sarcasm – FibroM.E.-Awesome

A Little Older Now

Published on April 6, 2023April 13, 2023 by Mary Gelpi13 Comments

A little while ago I was haphazardly complaining that I couldn’t believe how old, number-wise, I was. I didn’t really feel older. I still feel like an idiot kid figuring it out litrally (said with accent) every day. My cousin Brenda piped in with something that should have been obvious. “We’re all getting older Mary. You’re not suddenly older than us!”

What a self-evident, seemingly obvious take on things. I had it somehow in my mind that only I was getting older, while everyone else stayed the same age. She was right, we were all looking the same, while somehow kids were growing and seasons continued to change and evidence of time past surrounded us wherever we looked. I guess that’s all to say, It’s been a while. I’ve missed you. How’s things?

I had no idea how to re-enter this little world I created so long ago and then took a sudden hiatus from for what, two years? Was I doing other important things? You could say that. (I wasn’t.) I was just living, plain and simple. The way people in picture frames and advertisements live. In some sacred moment— without a history of the last 10 years. No memory of being consumed by illness. Nothing lost. All I could ever need, I have. I’m just a smiling girl in a picture, no past—inhabiting ‘the eternal present’ as Tolle calls it. I erase it all.

The taking. Of friendships, relationships, autonomy and money and time. The leaking. Into every corner of my foolish little life. The waiting. In line at the pharmacy. In the first room at the doctor. The exam room at the doctor. On hold with the pharmacy. On hold with the insurance. On hold with the doctors office. And the loss, naturally. The loss of self to something I thought stronger than me. Of livelihood. Of growing into something impressive. Of opportunity. Of ways to make a mother proud.

There had to be a reconciliation with all of all that. And in truth, I might say that every day is exactly that. An eternal letting go, surrendering to what was and is real, all the while continuing to move forward. Embracing what is real and true by the ever changing second. Not to grieve the same things twice. In order for Life to overcome loss. To give what used to be taken. To have gratitude while I wait, because hey, at least I’m able to be here in the supermarket and wait on two feet. Not for long before it hurts, but I am somewhere. I am not a living couch.

This all points to my life now and how things have changed. When I look back at the move to Colorado, I see just how much of an insane shit show it was. We left with high hopes that Rocky Mountain air and crisp clear Colorado water could do nothing but help me. I’d have to feel better here, right? Wrong. It’s all too hilarious that I moved back into my childhood home, but moved into the basement. (It’s a finished walk-out OK!?) Every 36-year-olds dream. I did my best.

Looking back now from a stage of much higher functionality and a new, certain “availability” of health, I see how bad it was. My memory fills with images of me crawling up the stairs to the kitchen, on four legs like a monkey, because I was too weak to walk on two feet. Dizzily stumbling to the bathroom every morning, squinting in pain. Clothes all over the floor and Monty’s chew toys, because there was no energy in me available to do unnecessary things. Multiple Zooms with multiple doctors—zero real answers or treatments. A constant shortness of breath. A darkness under the eyes.

I rarely, ever left the house. People thought it was because of Covid. For me it was just life. For so many with chronic illness, quarantine was simply life as they already knew it. Covid was nothing but an interesting reminder that other people were also at home on a Tuesday afternoon. (Plus a whole lot more. We’ll get there.)

The truth is, I am very, very lucky. I write that with a strong knowing that it’s not even fair, what I’ve been given, because it’s what everyone should be given: a knowing, caring doctor. An MECFS specialist who treats exactly and only that. Proper healthcare. I can hardly convey how stark the contrast—visiting 6 different doctors in New Orleans to address eight different issues and dispense twenty medications, compared to one, bright, excessively knowledgable doctor, in charge of all my medicine, who knows so much more than me about this disease—which, it should be said, is how it should be. The patient shouldn’t have to wonder if the doctor has ever heard of her disease, let alone whether she says its name out loud. That is, if she even mentions it out loud at all. It’s always a gamble. Tell them or don’t tell them? Don’t. Unless they say it first.

Imagine. This will be a time in history, one day, when we look back and say “It was a gamble to even say out loud the name of your disease in the presence of a doctor. It meant they likely wouldn’t believe you. Which meant they couldn’t or wouldn’t help you. Which meant, well, here’s the number to a therapist, in the end. One day in the future, we will look back at this reality in awe. Shock. Shame.

With a lot of luck, but mostly hard work and some gambling on the part of my sister, she was able to arrange an appointment with Dr. Yellman, of the Bateman Horne Center in Salt Lake City. It’s only four hours from here, so even when I have to go, it’s a beautiful drive. I think most ME patients would be eager, health-willing, to drive for days to see this kind of doctor. Like I said, I’m lucky as hell that I got in, and I am far from the most deserving. I’m constantly grateful to have him on board and also a bit woefully heartbroken that so many sick people don’t have this access. To those I say, please hang in there. We will get there. There’s work to do. There’s so much work to do. But we can do it.

I should perhaps clarify that no, I am nowhere near perfect health. What changed is that my specialist is treating all kinds of things that a regular PC doc wouldn’t. Medicine like Cromolyn for Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, Pyrodistigmine for POTS, electrolytes and compression leggings for all parts dysautonomia. (That last bit is the easiest change you can make right now. I’ll post the leggings I use. That and at least one liquid IV a day.)

I still crash. Push and crash as though I haven’t learned this lesson a thousand times. But my crashes are less extreme, and a lot less long. This last month reminded me I am very very far from invincible, and it still doesn’t take so much for me to overdo it. I still need to be cautious with myself, but it’s difficult when I feel energy not to want to run outside and jump on the roof of my Toyota Camry and, I don’t know, sing Taylor Swift at the top of my lungs. Why? Because I can is all. That’s it really.

There is plenty more to say, about everything. We’ve got two years to account for! But mostly, I’m still me.

I hate to say it, don’t know how to say it, except to say it. I finally lost Monty, which I came close to thinking would never really happen. It was exactly a year ago next weekend. I’ve so much still to write about it, and him, and the whole thing. But the most I can say for now is that yes, it was very hard. But I realized that my fear of losing him was actually worse than the loss itself. When the time comes, you know. When you’re close with another soul like that, you know. Monty chose when and where, and I was simply there to pet his velvet ears and take in his smell one last time. OK, so I’m crying now. That happens sometimes and it’s OK. I think how wasteful all that fear of losing him was, when he was panting directly in my face!

Dogs are incredible teachers. Monty was next-level, and what he gave to me, in nearly every category of life, was precious. I really cannot believe how lucky I was to have such a dog as my own. It was a gift and a privilege to have him. I will never forget it.

It’s been a crazy two years. But I’m still here. Still Surviving. And Monty? Well, he’ll live forever ;)

Health, Happiness, Hellos & Goodbyes

Adjusting the Perspective on Pain

Published on February 7, 2016March 20, 2016 by Mary Gelpi10 Comments

What is it about Winter?

Post-Holiday Winter, I should specify. It’s wearing on me. Draining and uneventful, this window of time moves so slowly it all starts to feel static. The date keeps changing but there’s nothing I can point to as proof of time passing. When I think back on it, this “leftover winter” has gotten me down in the past, too. It reminds me of the day after a night of drinking in college–hungover days where things on the outside are idle but there’s some invisible pressure that I ought to be doing something, anything, other than what I’m doing right now. But what that thing is I can never name. It may not even exist. I hold the colorless weather outside at least partially accountable. Winter is haphazard in New Orleans. Nothing sticks long enough to adapt a routine or wardrobe to. It goes from freezing and wet one day to weirdly humid and warm the next, but something about the sky, the whole atmosphere out there–it’s this oatmeal-hued environment that either mimics my insides or my insides start to mimic, and for whatever reason the affect is restless and un-motivating. It feels like weather that’s waiting on something and the ansi-ness rubs off on me. Then I find myself in this counterintuitive disposition of mostly-optimistic anticipation that something of note is going to happen in my life, mixed with that physically paralyzing effect that comes with a heart-ache depression. It’s like I’m sitting in a car all packed and ready to embark on some adventure with road-trip snacks (Gardettos) and a map, but there isn’t any gas in the car. So I just sit in the driveway, snacking on Gardettos.

One of the more confusing results of all this is that I can’t tell what direction I’m moving in. I realize that life and time pass in one way only, but somehow I don’t feel like I’m moving forward. Things are feeling stagnant mostly. And on really tough days they feel backward, a distorted Ground Hogs Day reality where I’m living one day over and over but I’m doing it worse than the day before. I notice during times like these, Oatmeal Winter and Illness at the Helm, one day can easily feel exactly like the one before it, and when I think too long on it, I can’t totally distinguish between the two. Or three or four. Of course it’s pretty easy for me to point my finger at the weather while this other important truth remains that I’m really sick right now–that I’ve been really sick since that crash the day after Thanksgiving and I haven’t really been able to recover. I guess sunny or not, this will get anyone down, even the most seasoned of sick people.

Being sick for months at a time poses an interesting creative challenge. Since you can’t often achieve a change in scenery, which is a widely agreed-upon method to upping ones mood, you have to find ways to see yourself and the world around you in different ways and with new eyes. This is really hard to do. Especially since there’s been such a distinct and relentless sameness to everything given the weather and my health and yada yada. It probably explains why I chopped eight inches off my hair, which helped, actually. But consciously I realize that becoming bored by your surroundings and state of being stems from a lack of proper perspective, and not a failure on the part of the universe to remain exciting. Everything around us is constantly changing, if even at a rate that is undetectable by our human eyes, and every day we wake up and live through is completely unique, never once experienced until now and impossible to ever be duplicated again. When I think about the fact that you never get to live the same day twice, it’s actually a comforting thought. Usually when I feel that I’m in some time warp with my struggles or misery or boredom on repeat, it’s because my vision has narrowed far too much and I’ve lost the horizon from my line of sight. Marc Nepo says “It’s the giving over to smallness that opens us to misery,” and I think that applies here. He says later “Misery is a moment of suffering allowed to become everything.” What a truth bomb. I think I read that line five more times after I underlined it twice. I know that when my focus zooms in purely on what is hard, the scope of my experience is cut in half, at least. This is why gratitude as I’ve come to understand and cultivate it is so immensely powerful. It wisely keeps and protects the good things in your life within your consciousness, within your line of sight. And it’s so incredibly true that the times when I am most unhappy, I’ve become lazy about remembering what I have, which is a lot. It’s not to say you can’t be conscious about the hard things or honest that they’re challenging or depressing. If you don’t express acknowledge these truths, the gratitude doesn’t have a chance to be authentic either. You have to be honest about both. But that’s the key, acknowledging one without forgetting the other. Grasping them both helps keep a broader and more accurate picture of your life within view.

Maybe this is a bit of what Nepo means when he talks about being a Spiritual Warrior–which sounds fancy but is definitively humble.

“All Spiritual Warriors have a broken heart–alas must have a broken heart–because it is only through the break that the wonder and mysteries of life can enter us. What does it mean to be a spiritual warrior? It is far from being a soldier, but more the sincerity with which a soul faces itself in a daily way. It is this courage to be authentic that keeps us strong enough to withstand the heartbreak through which enlightenment can occur.”

This was both comforting and angering to me. Angering because I think, why can’t the enlightenment come through cracks that aren’t caused by heartbreak and struggle? But this is a larger philosophical point. I think a more evolved species will be capable of this in the future–achieving higher consciousness and peace and gratitude without having to endure loss or pain or heartache to see it. But at this point within human evolution, our condition is still adapting. We haven’t caught on to the larger things yet as a whole. Think how bad we’re still blowing it. As removed as I feel from some of the real evils of the world and humanity, I don’t have to look very hard or long to see humankind missing the mark, in big and small ways, all around me, and that includes me and the seemingly petty ways I do this in my own life. Just because I can point my finger at ISIS and project all the evil onto them doesn’t make me superiorly more virtuous. What we see around the world are manifestations of evil that exist, if even dormant, within all of us. But I’ve wandered off-road again.

