Tag: Miami

An Extremely Obvious Revelation

Published on by Mary Gelpi7 Comments

Captains Log: Day Four Million and Six. Still crashed, I guess. At what point do you stop considering yourself crashed and just accept that this new garbage state is just.…your new normal? Everything is acting up, like normal. But it’s been the challenge with my heart, wanting something it cannot have, which I’ve struggled hardest with. I don’t typically spend too much time in the “greener grass over the fence” world,  but something in me is willing hard for a life I don’t have. It’s also being imaginatively precise in the world it wants that cannot exist.

I’m in a rut, if that wasn’t clear. 

I’m reflecting on how it all began. I can at least say what helped inspire it: Ignoring what I knew I needed to do, which is one of those human behaviors I will never understand. My morale was low, which was linked to my motivation. It was still there, but it dissipated a little every day I went  on deflecting from the thing that would do me some good: writing. It was like a shooting star that burst in a short lived flash of light. But it would fade just as quickly if I didn’t act while it was illuminated. Then the sky would go back to black, and having failed to act, the brightness dwindled, as did the likelihood of me writing all the things pleading to be let out. 

That’s why they say strike while the iron’s hot, I suppose. Again and again and again I’d have the spark and ignore it. Or put it off. Or write in my notebook, which is something better than nothing, but I knew it’d little good there. It didn’t risk anything or challenge me in a way that makes me try harder whether the quality is better or not. Saying “tomorrow is just as good as today” became a dangerous motto I obeyed and it’s not even true. I was kidding myself and knew it inside, but I still couldn’t pull it together. 

Instead I worked on three sudoku puzzles from a Southwest magazine I snagged on my flight home from Miami. I made some dumb deal with myself if I could finish all three than I could trust my brain. I finished the Easy, then worked on the Medium for what probably took far too long, but finished, and then spent over a week on the Difficult until I messed up somewhere and it was impossible to fix. So I threw it out finally, assuming OK, now it’s time for writing. But then I studied Sudoku strategies online instead, which I’d never done before. Interesting stuff.

I went to Miami in the first place to see my real life hero, Dr. Nancy Klimas. I honestly feel little a star struck when I see her and I just want to run up and wrap my arms around her bear hug style and lift her off the ground. Do a twirl with her raised in the air! Hah, what a sight. She ordered a lot of blood work and neurotransmitter tests. One interesting thing she suggested was the use of a tens machine as means to stimulate the Vagus Nerve, which has gotten a lot of press in the MECFS world and has helped people with varying symptoms. One of those is headaches, and since I’ve had one of those for the last decade, I’m really hoping it will help provide some relief. 3 times a day for 15 minutes. I’ll report back. 

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Real Life 🦸‍♀️ Super Hero

It’s always hopeful to see a doctor who specializes in your disease, particularly when the other seven that you see have never heard of it. They’re doing your best, for obvious reasons, there limits to their help. Seeing Klimas was cathartic in that regard and other levels as I’m hopeful some of her ideas will help with multiple issues I’m having resolve, or at least improve. Particularly crashing almost every day about an hour after I awake. Also the cystitis and peeing every 10 minutes. And the daily migraines. And five months between periods. So, all of it, basically.

As for the rut, I think an envy began sprouting in me that at first I wasn’t so aware of. It started in a very dormant way, even though I was really enjoying my trip in Miami. I probably had more fun than I’d had in all of 2019 combined, which could fit in a thimble. It began with a very attentive observation of my surroundings, of simple things actually, and seeing up close how people who have their health are able to live and operate, day after day. I don’t know why this time I was so conscious of it and in such awe. On a general level at all times, I am amazed what man in a state of homeostasis can do. Maybe because 2019 had been such a burning trashcan of illness and life that I forgot what real health looked like. I was so amazed on one hand, and on the other, the envy for their ease of capability grew in me like a weed. 

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Singing the Beastie Boys

The logistics of family life, especially with four young children, is extremely difficult and doesn’t look easy. But it does look fun, too. I came from a family of six, so maybe some part of me naturally feels at home with that number. But to watch reliable bodies and all they could do became compelling and incredible. I’d listen to my brother and sister-in-law talk about plans, and I think I literally forgot about the concept of planning as a real thing. It’s not impossible and I still attempt it in my own life, but it is always tentative. Always. I am never, ever, a sure thing.  

