Tag: dogs

A Little Older Now

Published on 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 ;)

Love You Buddy

Health, Happiness, Hellos & Goodbyes

Fuel to the Fire

Published on by Mary Gelpi10 Comments

It’s been so long since I’ve typed at a computer, I think my typing speed may have dropped to under 60 WPM. Dangit. I should probably quit writing everything by hand in notebooks, if I want the words to appear anywhere else but in a stack on my bookshelf, that is. Also my handwriting is pretty indecipherable so I guess it makes sense to stick to the computer. It’s just that writing by hand has always felt easier, more accessible and immediate. There’s something more rousing about putting actual pen to page. I hesitate less. My ‘thinking’ mind turns quieter, and the space that must open in order for the good writing to come through stays that way, without distraction. Especially when I’m scratching away with a really great pen. Right now it’s a black Pilot G-2 07. Sounds like a damned air o’plane, and I’d even describe it as a “smooth glider.”. So, I guess I’ll just be transcribing from page to machine for a while. I need an intern. Any takers? I will pay in doughnuts. Why is doughnuts spelled like that?

This last month has been filled with a few major milestones. Most of them aren’t mine, but in the absence of personal excitement, the achievements of those in my inner circle are close enough–plus it’s something to tell other people. Like someone will say Whats new Mary? And instead of saying Um, nothing. I say Not much, but my childhood best friend had a baby! See how that works?

My childhood best friend had a baby. For real! It’s still hard for me to wrap my head around it, not because she’s the first of my friends to start a family. But because we’ve just been friends for so long, since we were babies in fact. We still laugh at jokes from when we were five! Sometimes I feel so young around her–I guess the kid in me comes out. Now she has one! A beautiful, alert, amazing little daughter. It’s all very exciting. I’ve decided that I’d like her to call me “Ont Viv” (what Will called his aunt in the Fresh Prince of Bel-Aire) I find it fitting, and if she has half the sense of humor of her mom, she will appreciate the spirit of this name. Of course, just like a milestone birthday, this big thing happened, and yet it’s not that different. Kaitlin and I are still the laughing, weird, sister-friends we’ve always been, except now there is a tiny little girl sleeping in the corner while we talk. Funny how everything changes, but the middle stays the same. Welcome to the world Bernadette Jane! Love, Ont Viv.

My other best friend, Dr. Emils, got married a week later. I was a bridesmaid: score! A Southern girl and a guy from Amsterdam equaled a classic New Orleans wedding with a dash of Dutch. Nice. Two days of wedding festivities and a crawfish boil led up to the ceremony at sunset, on probably the best day of weather New Orleans has had all year. Everything was perfect and she made such a beaming, beautiful bride. It was a happy, lively experience to be a part of and filled with a lot of love. All topped off with a long second-line led by a classic Nola brass band singing all the greats, including When the Saints Go Marching In. Weddings are the best. No, New Orleans weddings are the best. If you ever get the chance, go! I’m really happy for my friend, mostly because I could tell how incredibly happy they were together.

I’m also the last single girl on the planet. Sweet.

Engaging in a two day wedding weekend is a rare chance for me to see old friends, to be around people my age, to have a reason to dress up–or get dressed at all, for that matter. It’s not often that I get to do things like this. Not often I get to be 32. My life consists of a lot of solitude, which I like, but it’s always nice to get a glimpse of life outside the farm. If anything I live more like a 90-year-old dog lady, so I try to soak up every moment of acting 32. It’s tricky too, because I know that participating in things like this are not without consequence. Acting my own age comes with a price tag, so every time I decide to do it, I’m making a silent agreement. No one really knows the gravity of decisions like this. Or what’s involved in just showing up, or how  I’ll pay for it all later. The choice is so much more encompassing than just deciding to attend a party. I swear I don’t write this out of some martyr, woe-is-me mentality. It just struck me as I was swiping through photos of the big day, which was a really fun day–that it makes perfect sense why so many people misunderstand the illness. They don’t know the weight and preparation and consequence of partaking in something normal, like being a bridesmaid in a wedding. How could they? All they see is this:

unnamed
I did.

They couldn’t know how much time and tedious planning went on beforehand, including scheduling when I would bathe, to ensure there’d be enough time for rest between that and the next event. They couldn’t feel the certain amount of pain you just have to bare through things like this. They don’t see the plethora of medicine necessary to endure standing and socializing and lasting through a night. And they’d probably never consider such things, like a bath, or socializing, as exertion in the first place–As something that counts against you in your fight to keep strain at an absolute minimum. And that is almost always the goal. It’s obnoxious even to me, as I write it now. The strange reality of living with this thing. The exhaustive necessities involved in even small things. You’re always calculating how much every little thing will cost you, always trying to save up if you’ve got somewhere to be. But what really struck me is that nobody sees what the pricetag actually looks like. That’s because the pricetag comes later. They don’t see the subsequent week or weeks of recovery that follows at home. Which can look a little like this…

waiting
Poor Monty

When I thought about the outward appearance of illness, the timeline of how it plays out, what I show to people when I’m out and what goes on at home–I realized not only how easy it would be to get the wrong idea about the disease, but also how I might play a part in misrepresenting its reality.

For one thing, I want to emphasize that the reason I am able to even show up and participate in a wedding is because I’m currently at a functional-enough level to pull it off. There is a spectrum to the disease, there is waxing and waning, and there have certainly been times throughout the last 6 years when I wouldn’t have been able to stand at the alter. Even so, being “functional-enough” still means tedious logistical preparation, and a two-week long crash as a result. So, I’m still miles from where I once was, or should be. But many others are bound to their homes, many are bound to their beds, and we are all suffering with the same disease. I realize that people may see me when I’m in public and just not “buy” that I could be sick. And I see why this misperception persists.

But I also think that often we assign too much power to labels, and we attach our personal version or image of what “sick” should look like, and those who don’t fit the bill are either doubted, ignored, or assumed sick “in their heads.” We should all consider the many forms that ‘sick’ takes, and acknowledge that even terminally or chronically sick people don’t look sick at all times. No one would’ve guessed my dad had cancer, and that guy was dying! Looks are deceiving, and this immediate tendency to mistrust what we don’t immediately see or understand results in a basic lack of humanity. I am probably at my most functional that I’ve been since 2012, but I still walk a very fine line. It can and does go south easily, and it still requires help from my parents, a lot of rest and recovery time, a ton of medicine and doctors, and a lot of supine time on my own. (With Monty) And I am a lucky one, for sure. I know that people who suffer with anxiety/depression, bipolar disorder, OCD, Lyme, MS, Lupus and other chronic diseases suffer with similar outer doubt and confusion because their illnesses are not always easily seen from the outside. Labels, symbols, projections; they’re all powerful things, and they’re something we should consider and adjust on the whole before we make up our minds about something we may know zilch about.

I think I feel the need to write about this because ever since I entered the world of MECFS advocacy last year, I came face-to-face with just how poorly understood the disease is, how much misinformation/pure fallacy is out there and dominating the conversation, and how many people are getting it wrong because of the name alone. (Another thing I understand, it’s a stupid stupid stupid name.) I also have to consider whether I am helping to change and fix these misperceptions or if I’m at all contributing to them; and if I am, what I can do to fix it. I thought a lot about that after the wedding while looking through such beautiful pictures from the day, from the confines of my bed, knowing I wouldn’t leave home for a while. I didn’t think critically about this before last year, but I’ve learned up-close how much these things matter. The problem of disbelief is so much larger than gossip or personal dramas. This is literally public opinion shaping policy. It’s allowing the lack of intervention on a disease affecting millions of our own and many millions more around the world. How long will we allow people to suffer? How long will we let the accountable people look the other way? The world is looking at us and our treatment of this disease, and we are totally blowing it.

As soon as we show serious interest, I know other countries will follow suit. I know we will also make important new discoveries and possible cures. For now, we are at a stalemate that is costing millions of lives and billions of dollars. It’s almost hard to believe it’s true or possible after so long. And yet, here we are…

In the last year there has been awesome and much needed support from the public. The many signatures on the petition was surprising and still continues to humble me. I should say, it was that petition with such a substantial amount of sigantures that scored me the local news spot, a meeting with the Louisiana State Director (whom I spoke with for more than two hours about mecfs) and the reason I had a follow-up with our Senator Bill Cassidy. There’s more on the horizon. I’ll write more of that later. But our fight to be recognized, pursued and funded for biomedical research has come closer than ever in the past year, and we have to keep up the momentum. To quote my mom, “The timing could not be worse.” Hah, she is right. Politically things are somewhat of a shit-storm right now, and the potential for a slashed NIH budget on the whole obviously doesn’t work in our favor. But with the recent diagnosis of my sister, the possibility of backtracking our earned success, I have a renewed fire to fight and faith in myself, the advocates, the public, and the system, and an unrelenting hope that we can and will fix this. The timing might be terrible, and yet the truth is, there’s no better time for change than right now.

There are so many people in the advocacy arena who are doing big things–as for me I will continue to campaign for awareness in all ways I can think of, and restart petitioning for signatures. But I think possibly the most powerful voice is that of the public– not from those who are sick, but from those simply who see the injustice that’s happening. That’s who we need to hear more from, and seeing the amount of healthy people who have signed the petition already restores my faith in people all over the world will come together and make this happen. Thank you all again. Here’s to the next 40,000…

Health, Happiness, Fire

Getting Clean

Published on by Mary Gelpi21 Comments

I really, really need to bathe. Let’s start there.

Why don’t you take a bath Mary? Great question. I’m running on fumes, that’s why. I’m not just low on energy but also have that Bone Crushing Weakness going on, and it turns out the whole “cleaning-up” process requires much more exertion than you’d think. And you wouldn’t think about, because it’s not something you think about when you’re well. When you  have a steady supply of energy on tap. A shower is just a precursor task on your way to doing other things. When you’re chronically ill, showering becomes the thing.There is no after. No next. To Do List: Bathe. End of to do list.

Not until I was at the mercy of illness did I understand the physical toll of hygiene and general appearance. This is mostly the reason that  when I’m not out in public, I look like a deranged, color-blind Craigslist Killer. Just to give you an idea, besides my obvious and immediate desperation for a bath, I am currently wearing these green-striped pajama bottoms with mis-matched socks and a Hanes His Way V-Neck white t-shirt. This is actually one of my more cohesive looks, except that I ate a pomegranate last night and the dark crimson juice has splattered all across my chest. Did that motivate me to change my shirt? No. So now not only am I dangerously close to exceeding the point of no return in terms of lost humanity due to lack of cleanliness, but I also look like I’ve been bleeding, or that I made someone else bleed, which adds a concerning urgency to whatever it is I have going on right now, but I still can’t be bothered enough to do anything about it. So I just go on living my life and all this has really upped my game in terms of just how insane I can look on a Wednesday without really trying at all. Some would call that impressive! Anyway, I’d love nothing more than to do my laundry and my hair and alphabetize my life and put on a dress just for fun, but I can’t. Not at the moment. And it still surprises me how seemingly simple and small things start to become large and exhaustive, all on account of health. Not until you’re straining to stand at the sink and overwhelmed by the exhaustion you feel just having to move your tooth-brush up and down, or discover that your arms and hands have turned to rubber after using them to lather up the shampoo in your hair, does it hit you just how costly all these little moves are. Not until the smallness of previous, everyday tasks suddenly reveal their enormity do you fully appreciate how much exertion it takes just tending to this business of being alive– and this is before you even go anywhere or do anything! It’s silly really. Still, this does not change the fact that I really need a bath and if I go one more day without one I fear I’ll reach an irreversible state of unclean and I’ll never get it back. I’m also sort of hoping that by sharing this very inappropriate and vulnerable reality with perfect strangers and a few friends on the internet, that perhaps it will motivate me, give me that final ‘push’ to take the plunge, even though my whole body feels like the human equivalent of mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes with death gravy!