What’s comforting in Nepo’s words is knowing that our work ultimately is to become who we are at our center. And it’s funny how simple this task appears but how insanely hard and rare real authenticity is–being honest about our weaknesses, our beliefs, our limits, our expectations…It’s not as easy as I’d hope. And yet any time I face a truth about myself that for a long time I either hid or denied, I always feel stronger after having confronted it or shared it with someone I love. Even admitting the extent to which I was/am sick and the limits it places on my life is a challenge, even though totally obvious to an outsider. And I think this is why authenticity is such an important ingredient he includes in being a warrior–I don’t think it means knowing exactly who you are at all times, if anything this search feels like long–maybe it’s more the reverse: slowing peeling away who we aren’t until we become condensed, perfect little vessels of our true self. I think he’s also alluding to the idea that you can’t be conscious and inauthentic at the same time, and since ultimately we’re seeking whole consciousness, it requires in small ways along the path to acknowledge and cultivate the true self, while diminishing the layers that are not real.

The reason it angers me is because this formula is what I confront when reading all the spiritual masters and mystics and artists for thousands of years, and so it’s a clear truth that has persisted through the centuries–that it’s through hardship and pain that human beings seem to achieve deeper consciousness. Or at least, it is through this pain or suffering that we have the opportunity to grow and evolve consciously. It’s very easy to use pain as a reason to stop trying, and I’ve certainly done that a good number of times. But the most amazing people, those who seem to get it, those who appear to be made of peace on the inside and who exude joy outwardly and live their lives with creativity and virtue and light-heartedness, are not people who were given easy lives and thus are happy. They have all endured exceptional pain in their own ways, and have all found a way to use their most challenging of experiences to propel them forward, up, larger than their circumstances. The pain is still real inside of them, accessible and observable even to those on the outside–its not that they eradicated it, but somehow turned it into the material that would make their life good, whole. (See an amazing example of that here) They didn’t eliminate it, but they also didn’t use so much of it that their life was made up purely of struggle. This is another exploitation that’s easy to pursue with ones pain– using it as a platform for identity. The point, obviously, is not to become the pain, if we’re trying to transcend it. Wallowing in our own web of misery is an easy way to garner an audience but also to never evolve. To avoid consciousness. What I was trying to say when I began this thought of why this truth angered me, is that I wish human consciousness could evolve in easier ways than through pain. Of course, there are many other teachers that develop our soul and psyche, love namely, that aren’t as challenging as say something like, an invisible disease that pulls the rug out from under you. Everyday. :) But the truth is, the things which have taught me the most, shown me the gamut of human emotion and contributed to further compassion, kindness, capacity to love and ultimately consciousness on my end, have been these very deeply painful and trying experiences. And so I know that it’s true. And I know it’s vitally important what you choose to do with your pain or heartache, because not working to put it toward growth, gives it the power to swallow you up whole. It takes away from you, gives you a reason to be bad, to stop trying, to give up on the world. And that’s the truth– I say it because I’ve felt these things in the past in reaction to the tough experiences in my life, not always directly after they happened either. I still struggle with it. And it haunts me how easy it is to let those experiences take the wheel and drive me to unhappy places. Luckily we’re not powerless to pain. We have choices to make.

In a different way, using the pain to define your self, or wallowing around in it but never moving on from it is another struggle that I have to stay keenly aware of. I have a whole blog that is named after a damn disease that I am also trying hard to not let define me. It’s a huge part of my life and my story, but I have to keep it from growing so large that it takes up my whole view. I don’t want illness to be my only avenue for expression or creativity, and I definitely don’t want the art and work that I do pursue in the name of it to be all sad or negative or heartbreaking. Of course this isn’t always easy to do either, because writing about your health good, bad, or ugly, is naturally going to include parts that are bad and/or ugly. There is a lot of that in a life with illness. And my point when I began this project so long ago was to accurately portray what life with chronic illness actually looked like, since I’d confronted so many misunderstandings and false beliefs about it from people in my own life. Obviously some writing stems from hard days and dark feelings, and if you’re going to tell the truth, tell the truth. The point was to have a space where I could be honest and not polite for the sake of peoples small-talk comfort. BUT, the point I have to keep in mind is that illness is just one part of my life, and while it can feel like it defines so much of what I do, it is still just a part, but requires me to keep it right-sized. It’s only when my perspective zeros in on it do I lose the whole horizon, which are the amazing people in my life that I love so much and who love me back, the incredible house I live in, how happy my dog makes me every time I look at him, how lucky I am that I was given the gift of writing and this is one thing the illness hasn’t taken from at all. In fact, it’s what gave me a voice on this very medium. Hey look at that, the clouds are parting.

Winters are tough. They seem to be that way for a lot of people, North or South, sick or well. It’s easy to look around and see the same thing everywhere you look, because details are small and we’re usually too busy or too certain to stop and look twice or three times at things before we see the wonder in them. I know that during times like these, my life becomes very small because when you’re sick and weak like this, you’re constantly breaking everything down into smaller pieces so you can digest and complete them. You know how during hard times people will say “Just one day at a time”? Well during days like this, it’s really more down to a moment by moment basis. Mostly because each tiny little movement requires so much more from you than normal. It astonishes me how hard the simplest of tasks become when your body feels like it’s made of lead glued together with honey. It’s not just Wake up and make the coffee! It’s OK, sit up in bed. Ready? 1, 2, 3, sit up. Why didn’t you sit up? Try again 1, 2, 3. Come on, you can do it, just a little more, OK! You did it! We’re sitting up. Now, turn to the side to put your feet on the floor and stand up slowly. Feet on the floor, ready? Here we go. OK, feet are on the floor. Time to stand up. Heeeeere we go, and we’re dizzy we’re sitting back down again. OK, catch your breath. Breathe slowly. Calm down heart, all we’re doing is standing here. OK, try again on 3, rise slowly this time. Ready? 1, 2, 3 and we’re going to stand up. 1, 2, 3, we’re standing! Now, 12 steps to the kitchen, you got this, 1…2…3…

The kitchen is super close to the living room and my couch, and so sometimes I have to make a stop-off there first, which is perfectly portrayed in this cartoon by another blogger with CFS.

Anyway, notice the minuteness of each of those moves? I’m not exaggerating. This is simply what Bone Crushing Weakness does. Tasks this small shouldn’t require being talked through like you’re in a danged boxing match. But what can I say, it must be evolving some part of me so I can be the best of the best Spiritual Warriors ! Or just a normal 31 year old who gets out of bed. Either way. I think it’s this breaking down of things so they are doable is also what makes life feel so un-doable sometimes, because it all feels too big, too much, too long. Like I’ll never be able to get on top of things. But I know it’s because my vision is off and I have to be proactive about seeing my life and even these sometimes painstakingly long days against the larger backdrop of the world, of eternity, of the whole web of human existence. I find relief in seeing my life as a small spec within the largeness of our universe. I didn’t always feel that way, but now I know it means that enduring challenges come to an end. It means I am just one of many kajillion working parts and lives. It means that while not everything is up to me, the essential parts are, and I’m here because I’m capable of achieving them. I have to remember that as much as I can convince myself and be successful about it, I am not alone. That thought isn’t real. And my life is not impossible. And all of this, including colorless winter skies and lacking motivation and bone crushing weakness, will end. And I’ll look back on it one day, as the pain that moved me forward and opened the door for great things to happen, not as a shit show that ruined what could have been a good life.

Health, Happiness, Perspective

P.S. If you want to see one incredible example of taking tragedy and hardship and turning it into Greatness, watch Mayou Angelou share her life story on Master Class. It’s one of the most inspiring things I’ve seen, ever. http://cms.springboardplatform.com/previews/3405/video/937187/sfta001/

Under Water.

Published on August 31, 2015August 31, 2015 by Mary Gelpi16 Comments

I need to spend more time under water.

Last Monday I returned from a trip to Miami where we celebrated a few things, including my birthday. Thirty one- the best yet! Maybe it was a birthday present from my central nervous system, but my body held up pretty well for me during my stay there. I’m also a little better at saying no to certain things when I know I’m close to crossing the invisible line. My threshold or whatever. Anyway I was able to partake in some awesome things that I dont’t always have the health for. I told my brother I wanted to snorkel for my birthday and he assured me this was not a problem. At the beach I submerged myself in the ocean and was immediately comforted by it. Water in general has always felt healing to me, but a warm ocean in the summer is at the top of the list. We could have spent all day out there. All day and all night if my body permitted it. There is something truly holy beneath the surface. I like the muffled silence and spotting darting fish and pretty much anything that moves. We saw so many different types of fish, and every time we’d spot a school or something I didn’t recognize, I’d make my brother Nick come to the surface and tell me what kind it was. I’d repeat it out loud, then we’d go back under. I’m really terrible at remembering the names but I’m trying to learn. I’ve already forgotten so many, but I can say with certainty we saw a crap ton of huge, colorful parrot fish, some barracuda, and a bunch of Nemos and Doris. (Technical names) It was Heaven. My three-year-old niece Olive requested that we find her a starfish and we both searched diligently and came up short. But my brother did find a baby sea turtle, and that was pretty righteous.

Isn’t he so cute? Anyway we came back to shore and had lunch, but most of the time I just kept thinking about getting back into that water. It’s almost Church-like swimming around down there. Somehow in spite of the beaming life everywhere you look, theres a stillness to it. Everything slows down and feels at ease–within me, anyway. I’d like to spend more time in the ocean, specifically underwater. I do well there. I think that’s my goal for this year.

Inevitably all that activity ended me up in a week-long hibernation for the last six days. It’s pretty normal to crash after I travel anyway. And eventually all the extra “curriculars” would catch up to me physically. But I was grateful to hold up for as long as I did. It’s funny, you’re always calculating with this illness. Saying yes to one activity usually means you’ll have to say no to some other one tomorrow or the next day. You’re always “borrowing” energy: allocating it as if it were a monetary budget. Going over, or spending too much, means you’ll pay. So you’re always considering cost and reward and whether the consequence will be worth it or not. You don’t always get it right, but you get better as time goes on. In the case of swimming and snorkeling and fishing that day, totally worth it! Still, I think there is a better way to navigate this illness than living the “push-crash” lifestyle. Doing what you want for a certain amount of time, and then spending at least double that amount of time in bed in the future. Most CFS’ers live this way, not because it’s the best or right way, but because it’s A way to at least do some things and not live your life in bed. Anyway, I hope to discover a more sustainable way to go about this, but it works for now. Kinda sorta. You get me.

On another note, I keep doing this thing that I’m trying to stop. I write and write and write and then I edit and edit and edit and then the essay goes in new directions and I want to keep everything a decent length so I start over and consequently end up with 6 different half-written, diligently edited posts, none ending up on the blog. It’s a pretty stupid system and I’m going to try and stop doing things that way. Sometimes my idea about how I want things to look or turn out hinders my goal which is not just to write well, but to write consistently and allow part of what’s happening in #marys sick life to inform my stories–even if what’s happening is boring or sad or awesome or mediocre. It’s a continual lesson in letting go that I’m still trying to grasp– write things out and then let them go. Although it’s easy to mistake for editing, I think I often look through my own words trying to take on the role of reader instead of writer, and I develop this anxiety that I’m not getting through accurately or perfectly representing myself, so I hold off on publishing. But I know this is silly because all I can do is be who I am and write what I know, and if I’m judicious about that then I don’t need to worry about the rest. The truth is I am the writer after all and some of writing is trusting the reader. Showing and not telling, yada yada yada. I think my incessant “reading over” and modifying is just another way to prevent me from putting myself and my words out there on a medium where they’ll live on their own and be subject to scrutiny. Could I really be afraid of criticism after all this time writing on a blog? Probably, which is entirely embarrassing. Because who cares! But pride and vanity are some powerful little devils, and the only way to move past them is to write on despite the superficial concerns.