Not a second thought about showers, grocery shopping, cooking big meals every night, meeting friends for dinner. How involved their social life was! I mean, they had one. How at ease everyday chores and tasks and errands (Or even just delegating them) were— not that they didn’t require work, but that no one was forced by potential physical repercussions to choose whether they would shower or grocery shop. They were solid people. They accomplished so much each day and were dead tired by the end of it, just when I’d start to feel a little more awake, strangely. They went to sleep with warranted exhaustion, and the sleep actually recharged them.

My sister-in-law was so alive in the mornings, which is incomprehensible to me. Both feeling alive at all, and being functional before 2 pm. When she wore workout clothes, it’s because she actually worked out. Not because she was a poser like me who wore leggings because sometimes just the thought of denim against my skin makes me cringe. 

I had truly forgotten what the privilege of health affords you across a day, a week, in all your many roles and expectations. I was amazed and then maybe progressively envious? Can’t say, but typically I’m overwhelmed watching the pace and the volume and the largeness of healthy peoples lives unfold. But for whatever reason, I finally felt it deeply in my bones, as though it’d been welling up there for years and I’d just never said it out loud despite it being glaringly obvious. To the point of it being useless to even repeat here. But it’s still flapping around in my brain, and I want to release it.  I’m warning you, it’s stupidly obvious: I am so, fucking, tired, of living life with this illness. 

How’s that for a Ted Talk?

It’s still there for some reason. It’s obvious, I get it, everyone in the world gets it– why it continues to circulate in my psyche like some grande revelation is beyond me. Maybe it just begged to be said plainly, without a “But” behind it or any justification for why having it has made me better in other regards! No, plain and simple. Just say it and leave out the decorum.

Pardon the F bomb, that’s just how the thought plays out. I write about hope and working with the hand you’re dealt and discerning ways to find meaning in the parts of life you don’t control. And suddenly it all faded quietly into the background. I felt like a hack. I looked around and could feel viscerally how much I wanted what I could not have. What was not mine to take. 

I can’t stay in that space long, even though I’ve still felt way a while now, though maybe not with such fervor. Zukav says that “The splintered personality must always choose between opposing parts of itself. The backbone of evolution.” I doubt it grows me any to want for what isn’t real. To live in a dimension where bad things happen without timely ways to always understand them. I am constantly walking the line between hope and despair. It is far easier to despair, I admit easily. I have to choose hope, consciously, with the intention that even if I can’t see the meaning in all of this yet, it will be revealed. Or at least if I’ll find salvation and treasure in it, the way I would try to in a life with my health. I can’t accept it’s all for nothing. I won’t.

Still, some days, some periods of time: So. Fucking. Tired. OK, won’t say it anymore. My mom will wag her finger.

Interestingly, I still had a great time in Miami. It wasn’t that I felt better there–I was crashed most the time. It was more of a simple enlightenment that being sick around people you love and like is better than being sick on your own. Obvious, I know. I  stayed in bed, sleeping on and off until around 3:30 pm. That’s when Olive and Miles (7 and 4) typically came home from school, and I’d reach down far for some strength and get up to greet them as they walked up the driveway smiling or skipping or holding art they made as though it were a proud flag.

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And the Tony Goes To….

It was nice being around them. I really do treasure my role as an aunt, even if I can’t do more and play longer without tiring out. I was able to see Olive’s first performance in a play: School Daze. It was about school, and how school is hard. Can’t disagree with that. It felt so fun to go and cheer her on.

I’d meet them at the beach, but it’d be four hours after they’d already been there. But that’s the great part about kids (and dogs.) No questions. No backstory required. They’re just glad you’re there.

A beautiful part of children is how adaptable they are. They don’t seem to mind that I’m supine 80% of the time we’re together. Kids can tire you out, but they can rejuvenate you too, much like the ocean. Luckily there, I had both. And those two made me feel more alive than I’d felt in a while.

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Joy Joy
I like these pictures because they fit in my fantasy world where things are normal and that’s fun to pretend sometimes.