I open with this unremarkable and embarrassing truth about my life because I think I’ve become a little too serious about the outcome of my writing in the last year or two and I’m trying to remember the importance of light-heartedness. And humor. I’ve noticed I put an extreme amount of pressure on myself to produce posts that are equivalent to biblical scripture, instead of remembering that this is a blog, a documentation of a small silly life, and it doesn’t always have to read one way or another. I find that way too often the writing doesn’t meet my expectation–which isn’t even anything specific, it’s simply a personal note of “It could be better.” As a result, I scrap a lot of work, I start over, or I just abandon it halfway thru. This is not a smart or productive way to go about any art, so I’m going to try to stop doing that and also remember to have fun. Oh yeah, fun! I forgot about fun! Usually the things I really enjoy writing are the things that people enjoy reading the most. It always translates. Too often it feels like extremely tedious work, which I think it has to be sometimes, especially if you want to always be improving the quality of your work, but more often it should just feel good. There should be some amount of recreation in it–this is my passion after all. I do it because I like it and it makes me better. Too often the process feels like taxes. So, I’m trying to remember to enjoy the process and the outcome, and also that not every word I write has to be a thought-provoking useable quote to put by my name after I die. “I need to bathe.” -M Gelpi, 1984-2016.

It’s been kind of a stupid few days. For one thing, I’ve bit my top lip no less than four times while eating. It frustrates me that my mouth is this stupid and that it doesn’t learn the lesson faster. Is it really so hard to GET OUT OF THE WAY. I think, I am 31 now, I shouldn’t have to explain to my gums that hey, when there’s food in my mouth and my teeth are moving up and down? Do you think maybe you could stay out of the way? Not a big deal or anything I just don’t want to EAT CHUNKS OF YOU and also I don’t like the taste of blood. With anything. So maybe stay clear of my teeth now? Great thank you. Glad we had that totally necessary talk. Now maybe I’ll tell my head to stay out of the way of my fist when I’m punching stuff! Hah, who am I kidding, I’m too weak to punch things!

What else? Oh yeah, I’m starving. I never mentioned this before but I’ve been battling an addiction for a few years now: it’s sugar. It’s very real!! So I basically eliminated all processed sugar as of Sunday, and it’s getting easier I guess. But even it being easier doesn’t change that it’s still ridiculously hard. And half the time I think the answer is, don’t diet. If you’re addicted to sugar, just stay addicted. Get fat. Get diabetes. Die young. This isn’t worth it. A cupcake would make me so happy right now, why am I denying myself this easy promise of happiness? Why am I making life this much harder on myself? Kiddingggg. But truly, I was addicted. Am? I think I still am, I’m just not feeding the beast. It began shortly after I began the corticosteroids–my appetite, my cravings for sugar, and my intolerance for it all simultaneously exploded at the same time and only got worse with time. I also became extremely hypoglycemic and would wake up in the middle of the night starving and shaking. I knew at some point I would have to do something drastic, not just because I was clearly addicted to something I didn’t even used to like, but my body was also rejecting the very thing my brain was craving. So many of my migraines occur after eating something sweet, typically processed sugar. Not to mention, there is just way too much junk in my trunk now. And also under the hood, and the front and back seats. Mostly, I just feel totally out of balance. I don’t like my relationship with food anymore. I used to just eat when I was hungry and then not really think about it. This whole sweet tooth thing is exhausting and also never-ending. I literally never feel full and I’m bored thinking about it all the time. So it was time to quit. Right now I’m just trying to get used to feeling mild hunger or major cravings but not immediately shoving food in my mouth as a response. Especially when I’ve already eaten a healthy meal and I know I’m not actually hungry. It sort of struck me, this totally 1st world moment of enlightenment: Oh yeah, I don’t actually HAVE to eat just because I feel hungry. I literally forgot that I have that option: NOT eating. Only an American would forget this, I’m convinced. So that’s going well. Wait no actually it’s really hard and taking a major adjustment but whatever, it’s in the name of being healthier and I can get behind that.

This morning, I was lying in bed and trying to find the motivation to get out of it, my eyes scanning the room looking for something inspiring to land on. Window. Wall. Dresser. Monty! Then I thought hey, I’ll just lay here and talk to Monty. Sometimes I share my ideas out loud with Monty because NOT EVERYBODY HAS A BOO WHO WANTS TO HEAR THEIR COOL TAKES ON LIFE. And I was like Monty, don’t you think it’s kinda dumb how hard life is? I mean if we were talking about Life Round 2, like if this one were a dress rehearsal, I would pull for “Less hard stuff, more funny stuff” in the next one. I just think the script is calling for more humor, more casual fun. It’s like the architect of the universe was listening to a playlist and when he got to this part, Coldplay got stuck on repeat and so there was a somberness infused into the day-to-day to stuff. He needs to listen to Pharell, or better yet, the band Fun! They would mix it up in a positive way, I think.  And I’m sharing this with Monty thinking this is pretty good stuff, and what does Monty do? But abruptly start licking his butthole. As if the house was going to collapse on top of us both if he didn’t do it at that exact moment. Right in the middle of my Ted Talk (more like BED TALK) about how life should be tweaked for the next go around. At first I was like OH REAL NICE MONTY but then I was like God, who am I to make you feel bad about this? It’s probably the shitty food I give you making your butt itch, even though it’s expensive as shit. This country has major food problems, for dogs and people! Whatever I mean that’s what they say.. I don’t really know anything about it.

I’ve been writing this dedication piece on gratitude because despite my life looking and sounding like a disaster, it’s actually great in a lot of ways and has some really amazing parts and people that I am crazy grateful for. I’ve been writing it for weeks, in my normal tortured way, and there’s some good stuff there, but I think I just need to calm down. The piece is not just about saying thank you to the many, many people who have reached out and offered help to me in so many different ways this year, even though they are who inspired the piece. It’s more about the new and intimate way I’ve come to understand and appreciate gratitude in my life, which began with me recognizing gratitude during parts of my life that I wouldn’t traditionally say thank you for. There were extremely tough moments, days, and months this year. And yet somehow, there would be these redemptive moments within the pain, where I felt grateful for the exact experience, even if it wasn’t enjoyable or was causing me pain. This was never traditionally my approach to gratitude. I said thank you when I recognized that something was good, and there were always plenty of good things. But there was a whole new light shed this year, particularly during this winter which has been challenging in a number of ways, and yet the struggles still managed to produce these amazing moments of love, kindness, help, laughter, friendship..all in the midst of what I’d normally consider “disaster.” I write about it because I am continually surprised and amazed when I feel gratitude sneak up on me inside–I’ve been blown away by its reliability regardless of whatever scenario I find myself in. It was always easy to say thank you when everything went my way. But it’s been a new and enlightening experience stumbling upon it even when I’m lost or isolated or feeling totally discouraged. That’s changed how I look at everything now, and it really lightens the burden of whatever I’m carrying when I remember to try and find it. Anyway, that’s what the piece is about. Hopefully my brain will stop screwing around and I’ll get it cranked out sooner than later.

In the meantime I want to say that while I don’t always feel worthy of the love, help, gifts, messages and prayers that are offered to me by so many people, I do constantly feel incredibly grateful for the support that me and those who care for me have been given. Every way I’ve been helped or encouraged, no matter how small it may have seemed, always presses me to be better and to try harder. All we can do is our best, but being loved and supported the way I have continues to raise the bar for what my best can be. Thank you! All of you. My life is a perfect example of how needing help can be a really beautiful thing and not something to be afraid of — it teaches me to trust in humanity and to humbly surrender and accept what I can’t control, and I think to the giver, it teaches grace and encourages kindness. Somewhere in the middle is gratitude for us both.

I think I feel encouraged and insecure enough now that I’m going to attempt to bathe. Thank you for helping me.

Health, Happiness, Hygiene

The Cusp

Published on by Mary Gelpi15 Comments

You know in those movies where the main character is down and out after shit hits the fan and they’re nearing rock bottom but then comes this pivotal moment, a complete momentum change where usually an offbeat sidekick character busts out the tough love and tells them only they can change the course of their lives and no one else can do it for them? Suddenly this head-boppy motivational song chimes in and so begins the montage where down-and-out becomes up and coming and bad choices are replaced with healthy ones followed by inspiring shots of her showing kindness to strangers and looking bright and happy and you know, you know, that everything is going to work out for her. Her life trajectory rockets into the stars where her potential is limitless.  And all the shit that hit the fan has settled and disappeared. It’s all going to be OK. It’s going to be good.

I find myself on the cusp of my own Hollywood game-change montage. In the movie of Mary, it’d start with me rolling out of bed… onto the floor.Then Monty enters, pulling me by my shirt collar into the kitchen, and scoots me a plate of pills with his nose across the floor. Then begins my momentum shift song, potentially this one by The Killers

…followed by shots of me lifting three-pound weights and flexing my “muscles” in the mirror. I’m drinking green frothy stuff and throwing away prescription bottle after bottle, high-fiving doctors and crossing off lifelong goals. Suddenly I’m the one waking Monty up to play, and I’m helping sick people and giving speeches in front of the president demanding  healthcare change for the chronically ill. Then the camera slowly fades in to me typing at the computer in the hazy blue of night; a question appears across the screen: Are you sure you want to change this URL? It asks. I click YES, only to reveal my new web address word by word: Zero.Pills.A.Day.Com BABY! (Scene) For some reason this hasn’t happened yet. So weird.

OK so yes this is more Hollywood than reality and there are a lot of flaws to the fantasy, like me “exercising” for one. And vitamins curing me, for two. But the other half contains actual hopes I have for my life. There are real changes that I can feel waking from dormancy, and ambitions I know I can achieve, all that’s required is that I jump off. Dig in. But when it comes time to leap, I feel hijacked by my own dumb brain. Maybe it’s more of a lump; a dense rock in my depths that thinks of a million other things to do besides the one thing that matters. Sometimes it’s a total jerk of a rock and suggests I’m incapable or unworthy, or that someone else could do it better. And the worst part is, I listen! I think yeah, I should definitely attack my nails and cuticles until they bleed instead of trying to change my life and others for the better and for forever. Smart, real smart.

When it comes to writing, I encounter the same consensus among writers, which is painfully simple: That writing every day is obnoxiously hard and often achingly lonely, but you just make yourself do it.   The writer Anne Patchett writes in The Getaway Car that the key to completing artistic endeavors is forgiveness. Before she begins, “I grieve for my own lack of talent and intelligence. …Forgiveness is key. I can’t write the book I want to write, but I can and will write the book I am capable of writing. Again and again I will forgive myself.” I’m working to keep this in mind, since so many words and pages I write on this computer end up in the trash bin. It’s hard to know whether I have a discerning eye for quality work, or if I just don’t trust myself enough. It’s beginning to feel like the constant editing is just another guise I’ve unconsciously created to keep me from the jump. Amy Poehler advised in her recent memoir that in order to write you have to symbolically remove your brain and put it in a drawer, then listen to it throw a tantrum until it wears itself out–meanwhile you get going on the real stuff. “The doing is the thing. Talking and worrying and thinking is not the thing. Writing the book is about writing the book.” See? Basically to achieve what you want, you just have to do it. Brilliant. When I’m not in denial and I’ve let go of excuses, I am well aware that the only thing in my way, holding me back, is me; and knowing that almost paralyzes me even more. But I also know that change starts with awareness, so I think it’s time I take out a hit on myself. At least on the part that’s so lost in thought it leads to stagnancy. I can’t believe the trouble thinking causes. Has Tolle taught me NOTHING!?

So many days I have no idea what I’m doing or where I’m going or what’s going to happen to me and it results in either laughter or becoming totally overwhelmed. Where I used to fear change in life, I guess when things were stable and I was happy, I’ll sense an aching fear that things won’t change. That I’ll live and die in my parents pool house, an unpaid blogger with 37 chronic conditions. I can’t grasp where my place is among the world. Furthermore I can’t decide whether our place is made or reserved. Do we discover it or carve it out all our own? I don’t know. I only know that most days I feel far from either. Other days I feel close to a major turn-around; like something huge is about to sweep me up and change all of this for the better. But by the next morning we’re back to the ordinary. I’m taking my pills and moaning and Monty is doing his best to get me out of bed. Often my life feels like a raft drifting in the ocean in no particular direction, and the wind in all its thoughtless surprise is steering the boat, not really taking me anywhere at all.

Guess we're going South. Cool.
Guess we’re going South. Cool.

Monty and I roam around this town I’ve historically hated more like tourists than anything else. No one knows us by name, besides the pharmacist of course. We spend a lot of time at this coffee shop with the angry barista where I’m writing from now.There are girls here wearing the same uniform I wore in high school. They look so young and cute in their plaid skirts and Mary Janes. They seem happy and untainted and I like the way they burst out laughing at hardly anything. I can’t remember looking that young, a sure sign I’m getting older. Since turning 30 last year, I wonder a lot whether I’m really growing up or just getting older every year. I am surprised to have found the first grey hairs on Monty’s snout this year and I feel like a mother watching her kid go to the prom.Where did the time go?! There’s all kinds of proof that time has moved forward and carried me with it.  And yet my life could easily fit the bill of a 17-year-old in many ways. Some days that’s exactly how it feels. As my friends are advancing their careers and getting married and having babies, I still bring my mom to doctors appointments and often shop at American Eagle.

