Questions and Answers

In the watery light of 6:15 AM on Thursday, I hesitated before getting into my car.  I looked at the patch of dirt where I had planted some pea seeds a couple of weeks ago and saw the same nothing growing that I've seen every day since then.  In my scrubs, with my bag and my coffee and my ID badge and my supposedly grown-up grad school self, I started to cry.  My eyes filled and my chin quivered and I felt small and five years old again.  It felt like how every time you are disappointed as a child, it hits you and you go down.  Like falling from the monkey bars and the ground knocks the wind out of you so fast that you lay paralyzed on the dusty grass, waiting for your body to breathe again.

I've been twenty-five for a couple of months now.  I'm twenty-five, and sometimes I feel like my life is over.  Then, sometimes I feel like my life hasn't even begun and I look around in a bewildered panic, wondering how I got here and what the hell am I doing.  It's less about the difference between what I'm actually doing and what I thought I'd be doing, and more about the fact that I just really, really thought I'd have it all figured out by now.  Whatever "it" was, my five- and twelve- and eighteen-year-old self was positive that by now, I'd have the answers.  Apparently the Adult Answer Book fairy was laid off before February, because I never got my copy.

I can remember being twelve or fourteen and feeling like I was splitting in two, trying to figure out what and how and who to be.  I so very missed being little and wild and naked in barn boots chasing chickens and picking tomatoes.  I simultaneously wanted to be self-assured and athletic and capable and mature and I ached with the effort of my often futile attempts.  Adolescence, right?  Typical.  Except that I still feel that way.  All the time.  And I miss my family, and my old house, and my college friends, and some mythical moment way, way back in my life where I've convinced myself that either I had it all figured out or I didn't yet know how much I didn't know.

And then I feel like this for long enough and I want to shake myself like a rag doll and tell myself to build a bridge and get over it.  So I'm twenty-five.  And tomorrow I'm going to wake up and be fifty and I still won't have all the answers and by then the questions will have changed anyway.

But man, maybe I was onto something with chasing chickens naked in my barn boots.  Maybe that's the answer.

About that age.

Marathon Monday

I woke up early that day, because I had to take the T to work out in Newton when I usually drove.  Commonwealth Ave was closed for the marathon and it would have taken me twice as long to reroute my commute by car than it would to take public transportation to my suburban nanny job.  As I waited for the train in the cool underground at Central Square, I saw my first marathoner, in his bib and shoes and high-tech warmup jacket already unzipped, 80 degrees and rising on that sunny April day.  I giddily wished him luck and he acknowledged me with a brief nod, far too zoned in to care.

A couple hours later, with the mercury pushing 90 now, I arduously wrestled two five-month-olds into their double stroller, and set off.  Newton residents rally for the marathoners with ferocity, since their town heralds Heartbreak Hill, the Boston marathon's notorious soul-crushing ascent at mile 20 when the glycogen is gone and you want to die more than you ever have before.  By the time I had walked the mile and a half to where the runners were streaming by, I was drenched in sweat and so were my cranky charges.  I squinted through my cheap sunglasses as I wrangled the enormous stroller through the crowd until we could get some visibility (shade was long since gone).  And then I saw them.  I saw the runners, faces purple and eyes with a look of mingled desperation, fear, and wild determination, some of them dripping in sweat and some - terrifyingly - dry.  I heard people around me ringing cowbells and shouting, and my heart swelled and something in me rose fighting to the surface and spoke in a small, quiet voice, What if you could do that?

What if, indeed.

I periodically checked on the twins for the next thirty minutes we stayed, but my heart was in the street, with those who were limping by.  It looked horrible, it looked painful, it looked impossible, but something in me thought, hey what if.

I eventually dragged myself away from the sidelines and hefted the babies back home.  The day went on with lunch and naps and a long ride home on the packed green line.  Weeks and months followed, and I struggled with food and eating enough to survive and not eating enough to get sick and I moved to New Haven and finally, one day, I answered that little voice inside that asked What if.  And on that day, I went out for a run.

Yesterday, when I finally collapsed on the couch after clinical and glanced at a few of the images from yesterday's horror and H. updated me on the body count and all that had happened, I started to cry.  I remembered the sight of those people - nay, heroes - running last year and how it changed something in me and how much that meant to me.  I remembered Boston, and how even though I only lived there eight months, it became home to me and I grew territorial and protective over its quirks and charms.  And I thought of how hard last weekend was, at only half of that impossible distance and how much it hurt and how much I wanted to die but also - that I did it, and that I was proud, and that I would (probably) do it again.  I thought of all of that and then I thought of every person affected by the bombings and I thought, How can someone want to attack something so good and so pure as the greatest footrace in the world?