I’m going to try harder to work and contribute to this space and not become too serious about the whole shebang. Especially to the point where it stifles things. It’s pretty silly getting so analytical about it, because it’s really just not that important. I care deeply about it, but when I zoom out and consider everything, this is just a ledger of one persons life. And pretty unexciting life, at that. I think my concern lies in whether or not I’m contributing meaningful things that will move me and others forward or if I’m just whining on a stick. I am hoping by the end, what and whenever that is, this will all will reveal something larger and more dimensional than a woman child’s diary about sick days and her dog. But even if it is that. Who cares? I only need to focus on what’s in front of me and stop pausing to consider a future I don’t have control of. The one thing I don’t want to do is restrain myself or my words or the creative endeavors I want to pursue all because I’m worrying what it will all “look like” in the end. Concerns like those are what kills momentum, and good ideas, before they even get a chance to materialize. My truer goal should be simply to write and to allow the words to do what they’ve always done–help me to see things that my thinking mind can’t.

So, hopefully you’ll be hearing a lot more from me and I from you. I am feeling happy to be one year older, to know myself even better having lived on earth for three hundred and sixty-five more days as ME, Mary Gelpi. I’m becoming pretty good friends with myself and we’re getting along well. We’re practically finishing each others SENTENCES. Thank you Nick for exploring the ocean with me, and tugging me back to shore when I was too tired to swim back myself. What else are big brothers for?

Health, Happiness, Thirty One.

Living Masters

Published on December 11, 2014December 11, 2014 by Mary Gelpi17 Comments

Finally, yesterday, the teeniest tiniest flicker of relief. I felt it. Though incrementally small, it was the spark suggestive of an end, or at least of an improvement. It’s been a very sick few days. But yesterdays glimmer of improvement brought me to the surface where I could breath again. It wasn’t major, but it was enough. Today, another slight improvement. I actually left the house and went to the pharmacy. That’s what we call progress people.

I don’t know what exactly caused this crash. The travel, new Miami germs my body couldn’t handle, the woman with the wet cough on the plane? Who knows. It doesn’t really matter I guess. I could feel something in the works throughout the trip. I felt rough most of the time, but, I still enjoyed my stay. Miami is nice and my family rocks. My brother Nick is another mentor of mine and always encourages my creative endeavors. He’s someone who materializes ideas instead of just writing them in a notebook, which is what I do. I envy his work ethic and it was nice to be around artists at work. I worked through some writing problems and we’ve begun a side project which I think will be great. It was nice. Look, I even caught a fish.

40 pounder — Unfortunately I think my brother later used this fish as bait.

Huge right? Of course I sort of declined at the end of that day and into the last few days, until I returned home Thursday. By that night I crawled into bed and as I pulled up the covers, the invisible monster went to work. I could feel it creeping over me, up through my limbs and under my fingernails. When I woke Friday morning it had swallowed me whole. I was submerged. The next three days were spent in bed in a dream state with intermittent stints of wakefulness. I’d awake for brief periods, feed Monty, feed myself, then dissolve into dream world again. Unfortunately I could feel the pain on both sides. In my dreams I’m looking for pills and can’t find them. Or I can’t get their lid open. That happens in real life too.

It can be disorienting when you spend more of your time in dreams than awake. Every time I awoke I had to readjust to the surroundings, remind myself where I was. Everything was hazy and I felt weak and sedated. My body was out of juice; every move I made felt enormous and taxing. It’s a strange condition to be in, but that’s how it goes in a crash. All you can do is rest and wait for your body to come back. Luckily, Monty barely left my side the whole time. Each time my eyes blinked open, I’d spot him sleeping in some ridiculous position. As soon as I stir he’s on all fours, ready to go. I hate not being able to play with him more, but he sticks by. Sleeps when I sleep, eats when I eat. His loyalty astounds me, especially when I’m sick. On Saturday night I had a nightmare that I couldn’t wake out of. When I finally came to, Monty was on his feet, panting next to the bed. I could tell he’d done something, made some noise maybe that woke me up, though I don’t know what. He is my hero. For reals.

By Sunday I was overwhelmed. Everything hurt, every movement was laborious, and any sound above a medium hum felt like a knife through my ear. Just taking a deep breath was hard. Tears poured down my face and I couldn’t say why exactly, except that my thoughts were racing and I felt like I was sinking. My emotions often get erratic during a crash for some reason. I think parts of my brain get overwhelmed. It felt like synapses were firing at rapid rates but were incomplete. Thoughts would come fast but unfinished. I could barely talk straight. I didn’t know what I needed, but I needed help. Enter my mom.

Through the tears I tell her I think I need to eat. OK, she says, and just her voice begins to calm everything down. One thing at a time, she says. Start with the apple. I try to let go and redirect my focus on what’s in front of me: an apple on a plate with almond butter. All I have to do is eat it. I can do that. Cool. The tears come and go. I tell her I’m afraid and my health feels out of control. She listens and validates my discouragement, but doesn’t let me wallow too long into despair. Ever so gently she leads me out of the dark of my own mind and encourages me to keep going. I find myself clinging to those words, scribbling them on paper and my dry erase board. So I try, even though my insides are yelling Stop. Press restart. We’ve got a faulty body here. I sleep at their house on the couch because I’m too exhausted to walk back to mine. I’m thirty years old and my mom ‘tucked me in.’ It’s official: I’m growing up in reverse. Monty sleeps on the love seat next to me. The next day is still sick, but somehow better. I don’t feel buried by it now. My mom has worked her magic again.

The illness continues to teach me humility and gratitude. To find grace through the crappiest of times. It’s still difficult to admit when I need help, but I do. And I’m lucky to have people who provide it. My step-dad bought me groceries, and threw the stick for Monty when I wasn’t able to. I get emails from people who are sick with this and other chronic illnesses but their families don’t believe them or don’t understand, and they’re left to fight it on their own. Reading it is heartbreaking. I don’t know how anyone could survive this illness alone. Some of them say the blog has helped their families understand what they’re going through, and I always told myself if this even helped one person, it was worth the work. I hope I can do more. I wish I could make them know they’re not alone, or crazy, or inferior; all things you feel when you’re sick this way. I know we’re strangers, but we’re human beings and sharing something similar, so if you’re reading this, you’re not alone brother! But sometimes it feels that way and life gets heavy. I get it.

I am trying to be careful about my writing. I always hesitate when sharing an account like this because I don’t want to get stuck in a narrative of how hard life is without going further. Life is hard, but people don’t need that reminder. Life is harder when you stop at the pain. I try to look at the pain as the beginning of something better, not an end. Because life is also amazing, even in times of turmoil, but you have to dig deep, past the muck. It’s so basic, so cliché, but I have to examine both sides or I’ll turn into a blogging version of that Kathy cartoon. Oh God, the horror. It’s a fragile dichotomy, writing this blog. Half of me is sharing what feels like death, but the other half is screaming I’m OK! Everything is fine! Because I am OK. I’m here in my favorite V-neck shirt writing at my desk. But the schism is there and I have to be conscious of both sides. Writing isn’t a way out of it, it’s just a better way through it, if I do it right. I write better when I get creative with my circumstances, until I eventually outgrow them. Otherwise the conditions take over and despair takes the wheel. And that’s a lot of what this whole project is about; becoming more than a person to whom things happen. The poet/writer Paulo Coelho wrote this in The Alchemist,

“We warriors of light must be prepared to have patience in difficult times and to know the Universe is conspiring in our favor, even though we may not understand how.”

I love this idea and believe it wholly. A lot of things are at work that we don’t always have access to. It’s just easy to forget when shit hits the fan. Well here’s our reminder.

In other news, it finally happened: I dropped my phone in the pool. Idiot! I watched it fall in slow motion, with that split second of heat on your neck where you think you can reverse time and take it back, but you blink and there it is; Submerged. It’s now drying out in a ziplock bag with rice, so I’m off the grid! I’ll try to use the 48 hours wisely. I’ll keep resting and reading and writing. And hopefully by Christmas I’ll be better and I’ll have found the answer to life. Seems doable.

Anyway, this post is for my mom, who dug me out of the depths once again. She is my mentor and not only guides me out of the darkness but nudges me to be better, to grow stronger from struggle and not be defeated by it. It’s true, if I weren’t sick we wouldn’t be living so close, and I would’ve missed out on a lot of important wisdom that I’ll keep forever. All for free! Thank you for carrying me when I need it but also challenging me to become more than what’s happened. You’re a master and it’s made all the difference.

Health, Happiness, Masters

Jumping Off.

Published on May 4, 2014May 5, 2014 by Mary Gelpi3 Comments

I’m never up at this hour. But at roughly 6:40 am as I drove across Lake Ponchartrain, one of only a few lonely cars on the 24 mile bridge, it struck me just how sacred the early mornings are. Of course over water, there are no distinct markers of distance traveled besides mile markers on land, but somehow over uninterrupted waves there were these distinct and momentary glimpses into the context of my life where all the working pieces fit together. The sense, however fleeting, had me second guessing my entire history as a bona-fide night person. Maybe there’s something to these early morning hours where people are drifting into the routine of their day or into the hangover of their night, and in the middle is me, not exactly doing either, but finding my place still–stumbling on a whole in lieu of constant and incompatible parts.

Yesterday I attended JazzFest and I remember walking around in no known direction, attempting to find a group of my friends, which is almost a miracle if achieved in such a clusterfuck of a public arena, and this thought kept trying to get a hold of me. “What am I doing? I have no business being here.” Over and over that thought, with every wrong turn and mistaken identity. What a sad thought! I couldn’t pinpoint the origin of it, but it probably had roots in my mostly confined and solitary past over a few years. And now sticking my head out, landing clumsily in the middle of the public world that not only didn’t stop while I was “out sick”, it also didn’t slow down at all either. And that continued, irreverent, incessant flow of time in one direction only all of the sudden felt very real and a little unnerving too. But I walked on. It’d be a lie to say I felt any confidence at all then, taking in every type of person of every age and origin.And even though none of them looked truly happy to me, none of them had a life that I felt cheated by not having, I was still odd man out. I started to wonder if I had real friends at all that I’d find. Maybe I had imagined them up in a fantasy of my mind, and I’d walk tirelessly never bumping into them because there was no them to bump into. But I walked on. I pretended some of those thoughts didn’t exist. Maybe more, I just didn’t take them very seriously. I’d feel the sun burning my shoulders and I’d affirm that more likely than not I’d find my friends, I’d engage in young adult behavior, and feel a little better about my place in reality.

After 45 minutes of circles and flags and strangers, I watched a really drunk boy hoisted up by his friends, being dragged with his lifeless converse trailing under him leaving shallow lines in the dirt, the unfamiliar sights were piling up, and even I started to feel like a stranger there. But then– something familiar. Emily’s ponytail. Someone. People. Friends. They existed, and I was not yet proven insane. In that moment those thoughts I had didn’t carry any weight at all. Whether I found my friends or not had nothing to do with belonging in all honesty. Separateness is just a construct of ego and I know that, but it can stab you anyway. I knew that afternoon I could’ve really used some friends. And there they were and there I was. I belonged. I knew those thoughts were shit. Time to keep on living. Time to have fun now. Time to participate in the onward direction of time, and attach to some other thought that experience will most likely prove wrong.

