecisive, perhaps, or simply a tad bit lazy and prone to procrastination when it came to important decisions.  But no, I was torn, you see, I was ambivalent.  Eventually I learned some new words and thank goodness, or else my psyche might have bowed under the weight of so much hand-wringing.

In May, just a few months ago, I found myself in a situation that brought whole new depths of meaning to the word.  I thought I was pregnant.

Back in September or October, after several weeks of dating and a few weeks of knocking boots with this new boyfriend of mine, I got my act together and went on the pill.  I had taken the pill for years as a teenager to help curb my viciously painful periods and had never had the issues with it that I know so many women do (thank goodness).  I went off of it in college because I was dating women, and it took a few months of being on it again this time around for it to sink in with me that now I was taking it because every single time we had sex, I could potentially get pregnant.  This might seem incredibly obvious, but for me, this was kind of mind-blowing.  All of my previous sexual encounters with men had been so short-lived that whatever potential for worry there might have been was gone within a month.  So, despite being not only well-educated but pursuing a degree in women's health care, it took some effort on my part to get my shit together.  I set alarms on my phone, I carried my pills in my school bag, I did whatever I could think to retrain my brain into acknowledging that yes, this could happen to me.  And things were fine.  I was lucky - I don't have any bad reaction to the pill and thanks to Yale's health care coverage, my pills were free.  Does it sound too good to be true?

And then, one day in late May, as I started my run on the treadmill, a fleeting thought blipped through my mind, Why are my breasts a little sore?  Did I mistakenly grab the less supportive sports bra out of my drawer this morning?  My mind drifted to other things until later that night, when we were lying in bed together, he asked me, "Um, hon?  Why are your boobs bigger?"

My heart dropped to the floor and words failed me.  The darkness of the room pressed against my eyes and I managed a faint, "I- I don't know.  Are they really?  No, they're not."
"...I think if anyone would know, it's me."

One beat, two beats, three beats of silence while I thought I might burst into tears.

"I love you," he told me firmly, gathering me in a hug.  "But I am not ready for kids right now."
"I- I know," I stammered, realizing with a cold and heavy certainty that this was truer than true.  "Neither am I."  And as I said those words, my heart wrenched and I knew it was true, but I didn't want it to be true.

And thus began the longest week of my life, while I waited to get my period, knowing that the reassurance of a negative pregnancy test could be entirely false since I wasn't even late yet.  I cursed everything I knew about pregnancy, because it meant nothing I felt that week, nothing, went undetected and uninterpreted as a symptom.  My breasts were sore, I was moody, I was vaguely nauseas, I was freaking textbook pregnant, until a week went by and there on the toilet paper was the reassuring sweep of red.

That week gave me a new perspective on the word ambivalent, as I considered what would happen if I was pregnant.  You see, there was a part of me that simply thrilled to the idea that I might have a baby now.  A part of me that lay awake at night with my hand on my lower abdomen and thought about how he and I could make it work.  But it was fleeting, because the much bigger and more mature part of me thought about the kind of things like, what a terrible way to tie someone to me forever - by knotting us together with an unintended pregnancy.  And I thought about how, sure, maybe it's old-fashioned and prosaic of me but yes, I really do want the wedding and the marriage first and then the conscious decision to be made together, of yes, let's procreate.

In the dark of one of those sleepless nights, I landed on it: I want kids, and I want them with him, but not like this.  

Which is why when I get back to school at the end of the summer, I'm going to get an IUD.  The pill is just not a long-term solution for me.  It's too much stress every month, between the remembering and the worry.  I am wary of an IUD, I'm not going to lie.  But I have several friends who have them who I've spoken to at length, and I'm willing to give it a shot.  If I hate it, then I'll reassess.  But even though it makes me a little sad to be so decisive about saying, No, not now to having kids, I know it's the right thing to do.  I take deep breaths and tell myself, No, not now, but someday.  Someday, soon enough.

Wrapping It Up

I finished my first year of nursing school, my entire RN education today.  I turned in my last assignment for Community Health.  I closed my computer.  I burst into tears.  And then spent most of the rest of today crying.  For a lot of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with school, but I may or may not have sat up in my bed this afternoon, where I had been dozing with tears leaking out of my face for the better part of an hour, thrown my pillow to the floor and said out loud, "This is NOT how I pictured feeling at the end of this year."  Like I said, may or may not have happened.  I think I just need to sleep and speak to myself in a soft, soothing voice and keep everything at a low level of stimulation for a few days until my emotions and hormones recalibrate from "past the knife edge of crazy" into "mostly normal."

Next up: pass my boards.  Gulp.

We picked thirty pounds of sour cherries...

Pitting them was a lot of work.

Like, a lot.

The Long-Delayed Running Post

I'm just going to say it straight up and get it out of my system - I didn't train enough for my half marathon in April, and it showed, and this made me angry.  And sad, and kind of defeated and frustrated with myself in a way that was so ungodly familiar to the way I've been self-talking for most of the last 25 years that it made me even sadder, because there I was, thinking I was all grown and beyond that (Sometimes I am.  Other times, not so much.)