And I don't have an answer for that one.

But tonight, when I get home from school, I will walk down the street and pick up the dog.  I will put on my sneakers and I will go for a run.  And my foot still twinges from last week, and my hip flexors are achy and sore, but so what.  The miles keep going, and maybe, someday, enough of them will build up that I'll get a crazy idea and I'll run enough marathons to qualify for Boston and I'll go back to the city I love, and I will ask myself what the hell was I thinking as I cruise through Newton towards Heartbreak Hill.  Maybe.  And certainly, what if.

Musings

I find avocados to be strangely comforting.  They are delicious, yes.  Avocados are like bacon for vegetarians.  They're like the yoga pants of the food world - everyone likes them and they look good (and taste good) on every single solitary thing.  This is not why I find them comforting.

I find avocados comforting because every time I buy avocados at the grocery store, hard as a rock and so unpromising - my fingers twitch as I put their sorry selves into my cart - every single time, I doubt them.  It's true.  I doubt that they will ripen, that they will ripen well, and that in only a few short days I will be enjoying them on a black bean and sweet potato quesadilla.  And every single time, the avocados come through for me.  They are the epitome of predictability and relief.  They always ripen and they are always delicious.  A ripe avocado cannot NOT taste good.  I challenge you to think of another type of fresh produce that you can buy in a profound state of unripened-ness, leave on your counter unattended for however long it takes, and slice it open with confidence after only a gentle squeeze, and reveal perfectly delicious, untarnished perfection.  No fruit flies.  No second-guessing the right time to cut it open.  And certainly you should never be staring at a ripe avocado thinking, "Gosh, what am I going to do with this avocado?  I am fresh out of ideas!"  TRY HARDER.

There's your little fruit and vegetable PSA of the day, folks.

* * *

Briefly, in other news around these parts...

1.  I put the space heaters away in the basement today.  I will make winter be over by simply refusing for it to continue.

2.  I ran the half marathon last weekend.  Running is hard.  For now, 5k's are starting to sound super duper fun.  A post with pictures will follow, hopefully soon.

3.  We got a coffee table!  It's wood, and it's pretty, and it has cubby holes for the cats.

Enjoying the spring air.

So Many Good Things

Three months old, she has never left the hospital.  There is a hole in her heart and that is the least of her problems.  Her kidneys look like Swiss cheese and her esophagus has scarred from the surgery to close the hole that connected it to her trachea.  So they cut a tiny incision in her belly and snake a gastrostomy tube into her stomach and feed her from the outside.  She is three months old, she has just learned to smile but will only really do it for her mom, and when she cries, she makes no noise.  Her tracheostomy  is hooked up to oxygen twenty-four hours a day, it bypasses her larynx and so when she wails, all that comes out is a breathy wheeze and the insistent beep-beep-beep of her monitors that tick out her escalating heart rate - 148, 162, 210.  All she does is fight.  She doesn't know how to do anything else, and so I change her diapers and learn how to suction, and research her condition.

He is 85 years old, and his health is failing quickly.  He still speaks clearly and articulately, though he takes a breath every few words.  He has lived long and well and he tells me that his trusty body is giving out and that that's okay.  I sit by him and I'm supposed to be asking questions but all I can do is listen, rapt, while he tells me that this is the greatest country there is and that I should never forget that and that I should use my skills and be an achiever and a lone tear slides down his cheek as he tells me that his wife of sixty years, who died one year ago, was a magnificent woman, and a woman of great wisdom.  He tells me his children are the best thing that ever happened to him and he tells me that I should have a plan, but that I should always remember, there are so many good things.  I shake his son's hand when he comes to visit and I bring him more ice water and a new stack of paper cups.

I bounce my neighbor's baby on my hip tonight, in the seventy degree evening air.  We're chatting and laughing, there are four of us on the porch and there are families walking down the sidewalk and I have soup on the stove in my little yellow house across the street and the baby is drooling and so unremarkably healthy that I feel as if the world is splintering in my hands when he blows a bubble.  The horizon slides away and then springs back against my eyes as they fill with tears and I want to lay down in the street and sob because there are so many good things and even though things are so good they can still be so hard and what is hard for a baby who can't make noise or eat or breathe on her own?  And what is hard for a man who is dying with his mind fully intact?