I understand the circumstances of my life are different and I have to make peace with that every day. But I also want to make sure I’m growing through all of this and not just surviving it. I guess I thought there would be a day when I reached adulthood, as though it were some test you passed, like the BAR, and then were a certifiable adult. I definitely figured as a child that by age 30 I’d have it all figured it out. Of course, I was young and blissfully stupid then. I couldn’t know how obscenely larger and deeper reality would become. I feel like I know less than ever before. Every answer springs up ten more questions. I’m uncertain of mostly everything except for the aggressive love I have for my dog. In short I have no idea if I’m getting it right. And I can’t imagine the day when I’ll feel like an adult.

V413782_RC093
Didn’t You Hear?!

However, I did notice something of note at Victoria’s Secret last week. It was a routine underwear buying trip and my spirits were high because there’s something weirdly exciting about getting new underwear. There I was at the 5 for $25 wrack; my go-to section for cute and economical briefs. But I found myself all disgruntled making frowney faces as I browsed the huge selection. They were all Lisa Frank colors or animal prints. But worse, there was writing across the butt. Things like “No Peaking” and “Shopping Burns Calories!” adorned their backsides. Dear. God. The colors were blinding and I felt out of my element. I then spotted the sophisticated 3 for $33 wrack out of the corner of my eye, where the colors are muted bronzy tones and the designs are laced in floral maturity. More expensive yes, but, as I held a silky pair in my hands, modest, pretty and free of TEXT on the ass, I felt at home. This is where I need to be. I bought my favorites and left smiling. So that counts for something. I think.

Forward!
Forward!

All these thoughts weigh heavy in my mind; stupidly, uselessly. But they can be thick and hard to control. So I take Monty to the river, where he is immediately in his element and I can catch my breath. Monty finds the largest stick in the vicinity and makes me throw it in the water again and again and again. His enthusiasm is contagious and I laugh out loud watching him put his whole head underwater to find the waterlogged sticks. Something about returning to the spot and seeing the river flow in the same direction it did last time we were here quiets my head. Watching Monty run full speed and splash clumsily reminds me to chill out. That life is supposed to be fun, and it only moves in one direction.( See above) Collapsing under the weight of those thoughts makes me feel dragged by the current instead of floating downstream. I don’t know exactly who I am, and maybe it’s something that grows and changes until the day you die. I only know that life and happiness aren’t somewhere over there, and I need to stop assigning them to a future I can’t know. Times will be hard and times will be easy, but there is peace to be found in all of it if I can just trust myself and forgive the experience. More than that there are dreams to be made! I just need to move out of my own way so I can finally jump off. Over the cliff–that’s where the magic happens. That’s where the Hollywood montage begins.

Health, Happiness, the Edge.

How To Come Home

Published on by Mary Gelpi6 Comments

I’ve just made it home. My suitcase is still lying in the center of the kitchen floor.

It’s crazy how good home feels after you’ve been away from it, even when you’ve completely enjoyed your time away. Somewhere between waiting in line barefoot among rookie fliers who somehow forgot about the jug of water in their carry-on and the captain shouting God knows what into that fuzzy speaker, I start to feel my humanity slip like some kind of sock with lazy elastic hovering at the ankle.

Once upon a time, flying made me feel like a celebrity. The whole experience was a novelty and a privilege.  And somewhere in my jaded depths I know that it still is. The mere idea of humans taking flight on a bus in mid-air is still mesmerizing and I’m lucky to have access to it. And yet somehow,  the only celebrity I ever feel like is Ben Stiller in Meet the Parents. I’m all eye rolls and discouraged sighs, which sometimes emerge as a laugh–the kind of laugh you let out when nothing is actually funny. I try to keep my moans of discontent in, even when the automatic toilet flushes while I’m still on it and I’m sprinkled with fresh public toilet water. I try to breathe through the frustration of then not getting that same toilet to flush when I actually want it to and there I am dancing like some kind of monkey on fire trying to activate the motion detector that says just wave your hand to activate. It lies. I exit, I don’t care. I hate the toilet now. All I want to do is wash the Ebola off my hands and possible STD’s off my thighs, but the faucet requires the motion. And the soap requires a motion. And the dryer requires a motion. And what happened to handles? If I went on Shark Tank I’d reintroduce handles to public bathrooms. Anyway there is more dancing. More erratic behavior from inanimate objects. More laughing when it’s not funny. It’s like the DMV in there; the threat level of a Stage 5 freakout is just one toilet flush away in any given stall. You can sense it.

But not everyone confronts the airport bathroom circus. The old lady next to me doesn’t seem to have problems with her soap. I bet she’s been spared from the toilet water too. What is your secret, old white lady in the brown velour pant suit? What am I doing wrong? But there’s no time for philosophizing, I have to get to my gate. Guess where my gate is? Guess if it’s nearby or at the very far edge of the airport as in it has a separate zip code and everything. Guess.

Is it the tragedy that is modern American air travel that makes home feel this good? Maybe. Probably. I guess this account of flying would suggest I’m a young, old curmudgeon who has lost sight to how lucky I am.  But it’s always temporary. I am either going somewhere great or coming home to relief and love, and it’s just the in-between antics that can get a girl down. Once home nobody shouts the temperature and the toilets flush WHEN YOU WANT THEM TO. Of course, an 80 pound furry beast running around you in circles then through your legs and back, shoving every toy in the box in your lap and wagging his tail with enough vigor to knock over small children and feeble adults, well, that helps too. That’s the best.

I celebrated Thanksgiving with my best friend big brother Nick and Company in Miami for a week. Mostly I felt like death, but I was excited to go and the change in scenery did me good. It’s been a rocky few months. My health declined from mediocre to poor without discernible reason, and that’s just the name of the game with illness like this. I can’t pretend I’m not discouraged by it or tired of feeling really shitty when I didn’t overdo it or change anything, as if a person deserves bad health anyway, but I’m trying not to wallow in it either. I saw the specialist in Miami and there are a few changes we are making, but we won’t know more until the results arrive from the copious amount of blood I gave to test. Aside from that, my progressive boyfriend and I broke up. Ew, breakups.

It’s interesting that a decision you’re sure of it’s the right one to make can be just as painful as the wrong ones you’ve made when you didn’t know any better. And by interesting I mean shitty. We did the adult thing and “called it” at the appropriate time. We saved ourselves the tragedy of letting it slowly burn and die until it ended in hatred. I guess ultimately, even an amicable breakup is still a breakup. It’s an end. You grieve for them and you grieve for who you were with them. I experienced a whole new pain this time around that stemmed from not being my whole self in the endeavor. I pretended and concealed when the truth was ugly or getting a less than desirable response. I don’t think Id ever done that In a relationship before, but I’ve never been under the circumstances I am now and had to introduce someone knew to a world that took so much explaining, and defending in some cases.

It’s weird, I actually wanted to keep my illness out of the whole thing. (I wanted to live in Neverland, is how that sentence should read.) I had this fear it would interfere with things before they ever had a shot to develop. I feared it would be difficult and unbecoming; It would suggest I was someone inferior. I was even afraid it might be the demise of the relationship. And then, it kind of was. The weight of it became too heavy, it’s unrelenting nature became too repetitive and it’s lack of a solution wore out the seams and we broke. There were other reasons, of course. But my being sick was up there, it messed with things, it was a big a part of the end. And for a while that was a really crushing thought. It made me feel small, made my life feel lesser. I push and work to live my life in spite of this invisible force trying to take it away, and yet sometimes, it still comes out on top. It wins.

But hiding it was like doing a monkey dance in a cramped bathroom stall. (Kind of) It was stupid on top of exhausting, and I don’t know how I expected anything authentically good to emerge when I wasn’t being true to myself. I am not my illness, I know that. But it’s there, it’s changed virtually everything in my life the last four years, and nothing good has ever come from denying or dismissing it; from pretending it’s not there. And yet, sometimes I can sense that people want me to pretend it’s not there. They want to hear that I’m better, and no one understands that fantasy more than me. But pretending makes me feel like I have to hide a part of my life that I can’t control, and that’s not a healthy place to be. I don’t want long conversations about my illness. Ive had enough of them for 20 lifetimes. But I do need an honest atmosphere that doesn’t require apology. I need to be able to be sick when I’m sick and well when I’m well and not judged inbetween. It will always take patience, compassion and effort in order for my life to be understood and loved from the outside. It will always be hard in my relationships. But hopefully if I am really seen, my external circumstances won’t take up so much space. And that was half the problem, I never really felt seen. Instead I felt sorry, and that’s because I betrayed myself. By not putting it all out there, I made it nearly impossible for my life to make sense.  I am not jobless and living in my parents pool house writing on a blog called Twenty Five Pills a Day because of lifestyle choices. And that’s an attitude I confront a lot. I’ll work like hell my whole life to turn lemons into lemonade, but I didn’t pick the lemons, so I don’t think I need to apologize for that anymore. The weird thing is that in glossing over and skirting around this small part of me, so much more of who I am was stifled. Good parts! Fun parts! It doesn’t feel good not to bring your whole self to a party. In fact, that hurt the worst, and I did it to myself. I had a need that wasn’t getting met, and instead of accepting that once I knew it was true, I tried to do away with the need. Surprise surprise, that didn’t work. It’s OK to have needs. Love enjoys needs.

Now I am Stella getting my groove back. I see my health in the distance: a ship in flames slowly sinking into the ocean. Haha. That image makes me laugh. But this will pass. I’ll get better. Or I’ll get worse, then I’ll get better. It doesn’t matter, because I’m going to keep trying. I’ll attempt to transform all of this– pain, pleasure, toilet water– into something useful. Something fun. Because despair is boring and I’m seeking a creative life. The world doesn’t need more sad stories so I will find the good ones. I’ll trust what I’ve been given and let it fuel all my endeavors. Mostly I’ll breathe easier because I am who I am and I’ve made it home. I’m back. And I have so much to do.

Stay tuned.

Health, Happiness, Home.

I Spy Something Monty

Published on by Mary Gelpi1 Comment

Think Where’s Waldo. Meets Dr. Seuss. Meets I Spy. Something Like That.

In the Bushes!
In Some Bushes

At the Beach!
At the beach!

On Some Stairs!
On Some Stairs

Fast Asleep

In the Ocean
In the Ocean

At the Park
At the Park

In the Light
In the Light

In the Dark
In the Dark

Waiting in Line
Waiting in Line

In a Ditch
In a Ditch

In the Bayou
Swimming the Bayou

smellingafish
Smelling a Fish!

On the Edge
On the Edge

In the Hedge
In a Hedge

In the Snow
In the Snow

WIth Eyes Aglow
With Eyes Aglow

In the Hills
In Creepy Hills :/

In Lake Ponchartrain
In Lake Ponchartrain

At the Table
At the Table

Playing a Game
Playing a Game!

In the Reflection
In the Reflection

Taking a Leak
Taking a Leak

In the Pond
In a Pond

Taking a Peak
Having a Peak

Health, Happiness, Monty the Great

Questions Answered.

Published on by Mary Gelpi7 Comments

Everything is weird. I’m still healthy. And that makes things weird. And also pretty great.

I’m enjoying the three-dimensionality of things. The multitudes of personalities I’m confronting. The sounds that one simply doesn’t here in a bed in Southern Louisiana. Everything is distinctly colorful. Of course the onslaught of spring and the prolific products of hers help. It’s a been a long time since my health has maintained in this way. I’m walking a thin internal line, trying not to delve too hard into the why but not altogether ignoring the possibility of its fleeting nature, just like the season. I’m simultaneously happy at this new disposition and also keeping a dark fear at bay. It could all end quickly– a few things. And being entirely reckless hasn’t served me in the past. So I’m keeping these things in mind of course. But trying not to fall down completely into the rabbit hole where incessant introspective thoughts about it all could trap you just as easy as any sickness could.

