Breakups – FibroM.E.-Awesome

So, it’s been… an interesting month. The viewing event of Unrest in California was really incredible. I have so much to write about all of it, but given that my brain has a time limit of functionality lately, I’ll just say quickly the most important part now: watch this movie. It’s a really, really well done documentary and surprised me in ways my mashed-potato brain can’t convey at the moment. But when my mind is more functional I’ll get further into it. But watch it–iTunes, Amazon, Google play. Find it, rent it, learn a lot– but also see some incredible stories. I strongly recommend it. It will not disappoint.

Here’s the trailer.

I think my brain is still in recovery mode. After the flight home, it wasn’t just a body crash but a brain crash. For whatever reason, air travel has become increasingly overwhelming for me–mostly due to the noise. There is such a wide range of stimuli you’re constantly exposed to when you fly. Visibly, audibly, socially, physically. But for me it’s sound. I seem to have lost the “buffer” we were born with that smooths things out for us to hear, and the typical noises–converging gate announcements, people on their cell phones, the sound of the plane engine, the automatic flushing toilets, the sound of the captains “status update”–they all feel like an assault to my head. I know it these seems like small and petty things to bring up. And when I was well I never would’ve noticed or been bothered by things like that. But now they are actually painful. By the time I make it home…I’m wiped. I haven’t mentally really felt the same since we returned. I’ve been in an either hyper-sensitive mode of everything at once, or a hazy, sap-paced state where trying to complete a thought is as arduous as an old man trying to get out of a hammock.

The fact that I’m dealing with some major emotional whacks (a breakup, for one) has only made things go more haywire. In fact I think it was a lot of emotion mixed with regular cognitive overload that sort of took things over the edge. That and the insanely loud cacophony of those damn automatic toilets. It feels like my brain is going to shatter and shoot out of my ears when they flush. If I end up in hell, those flushing toilets will be the soundtrack. Just so we’re all clear.

When I think about my cranium I picture that delicate glass slipper being forced on the ugly step-sisters far-too-large foot. There just isn’t enough room in there for everything to find it’s place and get processed normally or in order. It will suddenly enter an erratic state and my thoughts start flying from every direction dealing with any and every topic, related or not, and instigating every kind of emotion in a matter of seconds. It’s like a hail storm of mental calamities flying at high speeds up there, and I’m just trying not to be get hit. Orrr, it moves so slowly and stuttered I can hardly say my full name out loud without pausing to remember like, my middle name. Soo, cognitively…still in recovery. Please stand by.

Trying to avoid your own fast-paced thoughts and emotions, or extremely slow ones, isn’t really possible. Like Tolle says, you don’t evade them, you learn to watch them, and remember you’re the one observing them, but you aren’t the thoughts themselves. He’s right, but dang, it ain’t easy. Peasy. In fact it’s crazy hard. But, we try.

Yesterday, I realized I had spent 2 hours writing and rewriting the same paragraph. One! Who knows what that paragraph was even about, I had to quit when I realized I took a break and was looking for my phone charger in the refrigerator. I truly could not think straight–and that led to a whole cascade of things happening and a really fun couple of hours on the floor of my moms bedroom where she brought me back to reality. Thanks mom. I don’t know what that paragraph was about, probably about feeling lost on top of feeling like butt. BUT, no matter the finished outcome, I can say with a good amount of certainty that it wasn’t good enough to warrant two hours of work. I was just stuck. It would be funny if after two hours the end product was like:

Me Mary. Me sick. Times hard. Heartache hurts. Time heals wounds. Time moves forward only. Time is taking a very long time. Hurry up time! God! My mom is hero. Head and face feel like human punching bag getting lots of use. Monty is therapy walking on four legs. Friends matter. Life tough but onward we march. Keep going. It gets better. Keep going. Keep going. Wait stop! OK keep going.

That’s basically it in a nutshell. Anybody want the 5,000 word version? Yeah, didn’t think so. Maybe I’ll talk in cave-woman all the time. It’s pretty efficient I must admit. I think I just have to rest my brain for now, but I didn’t want to feel totally defeated. Writing has always been an outlet, and I’m not letting the disease that shall not be named take it away. So I figured I’d write this post, not read back over it, and just let the world know: Yes, you are kicking my ass right now. But I’m still here. Still going. Bring it.

Health, Happiness, Me Try Hard

*Small note to the world, I was kidding when I said “bring it.” Please don’t bring anything else, we’re all full over here. OK? I was joking and I just wanted to make that clear to the universe. That was a joke. No more shit, K? For real. Cool. Peace.

Do you ever go through something that is both presumably necessary but incredibly hard and subsequently feel the weight of the world baring down on you as if the gravitational pull changed and it was all on account of you doing something possibly stupid but possibly necessary? Me either, life is easy and fun!

While my health has to continued to sustain for reasons I can’t entirely know for sure, I’ve had some personal experiences which are difficult and painful and every time these things wash over me I examine why life has to be hard (as if I actually expected it to only be easy) and then I wonder does life actually have to be this hard or am I just doing it wrong? I don’t know the answer to that one. I guess we can only learn as we go. I find myself telling Monty to never fall in love because it leaves a mark on every part of your life and ultimately it changes you, whether you wanted to or not. But then I watched the neighbor dog humping his owners leg and considered that obviously the alternative isn’t so much more grand. Though there’s an appeal to that leg–it’s not going to keep you up at night with heartache and strife. Or maybe I’m too quickly assuming here, maybe I should ask the dog.