Maybe I should’ve mentioned it earlier, but I’ve never really been a live music person. Which makes me feel incredibly lame mostly. Just like I’m also not really into The Lord of the Rings. True “outsider” feelings emerge in me when this is brought up in public, and I feel like there’s some joke I’m just not getting. What is there to say about it? To each his own. Anyway, at every live music event I’ve attended, I find myself gazing off lost in observational mode of the people enjoying the music, instead of intrinsically enjoying the music myself. I can’t help it. There’s always some woman on the borderline of being “too old to be there” on some drug that’s a little too young for her to be doing, and I can’t help but watch her, dance carelessly, body parts hanging out, not giving a shit about what etiquette she’s breaking. Then I at once sympathize for her but also want to be her, because she is losing herself in something enjoyable, and she’s alone, and I’m the creeper at the concert not dancing but staring wide-eyed and blinking very slowly. I dated one of those music junkie type of guys for two years. He had an impressive collection of bands that you never heard of on his ipod and was always discovering music years before it became popular. (I on the other hand got my music from Apple Product commercials) He flew all over the country to catch his favorite bands at different venues. Sometimes with friends and sometimes alone and it was this small gap between us because this passion he fell off his seat for was somewhere that I just didn’t fit. And this schism in us always interested me, because at concerts we’d share a joint and then even more I’d separate from the setting and lose myself in the detach-and-detect humanity mode. He was good about keeping me down to earth and assuring me that dancing like an idiot was fine and encouraged, and that no, that guy next to me was not about to die from sensory overload regardless of what his face and body movements suggested. But there was always some wall with me at those shindigs. I could never really figure it out. Ultimately the relationship ended, and I wondered how much, if any, this disconnect had to do with it. Maybe nothing at all. Maybe a whole lot.

It’s funny how discovering clarity leaves with you so much to know still. My goal this year has been to find clarity of any kind, certainty of any measure. Because both of these things lack hugely in my personal life and it wares on me daily. It’d be nice to make a decision and know it to be right, or know anything at all for that matter and trust it to be true. But even with this goal in the forefront of my consciousness, it has still been incredibly hard, and so far, I’m yet to find either. I’m guessing the more things I pursue where the end is uncertain and there are no guarantees will help me to eventually get there, or in the general ball park. On the bridge this morning, the unceasing rhythm of a road bump every 1.5 seconds, I glimpsed certainty. I glimpsed knowing something at all, and it felt very good. But I don’t know if it’s possible to exist in this dimension full-time. At least half of life seems to rely on not knowing but jumping off anyway. Maybe love, happiness, success, peace..are all the outcomes of great risk and great faith. All anyone can do is make their best bet and go for it. Maybe once we let go of knowing anything for sure, the way I walked in endless circles yesterday, the way those waves went in no direction this morning, is how we find the happy end, whether we knew we would or could or not.

Health, Happiness, Walking On, Jumping Off.

Fall Yall.

Published on October 24, 2013 by Mary Gelpi10 Comments

They say the only thing constant is change itself. And when seasons change, particularly Summer into Fall, I always seem to feel a change on the inside as I watch the atmosphere play out it’s own changes. As if my circadian rhythms, my organs, my soul knows that things are going to change. I’ve always liked the feeling. The transition from Summer into Fall and Fall into Winter has always been the happiest time for me. That first gust of cold air. Pulling out old sweaters and cardigans. Cuddling in close to whoever you’re with. (I’m talking to you mom!) And there’s that slight reminder that the Holiday’s aren’t so far away and if you’re like me and ridiculously elated by Christmas, then it’s a good feeling to pick up on. I’d say if I could choose a season to fall in love, as if you could ever choose these things, I’d pick Fall. It also seems most likely to happen then in my eyes. A girl can dream. I say that a lot.

New Orleans weather is really weird. And by weird I mostly mean crappy. Our summers are long. Just too long really. And unrelentingly hot and humid. It takes your breath sometimes. Every time I fly into Louis Armstrong and exit baggage claim, my lungs get coated with a Southern sheet of bayou film and I have to remind myself how to breathe. It’s all part of the fun of calling Nola home. And I mean that. Our Fall is very short, much like the Spring. And Winter is fickle. A cold day comes. Everyone dresses as if the blizzard of the century is approaching and the cold due to the moisture in our air is penetrating and bitter. And then two days later it’s 70’s degrees and uncomfortably wet. If I could present our seasons through words arrangements it’s like this:

S U M M E R R R R Fall W I N TER Spring S U M M E RRRRR

So maybe the climate isn’t our major selling point, but I also don’t hate it. Cold days are such a novelty here, and the excitement brought on by temperatures allowing boots and a chunky sweater is contagious. Nothing gets a Southern girl excited like Sweater Weather. Just say those two words to one and watch the magic unfold. It’s true we don’t have four equal and distinct seasons; we have summer with a side of spring or winter sometimes. But we still get a taste of everything it could be much worse. We also get extreme thunderstorms, and I truly love rain. And not just the grey drizzly days. I’m talking intense thunder and lights flickering and those storm clouds that somehow turn up in shades in green. I love those days. Monty prefers to spend thunderstorm time in the bathtub, and I say whatever floats your boat homie.

Anyway I’ve been cleaning the leaves out of the pool with a net as Monty swims despite the water temperature having dropped majorly. To me, this is the quintessential image of Fall at home. Brown leaves floating in an empty pool. It’s perfect. I drag the net through the water and I get these bursts–an urge, an inspiration–I’m not sure exactly what it is. But I think maybe if I were a tree, I’d feel like shedding my leaves. And then suddenly, for one brief clear moment, nature makes sense. I continue to sweep the pool for miscellaneous debris including a Gatorade water bottle that monty dropped in and has sunk to the bottom. Since I don’t have leaves to shed, I went with the next best thing. My hair.

I chopped it. And got blonde added to it too. Mostly because, I felt that thing, that very internal tinge of electricity. The thing I think trees might feel. And I had to do something with it. I didn’t even care so much about the outcome once I made my decision. I just had to go for it. And leaves grow back in the spring–my hair grows fast. I’m 29 and I’ve never colored it. I’ve had long hair for so long that it was starting to look sad to me–sick even. It was reminding me of being sick. Suddenly I wanted the weight gone. Something lighter. Something new. As the hairdresser snipped my first 6 inches off, I remember my ex-boyfriend telling me he didn’t like my hair short. I shut my eyes and listen to it all come off. It felt good. It felt great. It rejuvenated me somehow. No more sick hair. Sick thoughts. Time to be happy and try new things. Time to act on positive impulses. Time to finish things I started and stick to things that I know are important. The leaves have fallen and my hair has lightened. (See what I did there?) I feel good about things. Good things are in the works. I encourage yall to make a change too. Do it for me. Do it for you. For Fall. Why not?

Report back. And rock on.

Health, Happiness, Fall.

10 Campaign Slogans Up For Grabs in 2014

Published on October 9, 2013 by Mary Gelpi3 Comments

1. Rape is bad and I am against it and that is my opinion on rape.

2. I’ve never sent a dick pic in my life. Ever!

3. Let’s Go Green in 2014!

You May Lighten Your Stance On Pot Once I Tax the Shit Out of It and Save Our Economy in About 3 Days Time.

4. Remember Books? I’M BRINGING BOOKS BACK!

5. I Love Black People!

6. Let ALL the Gays Marry Already!

Because Every American Should Have the Right to Be Miserable! — Because Every American Deserves the Right to Be Miserable If They So Choose.

7. When I Smoked In College, I Inhaled. AND I LIKED IT.

8. OUT With ObamaCare and IN With *AWESOMECARE!

9. A Gun In Every Closet!

10. I Believe In An America WITHOUT Yellow Starbursts. WE DESERVE BETTER!

Any interested politicians, shoot me an email. There’s no way these could fail!

Love and Politics,

Mary

**Truthfully they’re the same thing, but it sounds a lot better doesn’t it?

Some Posthumous Advice

Published on September 16, 2013 by Mary Gelpi10 Comments

A friend sent this to me recently and I really loved it. There’s something relieving and freeing about it and I think we could all use a laugh. Read it, you’ll smile.

Written by Caitlin Moran,
Published in The Times of London

My Posthumous Advice For My Daughter

My daughter is about to turn 13 and I’ve been smoking a lot recently, and so – in the wee small hours, when my lungs feel like there’s a small mouse inside them, scratching to get out – I’ve thought about writing her one of those “Now I’m Dead, Here’s My Letter Of Advice For You To Consult As You Continue Your Now Motherless Life” letters. Here’s the first draft. Might tweak it a bit later. When I’ve had another fag.

“Dear Lizzie. Hello, it’s Mummy. I’m dead. Sorry about that. I hope the funeral was good – did Daddy play Don’t Stop Me Now by Queen when my coffin went into the cremator? I hope everyone sang along and did air guitar, as I stipulated. And wore the stick-on Freddie Mercury moustaches, as I ordered in the ‘My Funeral Plan’ document that’s been pinned on the fridge since 2008, when I had that extremely self-pitying cold.

“Look – here are a couple of things I’ve learnt on the way that you might find useful in the coming years. It’s not an exhaustive list, but it’s a good start. Also, I’ve left you loads of life-insurance money – so go hog wild on eBay on those second-hand vintage dresses you like. You have always looked beautiful in them. You have always looked beautiful.

“The main thing is just to try to be nice. You already are – so lovely I burst, darling – and so I want you to hang on to that and never let it go. Keep slowly turning it up, like a dimmer switch, whenever you can. Just resolve to shine, constantly and steadily, like a warm lamp in the corner, and people will want to move towards you in order to feel happy, and to read things more clearly. You will be bright and constant in a world of dark and flux, and this will save you the anxiety of other, ultimately less satisfying things like ‘being cool’, ‘being more successful than everyone else’ and ‘being very thin’.

“Second, always remember that, nine times out of ten, you probably aren’t having a full-on nervous breakdown – you just need a cup of tea and a biscuit. You’d be amazed how easily and repeatedly you can confuse the two. Get a big biscuit tin.

“Three – always pick up worms off the pavement and put them on the grass. They’re having a bad day, and they’re good for… the earth or something (ask Daddy more about this; am a bit sketchy).

“Four: choose your friends because you feel most like yourself around them, because the jokes are easy and you feel like you’re in your best outfit when you’re with them, even though you’re just in a T-shirt. Never love someone whom you think you need to mend – or who makes you feel like you should be mended. There are boys out there who look for shining girls; they will stand next to you and say quiet things in your ear that only you can hear and that will slowly drain the joy out of your heart. The books about vampires are true, baby. Drive a stake through their hearts and run away.

“Stay at peace with your body. While it’s healthy, never think of it as a problem or a failure. Pat your legs occasionally and thank them for being able to run. Put your hands on your belly and enjoy how soft and warm you are – marvel over the world turning over within, the brilliant meat clockwork, as I did when you were inside me and I dreamt of you every night.

“Whenever you can’t think of something to say in a conversation, ask people questions instead. Even if you’re next to a man who collects pre-Seventies screws and bolts, you will probably never have another opportunity to find out so much about pre-Seventies screws and bolts, and you never know when it will be useful.

“This segues into the next tip: life divides into AMAZING ENJOYABLE TIMES and APPALLING EXPERIENCES THAT WILL MAKE FUTURE AMAZING ANECDOTES. However awful, you can get through any experience if you imagine yourself, in the future, telling your friends about it as they scream, with increasing disbelief, ‘NO! NO!’ Even when Jesus was on the cross, I bet He was thinking, ‘When I rise in three days, the disciples aren’t going to believe this when I tell them about it.’