For the most part, it’s been fucking great. Sorry. F word only every now and then. But it really is nice being able to stand and walk without the typical interruptions and be social and see comedy and do what other young people are doing. I can’t deny I am simply just enjoying the hell out of all of it. Things feel carefree and almost weightless. Life outside of a window at my house, a window on my phone, is really pretty great. When I get worried about the future or have fear of losing it, my mom tells me the same thing; detach from the outcome. And it’s so, so true.

I’m thinking of so many things these days. I’m still trying to put it together. What purpose will I serve with this newfound health? What did I fulfill in sickness? How to matter and find meaning in all of it– the big stuff and the little stuff and the small bits in-between. I’ve been thinking in questions today. I’m going to write them out with my best shot at answers because it’s just the current of my thoughts lately and I’m not going to swim upstream.

What do you contribute the newfound health to?

It could be the physical therapy for my neck which has lessened that pain load considerably. Could be the prescription switch to Trazadone that has me actually sleeping through the night–never mind the night sweats. Another prescription switch from Neurontin to Lyrica seems to help with pain management in general and maybe the increase in energy. Also it’s Spring and I swear to God I’m always at least a little improved in nice weather and my migraines are less frequent. Also divine intervention. I don’t know. Maybe a little of it all.

What happened to sewing, weren’t you into sewing for a while?

Yeah, I was. And I got really excited about some sewing projects. I sat at the Singer Simple 3116 for hours and taught myself the ins and outs of it. I got carried away and excited with ideas. Then I began, and I jammed the bobbin. THAT DAMN BOBBIN. I took the bobbin apart, unjammed it, and put it back together. And now the bobbin is failing me hardcore. I need bobbin help. Anyone? Still, I’d like to get back to some sewing projects. I find it relaxing and I like learning skills that seem to be fading from my generation.

What’s Monty up to?

You know, same ol…

This.
This.

And this.
And this.

This...
…This

Always this.
Always this.

Ending with this.
Followed by this.

Let’s talk about tea now.

Drinking this new acai/blueberry/pomegranate mix on the reg. It’s really good. Has there yet been a decision on the universal pronunciation of acai berry? I hear a mix around town. Let a sister know.

How’s the writing going?

I find a lot of reasons not to, but when I sit down and do it I like what comes out. Most of it’s been happening pen-to-page so I’ve been using up my notebooks, which is good because I have a lot. I’ve been on the lookout for a typewriter, but maybe that’s just another fantasy in the works. This thought that some instrument will encourage more writing instead of the truth which is that real writing just requires sitting down and doing that shit. I’m working on that.

Anything else while you’re out here in Neverland typing to yourself?

Yeah I’m reading like 4 books right now and 1 book of poetry. I don’t think this is how optimal reading was designed, but I find my head a little scattered lately. I’m almost finished with The Rosie Project–really funny, really good. Trying to push through Dance Dance Dance (slower than expected). One Dead in Attic is an easy quick read but dismal of course, you know, post-Katrina stuff. The Four Agreements is sometimes rudimentary in comparison to Tolle and Zukav and Nepo, but almost identical in the message. It’s got good stuff. New American Poetry which is proving what I feared–that I don’t really understand how to read poetry. Do you keep reading until you get it? I guess that’s all in the way of books.

And everything else.

For now the goal is to truly enjoy this time of health, appreciating every second where taking a deep breath is easy and sitting isn’t my only option. I’ve held the door for people these last few weeks. I held the door! These very normal things…they’re feeling very good. Clearly I’ve had a lot of doors held for me in my small life, and it feels nice to return the favor.

One last thing:

I saw The Grand Budapest Hotel. I really liked it. Monsieur Gustave..he sticks with you. I’m still stuck on Moonrise Kingdom though. See them both. Make a whole night of it.

Health, Happiness, HEALTH, HAPPINESS!

 

 

Push the Boys Into the Ditch; My Grandma’s Perfect Love Advice.

Published on by Mary Gelpi4 Comments

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.

Yeeeeah Legs!
Yeeeeah Legs!

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.
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

Grandma Selfie Yeah!
Grandma Selfie Yeah!

How To Escape a Nightmare?

Published on by Mary Gelpi12 Comments

It is 2:31 in the morning on Thursday, December 12th. I am wide awake, besides being restless in the legs, antsy in my mind, and strangely very hungry. I basically just ate dinner in bed. Monty temporarily lifts his head up from sleep at the foot of my bed and sniffs the air to identify what I’m eating should he decide he wants some. He does not. He plops down his head with an exhausted exhale and his belly falls. It doesn’t take him long to re-enter dream world. Me, I am stuck on this side. Reality in the middle of the night. The same as last night and two nights before that. The last few hours have looked a little like this:

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But lately my problem is not as much my difficulty in sleeping as much as what happens once I finally do fall asleep. I think it might be starting to be a problem. Here’s an except from my notebook from a few weeks ago.

Recently, I took a trip to spend Thanksgiving with my Brother and Company in Miami. I slept in baby Olives room, my one-year old niece. The second night I was there, I had a horrible nightmare. Something I’ve been having more and more of these days. This one wasn’t so much plot based as it was more a series of disturbing images, like those old home movies that play a little choppy from slides. From the start the dream was filled with eerie-ness and unease. I was in a dark place (literally)- similar to a cave but not entirely enclosed. There is nothing pleasant about my surroundings. The aesthetic is dull and drab. I’m walking forward but don’t know where I’m going. I see a full skeleton positioned against a wall, sitting as though it were an alive body, reading or relaxing. As I’m staring at it, suddenly the skull whips its head to turn and look straight at me, and its mouth jolts open. Quickly, harshly, intensely. In a word, it was terrifying. Almost at this same moment,  I realize I am dreaming. I find myself trapped in this nightmare, which has happened before and is now happening frequently. I try to scream in order to wake up my brother or sister-in-law, knowing that if I scream they’ll come to the room and subsequently I’ll wake up, escaping the dream. But when I try to yell, nothing comes out. Not only that, my mouth feels glued shut, as though my upper and lower lip were molded together. Consequently I am voiceless. My next attempt to escape is to physically kick and flail my limbs with such gust that the movements shake me out of it- my equivalent of pinching myself awake. But when I try to kick my legs, they’re stuck. They don’t move. They feel as though I’m standing waist deep in thick, dense mud. When I try to move my arms it feels like I’m in a straight jacket. So there I am; trapped in a scene which appears terrifying to me, and unable to speak or move. The strangest part of it all is knowing that it’s not real. Once I have this realization, the fear should fall away shouldn’t it? At any rate, it’s just a stupid skull head with its mouth open. It’s not the first thing I’d like to see in the morning but still, it could be worse. I try and try to scream and move and kick and flail but I can feel all my attempts failing. Silence, stillness, stuck. It’s stressful. The fear is tiresome. Finally, something from the other side makes a peep into my dream. I hear it once. I hear it again. It’s reality calling. Gradually it grows louder and louder, and I dissolve slowly from the dream. It turns to ash as I slowly wake to the bedroom. The reality calling is baby Olive crying. Finally, my eyes open. I can move my legs. I have a voice. I relish the sound of the baby crying. Never have I been so relieved and so happy to hear that sound. I feel bad because it was probably me squirming and making noise that woke her up–trying to escape the cave with the evil skull! But this is how it goes now. I realize I’m dreaming, often it’s a nightmare, and I can’t get out of it without something from the other side, some external force intervening. My mom saying my name, Monty pawing at me or the bedside, my phone ringing enough times to finally rattle me out of it. But never on my own can I get out. My sister-in-law sneaks through the cracked door stepping lightly, hands Olive a bottle and immediately her crying stops. She lays back down in her crib and soon I can tell by her breathing that she is back to sleep. Me, my heart is still beating fast, and I’m thanking God that Olive cried and got me out of the dream.                                    

                                                                                                                                          11-27-13

So there it is. I went a whole week without a computer! Sometimes you just need to feel a pen glide on paper. Anyway, that’s what happening lately. It’s making my nights quite..adventurous.  I remember learning in a Psych class once that in our dream phase of sleep, the brain temporarily “paralyzes” the body, so that we don’t jump out of windows or act out the weird things we do in our dreams. So there seems to be a miscommunication somewhere, a mis-firing of neurons between my brain and my body. One says I’m awake, the other says I’m asleep, and I’m caught voiceless in the mud, somewhere in the middle.

As dependent and exaggerated as it may sound, Monty has been my life saver lately. Or dream saver I should say. In my last few nightmares, I’ve called out to him (or attempted to) knowing if he made noise in the room I could get out of the dream. Two nights ago was another very scary one where I couldn’t move or scream, but I remember trying so hard to yell Monty’s name. All I could get out was “Mmmmmmm” because once again, my mouth was glued shut. Even without fully saying his name, he came in my room and pawed at my bed, until I woke up and my voice came back. I hugged him really really tight then, and he slept the rest of the night in my room. (Not on the couch, which he apparently finds preferable) Because the dreams are so real, the fear is so tangible and the images so lucid, even after waking up I feel in an eerie haze. Floating in some in-between world. I often need to look at something mindless to get my head out of whatever nightmare I was just trapped in. (Helloooo Facebook at 3 am) There are plenty of distractions to lift the post-nightmare haze, but in the meantime, I’ve got to figure this out. There must be a way for me to get myself out of these dreams once I’m made aware of where I am. And while I admit there are unpleasant and scary moments in all this, it is very interesting. I’ve always been a heavy dreamer, waking every morning  often with detailed streams of dreams playing through my mind. Sometimes I write them down, other times I tell myself I’ll remember and I put it off. But the more I immerse into real life, the faster the dream fades. “Like cotton candy” my mom always says. “Write them down right away!” My mom happens to be a student of Jungian psychology and well versed in the symbols and library of dreams, so since living with her again, she’s been a live in dream-interpreter for me, which is nice. Think about it– there is no clearer or more accessible portal into your subconscious than dreaming. It is hours of our existence that is not interrupted by thought, so I know there are profound answers to be found there. I am her I.T. person and she is my dream analyst. Fair trade.

I’ve learned quite a lot in breaking down the symbols in our dreams. And there is universal meaning to be found there. Do you think it’s a coincidence that many people dream their teeth are falling out? Or that they show up to an event completely naked? Or arrive to take a final for a class they haven’t gone to all semester? Of course each one relates more individually to each person and their life, but this is the human experience. We aren’t so different. I think it’s fair to say there is some objectivity in examining the subconscious without subscribing to some hokey pokey psycho crap. Admitting there is meaning in our dreams isn’t subscribing to witchcraft, as I’ve heard people react when hearing of dream interpretation. We shouldn’t be afraid to go deep for answers. That’s where most of them lie.

I’m going to attempt sleep once again. Monty is here and has been made aware of his duties. “When I start freaking out, you paw at the bed. Got it?” On the next post I’ll have my mom break down some universal dream symbols and go further into these nightmares if they’re still occurring. If anything, it’s another adventure. The riddle now is how to get out.

Accepting any/all suggestions!

Health, Happiness, Dreamworld

The Allure of Alone

Published on by Mary Gelpi12 Comments

I’ll admit, I’ve spent a certain amount of time, perhaps too much, fantasizing about the life I’ll have once I settle down with someone. How nice it will be to call a man my husband. To introduce my “better half” at parties, to have a “plus 1” at weddings and someone to sit around and do nothing with. I’ve even set aside a certain amount of happiness as something that will come once I am married, once I’m with my “soul mate.” Whenever I feel very alone or uneasy, I convince myself that those feelings won’t come once I’m with my Mr. Right. I think now though, having a very large amount of alone time- some of it lonely, but more of it not– I realize that the certain loneliness/angst/unease is something I have felt even when in loving relationships. It’s finally occurring to me that just because you’re in love or committed to life with someone, doesn’t mean all the intimate problems of being human go away. I admit there is at least a small amount of fantasy in my thoughts about what my life will be like once I’m given away and married. Instead now, I am learning to really treasure my solitude. Just like anything else, it won’t last.

I was speaking with a friend recently and we were calculating how much of our lives are spent with another person. Which is wonderful for the most part. Science tells us that those married and with families usually live longer and are often happier than those who are alone. But at the end of our lives, it’s often a very window that we actually have just to ourselves. For most people, the first 18 years are under the rule of parents or parental figures. College years are usually spent living with roommates. In the past most young adults were married or on their way to married by the time college was over. More and more however, it’s becoming common to have a new amount of time in our mid to late twenties where it’s just us. We’ve entered the professional world, but not taken on the role of husband or wife yet. Maybe enough of us saw how detrimental marrying too young could be. Or we witnessed the pain and exhaustion of divorce. We’ve seen or were the products of marriages that didn’t look happy and fun– instead they looked like a lot of work and not much else. Increasingly, I see young adults holding off on rushing down the aisle, which I think is a good sign. Till death do you part is a pretty big line regardless of your faith, age, or morals. Probably now more than ever is a young demographic of people living on their own. It certainly can be lonely at times, but I’ve begun to cherish this time where it’s “me” and not “we.”