Of course this fantasy that life would be easier and less painful without this or that is just that: a fantasy, a slight rejection of reality. But maybe more detrimentally, it presumes that somehow as humans we know better, and we know the answer to what would make life easier or more tolerable. As if life isn’t some ridiculous, complex mystery that has an infinite amount of working parts we as finite humans can only momentarily grasp, if ever at all. And I’m not struggling with an idea that every human for thousands of years hasn’t experienced pain from and questioned the value of. We’ve all been through it. Wondered if the pain in the end was worth the utopia in the beginning. I like this quote about it: “Love is the voice under all silences, the hope which has no opposite in fear.” by e.e. cummings. Would I really choose an option where falling in love wasn’t part of the equation? Duh, no. That’d be insane and cowardly and boring. Love is a remarkable gift, with perhaps its best quality being that of illumination. I like how sometimes it picks us, even when we’ve turned our backs on it or given up on the idea. I like that it takes us places we wouldn’t go on our own. I like that it makes even a worn-down curmudgeon feel giddy and silly and do things he thought he’d never do. I’m thinking of my grandma now, who at 86, has a man named Harold (a few years her senior) who is madly in love with her. I saw it with my own eyes. They would marry if only she’d accept.

Harold had been living at her facility for a few years when she moved in. He has a military haircut I imagine he’s had for 50 years. He speaks concisely and says what he means. There is density to both his physique and his words but a subtle softness you pick up on behind it. Harold had been sitting at the same table in the cafeteria for years, often alone, seeming annoyed by even the thought of socializing and especially at watching others partake in it. Sometimes he looks like he wants to press mute or fast forward on the whole charade; a sentiment I’m familiar with. He eats and drinks the same thing at his meals every day in a very particular order–part of the routine involving peeling his fruit and sharing half of it with my grandma. The ending involves hot tea with a lemon at a very high temperature that if not fulfilled, as sometimes happens with new employees or forgetful old ones, gets sent back. He waits. Sometimes he scoffs, others he sits in silence. I ate with them a few times last summer and couldn’t help but think of Jack Nicholson ala As Good As It Gets, with a little less show but just as much intensity.

Harold would be the last guy you’d expect to get all doughy-eyed and follow a girl around like a love-sick puppy. And yet, here he is. Three years in to my grandma’s stay at The Atrium, Grand Junction’s finest assisted living home, and Harold has fallen over in love with her. I’d like to say I’m exaggerating for literary purpose but truly I am not. I saw it with my own eyes. It started as a joke in the family– OOooooh Grandma! Hanging out with Harold again?! Grandma has a boyfriend! Hehehehe! And then slowly it was revealed to all of us that for him it wasn’t some crush, he’d truly fallen for her. He switched tables to sit with her. Even thought that meant there’d be a certain amount of socializing. He comes over all the time to watch Westerns at her apartment. He on the couch, she on the recliner. Of course half the time they fall asleep 10 minutes in, but no matter. The man has it bad. And something about it completely excites and inspires me. It turned the tables on rules I had stupidly self-made on love and life and age. Very stupidly. I am constantly discovering how much I don’t know. But I love this story. I love that the employees there asked my grandma what she had done to Harold. What happened to the old crotchety man rolling his eyes in the corner? Now he was partaking in group activities? Calling her on the phone? Feeding the ducks? Switching tables?!! While my grandma tries to insist they’re only friends, (oh my God life never changes) and that she finished that phase of her life after my grandpa died, it’s clear she’s enjoying the time with him as she should. Albeit rejecting his proposals and insisting he partake in more bridge games. I love it all. They’re is something truly hopeful in all of it. Anything that flips our predefined notions on their head can only be a good. It’s illuminating. I imagine it’s that way for Harold, too.

Harold, My Grandma, and her best friend Myrtle, playing cards on a wild Friday night last summer.

Maybe it’s different for her. She clearly likes him being her friend and enjoys the companionship. Perhaps in this last stage of their lives, my grandma’s old stoic German ways will prevail and she’ll reject the romantic advances and they truly will be just friends. At 90. And that’s fine too. Of course I’m secretly hoping that one day she’ll weaken, she’ll let him sneak a kiss. Maybe she already has. I don’t know. But watching this all unfold fills my heart up with something good. Something hopeful. My grandma’s advice to me has always been that boys like girls who are mean to them; that she hardly ever let a boy get too close or too much from her. To work on your own life and don’t design it around some boy. And I knew as a young woman she had a lot of interested suitors and broke her share of hearts. In fact she pushed her first boyfriend into a ditch when he tried to kiss her, which she said of course, only made him try harder. And that’s been her advice to me; to push the boys into the ditch and watch what happens. Honestly I take her advice to heart. I love listening to her old stories. Her simplicity about life. She is a very happy person who loves her life, and so for me her advice carries a lot of water. I know they don’t have the internet at the Atrium, but Grandma, if you’re reading, give Harold a kiss for me. (I mean you can’t push the man into the ditch–he’s 90!!) For whatever reason watching the two of you, and specifically him, has been a very good thing for me, and I’ll probably always carry it with me.

Health, Happiness, and Boys In the Ditch