I lay in my bed, the window is cracked and the spring air comes in and I soak my pillow with tears for them all, and still in my head I can hear him saying, There are so many good things.

Eight Months In

It's supposed to be great weather for your race on Sunday, he says.

Right?  Sixties, I think.  It's like thirty out right now, though.

He dumps leftover Thai food into two bowls and I take a sip from each of the two half-full water glasses, in an attempt to figure out which one is mine.  He makes a face at me, Yuck.  I dump out both cups and fill them fresh, rotate the bowls in the microwave and backwards hop my butt up onto the tiny counter while I dig another marshmallow out of the open bag in his cupboard.  He turns around in time to see me wrist-deep in the bag and I dutifully hand him one too.  

I miss summer, I say.  Can we make s'mores sometime?

Sure.  He grabs my bare feet in his warm hands and squeezes, my runner toes popping and cracking and I laugh as he says, Maybe in July these popsicles will thaw.

Yeah, dream on.

The couch is finally warm beneath our mishmashed forms, he tells me no, he doesn't want any blanket so I pile more of it over my bare legs and popsicle feet and we watch episode after episode of New Girl.  I tell him Zooey Deschanel is cute because I can be that girl that is fine if her boyfriend thinks other girls are cute, it doesn't mean he doesn't love me and if I say it first then it's okay if he says it, right, and he looks at me like I'm crazy and tells me he wouldn't know because she's not me, so why would he care and another tiny scar on my heart heals over, smooth and red and shiny and whole.

I heave myself up from the couch to follow him into the kitchen, empty dinner bowls in hand.  He tells me to keep out, he's busy, go sit back down and so I slide the dishes through the door and don't look, used to his surprises by now.  Five minutes later, he's back with a plate and a smile.  Look.  So you don't have to wait till summer.

Four ooey gooey s'mores, perfectly constructed.  For all I know, he toasted the marshmallows with a butane lighter but I don't care because I'm already taking a bite and he's giving me a chocolatey kiss and asks me, Good? and I say, So good and Thank you and I love you and we each eat two and I doze off listening to his heart, slow and steady and reassuring and whole.

Blood Lovin'

The last time I can remember donating blood was in high school.  This strikes me as distinctly embarrassing - here I am, in a health profession graduate program, all fired up about healthcare for all, doing the right thing, taking care of people, and shit, my dad has cancer - and I haven't donated blood in more than six years.  Go me.  And why is that?  Well, it used to take twenty to thirty minutes for my sludgy blood to drain into the bag, my arm would go numb, my hand would cramp from squeezing, and I would pass out afterwards nearly every single time.  I called myself an athlete because I played field hockey, but the fact that I sucked wind up and down the field, barely drank any water, ate a real meals fewer days than not, and filled my journals with fresh plans to lose twenty pounds about every two weeks probably had something to do with it.  I considered puberty to be some kind of cruel joke that I could just refuse to accept by skipping breakfast every day and sleeping five hours a night.  My body was (understandably) reluctant to give up a pint of anything.

Today, I got done with my first day back at school two hours sooner than I had planned (schedule confusion) and stopped by the blood drive before heading home.  The nurse took my pulse, counting carefully for a full minute, "Sixty."  I had just lugged my backpack and a bag of textbooks halfway across campus, I was a sweaty mess, and I could only laugh as I imagined my trusty ticker, thudding along at a steady sixty beats per minute, not even fazed by the exertion.  I answered the questions, filled out the forms, and laid down on the padded table, ready to settle in for the next half hour.  Another nurse stuck me swiftly and smoothly, taped the bag down and told me to squeeze the ball intermittently.  I started thinking about grocery shopping tonight, and our new fish we named Fleur, and something else I can't remember because all of a sudden my nurse was back, telling me, "Okay, stop squeezing.  You're all done."  I was incredulous.  "What?!  I'm done?  How long did that take?!"  She checked the timer next to my bag.  "Um...five and a half minutes.  Good job!"  And the busily unhooked me, told me sit up slowly, and sent me on my way.

My strong and steady heart.  Pumping out giant whooshes of healthy blood, a pint of which will hopefully go to someone who needs it.  Five and a half minutes is all it took, but I've had a smile on my face for the rest of the day.

The Sun's Return

"Mom.  I'm busy.  Obviously."

Even

After

All this time

The Sun never says

To the Earth,

"You owe me."

Look

What happens

With a love like that.

It lights the

Whole

Sky.