It seemed my grand-parents and parents generation married relatively young. (My mom was married with two of her four kids by my age, and my grandmother had 4 of her 6 by now) I couldn’t help comparing my age and progress to theirs for most of my mid to late 20’s– but I’m making a conscious effort to stop doing that. And I’m also beginning to see the value in a young adult life that is spent without a husband or partner. I also realize that finding and being with your “soul mate” or partner doesn’t mean an end to loneliness or angst all together. In fact, in many of my loneliest moments, I’ve actually been in a relationship, but felt completely unseen or misunderstood. One might say that being in a relationship that you want out of is one of the worst versions of angst there is. This is why it’s silly to put all my ‘happiness eggs’ in one marriage basket. A ring and a contract doesn’t equal an end-all to personal struggle, challenges or pain.

I have to remind myself there is no timeline. Some women and men find lasting love at 18. Some at 38. All it takes is a few minutes on Facebook to see that many girls my age have married already and started families of their own. I used to look on with some amount of jealousy– some feeling to rush this chapter of my life so I could start the married one. But I also know you can’t really force falling in love. Or meeting your dream person. I have been in love a few times and met really wonderful people. But I’m not married yet because it hasn’t been right yet. Some say it’s a matter of timing. Some say it’s fate. Some say you’ll meet Mr. or Mrs. Right as soon as you stop looking. (I can testify that it is often when I’m happy and fulfilled on my own that I end up meeting someone who adds significance to my life that I didn’t know I wanted or needed.) At any rate, the goal should always be to find happiness, wholeness, and fulfillment on your own. Putting off your total happiness until someone you’ve deemed the answer to your prayers, i.e. someone you haven’t even met yet, is not only reckless but dangerous. Someone else won’t be able to fill you up if you haven’t learned to do so on your own. I think the healthiest and most romantic of love comes from two people who don’t desperately need each other, but just genuinely love and like each other so much they just want the other around–forever. I know too that knowing yourself well is a huge prerequisite in finding someone to love well. We can’t expect other people to fill up holes within us. When you get down to business, that is up to us.

Looking back at relationships in my life, and also looking at recent time spent alone, I see that sometimes I lose myself in love. I don’t write as much. I don’t seek creative outlets as much. I fall into comfortable habits instead of seeking newness. To specify, there’s nothing wrong with that. I can’t wait until my Saturday nights are spent with my husband in bed, asleep by 11:00 pm. But I also have begun to see the advantage in being alone. I’m more productive in the arts, which is an important realm of my life. For instance, I’ve spent the last few days drawing and making water colors. (Also listening to jazz–my brother Nick’s suggestion) I know that were I in a relationship right now, I wouldn’t have done these. Not that they’re great pieces of art, not that I can’t do them when I’m with someone, but for whatever reason I usually don’t. And I like just allowing my soul to let out whatever it needs to without the interruption or expectations that come when in a relationship.

"headache"
“headache”

"politics"
“politics”

"birds"
“birds”

"dick cheney"
“dick cheney”

Besides setting apart time for art, I spend more time with my parents. I read more. I don’t have to compromise on TV shows I want to watch. (Watching Say Yes to the Dress as speak) I see my brothers and sisters and nieces more often. There’s no argument about where I’m spending Christmas. For the most part, I spend time how I want with who I want and there is a freedom and casual thrill in that. Ultimately, I think human beings are meant to find our counterparts, and still I look forward to meeting my person. Life feels incredible when you find someone who shares your intimate perspective. No one can argue with the pure and ridiculous happiness and high that comes with falling in love. But on the other hand, it’s important to examine the time you have with yourself and you alone. I think of the time I spend daydreaming about marriage and babies and family life. Maybe I’ll always do that. But the other day I had this image: me, married, a house noisy with children, reminiscing about that time I lived in my parents pool house, the days mine to spend how I wanted with my dog Monty. Staying up late, sleeping in, writing, reading, drawing, and creating. I remind myself to be grateful for this time in my young adult life; alone but not really lonely, preparing for what’s next, whatever that might be, whoever it might be with. Time to treasure what I have now– a whole lot of me and Monty time. :)

Health, Happiness, Solitude

Prepare Yourself, This Might Get Sappy.

Published on by Mary Gelpi19 Comments

There were a few things I was going to write about this week. One was a response to an article that’s gone viral about why Generation Y is so unhappy. I almost wholeheartedly disagree with it, but I couldn’t finish. The second post was a “Breakup Playlist” that was really just a list of happy songs I composited that get me excited and I can’t help but dance to when they come on. And sadly, yes, a lot of the dancing I do these days is alone. But I enjoy it so lay off! The third was an observational piece about how impersonal life can be in the digital age of social media, where so many things are taken at face value and how someone’s online presence can be so far from the person they actually are yada yada yada. I began writing on all of these topics as my scattered mind couldn’t focus on just one, but there was something more important that kept nagging at me while I worked. Finally, I pulled the plug on these ideas. I’ll work on those later (unless they end up terrible which right now they are), because this post is for you, the reader. Because even though I sometimes have these grand ideas I I can’t wait to unleash, sometimes something else comes knocking and demands to be written. At that point there’s not a lot I can do except listen; type out the words and let my heart do the talking. There’s plenty of time for break-up playlists. This was something I needed to say now.

I’ll be honest, having a chronic illness, especially when it’s at its worst like it was for me most of last year, can be terribly lonely. As much as I love my friendships and romances and strong family bonds, it’s nearly impossible to keep them all up when you’re sick. One but more likely all of them will suffer. Last year the relationship I was in ended and as my health steadily declined, so did my social life. I remember just not answering the phone when it rang. I felt like I didn’t even have the energy to explain my mood, my condition, or apologize yet again for being a crappy friend or sister or whathaveyou. One of the hardest parts of the illness has always been what it’s done to me and the outside world. Last year was a dark one, but I was lucky enough to have family who took me in, and friends who were understanding when we went months without talking. I always liked that definition of a friend- someone who knows you but loves you anyway. :) I’ll say that being sick sort of dwindles down who the key people in your life are. Some survive the storm and some don’t, and it’s not really anything personal. Some people have needs you’re not able to meet with a condition like this, and truly you can’t blame them. I am an admitted flake, terrible at keeping up and correspondence, and I cancel at least half of the plans I make. This is mostly the fault of the illness, and it’s understandable why not many friendships are upheld through it. My circle is small, but I love everyone in it dearly, and they certainly love me back considering what they tolerate.

I think last Fall was one of the hardest times in my life. I was living in my sisters house in California. Home away from home away from home. I initially planned to go there for a month, but when my crash worsened and things like walking became hard, I ended up staying until Christmas, and everything felt out of control. Because it was. I was a difficult person then, and I feel a little bad for my behavior. My sister would always ask me to go eat dinner with her at my brother-in-law’s restaurant, but the thought of small talk with people I didn’t know was overwhelming. Sometimes it put me in a bad mood just thinking about it! I actually preferred being alone. I often felt more alone when surrounded by people but completely isolated on the inside. I hated who I had become–such a solitary hermit. But I truly just didn’t have the energy to even be polite. It was easier, and better I think, for me to just stay home. Which sounds terrible and depressing. Healthy people won’t get it. But truthfully relationships of any kind take work, they are two-sided, and I just didn’t have enough to give at that point. But the real reason I’m writing about this is because, beyond all the crappy days and reclusive tendencies, there was this community built on the blog. People reading it and commenting, people sending emails of gratitude or support or encouragement or all of the above, and it was truly remarkable to receive feedback like that, especially at a time where I felt really alone. I knew there were others like me and I wasn’t suffering alone. And although I didn’t know any of you truly, I knew of you because you reached out and were honest, and I read every word. It meant the world to have complete strangers rooting for me, some in other countries. It felt incredible not purely for personal reasons, but because I saw just how much positivity and love and support could be garnered by so many people who didn’t even know each other. It still gives me chills to this day; it shows what can happen when human beings come together for something good and optimistic. I think we’re all looking for a reason to be good. And while no, it didn’t cure me or fix all the problems, it did give me a real sense of hope that I could get better, that it wouldn’t always be like this, and even at times that if I never got better, this wonderful energy was still created and circling around the world. I didn’t do it, we did it. We put that out into the universe, and there’s something kind of magical about that. We’ve created some good together, and I think it’s something to be proud of.

Last week I posted about a promise I had made to myself years ago: that I would celebrate my 30th birthday in Paris. When I read people’s responses and support and encouragement for me to do something purely because it would make me happy and in turn, them happy, I felt the most love I ever have laying in bed and looking at a computer screen. Strangers telling me to go for it, that they’d donate money for me to do it, and insisting I go regardless of circumstance, was truly inspiring to me. I felt connected and after such a crappy year last year and feeling so far on the outside, watching everyone else live their lives while I felt like I was crumbling internally, that was such a powerful thing for me to feel. And needed to feel I should say. It’s easy to get stuck on your story, to live life from the outside looking in, to let things pass you by. But after seeing such a positive reaction from people, and seeing how me going after my dream and living with purpose was encouraging others too was simply unreal. But mostly, it was an inspiring and and abundant source of love to feel on my end. And that’s stuff you just can’t buy or put an amount on. It is truly priceless.  So for that I want to say thank you. THANK YOU. THANK YOU A LOT. I felt a very long time ago that this blog wasn’t really just about or for me. It was for something greater. And I know that now more than ever. It’s about all of us.

As summer turns into Fall, (unless you’re in New Orleans in which case it’s still 90 degrees and there’s a tropical storm headed our way) I am reflecting on where I was last year at this time. I had no idea that some of the hardest months of my life were about to unfold. And in the darkest of times, moments where I couldn’t find myself in the world, I would always come across the words in a comment or an email from a reader that reminded me of something very simple but very important– I wasn’t alone. And if you’re reading this now, going through a hard time caused by anything- health, heartache, loneliness, insecurity, whatever- I hope you’ll know that you aren’t alone either. It was in those very dark but small moments, that the tiniest crack of light would shine in and let me know, we truly are all in this together. We’ve all got our battles, and we all experience things that make us question who we are and where we’re going and if we’ll ever get out of the hard time we face. I’m here to tell you, you do. I did. Many times actually. And the hard parts aren’t over. I am relatively young and life won’t stop throwing boulders or pebbles across my path. (If you’re listening God, I prefer pebbles. But, you know, do what you gotta do.) I just feel that one of the most important things that could ever so slightly drag me out of the dark, was this interconnectedness I’d feel with humanity, even though I had no social life…at all. Granted my sister tried, but I was mostly a grumpy curmudgeon. Sorry Amelie! Anyway, things have gotten better. My health, while still a major hurdle, is not nearly as bad as it was this time last year. I’ve reunited with friends. I wear pants a lot more now. ;) But it feels good to know that while last Fall was let’s face it, a shit show, I re-emerged. As we all do and will, if we can only hang on, remember that nothing is forever, and as lonely as it can feel, we are never truly alone. I mean it. And I’m alone a lot!

So, that’s it. Among all my other ideas, this one wouldn’t leave me alone. And I want to tell anyone reading, I read every comment on this blog and every email regarding it. I don’t always respond (I told you I’m a flakey friend and terrible with correspondence!) but I honestly take time and read all the feedback sent my way. And I LOVE hearing from everyone. The funny thing is how many emails begin with “I’m sure you get thousands of these but…” I assure you that’s not even close to the case. A few a week at best!! All of you have your own battles and wonderful, sometimes sad, sometimes hilarious, stories of tragedy and triumph, and I relish in reading them. I wish there was a scientific or spiritual way for me to prove or convey this, but all of that positive and loving energy sent my way goes right back into this project and the world at large. It’s such a cool community we’ve set up here. Remember this all started with two followers: my sister and my aunt Amy. And look at us now! :) Thank you for reading, writing, laughing, and crying with me. The community we’ve built is invaluable, and I always turn to it when I feel myself leaning towards seclusion or sadness. I hope you do the same. Because half of writing anything is having someone to read it. I think we’ve done well. Again, a million times over, thank you.

momo
Monty was very excited to take this photo.