“Babyiest, see as many sunrises and sunsets as you can. Run across roads to smell fat roses. Always believe you can change the world – even if it’s only a tiny bit, because every tiny bit needed someone who changed it. Think of yourself as a silver rocket – use loud music as your fuel; books like maps and co-ordinates for how to get there. Host extravagantly, love constantly, dance in comfortable shoes, talk to Daddy and Nancy about me every day and never, ever start smoking. It’s like buying a fun baby dragon that will grow and eventually burn down your f***ing house.

“Love, Mummy.”

You can see the original post on Caitlin’s blog at Brouhaha

Thank you Giselle for the read! And congrats to my sister Amelie, who is a new mother today. It’s a good day.

Health Happiness Moms

An Animated Version of My Sick Week.

Published on January 16, 2013January 17, 2013 by Mary Gelpi14 Comments

I’ve finally reemerged out of my latest crash. I’m kind of tired of dedicating words to what being sick is like, so instead I’ll do it with GIF animations. Here’s how it went.

Monday: I tried to get out of bed, but it went something like this.

By Tuesday I was still lifeless and sick, so my mom brought food to me in bed, which went something like this:

By Wednesday I’m like this is crap! I’m going outside to play! Which went like this:

So back to bed I went, like this

Then I woke up like 20 hours later like this:

And then someone with enthusiasm calls and says “Hows it going Mary?!?!” and I respond “Great!!!”

Then after a long day of exhaustion, I try to go to sleep, which goes something like this:

Then alas I get to bed, and when I wake up, my body feels like it’s done this to itself all night…

Being awake feels crappy so I go back to bed, like BYE WORLD!!!

Then I wake up to Bill O’Reilly playing from the living room…

Meanwhile Monty is bored to death with his owner so he decides to go out in the world on his own…

Then finally I wake up with enough energy to get out of bed and be a functional human being!

Which means it’s a PLAY DAY FOR MONTY!!

Health, Happiness, Sick Weeks.

My Post Election Facebook Prediction

Published on November 6, 2012November 6, 2012 by Mary Gelpi6 Comments

I’m going to briefly talk about two things I love to hate: Facebook and Politics. Bear with me.

Apparently, there’s an election going on. Like right now. You most likely knew that because you’re not an idiot. And you also probably knew that because if you’ve visited Facebook for even a millisecond in the last few months, you’ve seen it–the political outrage, the emotional pleading, angry outbursts, passionate opinions, and my favorite; quoting of the constitution. I have long thought that Facebook and politics go together about as well as pizza and peanut butter. But, we’re still figuring it out. This is the first generation of Facebookers. There’s no precedent. Which is why when Facebook opened the flood gates and allowed anyone to join, college kids ducked in horror as their parents and sometimes even grand-parents had access to a microscope highlighting all of their activity (legal and illegal) for the last year or so. They also laughed as Baby Boomers slowly learned what a poke meant and how to effectively comment on photos and walls. There’s no written etiquette for Facebook We’re all just a bunch on neophytes figuring it out as we go and hoping not to ruin ourselves in the process. Undoubtedly, the consequences of Facebook activity can be huge, regardless of their intent. There have school expulsions, job firings, missed job opportunities, and countless breakups over this enigmatic social network. But hey, there are pros too. Keeping up with family members and long-lost friends, stalking your ex, knowing what your neighbor from grade school ate for breakfast this morning and that your high school boyfriend and his girlfriend are expecting a baby boy! But I’m getting off topic. There is an election going on. And if you spend any time on Facebook right now, you cannot escape that fact, opinions about that fact, and the ensuing written diatribes about that fact.

Sadly, I admit I have engaged in political debates on Facebook. They were miserable, dirty, and useless. No one walked away with their minds changed or cleared or any more informed than when they began. To be fair, verbal arguments can sometimes be just as messy and ineffective. But a verbal argument seems more tangible and more accountable. It’s much easier to write nasty things than to say it to someones face. There isn’t much accountability on the internet. Facebookers and bloggers have a lot power but not necessarily a lot of accountability. It’s easy to type what you feel many times anonymously, without being liable for what you submit. On the Internet, we’re all just a bunch of small boxes with a face (or sometimes a picture of a car or a sonogram) and a name, but we seem to lose a large part of our humanness.

As miserable as Facebook political warfare is, we seem to be addicted to it. It’s hard to keep your mouth shut, (or your fingers idle) when you see someone post something you deem ridiculous. And truthfully, Facebook is where a lot of people make their voices heard. So it makes sense that it is on this platform where people express themselves politically. I don’t wonder why politics comes out on Facebook. It’s clear. I only wonder if it’s ever meaningful. It reminds me of a bumper sticker. It’s a tiny little snapshop of your views, but rarely does it encourage an intelligent dialogue or seem to persuade the other side. For all the engaging and speculating on Facebook I’ve done, I have never once witnessed a meaningful political conversation. Inevitably, someone will type something like “Hey screw you you dirty liberal!” or “You conservatives are a bunch of assclowns!” The people who agree with you are already convinced, and the people who don’t will tell you to go Eff yourself. And then most likely send you a FB invite to their birthday party.

All that being said, my prediction is that we’ll see a large backlash on Facebook November 7th, regardless of who wins the 2012 presidential election. (Duh) Democrats and Republicans alike are enthused, passionate, and each seem to use a disproportionate amount of explanation points. Here is my prediction:

IF OBAMA WINS:
(Warning of the apocalypse)

Everyone ready for the Socialist States of America?

God is good. God is great. Romney lost. We’ll suffer our fate!

Awesome! Another four more years of bullshit! Can’t wait!!!!

I’m moving to Canada. Eff you America!

Four more years of assclowns to run the White House. GREAT!

IF ROMNEY WINS:
(Emotional Depression Sweeps the Nation)

It’s a sad day for America. I really thought we had this one.

Wahhh. How will I afford my birth control?!?!

God is good. God is great. Obama lost. I wanna shoot myself in the head.

I can’t believe I won’t get healthcare and I’ll be in a binder!

Woah, Romney won. Does anyone wanna get frozen yogurt?

When you sign up for Facebook, you sign up to see and hear a lot of things about about your Facebook friends, which is mostly everyone you have ever known. Sometimes you’ll like it and sometimes you won’t. I always wonder how Facebook will evolve and how its users will change. Regardless of who wins, the world will keep on spinning, (according to most) and Facebook will keep on status-ing all over the place. Whether you like what you see or not, it is great to live in a country where you can say it all. But just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Most of my recent Facebook activity that deals with the election is linked to The Onion–a satirical newspaper. Because I don’t find that political views on Facebook do very much except attract those who disagree. Which is fine. Maybe that’s even the point. Ranting and bickering can be fun, I guess. But from my seat, it never seems to goes well or end well. If we are to examine our intent, what is it exactly? To change minds? To be heard? To inform? I wonder if Facebook is really the place to do it. I think there may actually be a place for politics on Facebook, somewhere. I just don’t think we’ve found it yet. It is however, the best place for pictures of cats and babies and suggestions for cold remedies. No question.

Maybe it won’t always be that way. Like people, Facebook has continued to grow and change throughout the years. Most would probably not even recognize the user interface of Facebook 1.0. And it will be interesting to see what it will look like in the 2016 election and how people will interact then. My prediction: Still a lot of cats. Still a lot of political warfare.

The world spins on.

Health, Happiness, Politics.

Meanwhile, on Facebook…

Published on November 1, 2012November 1, 2012 by Mary Gelpi8 Comments

A few of my close friends have taken the plunge off of Facebook. I’d like to show those friends what they’ve been missing. You’re welcome!

lunapic_135174962777009_26 — At first I was like Woah, too much information. But then I was like what, no pictures?

lunapic_135174962777009_21 — Thank God!!!!!!!

lunapic_135174962777009_46 — Yeah!! Wait, I never signed anything.

Screen shot 2012-10-30 at 11.31.08 PM — Thank God for hard hitting local news.

lunapic_135174962777009_11 — Let’s talk about the definition of ‘literally’…

lunapic_135174962777009_8 — Totally agree.

lunapic_135174962777009_50 — Like this status or the kitten gets it!!!!

lunapic_135174962777009_14 — Kids, don’t eat the peeps.

undies — He’ll appreciate this when he’s 20.

lunapic_135174962777009_43 — I don’t trust this, bro.

lunapic_135174962777009_53 — Totally. Wait what?

noah — Something happened to my friend Noah.

lunapic_135174962777009_32 — This sounds serious.

Health and Happiness.

Good News.

Published on October 8, 2012October 9, 2012 by Mary Gelpi7 Comments

I never write on Sundays, but I have a little energy today and after a sick and cloudy week, I’m taking advantage of some mental clarity. The truth is I don’t have a lot of news physically. I have been the weakest I’ve been in my life. It’s a little nuts. It feels like trying to move through maple syrup. So life has been in slow motion, literally. But as always, I have help and constantly remind myself how lucky I am for it.

The real challenge with this latest crash has been maintaining emotional resilience. I remind myself of the same idea each time it gets overwhelming; this is only temporary. And when times are golden and everything is going perfectly, that will be only temporary too. The point is to find inner peace and joy that is resilient through circumstance. So just look at the bad times as intense training. Training isn’t forever. At some point you go out into the game and test your skills. And no doubt, the world will always provide you with situations in which to test yourself and what you’ve learned. This year has had a lot of training and a lot of tests, but a part me feels that I am only just beginning to understand any of it.

Since I have a lot of down time, not moving and all, I do a lot of weird things. Like look at nothing out of a window for a long period of time, not really knowing how long has passed when I snap back to present. Sometimes I listen to Debussey’s Claire de Lune over and over and over and just feel the aliveness of a song like that, even though I feel like only a half-alive body. I watch French movies on Fridays because verbally, it sounds nice. French Movie Fridays. Also I love French movies. I write down things in my notebook that I don’t immediately understand or know from where they come; sometimes I just feel like the person holding the pen, channeling something else altogether, something separate from me. Deepak Chopra would say there is no separate, there is no you and no me. Each person manifests the entire universe, all of the people, and the source itself, within themselves– thus separation is just a human illusion. This is why when you hurt someone else, you hurt yourself. This is the oneness found in “waking up.” This is how he explains the part of you that isn’t born and won’t die. It embodies it all, and it is eternal. So I guess some of the things I write down are being pulled from an all-access consciousness that has always existed. I don’t know. Maybe getting sick is what it would take for me to stop and pay attention, to finally write down dormant words, to know what it is to be alive. I just know sometimes I write things that are far more intelligent than I am and I don’t even feel right taking credit for them. Except the White Girls on Facebook post, that was me. :)

There’s a funny phenomena that happens when I’m sick: Once I start to feel better and recover, I can never remember how sick I was or how bad it felt. I can imagine it but I can’t feel it. It’s like my brain deletes the sense memory of it. I have read that this happens to women after childbirth, and I guess it’s an evolutionary survival mechanism. If women remembered how bad it hurt, they’d never have more babies! It’s like the worst hangover you’ve ever had. You swear you won’t do it again, but then the beer tastes so good and the buzz is so nice! I don’t know what the meaning is behind not being able to recall precisely the physical feelings, but being this weak and incapable feels pretty burned in my mind by now. I may not be able to access these feelings again once I’m better, but what I need to remember is that shit, life is fragile. One day you wake up and you’re too weak to walk and your mom and sister have to feed you. It’s not all pretty, but I know there is meaning in it. It’s easy to throw up your arms and scream WELL WOE IS ME, life is unfair and none of this matters. And I’ve done that some days. The problem in doing this is that the very conclusion leaves your experience meaningless. The suffering is the hard part, but if you can hold on, if you learn to live anyway, then you’ve transcended the pain and evolved and it wasn’t for nothing; growth can never be bad. Following the pain always comes pleasure, even if it’s a simple change in perspective. Plenty of people have experienced far greater tragedies than me and come out on the other side– happy and wise. Like my mom for instance, who survived the death of two husbands, but didn’t succumb to darkness and managed to emerge happy and loving.