I guess being around the whole family helped re-tether me to the world. Seemed I had floated away from it, or maybe it was the world that had floated on without me. Either way, once I was home, I didn’t bask in the solitude or the quiet, like usual. Reuniting with Monty always makes me happy, and is the symbol of “home” to me. Otherwise a harsh reality settled around me that suddenly I was sick with no one around during the day. But it didn’t feel like respite.

In Miami I would often just listen to Estee on the phone, or working on some project, prepping food for dinner that night, caring for the twins. As my grandma would say “She’s a busy body.” I got used to the background sounds of people living, and despite not participating in it, it was comfortable to me hearing it go on. Comforting. A reminder that life moves continues on, no matter what you’re wearing or what room you’re in. Of course that same fact when you’re in the same four walls for months can feel worse than unfair. It’s a pitiful thought, but it feels very real that the world doesn’t need you at all. (That is NOT true and I don’t believe that in any form at all. It’s your ego messing with you, and it’s dishonest. All of it)

I guess the drastic change, whether it was the lack of kids to make me laugh or of late-night life talks after the kids went to bed, they all made my life at home feel disconnected. My mom had left for a trip to Colorado the day after I returned and I suppose what I normally call solitude began to feel more like isolation. I had this feeling that I’d probably had enough solitude to last me thru another decade.

I surpassed my wordcount by about 5,000 words. I have too much to say because I put this off too long too long and that’s what happens. I’ll let this fly and hope things lighten up inside me, then I’ll do a little better by saying more with fewer words next time. That’s the ticket. Between now and then, Stella is working on getting her groove back. I’ll get there. I always do. 

Health, Happiness, Grooves

Miami, Migraines, Diners, Doctors

Published on by Mary Gelpi5 Comments

I am sitting at a booth in one of those themed diners in a shopping center, adjacent to the clinic where I saw the specialist on Monday and had what looked like hundreds of vials of blood taken today for more testing. I figure I should eat even though I’ve no appetite. I never trust a menu this long, so I play it safe and order the soup and salad, which is neither good or bad. I guess that’s what you’re really asking for, a meal to quickly forget.

mp,550x550,gloss,ffffff,t-3.3u2.jpgThe music is too loud in here and I find myself strangely annoyed with the gimmicky decor. License plate style plaques fill every inch of wall space boasting phrases like “Stressed is Dessert spelled backwards!” and “Soup of the Day: Whiskey.” I stop. I just close my eyes a minute. Adjust. The problem is not the restaurant. It’s me and this body I have to animate—it doesn’t fit in the world in comfortable or easy ways. It’s like dropping a wild tiger in suburbia, except maybe the opposite. It’s like trying to build suburbia in the middle of a jungle, then complaining the tigers are noisy and sometimes scare the kids. No one else seems bothered by the music.

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“Hey, you don’t belong here.”
“I might say the same thing about you.”

I don’t want to be this young and think like a curmudgeon. Better to let go. It’s because it’s 11:30 and I’m on day 9 of a migraine cycle and I’m wearing real pants. I had to get blood drawn and I don’t normally exist before noon. Mornings are just constantly, reliably painful and tough.

Everyone has days where life feels so tired, so repetitive, that you want to hit snooze and wake up under some alternate sky where there is no weight to carry. No gravity, no effort required to move. Where everyone looks each other in the eyes. We listen. We don’t say the words “Sorry” followed by the word “but…” or “if”. Our hearts resonate with each other, and our heavy bodies have shed like snake skin, like the useless, heavy weight they’d become. There is a lightness in every capacity.

Tolle says this alternate side of the sky I am referring to is possible here on this side. And I believe he is right. But it takes so much practice and learning and presence. Presence. How easy it is to walk into a cheap diner and complain about decor. ap,550x550,12x16,1,transparent,t.u2.pngThat kind of observation lacks creativity. Not to mention, it’s very counterproductive to complain about these things when you’re already feeling down. So I’ll tell you what I like about this costumed diner. All four booths in my vicinity are filled with at least parties of two people eating, and all of them are talking to one another. None of them have their phones out. A phenomenon! Particularly this couple across from me.