Health, Happiness, Merci.

*P.S. On September 26th, this blog turned two years old. Yaaay.

To Be a Girl.

Published on by Mary Gelpi12 Comments

I must admit, I really love being a girl. I’m not sure most people would know that considering a few things. I’m not overwhelmingly feminine. I don’t officially dress the part that often. And my manners slip up a lot. Maybe I’m thinking more about what it is to be a Southern Girl, but I love being that too, even though I know I don’t always do the South proud. Still, it’s in me. And I like that it is.

A disappointing factor in being sick is that my wardrobe has taken quite a hit. I used to work 5 or 6 days a week, and I enjoyed putting together my little corporate outfits each day. It always felt like a part I was playing anyway, so I took time for the appropriate costume. There’s pride in getting dressed for work each day. Even if it was a crappy day– bad weather or crappy co-workers–whatever it was, there was still some amusement in dressing each day. Looking my best. It was some part of the job that I could control. And I indulged in looking good and smelling good and hearing my heels click on the gallery floor. There was some identity, among pride, in the ritual of all of that.

Now I don’t have somewhere to be 5 out of the 7 days a week. I don’t have to wake up at some ridiculous hour–which let me be clear, I don’t miss in the least. And while I don’t miss hitting the snooze button 6 times before forcing myself out of bed and dragging myself to the shower, I do miss the ritual of working. The wardrobe it required. The pride in looking good and knowing your purpose and getting a paycheck every two weeks. Clear parameters. Certain expectations. Consistent and adequate wages. I realize that while you’re working it’s not uncommon to be fantasizing about not working, because that grind–it’s a lot. Every day. All day. The same people. The same setting. It can be overwhelming in its sameness.

While I did enjoy the ritual of working, I knew I couldn’t stay there forever, mostly because it didn’t do a lot for my soul. The work was not a challenge creatively in the least. I told myself that I could work full-time and do my creative work on the side. I could write and draw at night or on the weekends, but I was so dead at the end of each day, so spent by the weekends, I always spent them half-conscious in sweats watching mindless television or attempting to write but tiring out quickly. Maybe some could do it, but it was certain I could not. One day I would have to leave that job if I wanted to explore the more creative life, but I never thought it would be involuntary. It was–due to my health. I wonder how long I would have stayed there had it not been.

Anyway, now I am sort of living the creative life. I follow my inner-self a lot which is a privilege, I admit. I’ve learned songs on my dads guitar. I paint watercolors when I’m bored. I watch French movies to brush up on my French. I write. I read. I rest. Repeat. I think it would be easy to look at my life from the outside and say it looks easy. And to an extent it’s certainly easier than my scheduled life I used to lead. There’s no calling in sick or feeling guilty about not performing well. But also, there’s no paycheck. No official schedule to follow or tasks to complete. But I have a feeling those things will come again.

It’d be easy to fall down the black hole of daytime TV or something more depressing. I work hard to keep things moving. To strike when the creativity is hot. To find newness in each day. I consciously work to keep my life from going to stagnant–that’s where a girl could get into trouble.

Since my new life doesn’t require any certain wardrobe, I often joke about the clothes I wear and my general appearance. Not to mention, the whole showering and routine that follows deal totally exhausts me, so it’s often a matter of energy reserves. I used to be so polished. Now I leave my hair curly and wild and am wearing a stretch cotton tank top with a cat wearing sunglasses on it. This of course is acceptable, as I don’t really have visitors or male suitors. Haha. But still, as much as I have to strive to keep my life moving, I think I need to remember that I am a girl and I can look pretty when I try. And I really enjoy smelling good. I don’t have official reasons to make those things happen anymore, but maybe just being a girl is reason enough.

Like last night, I painted my nails this bright red. And it really thrilled me. Red nails! The thrills of being a girl!

Glamour on a Tuesday.
Glamour on a Tuesday.

Laughably I take pride in being able to give myself a manicure comparable to the professional ones. Since I’m broke I can’t afford those things, but I can do them myself and so I do. I also bought this knock-off gold watch for $20 dollars which I really enjoy wearing. The best part is it fit perfectly, I didn’t have to remove any links. It makes me feel glamorous, with these red nails and lipstick too. Sometimes when I’m feeling good, I take really long bubble baths, I spend a long time doing my hair, I put on full makeup, and I spray myself in perfume. And then I go nowhere. I strut around my house like an idiot, just like it used to be–a girl playing dress up. Or I pretend to go somewhere and take photos like these:

Here's Monty and Me and the Eiffle!
Here’s Monty and Me at the Eiffle!

And here we are at the Aquarium!
And here we are at the Aquarium!

Monty gets nervous because it’s gotten to the point where if I put on pants he knows I am probably leaving. But I don’t leave. I clean the house. I indulge in the mirror. And still, even though I have nowhere to go or no one to see– I revel in being a girl. If even just to remind myself that when I try, I can still be one. One day I will have places to be and people to meet and parties to attend, so I’m just making sure I still know how. How to be polished. How to walk with poise in heels. How to look the part. How to be a girl.

Health, Happiness, Remembering.

Wisdom In the Day Lilies

Published on by Mary Gelpi11 Comments

I’ve been pretty taken by these Day Lilly flowers blooming outside. I like that their entire purpose (for me) is just to be something delightful to look at. To be simple and beautiful reminders. It took years and years of me hearing the term “Day Lily” being thrown around as merely words assigned to a flower to one day, just last week, finally putting it together that they are named this way because they bloom for merely a day. (Duh.) They are such vibrant and roaring things. They’re like little poems themselves that don’t require writing. Flowers often strike me as delicate but these specifically do not. They’re almost unruly. They are stunning colors and you’ll find yourself lost looking in their center, unaware of time. Tolle refers to flowers as “Windows into the formless” and that makes sense when looking at these lilies. They’re incredible creatures, and they only last a day.

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If you’ve never read Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth, he begins the book with a description about the first flower ever to bloom on our planet, and why that is important to our existence and collective consciousness now. It’s quite a beautiful passage. So here it is:

Earth, 114 million years ago, one morning just after sunrise: The first flower ever to appear on the planet opens up to receive the rays of the sun. Prior to this momentous event that heralds an evolutionary transformation in the life of plants, the planet had already been covered in vegetation for millions of years. The first flower probably did not survive for long, and flowers must have remained an isolated phenomena, since conditions were most likely not yet favorable for a widespread flowering to occur. One day, however, a critical threshold was reached, and suddenly there would have been an explosion of color and scent all over the planet– if a perceiving consciousness had been there to witness it.

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I really love this description and the image of such a large, simultaneous blooming. But the deeper point he goes on to make is that flowers were most likely the first things human beings came to value “that had no real utilitarian purpose for them–that is to say, were not linked in some way to survival.” He attributes our fascination with flowers to their ethereal quality, calling them “temporary manifestations of the underlying One Consciousness.”  Since a flower is a glimpse into the formless, and ego is described as “identification with form” (materialism, i.e. I am what I have) we can say that the simple act of looking at flowers is an opportunity for us to see with our soul and not our eyes. To drop our egos for a moment. Physically the flowers are beautiful, and underneath they represent the joy of formless beauty. You don’t have to “own” a flower to enjoy it. It’s interesting too to witness how the entire atmosphere of a room can change once you put a vase of real flowers in the center. Or even one flower in a small vase. Somehow, it makes a difference. It changes things.

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To think about beauty and purpose in terms of time, it occurs to me that only humans would consider a day not long enough for something to exist. If we were told we could be beautiful and happy and perfect, but we could only last a day, would we take on the endeavor? It seems like we’d demand more time–enter some boardroom negotiation with the creator. And yet, some of us exist on earth for only a little while. There are so many lives cut short, and as survivors we see it as indecent. It feels, to us, like they were never given a chance. They were never able to really live. But maybe, like the day lilies, one day of life is more than enough time for us to serve our purpose. It’s hard to grasp conceptually. Time is something my mind busies itself with at night–until I think of the concept of eternity for too long and the thought becomes too intense and my brain explodes. It’s pretty frustrating, you can imagine. Gary Zukav once described life in terms of time as “the eternal moment” and sometimes that makes perfect sense to me and sometimes it’s not enough. It’s almost too simple. But that’s how I imagine a lot of the secrets of the universe to reveal themselves. Complex, large ideas executed very simply. Maybe the better word for it is elegant. 

Maybe I’ve made some far-reaching metaphors here. The truth is, flowers are pretty things to look at mostly, and possibly I’m ruining their beauty by cluttering them up with philosophy. But it’s an interesting investigation to discover why we as humans, often so entrenched on utilitarian things, furthering our purpose, working harder and faster and longer, can every once in a while stop our busy lives and look into flowers and feel a sense of ease and simplicity. We may smile looking at them without even knowing it. It’s interesting that in our modern society, flowers have come to serve the purpose of a wide spectrum of emotions. They’re a way to say “I Love You” and “I’m Sorry.” We use them to celebrate life and death. It’s no mystery why people say “Stop and smell the roses.” Flowers are small and silent, their scent often subtle–requiring you to drop everything and stick your nose right into the bloom to really take it in. I think once I just thought they were pretty things to look at and that was all. But I’m finding more and more that simple and beautiful things, selfless providers, (flowers, dogs, sunsets) are much more in tune to our purpose here and the work we do. If ego is the blueprint for dysfunction like Tolle says, perhaps flowers are the blueprint to consciousness. If even just for a day.

Health, Happiness, Day Lilies

*I took these photos on my iphone and they haven’t been enhanced. For realsy!

Today Is Wednesday.

Published on by Mary Gelpi10 Comments

Today it is hard to wake up. It is hard to move my fingers and hold this pen. Everything is heavy as though my insides are all made out of lead. If you’ve ever tried running underwater in the deep end of the pool, then you’ve had a glimpse of it. It’s hard to say why my body has backtracked these few days. Last week felt like a good one, more solid than the past, and this week things fell apart. Did I get too sucked in? Did I overindulge in the tasks of the busy world? The fast work. The chattery world. The one that I used to think didn’t have room or time for the sick?  (I’ve changed my mind on that one.)This is often the culprit–engaging in too many things that in the end don’t really matter.

So now I will rest. I will sit in the room with the big windows and let the light in. The dishes will wait. Paperwork will wait. Even Monty will wait. Every once in a while he’ll get a burst. He’ll paw at my chair- but behind his brown eyes, sometimes so deep and intense I wonder where his mind is- but he knows that today will have to be one of rest. He curls into the half moon shape at the base of the chair, back to doggy-chasing rabbits-gratuitous bacon-dream world. I apologize and I don’t know if he understands or cares, but he is a creature of the present and for that fact alone he doesn’t seem to mind. It isn’t in his DNA to mind. When we rest we rest and when we play we play and there’s no good reason to cry or complain when we’re doing one and not the other.

Even though it’s a sick day, a string of sick days that always has the grim potential to turn into months of sicks days, I want the world to know that it doesn’t feel like suffering. It just feels like something the day brought- as though it were sunshine or rain or an LL Bean catalog in the mail. It doesn’t feel personal. I know people who take offense to the rain. How dare it rain on my wedding day! Who cares? Nature is balance, nothing more. I’ve been practicing putting the sickness in the same category as the behavior of nature. It takes the sting of it away. Today is Wednesday. It’s humid and raining off and on. My limbs are heavy and stiff and my fingers don’t fold so easily into my palm. The invisible wet blanket of the illness I carry is extra wet–maybe from the rain! But none of this has anything to do with how happy I can be. How much joy I can find.

The things that thrill me still exist. Monty’s tail still wags when he sleeps. The smell of the magnolia tree outside is heightened from the rain. I have a house for Monty and me. A home base that isn’t impatient at all when my life has to slow down. I don’t have to run from sick days. I can let them come and let them leave and not get upset in the meantime. Simple pleasures still exist. My eyes can still take them in. And even if my eyes give out on me, my heart will still know the joy of it. My soul is learning to open slowly, much like the magnolia I picked that is now wide open at my windowsill. I am hanging on to life’s little treasures and remembering and emphasizing and reminding my busy brain that all of these things exist no matter what condition my body is in or what kind of outlook I have. I can stay closed until I think life is going my way or I can open up wide to the world and the sun and every person and animal I meet. It is in fact, up to me. If it’s left up to anything else, then happiness will be a constant, conditional pursuit and never actually attainable. I think when you’re around happy things enough, you start to see where they have it right. Today is Wednesday. It’s muggy and hot. I am heavy and dragging. It will be a good day.