The goal in all of this for me is not just to stay positive and hopeful, but also to keep my perspective wide and my problems right-sized. This is just a moment in the context of eternity. It’s still really hard but it’s not forever and I’m not on my own. It’s easy to feel like the world is really big and you are really small and your little problems are terrible but that they don’t really matter. But they do, and you do. The way to make them matter most is to conquer them– with humility, grace, whatever you got. Everyone has their battles and each leads to their own lessons and outcomes, all necessary for the evolution of the world. But we all have to do our part. I don’t pretend to know how it all works, and I don’t think we’re meant to know the whole truth in this limited dimension we live in. That may explain why I had a dream last night that TRANSCENDED TIME AND SPACE and I have no idea how to put it into words. I probably sound like a kid during his first experience of dropping acid, but some things we just can’t fathom on earth. And that’s fine. We just need to do our best.

So I’m going to keep trying. Keep hanging on. Keep reading what the Greats have to say and try to make sense of it all. It’s been a challenge to stay optimistic and happy, but I know it’s necessary and I will work just as hard at that as getting better physically. In that light, I’ll introduce a new project that begins tomorrow. I’m going to report a few minutes of only good news every day for 30 days. I’ll begin with personal good news (like, I had enough energy to take a shower today!) then report national good news and then worldly good news. The idea is simple- I’m too young to be cynical. My situation is depressing enough and I don’t want to keep watching the news to see how crappy the world is and how bad people are. It’s important to stay informed on events, but I think it’s just as important to see the good things people are doing and the positive stories too. So that is the newest project and I will post the first video tomorrow around 6–that seems like a newsy time doesn’t it? I will always wear a plaid shirt because plaid makes me happy and I have a lot of them and we’re striving for good vibes here. To give you an idea of things I won’t be talking about, here is the backdrop to my very high tech news desk.

Watch the good news at goodnewsinplaid.wordpress.com.

**Addendum! I jumped the gun on my 6 o clock timeline. I’m a little behind. But the good news is now up at goodnewsinplaid@wordpress.com. If you have good news you’d like me to read on air, send it to goodnewsinplaid@gmail.com. It can be anything from your little league team won to you’ve been constipated for a week and maybe you finally had a bowel movement. If it’s good, it’s good.

Health, Happiness, Plaid.

A Call For Positivity.

Published on October 1, 2012February 17, 2015 by Mary Gelpi19 Comments

Good morning world, it’s been a little while. It’s 4 am in California and I have to say I’m OK feeling wide awake despite the indecent hour. I feel like I’ve been in a sedated state, in and out of consciousness for the last week–more out than in– and it feels good to finally feel alert enough to touch base with myself again. I have never been this sick before, at least not for this long. It’s beginning to make my other sick days feel more like mere child’s play. They’re nearly laughable when I think of them now.

I move when I can, which isn’t very often. It’s difficult to do basic things for myself these days and it sucks to have to ask, but that’s where I am, so I’m trying to make peace with it. Walking is really difficult and the weakness gets overwhelming. It sort of feels like trying to walk underwater–like someone smothered all of my joints in honey. Anyway, being stationary for such a long period of time isn’t super fun (for me or for Monty) and sometimes the mental housekeeping can be harder than the physical. It’d be nice to lose myself in the distraction of anything physical…tennis, shopping, drinking with friends, a road trip or camping! But it’s all out of the question, so I am left to my consciousness and the quiet of days as the world around me spins on without pause. I know it’s vital that I stay positive; that I don’t succumb to the fear and despair lingering between wakefulness and sleep, and that I surrender to where my life has me for now, and that I remain precisely clear about the difference between that and giving up. I am always going to pursue the healthiest routes and happiest choices, but I also need to just exist where I am- which right now, is immobilized in my sisters apartment. When I try to move around I am worse the next day, so it’s bed rest for me. Not much of a choice anymore.

The good news is, I have help. My sister has been doctor for a while now, while my brother-in-law insists on eating when I don’t want to. My mom flew in on Thursday so now the help has help and I am lucky for all of it. And Monty too of course. He’s a mental help to us all, and when things get sad or heavy somehow he finds a way to make us all laugh. I think he’s anxious for me to be back on two feet but he’s patient as always. He’s taken to my sister and brother-in-law, like he knows they’re the ones with the energy. They’re the ones who will throw him the ball. So he plays fetch with them and my mom and when he comes back in he trots straight over to whatever piece of furniture I am using as a bed and curls up next to me; content until the next time he needs to go out. He is a constant reminder to be in the present moment. That is something that dogs just get and humans mostly miss.

I am going to be very honest and say that emotionally I’ve been kind of a wreck. I’m not a huge crier but for some reason when I fall into these weak, dizzy crashes, tears just roll down my face. I don’t even necessarily feel sad when it happens. It’s like this strange cause and effect I don’t feel I can control. So, I let the tears come. I try not to harp long on any negative thoughts or fearful worries; they are not only useless, but detrimental at this point if I give them too much pause. My mom told me “You can’t afford the privilege of a negative thought right now,” so I try to stay away from them. If they come, I let them, and then I let them leave. I am beginning to learn the art of detachment. Or I’m getting a crash course in it. I don’t know that I have another choice, and I must say I’m getting pretty good! I’m writing about this because I know that so many people have felt what I am feeling now, and many of them have not had support systems behind them. I want anyone to know who’s sick or troubled and reading this that it’s OK to want to punch the wall, scream really loud, curse the car door and earth, the universe, or God. I have done all of these things in darker moments, and sometimes a good scream or cry is necessary. It’s OK. Sometimes if I’m too tired to yell, I just flip off the sky. As if the clouds brought me to this point. It’s like the most passive aggressive protest I can demonstrate, but since my arms down to my fingers are weak, I don’t leave it up there very long, which usually leads to cursing. Haha. But what I also know is that anger and screaming and crying and cursing…it just doesn’t get me anywhere in the right direction. It doesn’t move me along. It’s really easy to be mad at a situation; to be pissed off or sad or claim unfairness. But where that gets you is stuck further in the predicament you were already in, just now you’re a miserable person in a shitty situation. It’s just plain more interesting to be a happy person in a shitty situation. Try it! When people ask how I am I say “Terrible! And it’s the best day of my life!”

My goal now is to stay as happy and positive as I can, which so far has been extremely hard. But I’m going to keep at it. I’m letting negative thoughts come and go and I follow them up with something better. Something true. I constantly remind myself of what I have; love, a family that gives a shit, good doctors, good friends, and the best dog in the world. A few examples; my friend Kaitlin aka Matt Damon texts me our inside jokes throughout the day, often consisting of lines from Billy Madison, Orange County, or philosophical thoughts on the Golden Girls. Sometimes a one word text can make me laugh, and that feels like a step in the right direction. My brother Nick sends me interesting and positive reading material or funny pictures of the baby. My Stupid Friend Jess sends me her favorite facebook statuses of the day, which are always terrible. And hilarious. My mom and sister let me cry when I need to but are always encouraging, reminding me of the truth, and that is so necessary at times like these. And me, I’m kind of just hanging on. I don’t really feel like I’m driving the car to my life right now, but, I can at least control the music. Is this metaphor too much? Anyway, instead of playing like, Coldplay and Radiohead, I’m trying to play happier and motivating things. The Black Keys, Vampire Weekend, The Rolling Stones, and Ke$sha. Come on, that Tic Toc song can make anyone dance. We’re out of the metaphor now, I actually like listening to that song.

So, that’s where I am. It’s a really rough time, but I know it isn’t forever. And I know the answer to it all is not in anger or sadness or self pity, even though these reactions and dispositions are often the easier, default choices. It’s funny how conditioned humans are to respond this way to stress in life–and how absolutely worthless it remains. You’d think after 2000 years of civilization we’d have gotten it by now. Even the dogs get it! Anyway, as I sit immobilized, a heat pack on my muscles and the smell of BenGay circulating in the air, I’m beginning to retrain myself. My body is crazy weak, so I’m going to work on a stronger mind. I know that every situation is an opportunity to grow, and I guess it comes down to whether you want the experience to leave you larger or smaller than you were before. My hope, of course, is to walk away wiser and stronger. And while it’s the harder path to take, I know it’s not impossible, and so many others have endured far worse and done just fine. In the meantime, I gotta stay positive. So send me funny stuff! Among the 25 pills, laughter is still my best and favorite medicine.

Health, Happiness, Hanging On.

A Shit Show.

Published on September 26, 2012 by Mary Gelpi13 Comments

I don’t know of any other way to describe the past week except as a shit show. And maybe that points to how juvenile I am, but I honestly can’t think of a more sophisticated word. If you read my last post, you can see that I was in a bit of a bad way last week. I crashed really hard last Monday and was feeling pretty deadly. We did the normal protocol and quadrupled my hyrdrocortisone and I mostly stayed lying on the couch or in bed, researching the little amount of money spent on this illness and writing somewhat of an angry blog about it. I don’t usually like to succumb to moments of mental negativity like that. I think anger has its reasons for existing, but I have always wanted this to be a place of optimism, humor, and hope. So I hope I didn’t put too bitter a taste into the community here. I also need to remember that more research than ever is being done, and while we do have a ways to go, we’ve already come along ways. I’m not going anywhere, and no matter how far agencies like the NIH and CDC take the research, the goal is always to be as happy as possible, with whatever you got. The other goal of this blog is to promote awareness, and so maybe my little moment of anger can help do that in the long run. I think the best thing it did was inspire many of you to comment or email with your stories. Many people say it helps them to read this blog, and the truth is, it is just as helpful for me to hear from you. It’s easy to get so lost in your own story that you only see yourself in the world. The truth is no matter how poignantly real it can feel sometimes, we aren’t alone in this, and that’s maybe the most important thing to remember.

On Sunday morning I had started to bounce back from my week-long crash. I thought. Part of the “Shit Show” of last week was that on Monday, our kitchen flooded due to a leak in the wall. It was going to involve some major reconstruction (basically knocking out every wall in the kitchen) but they assured us it would only take a week. My sister thoughts were that we should move apartments. She’s all too familiar with how long a “week” takes in contractor time. But the idea of even packing my bags in a suitcase felt devastating to me, and luckily my brother-in-law was in no mood either to up and move overnight. So we decided to stay. But a few days later as I was walking through the hall, water seeped up through the carpet onto my feet. Never really a good sign. The workers came back and found the leak had begun to flood the master bed and bath and the front closet. By Friday morning, I was still pretty crashed and somehow there were 5 workers in the kitchen beginning demolition and making a shit ton of noise. The noise permeated my dreams but I stayed sleeping. If you can call it that. Keegan came in my room a few times asking if I wanted to go to his parents house to sleep, but the idea of getting in a car and going felt like too much. I said no, rolled over, and went back to exhaustive sleep. The demolition went on.

By the afternoon Keegan and his friend were moving the big stuff out to an apartment across the street. I packed in the laziest sick person way possible. I honestly didn’t have a lot of stuff, but what I did have I threw in two boxes Keegan gave me, and left all my clothes on hangers. Keegan and his friend moved my bed first and the couch so that I could literally go from my bed in the current apartment to my bed in next one. As they moved it on the first load, I laid on the floor in my empty room with Monty and fell asleep staring at the ceiling. I watched Keegan and his friend carry heavy things and sweat and noted how interesting faces look when you’re looking at them upside down. Here are some pictures of me during the move.