That is not a happy finishing face, in case you couldn't tell.

I trained consistently for longish distances, but not enough for long, long distances - as in, I did only one real run that was over 10 miles, and that one particular run involved a lot of detours and walk breaks and turning around and other time wasters that were not exactly helping me get better.  I trained quite a bit with runs of 5, 6, 7, even 8 miles.  So guess what - during the half, around about mile 8, it started to become very much not fun.  As in, my legs felt dead.  I had no more endurance, and my soul felt like it was wilting.  I still remember how it felt to walk most of the last two miles through beautiful rolling hills, thinking to myself, I can't do this.  I don't want to do this.  This is stupid.  Just stop now, just don't even finish because your time is so embarrassing that it would be better if you just quit.  I'm glad I didn't quit.  I'll be honest, the main reason I didn't is because the boy who I love very much had been the sweetest, most supportive and encouraging partner I could ever ask for that day, and I didn't want to disappoint him by not crossing the finish line.  So if telling myself, Do NOT make it a waste of his Saturday to have driven you out here at the crack of dawn and stand by the road with signs, and wait an unholy amount of time for you to finish, was what got me across the line, then so be it.

"I'm proud of you," says he.  "Running sucks," says I.

But there it is.  The other part of that day that sucked was experiencing the very steep learning curve of what/how/when to nourish myself for a race that long.  Suffice to say, I did not do a good job, and I spent the first hour after the race puking and refusing to eat anything while this same sweet boyfriend of mine (who at that point deserved my finishing medal instead of me) gently but insistently spooned oatmeal into my mouth and handed me an orange juice cup that kept having to be refilled after I would vomit up its contents.

Moments before vomiting commenced.

And after that day, I took a break.  A long break, as it were.  From working out at all, for a few weeks. And then for much longer, from running.  But last week the running bug bit again and I thought this all out with much care, consideration, and a good deal more knowledge and I feel prepared to tackle the next challenges.  I know that in order to run consistently, I need to train for races - this is fine by me, because it gets me out the door and it gives me a time frame to work within.  So part one of the new plan was to sign up for two races this fall.  Done.  Part two was that I wanted to teach myself that I could run fast.  I got very safe and secure feeling like I could never run faster than about a 10 minute mile and this just isn't true.  I know it's not true because in February, I ran a sub-30 minute 5k and loved it.  So while I might be terrified of training my body to be speedy, I know that having that kind of training under my belt will boost not only my fitness, but my confidence by leaps and bounds.  So part two - I'm doing a 5k on Labor Day and a 10k in October.  Part three - run another half, and train better.  That part still scares me, which is why we're saving it for next year.  I'd like to ideally run the same half I did this year, or one around the same time of year, and train better for it, and see the improvement.  That would make me so happy.  And if that is the last half marathon I ever run, then fine.  But I finally decided the other night that my short-lived running and racing career could absolutely not end with this past April's race.

Oh my gosh, this post is so long.  But one last thing - a friend sent this to me today, and it was so incredibly fitting, since today was my first run in a very long time (it sucked, truly).  The last page is my favorite, especially this line:

"I run very fast because I desperately want to stand very still.  I run to seek a void."

Yes.

So, running?  Let's give this another go.

The Fourth of July

The fourth is my favorite holiday.  This occurred to me only this year when, around Easter time, the boy told me Easter was his favorite holiday and asked me what mine was.  "Fourth of July," I said without missing a beat, wondering where this was coming from as the words flew out of my mouth.  "Because you get to eat hot dogs and there's no presents."  How true, I thought, as if I was listening to someone else.

I have friends here, now.  Real friends.  We played games on the fourth, did drunken headstands on the lawn while the dog grew progressively more hysterical.  We meant to go see fireworks but rather rolled around the hot grassy lawn, doused ourselves in bug spray, and drank sweaty sticky sweet drinks that have no name but consisted largely of sugar water and alcohol.  Throw in a lime wedge.  Play a guessing game that descends into a political discussion and tune out periodically to have passionate discussions about getting married and recovering from eating disorders (still, always, always recovering till the day we die) while our legs tangle in the grass and the dog licks our sweaty sticky sweet faces.

The night before, he took me to a baseball game (my first!).  There was promise of fireworks after the game, during which I practically squirmed with glee.  

"Is this the top of the fifth?" I would ask.  

"Bottom of the seventh."  

"Oh."  

"You'll get it."  

"Someday."

It rained through one whole inning but I pulled my raincoat hood over my damply curling hair and proudly pointed out things like line drives and pop flies to him while he smiled at my excitement and asked me if I was cold.  The fireworks started and my mouth fixed in an O of admiration and I caught him watching my face light up with the shower of sparks.

"The waterfall ones are my favorite," I told him.

"Mine too."

I fell asleep in the cool car on the way home, then fell again hard and exhausted into his bed until morning dawned hot and blazing through the shades, waking me up and I thought to myself, This is my favorite holiday in my favorite season with my favorite person in my very own perfectly imperfect chaotic and spectacular life.

And oh, what a blessed life it is.