Mastery of Life is the Opposite of Control. -Tolle

Health, Happiness, Wednesday.

You’ll Forget. And So Will They.

Published on by Mary Gelpi12 Comments

There is one component of this illness and autoimmune diseases in general which exacerbates the whole experience. The invisibility factor. You can’t see it. Many times when it shows its ugly head, no one is around to bear witness. People see us when we’re out and about and well, or faking it. I’ve lost count of the number of times I hear “But you don’t look sick!” People have a notion of what sick looks like, and this doesn’t fit the bill. One day you’re normal and the next day your plagued with something worse than a flu, or a hangover, but you didn’t do any drinking. It’s just such an enigma on so many levels, besides keeping up appearances, that it’s no surprise people just plain forget you’re sick. And it’s understandable. Because honestly, you forget too.

To this day I find myself committing to things as though I am normal, as though I have boundless energy, as though I don’t spend days in bed sometimes for no real reason at all. My circumstances aren’t normal. And some days I have to remind myself by the hour of my limits. Many times I fail to recognize them and I pay the price. So it’s no surprise that the people we love, the people we’re closest to-friends, lovers, family- they’ll forget too. And it’s easy to see why, but it will make you defensive. You’ll tell yourself they just don’t get it and they’ll never understand! And you’re right, they don’t. It’s impossible to know unless you’ve got it yourself. But don’t let that separate and isolate you more. You’ve got enough boundaries. When someone doesn’t believe you, when someone criticizes you, judges you, or doesn’t give the sympathy you’re looking for, let it go. Meet their disbelief with love and understanding. Because the truth is, if you weren’t sick with this, would you understand it? I know it’d be hard for me. I was young when I became ill but I remember distinctly things coming easy to me. Being a good gymnast. Getting good grades. Good family and friends. A 9-year-old with everything! I had no real reason for pause. I often consider what my life would be like had I not gotten sick and in general it’s with the notion that I’d be a better person living a better life. I really wonder about that now. Being sick and at the mercy of others help and kindness, I’ve learned remarkable lessons in humility and compassion, and those are just scratching the surface. I can’t say who I’d be without illness. But like my mom said once “Who knows? Maybe we if we hadn’t gotten sick we’d just be two capable assholes.”

The point is, when I still my mind and consider all the parts of this, I can understand the doubt, the skepticism, the misunderstanding from others. This is not a well understood disease, even for us sick ones. (But I know that one day it will be. I know that.) I remember once last year, I woke up with a pounding migraine. I was in one of my awful cycles. The first dose of medicine didn’t work so I took two, among my other cocktail of meds. I got out of bed around 1:30, hazy, tired, and the hint of my migraine still masquerading around my head. My boyfriend at the time saw me and said “You’re up! Hey, do you want to go shoot guns today?” At that moment I thought of 647 other things I would rather do than shoot a gun. The mere thought of shooting a gun made my headache perk up like what? huh? guns? Here I come!!! Even the suggestion of that activity made me mad. I felt really misunderstood and alone and thinking what I so often think: if they could only feel what I am feeling, they would understand. And it’s true. I think if most people felt the symptoms of CFS even for ten minutes, they’d have such a better grasp of what we are dealing with on a day-to-day basis. But that’s not possible. So it is up to us to communicate with love to those who don’t know. What we’re dealing with is basically invisible, and getting defensive and trying to prove it will exhaust us even more.

Besides my mom, who is also sick with this, I think about the one person who has been by my side throughout all of this, and has required the least amount of explaining. The answer is Monty. I realize that sounds juvenile. Oh Mary, you crazy dog lady..maybe you should talk to some PEOPLE. And truthfully I probably should. But I think about the number of beds Monty has slept at the foot of. Patiently he waits until I get up. Some days it’s only a minute..we don’t play and he doesn’t seem to mind. He follows me into the bathroom, he follows me out. When I go back to bed, he does to. And this is a very energetic and active dog. He could go all day, literally. But it truly feels like he picks up on sick days. When I wake up in the morning, he always takes some deep breaths really close to my face. It’s like he can tell by smell whether I’m going to get up or not. Sometimes he sniffs and hops out of bed ready to go. Other times he sniffs and goes back to bed. It really is like he knows.

The thing is, Monty doesn’t understand all the weird components to the illness. He doesn’t know what chronic fatigue syndrome is. He doesn’t understand why some days we play and other days we don’t leave the bed. Sometimes for a few days at a time. But he doesn’t even require an explanation or a defense, because what he is exemplifying so beautifully is living in the present. When it’s time to play, we play hard. When it’s time to sleep, we sleep like it’s nobody’s business. Whatever he does, he does fully. He shows up wholly to every moment. And it’s a truly impressive thing to witness. One of my favorite things is to watch Monty when he gets up in the morning. I open the door for him and he walks outside, stops, and sniffs the air for about 15 seconds. It’s like he’s taking in everything from the night and everything that the day will bring. I like watching it because it’s reflective, and we live such busy, fast lives, we constantly neglect reflection. I think it’s fair to say that it’s required for a happy life. We have to stop sometimes. We have to take things in. We have to feel our feelings. (Smell the roses, if you will.)And we don’t need to say it all on Facebook. Some things we should hold inside near our heart. Or whisper it to someone we love.

I am reading a book called Everyday Grace by Marianne Williamson which is incredibly poignant and really well-written. I find myself underlining entire pages. It’s always been a goal of mine to have a book club but of course I’ve never gotten it together and am bad at keeping commitments. So for now the blog will be it. And I invite all of you to read and share your thoughts on these books. I have about twenty more pages and will have a review/summary/dialogue next time. But if you’re looking for a book as a companion..this is a good one. It’s been seeing me through sleepless nights and reading it when I wake up in the morning gives me a happy way to begin the day. One of my favorite lines near the beginning is “We don’t need to push life so much as we need to experience it more elegantly, to be motivated more by inspiration than by ambition.” I like that idea. When I’m not in bed I let my instincts and inspiration guide me…even it’s just sitting on the porch swing and looking at the flowers, which I do a lot. Monty makes me throw a ball and swims laps in the pool. See?

Please just throw the ball.
Please just throw the ball.

 

Anyway, I am working on living a reflective life. I try to take in every moment truly, and feel it genuinely. Even if the moment is sad or fearful. I know that not feeling things through leads to trouble later on. I’ve been there before. For now, I feel happy. The sun is out and the porch swing is calling.

Health, Happiness, Smelling the Roses

Life In My Parents Pool House

Published on by Mary Gelpi14 Comments

So if I die I want that to be the name of my memoir. Isn’t is perfect? It’s funny yet sadly true. A sick girl-turned-woman living in her parents pool house and on their dime. With a dog. Wait am I a girl or a woman? Now I know how Britney Spears felt when she sang that song. In any case, it sounds like a Fairytale to me. I wonder how this one ends.

What I’m really getting at is that life in my parent’s pool house is great and I recommend that all 28 year olds or young adults in general try it. I had my first night in my new place three days ago. Waking up the next morning in my bed, in my own house was basically spectacular. You have to understand it’s been 2.3 years since I’ve been able to wake up under those parameters and having to wait so long and go through what I did has made the moment even sweeter. If felt like finally exhaling after a ridiculously long tunnel. I laid in bed for the next hour with a pure feeling of gratitude, and that’s all I can really do in these instances. Breath, reflect, take it in and give thanks. If you don’t they pass you by, and you find yourself years later realizing how good you had it only in retrospect. I realize how lucky I am to live in a beautiful house, to call it my own, to have a pool, and to be given help and time to heal, when my givers know I can’t really pay it back. I guess that’s what you call love isn’t it. Did I mention Monty loves it too? He’s also deathly afraid of the polaris but not enough to stay out of the pool.

Woo!
Evil Polaris EVIL POLARIS

Moving into a house when you’re a sickly takes a very long time. Also having this month-long headache still isn’t helping, but who’s counting? I was overeager in the beginning. I wanted to set up every room and unpack every box and start painting walls all on the first day. It took a little overdoing and paying the price later to realize OK, this needs to happen one room at a time. Sometimes one piece of furniture at a time. And mostly one drawer at a time. It’s ridiculous to me how many times I have to learn that lesson. That overdoing it will be costly and painful, and yet I continue to overdo it and pay the price. And the funny thing is, most people I speak to with this illness (like my mom and everyone at the support group) say they do it constantly. You’d think we’d learn after all these years. We’re a bunch of stubborn dum dums!

Anyway I think the most exceptional part about living by yourself is the amount of time you can spend without pants. Like that first day, after I spent the hour of gratitude in bed, I got dressed and began unpacking and organizing and having these grand fantasies in my head like “And in this room I’ll have scrabble tournaments and in this room I’ll serve afternoon tea.” All of which will probably never happen. After a while my pants were really beginning to bother me. Don’t ask why–sometimes it’s noises and sometimes it’s clothing. And then it struck me that I could take my pants off and keep unpacking because THIS WAS MY HOUSE and at my house PANTS ARE NOT REQUIRED. So I took them off and unpacked in my underwear and soaked up the amazing feeling of being able to do what I want in my own place because I make the rules now. Yeah! Other rules include:

  1. No Bill O’Reilly (Not even an option because I’m poor and don’t have cable but still)
  2. Peeing in the Pool Is Actually Allowed. I know you’re going to do it anyway and come on, we use strong chemicals in there.
  3. No guns.
  4. All dogs allowed! In fact, no humans without dogs.
  5. What happens at the pool house stays at the pool house. Like swimming. And scrabble.

So basically, there are no rules. I just want it to be a happy place and an open door to the people I love. I can’t guarantee I’ll be wearing pants, but hey the world has bigger fish to fry. This other cool thing happened while I was touching up paint the first day. I found my ipod from like 5 years ago and thought I’d play songs on random and be entertained from my 5-year-old playlists. The first song that came on was “Let It Be” by The Beatles and I totally stopped what I was doing and belted that song as loud as I could. I’ve heard it so many times before, but suddenly all the words felt like they were being sung just to me and my life. The lyric that really spoke to me was There Will Be An Answer. Because there will be. One day. Maybe not for many many years, maybe not even in this life on earth, but we will see what our lives mean in the grander scheme of things and we will get an answer to our pain and sorrow. I dream about that moment of clarity and revelation all the time. In the meantime, we just have to hang on. Pick up the pieces. Keep going.

Anyway, I played that song about 6 more times really really loudly and sang it really really loudly because that’s another rule: You can sing as loud as you want. Standing in the kitchen. In your underwear. In fact I recommend that’s how you do it. So below is the song Let It Be and I suggest you play it and belt it and let those words remind you that everything is OK. Even though, I know it’s not. My life is a mess. The world is a mess. I watch the news and I see it. I see war and poverty and violence and corruption and it all makes me feel very small. Very powerless. All I am is a sick kid who calls it a success if I take a shower frequently enough. But it reminds me of a quote from Joseph Campbell. He says:

“When we talk about settling the world’s problems, we’re barking up the wrong tree. The world is perfect. It’s a mess. It has always been a mess. We are not going to change it. Our job is to straighten out our own lives.”

It’s not the most romantic theory about life, but it can be reassuring. When I think about what the world has evolved from, (think even from the Civil Rights Movement to present day) it gives me hope that we will continue to grow. It’s all going to be OK. We’re here. We’re awakening. We’ve survived this much, and that’s what we’ll continue to do.

Health, Happiness, Pants.

Life at the Window.

Published on by Mary Gelpi7 Comments

I spent last Spring in a playground called New York City. My brother and sister-in-law had this great apartment in TriBeCa with huge windows and a doorman. As newly jobless, apartment-less, boyfriend-less- New York City felt like the perfect place to spend some time and  get to know myself again. I had lost all of my “identifiers ” and it was time to get in touch and adapt.  It was truly a treat  staying there while I reconfigured what my life was going to look like. My brother spent most the week in Boston teaching at MIT and Estee worked full-time, so I had this great little cube in the city to myself a lot.

Our cube with the light on.
Our cube with the light on.