As you can see I’m a big help. Anyway in two days, Amelie and Keegan had everything packed, moved and unpacked, and I laid there watching life walk back and forth carrying boxes over my head. It was a new perspective though and I’m always down for new perspectives. My favorite line from the whole moving experience came from my sister as she was unpacking in her new bathroom and I was laying on the couch counting ceiling popcorn. “Our fucking toilet is leaking!!!!!!” This was after three cabinets fell completely off of their hinges in the kitchen and the sink pipes leaked underneath when you turned the water on. When it leaks, it pours. If I could consume alcohol, I would have played a drinking game called “Drink Every Time Something Breaks” and had a gay old time. Instead I slept or played DJ for Amelie and Keegan while they packed and unpacked–which mostly consisted of me playing Carlae Rae Jenson’s “Call Me Maybe” on repeat. God that song is good.

By Sunday we still didn’t have cable which meant we WERE WITHOUT OUR SUNDAY FOOTBALL and my sister was WITHOUT THE RED ZONE ON ESPN which meant she COULDN”T TRACK HER FANTASY TEAMS ON A PLAY BY PLAY BASIS which was a problem, you can imagine. So we went to a bar with 4,000 TV’s and I felt sad as I watched the Saints lose in overtime and was the only Saints fan in the joint. I still yelled ‘Who Dat’ if ever so quietly. Unfortunately my body felt like it was slowly slipping away from me. An hour later when sitting upright felt near impossible and I felt a migraine coming on, I went home and fell straight asleep. Whatever momentum I had felt that morning was long gone and when I woke up a few hours later I had the migraine of the century, which lasted until yesterday. I didn’t fall asleep until 4 on Monday morning and when I woke up, I was more weak than I’d ever felt. I took Monty outside, but with this new apartment comes a flight of steps to get to ground level. I hate those steps, and I cursed every last one as I climbed them one by one, the way old people do. I threw the ball for Monty a few times, then apologized to him for being a human wasteland and came back inside. I set up camp on the couch and wondered what had happened to my limbs over night. It was like the cement fairy came over night and filled my whole body up. Thanks cement fairy!!

Yesterday morning I didn’t think I felt any worse until I tried to get out of bed. It was really hard to move. Nearly impossible to walk. I didn’t feel like I could make a fist. I wasn’t sad but I kept breaking down in tears, I think because I was scared. This felt different; worse than it’s felt before and I was nervous this time I might actually croak. Usually I just curse the illness, roll back over and go to sleep. Anyway, going to the ER is always a last-case scenario but after talking to Dr. Emils (one of my best friends in her last year of med school), my mom and my sister, we decided it was the best option. At least we could eliminate the possibility of eminent death since I had been getting worse over the week and the iv fluid and steroid would help with the weakness and get the migraine to go down. So Amelie left work early, helped me up the stairs and I cried as I said goodbye to Monty because I really didn’t want to leave him and I was also scared I’d get bad news at the hospital. It was the first time I found myself praying they wouldn’t find anything, because usually I’m looking for an answer. This time I just wanted the normal “We don’t know exactly what’s wrong, but here’s something for your discomfort.” Luckily, that’s what I got. As well as kind nurses and doctors and basically no wait time. A whole other world compared to the New Orleans hospital last January.

Hospital gowns, like mullets, are business in the front and party in the back.

So, that brings us to the present. The good news is I’m not dying. I only feel like I’m dying. Haha. But, that I can handle. For some reason I woke up with swollen joints this morning, so it’s just another reason to take it slow. It’s also a creative challenge to see how many fun things I can do from the supine position. I don’t know what this crash is about, but it’s just going to take some waiting out. The best part through all of it is I realized just how much I didn’t want my sometimes shitty life to be over. I had been pretty down the last week being sick. I felt myself saying “Owell” as a speeding car raced past Monty and me on our walk and I entertained the thought of it taking me out. It was just my dark sense of humor of course, but now I say “No way JOSE!” to that car, and I live to see another day. Even if from the couch. Sorry for the length of this one. Like I said, it’s been a shit show of a week

Health, Happiness, Shit Shows.

What Type of Facebooker Are You?

Published on September 13, 2012September 15, 2012 by Mary Gelpi13 Comments

1.The Advice Seeker of things that seem relatively obvious. Does anyone know where I can find groceries? I’m looking for things like broccoli, milk, poultry, cereal and juice. Looking for good prices but also quality food. Any suggestions?

groceries2 — Message me with any info. Thanks!

2. The incredibly angry but mostly uninformed Political Posting Tyrant. Taxes are such bullshit!! Why can’t everything just be free? I wish the morons running this country would ask themselves that. Now I’m going to quote the constitution for you.

3. The Horrifically Offensive Facebooker that doesn’t seem to know it. Is it just me or are pregnant people gross and disgusting?

4. The ball-busting Debbie Downer. (AKA, the person that ends every status with UGH!!!!) Wow, after being stuck in traffic for 2 hours, I come home and step in dog shit. No, I don’t have a dog, my neighbors do. So I wrote them a letter explaining that I’d really appreciate it if they picked up after their dog, that is part of YOUR responsibility as a dog owner, not MINE as your neighbor. UGH!!!!!

5. The Emo Kid Facebooker, dense with cryptic statuses. Yes, I can forgive you, but that doesn’t mean I’ll forget.

6. The Check In Everywhere You Go Facebooker. Mary was at Albertson’s with Who Gives a Shit.

7. The Stay on Facebook Mom. Yep, Tommy just shit in the toilet all on his own. Then he asked me to wipe his butt for him. I have never had so much fun wiping someones ass or been more proud to do it!! Just love him!!!!

8. The judgmental Passive Spectator: Has very little facebook activity– mostly just sits back and watches the horror of facebook unfold while worrying about the state of the world.

9. The Workout Obsessed Facebooker. Feelin the burn!!! Gonna be so sore tomorrow!! Will write a status about it at that time!

10. The over-eager Bearer of Bad News Facebooker. Just saw a car that was filled with puppies tumble off the road and burst into flames. Will be thinking about them tonight.

Health, Happiness, Facebooooooook.

Sometimes You Gotta Say Yes.

Published on August 29, 2012August 29, 2012 by Mary Gelpi12 Comments

Even when you don’t feel like it. Even when it hurts. When it would be not just easier or more convenient to say no, but less painful, less exhausting, perhaps even, the healthier option– even then, sometimes, you gotta say yes.

As my role as the “sick girl” has slowly developed over the past few years, I’ve noticed how often and how easily I’ve begun to say no to things. And that’s mostly for the sake of my livelihood. I don’t have the endurance to do the things I once did, nor do I have the resilience to bounce back if I overstep the boundary. There’s an invisible line with illnesses like this; one that not even the sick person can see, and it doesn’t make a sound when you overstep. Not until later, when it’s too late to take anything back. So, you pay for it. And you start to feel your way through it, constantly guessing whether you’ve gone too far or done too much. It’s about as easy as pin the tail on the donkey in the dark, with booze. But this solid body of mine, as broken as it is, it always lets me know if I’ve infringed on that boundary. Always.

The last few days have been crappy. Not Colorado crash crappy, but, crappy. There have been a few 26 and 27 pills a day, days. Which I’m learning how to be OK with. Even sick days, where the most you do is brush your teeth, are OK too. They have to be. It’s interesting what this illness turns you into; a spectator where you once a participant. I often feel the quick pace of the world spinning and everyone rushing by with their busy lives, and then there’s me…just kind of, ~~standing~~ lying there. I miss being busy. There’s something comfortable about always having something to do, someone to see; there’s an importance about it. I notice now how different my to-do lists are verses my to-do lists a few years ago. 1. Wash clothes. 2. Pick up prescriptions. 3. Buy new notebook!

I’ve begun examining my life a little closer lately, and am putting a lot of thought into how I spend my time. It’s really crazy to think that I can sort of do what I want given that I don’t have a full-time job or any REAL responsibility besides my health and my dog Monty. (Although I don’t know, one might call my constant correspondence with the Walgreens pharmacy a full-time job in and of itself. For real though.) The thing is, since I can’t hold a full-time job right now, I don’t have any income. So that’s the first damper on “Doing what I want.” The second damper is, duh, I’m incapacitated most of the time. If I had my way, I’d be going, and doing, and meeting, luncheoning, and painting and creating and…you get it. Saying YES a lot. I’d be one of those busy people with alphabetized spice racks and really organized DVD collections. And I’d run half marathons for fun! BLECH. Scuse me, I just puked thinking about running a half marathon. Anyway, that’s not my life. Most of the time I feel too exhausted for showers and everything I buy at this point is on someone else’s dime…so it’s really teaching me a lesson in humility, appreciation, and grace. Every night I pray that I will be able to pay back everyone who has been so gracious in taking care of me. And I solemnly believe that day will come. One day.

In the meantime, I have a lot of something that many people don’t: free time. And whether I’m sick or not, it’s up to me how I spend my time. I find myself feeling bad a lot about not having a full-time job and not being able to support myself. I was used to having a job and independence define me. But, I think that’s pride and the ego getting the best of me and I constantly have to remind myself that if I could, I would. But right now, it’s not where I am. So how about instead of feeling shitty on top of feeling shitty, I try to make better use of my time. I decided I’m going to read as much as I can, write as much as I can, and start looking at this free time as a gift instead of something that “happened to me.” A lot of people would love time off from work, to be a spectator, to read for the sake of reading. To be honest, not having something to do is harder than you’d think. We’re kind of a culture that tends to define ourselves by our work. I guess I’m redefining both my purpose and the definition of that word. Is it still considered work if you’re not getting paid?

This week has been rough health wise, but today I was sick and tired of being sick and tired more than I was actually sick and tired. SO, I said, screw it. I took a bath, got dressed, and went to the park with Monty. Not because I felt like it, not because it felt good even, but because I needed to get out. Sometimes I do the things I would do if I weren’t sick, just for a little while. I can go outside. I can throw a ball for Monty and finish reading my book. I felt shitty the whole time, but mentally I needed it. Chances are, I’ll pay for it tomorrow. But it’s one of those weeks where I felt like I would be paying for something tomorrow whether or not I did anything today, so I went for it. Every once in a while, it’s nice to feel like things are on my terms. It’s my way of giving the illness the middle finger. And you know what? It felt good! Screw you sickness. Today, Mary Gelpi SAID YES.

OK so maybe I am really over-glorifying my little trip to the park. But, I have to keep myself in check. It would be really easy for me to say no to anything that required leaving the house or socializing with people. I can feel the crotchety 80-year-old inside of me getting way too comfortable. I remind myself that I am 28. I need to stop being so opposed to meeting new people. (Dude, I hate meeting people. Also, I’m terrible at it.) I have to be OK with going places sometimes, because I think our souls like a change of scenery. I need to not automatically say no, even though my experience gives me that tendency. Sometimes I will pay for it, yes. But there’s a price to be paid for constantly saying no, too. So I’ve got to find the middle. I’m still young, and I need to start acting my age. Before I know it I’ll be drinking Ensure and wearing Oopse I Crapped My Pants. And then meeting people will be REALLY hard!

You know what else I did today? Bought a new notebook. That’s my favorite thing to buy. I’m very particular when it comes to notebooks. It takes me a while to pick one out and I sit there in front of the shelf of books running my fingers over pages, opening and closing it, taking measurements and looking like a crazy all the while, but I like to take my time. I can’t have things like paper texture or wide rule lines interfering with my writing. Anyway, I found a good one after going back and forth between two for 10 minutes. This is typically what I do when I buy anything. I’m very indecisive. So I’ll buy one, and then go home and think about the other. It’s terrible. Anyway, I’m trying to work on that. So I’m going to do some writing. And then some reading. And then I’ll do it again tomorrow I guess, in a park, and throw the stick for Monty. Because that’s what my life is right now, and it won’t always be that way. Maybe it’s not about being important. Maybe it’s just about being.