-Hafez

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

One day, last October, I went out for a run.  I had been going for short jaunts for a few weeks at that point and was feeling spry and fit and pumped up.  Look at me go! I remember thinking, as I bounced down our front steps in my newly purchased lightweight Saucony's.  I said I was going to start running, and start I did, and run I do, and here we go!  Gonna just go pound out four miles like it's no big deal because I'm a runner and that's what we DO.  A quarter of a mile later, I was in agony.  The autumn air was newly cold and it seared my throat and lungs like a branding iron.  My legs were leaden, and since I hadn't dressed warmly enough for the fall chill, they refused to warm up.  Filled with my own hubris, I had flown out the door during the peak of morning rush hour in New Haven and the streets were packed with minivans and SUVs of families in the midst of the school drop-off loop.  I cursed the multitude of witnesses to my struggle as I limped around a corner and knew that there was no way I was going to gasp and pant and lead-leg my way through four freaking miles.  I doggedly looped a few more blocks while curse words streamed through my mind and my fingers froze into red popsicles around my phone.  I checked the mileage as I stumbled through the front door, hoping for at least a three.  What I saw instead - 1.8 miles.  I was barely sweating, my lungs were heaving, and I was pissed.  I'll never be a real runner, I thought, as I stepped into the (largely unnecessary) shower.

* * *

I mapped out yesterday's run before I headed out.  I don't usually do this, since I track the mileage on my phone and I just go until I've hit my target for the day (training for a half marathon - at least, when you're a novice like me - is a lot easier with a prefabricated training plan that lays our all your runs for the four months leading up to the race).  But since my phone was low on battery and I figured ten miles would take the better part of two hours, I was fairly confident the battery would quit before I finished and I wanted to have a plan.  I put on my no longer new shoes, the right number of layers, my trusty ear warmer and slipped out the door.  With a lot less bravado than in October, I can assure you.  Well, here goes nothing, I thought as I fell into my long slow stride that always feels too easy until I hit mile seven and then I'm grateful that I didn't go pounding out the door at 5k pace.  

The first two miles were fine, a scenic trot up a barely trafficked road at the base of East Rock mountain that included all the elevation changes I had planned for the day.  (When I planned ten miles, I planned ten flat miles - let's not try to eat the whole elephant today, was my thought.)  Then, the route changed.  My rapidly concocted plan before skipping out the door had picked eight miles of roads that were packed with cars, semi-trucks, and a sidewalk that I could now see disappeared in about fifty feet.  Used car dealerships, boarded up houses, and vacant lots were whipping by on my left while horns blared on my right.  I glanced down in time to sidestep a used syringe and thought, Okay, change of plan.  East Rock loomed next to me and the entrance road was coming up on my right - blocked to cars from October to May.  Fine, I thought, a little vindictively.  Fine, we'll do it this way.  The din from traffic faded rapidly as I headed up the at-first gentle slope into the trees.  Pretty soon, all I could hear were the rustling dry leaves kicked up by squirrels and a few early spring bird calls from above.  Three miles to the top, East Rock is not particularly huge, but rather a long arduous climb that may be a leisurely hike but is certainly a challenging run.  Rounding the last curve at the summit, two sweaty guys passed me on their way about to head down.  "You're still running?!" one asked me, incredulously, and I flashed only a smile in response, too spent for words.  I sprinted the last fifty feet, paused the GPS tracking, and took two minutes to catch my breath at the top.  I looked down at New Haven spread below me, found my house, and smiled.  Two hawks circled lazily at eye level, watching the mountainside beneath them for a careless mouse.  The highway was a dull and faraway roar and I could see halfway across Long Island Sound.  My heartbeat had already slowed and I grinned as I noticed that I wasn't even breathing hard.  I did this, I thought to myself, and something proud and happy pinged inside me like a far off, tiny bell.  "I did this," I whispered to myself, looking down at the mountain I'd just run, the five miles I'd just covered, and looking forward to the next five ahead.

Fine, I thought to myself, with a lot less snark.  So okay, we ate the whole elephant today.  Not only are we running ten miles but we're climbing a mountain in there too.  So what?  Let's get it done.  And I trotted off for my second half.

* * *

Athletes are notorious for never being satisfied.  If we didn't medal, we wanted bronze.  If we got bronze, we should have gotten silver.  And everyone knows that silver only means "not quite good enough to win."  So it didn't surprise me that as I idled under the hot water yesterday, I was lamenting how long those ten miles took me, and chewing on my lip as I thought about running the half in just a few more weeks.  A real runner would be faster.  A real runner would be better.  I rinsed my face and inspected my ankles and feet for swelling.  Hold up.  Last October, you could barely get out the door.  And suddenly, ten miles was enough.  It was plenty.  Because that elephant was just a tasty snack and I'm not getting up from this metaphorical table anytime soon.