My only responsibility as a guest there was to walk the dog, Lilly. Lilly was cool. Sweet and low maintenance, she was happy to spend day after day sitting on top of the heater with me and looking out the window to life below. I wrote, read, and occasionally played music super loud and danced alone in the living room. (One day I danced “the Dougie” too hard and exhausted myself for a week) If anyone were watching from the building across the street, it would have been quite a show. Lilly sometimes barked at a dog below or a UPS man unloading boxes, but mostly we just watched. It was a perfect, small existence for me at that window. New York City had a way of making me feel intricately connected to the pulse of life, even though I was sick and on the outskirts, and my only participation was mostly observation from the 4th floor. I never felt isolated in New York. Sometimes I ended the day feeling like I had interacted with so many people and in fact I hadn’t actually talked to anyone. There’s something so involved there, that even as a spectator I felt implicitly a part. I would watch the people walking their dogs or babies in strollers, laughing or yelling on their cell phones, entering restaurants and hugging friends hello, and it all made me feel incredibly human again. I could watch life from that window all day and never get tired of the sights. And most days, that’s all I did.

Life at the window.
Life at the window.

I really had to get used to the “free time.” I know that sounds like an illegitimate complaint, but going from working to not was hard to navigate. To strangers it sounds fun..”You’re so lucky! You don’t have to work.!”  But that’s kind of like telling someone in a wheelchair “You’re so lucky, you don’t have to walk!” Truthfully it can be extremely lonely and isolating having absolutely nothing but time on your hands, but possessing none of the means in which to do the things you used to. It took me a long time to adjust to not having a typical day schedule to follow. Such is life. We notice things more once they go missing.

It was surprising how responsible I had to be with my free time. You can’t just do nothing. Nothing is the gift you give yourself after you’ve done something. But if you’re not actually doing anything, the nothing part becomes completely sad. You have to be responsible. It occurs to me now how much security and diligence there was in my fulltime job. A schedule is basically simple. Follow the rules 5 days a week, get paid, go home. There are things you say in an office and things you don’t say. Wear and don’t wear. I worked at that gallery because that was the progressive step after college. It was safe there. I knew exactly what was expected of me and I was good at what I did. And on the 1st and 15th of every month I was paid 1,060 dollars for following the rules and doing my work dutifully. There was a time work began and ended. And there were two entire days a week you had to yourself. It didn’t matter what you did on those days. It only mattered that you showed up on the right days and were on time if not early.  Then all that was left was following the rules. Performing tasks. I do miss the stability of that old life. The one where at least I felt  like I knew what I was doing and where I was headed and what was coming my way. Now there is none of that routine or structure. There isn’t really anything expected of me now.  No tasks to check off, no paycheck twice a month. There’s no real order, and it’s a strange thing to very quickly lose something like that. There is ease in order.

As easy as it is to complain about work, to dislike your boss or co-workers, there is something very essential in human beings that gets fulfilled in just getting dressed and going to work every day; contributing  to the “whole” some way and getting paid to do it. Even if the work is  mundane or repetitive. Even if your co-workers are punks or your boss is a turd-sandwich, there’s something gratifying about good old fashioned compensated  labor. Life becomes pretty different without it.

Part of my biggest adjustment in getting sick has been surrendering to a schedule that I can’t control. I don’t know how I’ll feel one day to the next, what I’ll be capable of. I don’t know if Ill sleep at night for 12 hours or 10 minutes. (Or if I’ll be up at 2 am writing this blog like I am now)  So in a very bizarre way, the illness has literally forced me to live one day at a time. One moment at a time. What am I capable of right now? OK, I’ll do that. It has become that specific.  And I think after nearly two years of no “real” job and crashing my siblings couches, I am finally understanding and accepting life without schedule, rules, tasks, and order. Or what I was perceiving to be order. The funny thing is  now I see that even in my highly organized, scheduled life, I still wasn’t in total control. It only felt that way. It looked that way. I still got sick. Life still “got to me.” My life is no more or less in control now than two years ago. It is truly, just perspective.

My brother Nick encouraged me to read while I had so much downtime, and that was good advice.  Here I was writing all the time, but never reading what was done before me. And you need context in everything, especially literature. I still have a ton of reading to do, but I’m really glad I discovered the real joy of it. Growing up it always felt like labor– a requirement that didn’t interest me. Now I find real freedom in it. There is nothing like getting lost in a story. I admit it’s more fun to read than to write. There is anxiety in me sitting down to write. But there is total surrender in sitting down and investing in a story.

Anyway now that I didn’t have a schedule to adhere to or  specific tasks to perform every day,  I was now up to my own devices. I realize that sounds like a really spicy thing to say. But mostly it was  me in and out of dreamworld on the couch or sitting on the heater, looking out that window, and drinking coffee with Lilly.  Every once in a while we mixed it up. Like when I dressed her up in my hat.

Lilly wearing my hat with attached scarf.
Lilly wearing my hat with attached scarf.

Or put her in my laundry basket.

Say cheese!
Why are you doing this.

Or if it was a healthy day we’d walk to the piers and watch the joggers and boats.

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Contemplation.

As nice as our walks were, I think I was most content at that window. In general, I am happiest by windows. I gravitate in every house to the room with the most light. I like to see outside. Hopefully one day, I won’t be the girl at the window, but the participant outside. The subject of someone else’s observation. But truly, I ‘ve become happy with this spectator form of my life. I don’t think it will always be this way, but it has granted me a unique perspective. It has made me step back and examine. It’s given me stillness in a very fast world. Even sick in bed, I can still examine life, ask my questions, read and write for the answers. None of this could happen in my old busy life. There was simply no time for it. There was work during the week, and sick recovery on the weekends. Now I have a new kind of work. It doesn’t pay well (as in, it doesn’t pay) but my boss is cool (that’s me) and every day is “Bring Your Dog to Work” day. Maybe the best part is, I am never too far from a window. For me, for now, that is enough.

“Participate with joy in the sorrows of the world.” -J Campbell

Health, Happiness, Windows

My friend Gabe took this picture of me at the NY window at night. Thanks Gabe!

Night.
Night.

The Day I Tried to Punch a Fly in the Face.

Published on by Mary Gelpi11 Comments

I could tell you a lot of things about my life right now. That once again it’s 4 am and I can’t sleep. That once again Monty has gas but I love him too much to kick him out of the room. That the Chinese doctor told me not to take my pills today and so I haven’t. I feel the effects of it. I have some fear about it. Some hesitation. But I have the same fear of a life dependent on pills, so either way it’s fighting demons. I don’t mind being awake when the world is sleeping. So many days I’ve missed out. Slept through. Called in sick. Night is my time to take life back. I could tell you my music of choice at night when I can’t sleep–lately it’s Tchaikovsky (Swan Lake) but tonight it is Radiohead (In Rainbows) and I’m deciding whether to keep squinting hard and trying to force sleep or to give up. Give in. But since the only cure for insomnia I have found is waking up, I give in.

When I open my computer to begin, a fly immediately lands on the screen, undoubtedly drawn to the light of the monitor. When I scroll the little mouse arrow under him, he jumps. Flies away a second. Then he comes back. I play “tag” with my computer mouse and a fly for probably way too long and smile at this activity. What makes me smile more is that we have this big joke in my family that my dad would be reincarnated as a fly. He used to do this hilarious impression (often at fancy dinners, with no shame) of a fly, rubbing it’s little legs together the way they do. Half of the people laughed because it was funny and the other half probably laughed out of discomfort or something. He was such a nerd. This was his dinner entertainment. I wonder if this fly I am playing computer mouse tag with is my dad. Then it starts rubbing its spidery little legs together the way my dad used to when impersonating them and I smile bigger. Because these are strange anecdotes at 4:14 in the morning and I’d prefer to be getting sleep. But then again I would have missed the fly. The fly and all its mystery.

The Fly.

There are a lot of fly stories concerning my deceased father. Like at his funeral when my sister started crying and one landed on her shoulder. Most people would call these things silly, coincidental, random or meaningless. And that for sure is the easier belief. Faith requires energy. But it almost seems like doubt steals it. Sometimes it appears more attractive to trust nothing and be skeptical of it all. But there are incredibly real moments in my life, where explanation just doesn’t work. It’s beyond science. It’s beyond religion. It’s more along the lines of intuition, instinct, and of course, an awakened state of consciousness. It is really amazing what we can see and access when we are awake. But I think we’re mostly sleeping.

In early September I was  beginning to really resent my situation. I was physically feeling worse and worse. Everyday activities were becoming harder and I was having to rely on people more than ever. I was beginning to resent the fact that I needed help, which is, insane. I should have been thanking every star in the sky that I had help, but I was too busy being upset that my life didn’t look like what I wanted it to. I was really irritable one day. I was short with everyone. I felt angry, sad, and misunderstood. I needed help but I didn’t want to ask for it, so I resented those who tried. Fed up over something stupid, I took Monty on a walk. We walked up “the hill” that presumably was what put me over the edge after walking up it once a day for a week and then facing a monumental crash. Anyway, at the top of the hill was wide open space for Monty to run and for me to think or yell or curse. On that day I let Monty run while I unloaded some words at the universe. I cursed and yelled because no one could hear me. Except maybe some cars that drove by slowly, and at least they had a story to tell later. (Yeah this girl was flipping off the sky and cursing about fibro-vagina or something?) Pretty soon, this fly landed on my face. I swatted it away and it immediately landed back on my nose. Again I swatted. Again, it returned. I was in such an aggravated state, I wanted to punch the fly in the face. I remember thinking those exact words: I want to punch this fly in the face. When I say the fly would not leave me alone, I mean it. For at least five minutes I let Monty run, let my tears fall, and relentlessly swatted away this fly while also trying to punch it in the face. As if that’s even possible. Fed up, I told Monty that due to a CERTAIN INSECT THAT WILL NOT LEAVE ME ALONE, we had to walk home. Monty looked at me like the psycho that I was, and then we started back down the hill. The fly followed.

I started to cry. All I wanted was peace. I was so upset and felt so alone. My life felt out of my hands and I had become completely reliant on others. I’m always the guest on someone else’s couch. When will I sleep on my own couch? I’m always going to be sick and helpless. These were the thoughts that were circulating. As you can see, they are pretty negative. They weren’t helping me. They were the cyclical mental thoughts that dig you deeper in the hole. The fly continued to dart at my face and I continued to flail my arms in what I think were actual attempts at punching it in the face or more simply, just killing it altogether. But to passers-bye, dear God, I must have looked insane. Finally, near our complex I began to calm down. It finally occurred to me; our little joke about my dad returning to earth as a fly. As I remembered I yelled “Seriously dad this is NOT the time!” So now I was punching the air and talking to a fly which I was beginning to believe was my dead father. Want to be friends?

The truth is, that was the time that I needed to be bombarded. The most effective thing that fly did was make me stop. And examine. And get to the truth of my experience. I had been feeling so alone. But the truth was I had love from all sides. I had family to carry me when I couldn’t do it on my own. It was just time for me to humbly accept that not everything was going to be on my terms, and that’s OK. You can still be happy down another path. Once you stop fighting it. That fly relentlessly flew at my face for at least 10 minutes, while I relentlessly tried to kill it. But by the end it had gotten through. Something told me, something from inside, that fly was a reminder. That life wasn’t over. That I wasn’t alone. That I shouldn’t be so irreverent about living. I was still here. Still breathing. And so I still had purpose.

I approached our front door, now smiling at the events of the last 15 minutes. I had tapped into a different energy. A better energy. All thanks to that really, persistent,  annoying fly. Whoever he may be.

Health, Happiness, The Fly.

The Importance of Catching Balls.

Published on by Mary Gelpi8 Comments

The other day I didn’t have a lot of energy (shocker) but Monty did (shocker).  I was throwing the ball for him inside the living room and noting what an expert catcher he is. Like the dude jumps crazy high and catches basically every ball I throw. So I started recording him. Because I have time to do crap like that. Then it was such a beautiful day outside I said screw it, if I can throw a ball in here I can do it outside too. So I brought him outside and recorded all the different ways in which Monty catches a ball. Then I made a movie out of it and put it to some fun music because video editing is another one of those things you can do from bed, and again, I have time to do crap like that. Woo woo. So, below is the result. I guess I realize that Monty makes me happy in so many ways and even watching him jump to catch a ball makes me laugh. Now we all get to watch him. And the angels rejoiced.

Health, Happiness, Monty

*Note, you can’t currently watch this video on a mobile device like your phone because of a third-party licensing issue with youtube…Booo, I know. I’m working on it.