Health, Happiness, Yes.

*To all my family and homies in New Orleans, my thoughts are with yall. Although I’m pretty sure most of you are drunk and having an OK time. Stay safe.

When I Thought About Adulthood, This Is Not What I Expected

Published on August 16, 2012August 16, 2012 by Mary Gelpi26 Comments

In two days I turn 28 years old.

I’m thinking about that number 28. I’m thinking about the word “adulthood” and whether or not I’ve reached it. The number sounds like it belongs in that category, but my life doesn’t really feel that way. I don’t recall exactly what I thought life would be like at 28, but I know for sure, this is not what I expected. I always thought I’d be married with kids by now. (HAHAHA.) I expected adulthood to be so organized and grown-up and filled with smart people who had the answers and knew exactly what they were doing. But I see now, adults are often lost and they don’t have it all figured out yet either. They still get shit-faced and throw up sometimes. There are still social hierarchies and corresponding dramas. They still make mistakes and are learning their way through it. My mom still encourages me to eat vegetables. And I still fantasize about my wedding day and love Disney movies. There are a lot of things that I thought would be different, that aren’t. And there are a lot of things I didn’t expect to still be doing, that I am…

I didn’t still think I’d be…

*Eating at the kids table at Thanksgiving and other family events. I am wondering at what age I will graduate to the adult table. I’m going to celebrate so hard on that day.

*Sitting on a bathroom counter in my pajamas popping zits in the mirror, or what I think could be a possible zit one day and subsequently wrecking my face.

*Calling my mom with questions when I catch a cold…(which is now just me walking into her room, you know, cause I live with my parents now…)

cold meds — “Wait do I need a decongestant or an expectorant?”

*…Living with my parents.

*Taking bubble baths. Still prefer them to showers…any day.

*Borrowing all my sisters clothes.

*Still getting excited as hell when Christmas comes around.

*Turning off my bedroom light, running lightning fast and jumping into bed so the man underneath it can’t cut my feet.

*Getting questioned about my outfits by my mom. “You’re sure you want to wear that to dinner?”

*Talking to girls about boys and boys about girls. It’s been the same conversation since high school: girls are kind of crazy, boys are kind of dumb.

*Watching The Little Mermaid and singing “Part of Your World” really loudly. Every time.

*Giggle when any of my friends say the word penis or talk about one. It’s shameful. I know.

*Be thoroughly entertained by bubbles. (Especially if Monty is around)

*Having my grandma play with my hair.

*Wondering the meaning of my life. Thought I’d have it figured it out by now..

…None of these things did I expect to be still be partaking in and/or enjoying at 28. When I was in middle school, I remember telling a friend that I wanted to be married by age 22 and having my first child at 24…basically because it just sounded good. I was 12, and stupid. But truthfully, it was an arbitrary goal anyway. When I was young, I thought that was the meaning of life: To grow up, find a husband, and have babies. And maybe it is. Those are still things I want. I hope to marry a best friend and not blow it and I’ve always dreamed of becoming a mother. But now I see there is more to life than that. I think. I actually have no idea. I just know that right now, in this moment, it’s not my time to be a wife and mother. It’s a time for me to get healthy and stronger, to find some certainty, get to know myself a little better, trust myself a little more, and become who I am meant to be. Joseph Campbell says that “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are” and I think so many things in the last year really threw my identity around and left me slowly piecing it back together, which I will continue to do. I trust that the things I want will happen in time, but I am careful not to put aside happiness while I get where I’m going. I am right here, so right here is where I should be happy. I have high hopes for 28. I never expected that at this juncture of my life I would be where I am, and in truth, this is not what I would have chosen. But the fact that I didn’t choose this, I didn’t seek it out–makes me trust it more. I was headed in a completely opposite direction, and yet here I am. It tells me something else was at work. I am done questioning it. I am done being mad at it. I’m ready for the next chapter. Bring it on, 28!

Health, Happiness, Twenty Eight.

The Killers Relief

Published on August 9, 2012 by Mary Gelpi6 Comments

When I wake up
Everything is just how I left it
In between tossing and sheets
sweating and dream world,
the killers wore off
And it’s as though nothing has changed
I still feel everything.

Because the hour is inappropriate
To start a day now,
I re-dose and wait
And this is admittedly exciting for me
That’s what they call
The thrill of relief.
When the killers go to work
I will struggle but win eventually
I’ll go back to dreaming
Where everything is the same.

I heard once
That you don’t feel pain in your dreams
Which makes me wonder
Where I’ve been going every night.

Last night I dreamt of money
And big powerful bankers.
I counted my money repeatedly
And my fingers throbbed
Until I dropped it all
watched it scatter
When I awoke I couldn’t recall the amount
Something had changed
But my fingers ached the same.

When I awake a final time
It will be inappropriately late
To start a day
Everything that once was numbed
Will have seeped back in,
alive and noisy.
The jury is out
On the purpose of pain
But each night it comes
Then the killers kill it
And I return to dream world
Until it comes again.
When I awake,
Everything the same.

Dude. Solitude.

Published on August 5, 2012 by Mary Gelpi21 Comments

Sound the bells. I survived the Colorado Crash of 2012. I’m alive. Woohoo!

Yesterday I finally started feeling back to my normal sickley self, not my deadly sickley self. And it feels good to be able to be out of bed for more than an hour a day. That tends to wear on a girl…at least a little. I can’t believe what a disaster my Colorado vacation was. It’s funny I’m still referring to it as a vacation. That’s like taking someone to the DMV and calling it a date. It was really hard for me to enjoy my time there because I was in constant recovery, catch up, and crash mode and the cycle didn’t break the whole time I was there. I had to say no to things and miss out on things which I’m typically “OK” with but this time I felt real sadness and anger about it. I wanted to blame someone, I wanted a reason, I wanted to “talk to the manager” about this. I wanted it to be somebody’s fault and somebody to fix it. But, that’s not how it works. These are the things that teach us grace and surrender and sometimes getting the lesson is the most painful part. By the last night I had broken down in tears just exhausted from being exhausted and feeling like the Debbie of all Downers. This illness tends to turn its victims into high maintenance fun suckers when it’s at its worst, and nobody likes to be around that. By the end I was tired of who I was on that trip and what I required. But my brothers talked me through it and we decided that next vacation we take, we aren’t making an itinerary. We’re not overcommitting to engagements and we’ll try to just take each day as it comes. We’re going to try to effectively do nothing–something I’m pretty spectacular at and most people are still getting the hang of. I’m happy to teach my ways. I’m doing nothing right now!

As hard as the last two weeks have been, I feel like it is all starting to pay off because now I find myself in Paradise. My sisters in-laws left yesterday morning for a three-week trip to Africa. When they told me about their voyage months ago my first question was what they were going to do with Mikey–an enormous yellow lab and king of the household. When they threw around options I casually mentioned that Hey, I have nothing to do in August (or any month ever for that matter) and I could watch Mikey for them if they preferred he had a dogsitter. A few days later they took me up on the offer and even allowed me to bring Monty here too. So now, after all the exhaustion, noise, chaos, itineraries, plans and breaking of plans, I find myself in a beautiful California home with two loveable drooling teddy bears, and I could not feel more at peace having arrived. When I wake up in the morning, there is silence, and there is no itinerary to follow. DO YOU KNOW HOW GREAT THAT IS!?!?

Truthfully I have always treasured my solitude. If I were a Country Singer, I would write a song called “Solitude Has Always Been a Friend of Mine.” Anyway, it happens at least a few times a year that I require almost total isolation and dream of being locked up in a cabin somewhere and cut off for a little while. It’s like my souls version of food cravings. I have always enjoyed small endeavors on my own. Sometimes I like to eat at restaurants alone, or see movies or go to the bookstore. I love not having to keep up a conversation and going at my own pace, which is usually pretty slow. There isn’t anything so commonplace and exhausting to me as small talk. I have no patience or energy for idle conversations anymore. I don’t like having the “What’s new with you?” conversation. I don’t like to hear how your job is going or how your brothers band got a new drummer. And I don’t like to share news from my neck of the woods either–obviously because I don’t have any. “Yep, still sleeping on peoples couches. Well bye!” I realize this probably makes me sound like an old curmudgeon, and maybe I’m starting down that path at the ripe old age of 27, but there is something about those forced conversations that sometimes even the mere thought of them drains me. They just feel so inauthentic on both ends and since my time out of bed is so precious anyway, it’s hard for me to spend it on a conversation that we’re having to fulfill some duty–or because we feel like we should. This is why having a dog as a best friend works out great for me. No elevator talk.

The other part is, while writing is my passion, it’s kind of a lonely practice. You can’t do it well with people around. And you kind of have to “strike while the iron is hot” which is typically for me sometime around 3 in the morning. The act of writing is not nearly as satisfactory as the result, and many times the process is grueling. Anyway, the only living thing that can hang out but not disturb me is a dog. Two dogs even. So Monty and Mikey have been great companions. We eat, sleep, swim and write and there’s no itineraries or talking about our jobs. Wanda left me a note welcoming me to help myself to any and everything and to write a book while I’m here. Think I’ll take her advice.

Health, Happiness, Solitude.

15 Fights Every Couple Has

Published on July 18, 2012July 19, 2012 by Mary Gelpi18 Comments

1. The “You Spend Too Much Time With Your Friends and Not Enough Time With Me” Fight. It’s not that I hate your friends, I just think they’re stupid and don’t really want them around.

2. The “You’re Terrible With Money” Fight. Did we really need these $20,000 life-size Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em robots?

robot-boxing-machines — Yes, yes we did.

3. The “I’m Allowed to Talk Shit About My Family but YOU BETTER NOT” Fight. Excuse me, nobody calls my sister a slut but me.

4. The “You Drink Too Much/Smoke Too Much/Work Too Much/Play Video Games Too Much/Sleep Too Much” Fight. You do all the wrong stuff, too too much.

5. The “ANYTHING Regarding Facebook” Fight.

Who’s that slut who wrote on your wall?

Why haven’t you changed your relationship status?

Why aren’t I in your profile picture?

Why are you still friends with that person?

Why won’t your dad accept my friend request?

Who is Brittny and why did she poke you 2 years ago? Defriend her. NOW.

6. The “You’re Always Tired When It’s Time for Sex But Wide Awake When the Kardashians Come On” Fight. Come on, you know you love Scott.

1337700409_scott-disick-zoom — Nuff said.

7. The “You Give Terrible Presents” Fight. Awesome. Another candle. Thanks babe.

8. The Failure to Agree on a Show You Both Like So You End Up Watching Stuff Neither of You Really Likes Fight. Oh look, No Reservations is on again.

9. The “I Shouldn’t Have to Ask You To” Fight. Because you should be able to read my mind by now.

10. The “You Have Terrible Phone Etiquette” Fight. There’s this thing. Called a phone. Try it out…

11. The “If You Like It You Better Put a Ring On It” Fight. Because nothing sets the mood for an engagement like the threat of a breakup. Or physical harm.

12. The “I Was Lying When I Told You I Didn’t Want Anything for My Birthday and You Should Have Known That” Fight. You could have at least gotten me a card. God.

13. The “You’re Nicer to the Dog Than You Are To Me” Fight. Well he’s a better listener!

20-cute-dogs-with-glasses-006 — Tell me. Everything.

14. The “I Went Through All Your Shit and Found Something That Makes Me Not Trust You Anymore” Fight. You never told me you ran track in high school.

15. The “If I Didn’t Pick Up After You, Our Apartment Would End Up on Hoarders” Fight. Why do you put your clothes next to the laundry hamper?

Health, Happiness, Coupledom

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