Dog Days

One of my clinical group friends needed a favor.  She was going to Florida for the first week of spring break, and didn't know what to do with her dog.  I'll take her, I said.  I'll be here in New Haven, and it's better than you spending an arm and a leg putting her in a kennel for a week.

Mary, aka Bear

I adored Rupert, in spite of the fact that Rupert was the neediest dog I had ever owned.  Love and excitement and an inflated sense of our own maturity spurred us to get a dog when I was fresh out of college.  I could barely afford rent, let alone Rupert's seemingly weekly trips to the emergency vet due to whatever he'd most recently ingested.  He needed five or six walks a day, daycare when that wasn't possible, he took six months to housetrain (and even then, he wasn't perfect), he ate at least ten pairs of shoes, destroyed countless bras, and left a very nice rug in decidedly questionable condition.  But I adored him.  I loved him and everything he represented, and to this day, I miss him.

Bear (as seen above), is far less needy.  She's housetrained.  She knows her name.  She requires only four walks a day.  But you guys, I'm so over it.  I've had her for two and a half days now and my nerves are raw.  "Bear, stop."  "Bear, NO!"  "Bear, leave. the. cats. alone!"  "Bear, get down."  "Bear, don't jump."  "BEAR!"  

Teaching a dog manners in the one week you are babysitting them is more confusing for the poor animal than it's worth.  So I do the best I can, shutting doors and protecting the cats, and taking her for long walks in an attempt to wear her out.  I remember putting so much effort into raising Rupert, and loving (almost) every second of it and this - well, this just feels like work.  I also remember feeling like I wanted to babysit for every single solitary child I met and this is no longer true either.  I still babysit around here, but never for kids older than two (because again, trying to teach manners in a three hour time window is more effort than it's worth) and inevitably I come home emotionally drained and disgruntled.  I'm sick of pretending at all of this, I'll think to myself as I drive home, reminding myself grimly that every hard-earned twenty dollar bill is what puts gas in my tank and food on our table.

I mother the boy's dog, and I love it.  Sprocket listens to me, and minds his manners.  I take him running, I pick up his poo, I look forward to snuggling his sweet self every time I go over there, and it makes me laugh when I climb the stairs to his door, hear Sprocket's tail start to thump, and the boy tells him, "Your mom's here!  Go get her!"  I trust I'll feel similarly enamored of my own children someday, in a way that won't even compare to the weariness I feel about babysitting and nannying now that I've been away from it for several months.

Is this what getting older feels like?  Is this me getting crotchety, or just growing into my priorities?  After all, I'm pursuing midwifery, not a lifetime of nannying or dog-watching.  I hope it's the latter and not the former, but regardless, next Tuesday morning cannot come soon enough (Sorry, Bear.).

In Like a Lamb

And then it snowed six inches last night and I lost all hope.  But no, I'm sure that spring is coming.  I have to have hope that it is because otherwise I will curl into a ball of melancholy and only poke my (freezing) nose out to breathe.

* * *

As of 5 PM this evening, when my last assignment was due, I am officially on spring break!  This means that my first year of nursing school is now two thirds of the way done.  When we resume at the end of the month, we'll be doing units in pediatric, maternal-newborn, and chronic disease nursing.  I met up with an old Smith/Boston friend tonight on her way through New Haven.  We got coffee and I excitedly listened to the updates from her end.  When she asked me how nursing school was going, I felt a little at a loss for what to say.  Everything that springs to mind sounds trite and meaningless.  I think I spat out some brilliant summation along the lines of, "It's challenging and overwhelming, but really wonderful, too," which basically says a whole lot of nothing in eight words.  The truth is, I just don't know.  Trying to talk about nursing school from right smack in the middle is like trying to describe what the ocean is when you're barely treading water and there are no boats to be found.  I still wonder if I'm on the right path sometimes.  I think quite frequently that I will never be any good at this. I say the wrong things to patients, I get angry and frustrated with doctors and clinicians but say nothing and then hate myself for standing by.  I forget information that seems absolutely essential, and I lie awake at night, loathing my own privilege and not knowing what to do about it.  Usually, I feel useless.  Often, I feel worse than useless.  Challenging, overwhelming, wonderful - I could fill pages with meaningless descriptions and not say a single true thing at all.