They are in their 60’s, and somehow it seems obvious they’ve known each other a long time. I could be wrong of course. They could be divorcees who met on ourtime.com and newly in love. But it’s not the sense I get. In my mind they’re in their Act III of their marriage with grandchildren they have pictures of on their phones to their friends at Bridge. I like that they haven’t run out of things to say or lost some kind of delight in the simple pleasure of each others laugh. They seem to laugh a lot, casually, throughout their light hearted conversation and this feels so good to watch. I always used to fear I’d marry a man and eventually he’d lose interest in me and I’d find his stories boring and then we’d be at a restaurant eating one day with nothing to say to one another. As though there was nothing new to discover about the other, or that we’d lose curiosity in the way each of us experienced the world.

But I know that only happens when we’ve decided we know a person completely and with total certainty. And if we’ve decided that, the issue is not the other person.”The human mind mistakes its opinions and viewpoints for truth…but it is no more than a viewpoint, one of many possible perspectives. Reality is a unified whole. Thinking fragments it into pieces.” Tolle says a lot about the “thinking” mind, and that it’s very useful in our world. But it’s also “very limiting when it takes over your life completely. It’s only a small aspect of the consciousness you are.”

Sometimes I seek the daily, thoughtless things about a person with such aggressive interest I think I might be dumb. Their calendars, notebooks, what they keep in their cars. One of my favorite hobbies is to take apart a guys wallet, piece by piece. All the useless receipts he saves. The frequent customer cards. An old crumbly picture, maybe. Movie stubs. Concert stubs. Their license—are they smiling in the picture or does it look like a mug shot? What made the cut for making it into the billfold and what didn’t. All tiny stamps of a person and his non-sequitor, paper trail of places he’s been. You can have the same fun or more going through a woman’s’ purse. Many clues in there. But these are little traces so few people see. Instead we go to dinner and say “Uh huh and what do you do? Oh interesting, tell me more about your boss. What a jerk!” I think first dates should be silent a exchange of wallet for wallet, or purse for purse, or wallet for purse, whatever. You get the picture.

My last boyfriends wallet, unless I’m remembering incorrectly, was a basic brown leather wallet that seemed to old for him and contained some concert stubs, because he was a music guy and not a whole lot else because he had a straightforward way of being in the world. A wallet was a thing to hold money and his license. But maybe more memorable was the night we went to dinner and left Monty and his dog Gracie home. When we returned, his wallet that he’d left on the coffee table had been chewed. His license, a credit card, social security card, and a one dollar bill perfectly torn in half littered the living room floor. We both loyally defended our own, claiming that “100%, my dog would never do that.” I thought it was kind of funny—a mystery we’d never know the answer to. Maybe it was Monty (it wasn’t), telling me Run! This thing isn’t gonna work! Mayday! Owell. Fun while it lasted. I still have the half chewed dollar.

I could say that the two buzzing gnats flying around my side salad are concerning, but you can basically always reduce these impulses to complain or feel disturbed by something or “talk to the manager” to nothing, because when you start to break them down, they just don’t mean all that much. We forget that so much of our devoted focus, particularly when it’s negative, is essentially meaningless. I am one person, and I chose to eat at a diner where children under the age of 12 eat for free between noon and 3. There may as well be a sign that says FREE BUGS. This isn’t the RITZ. The meal costs $10 and the waitress is nice.  If you’re always making noise about your tiny discontent, you just become a human gnat. We should ask ourselves what our questions or actions or statements are intended to do for five minutes before we go running to every manager. It’s so often just a thoughtless impulse. Gnats! We could just as easily forget about it and move on with the day.

I take an Uber home, and I find myself alone in the back of Ubers quite often. ‘Often’ is a relative term. I’m appreciating that the driver isn’t trying to engage in conversation. “It’s hot out!” “Yes, it is hot out! Also, I have a doggy!” I’ll tip him more for that.

Miami is a picturesque place, and I like the sidewalk traffic. Watching the world through 179389-3908867d8a204eebbcef4215613a5da0.jpeg  the window feels so much better than TV–and no commercials. Bonus! I see a couple kiss while they wait at the crosswalk. Then they smile and she says something that makes them laugh. I love seeing people kiss. Creepy? Maybe. I just like that kissing exists in general. There’s traffic, which is another easy thing to complain about. Tolle says complaining is one of the ego’s favorite hobbies. (Also being right.) But I’m in a quiet car. All I have to do is sit here, one of a few things where I’m actually quite skilled. Many beautiful things pass us by at a stop and go pace. I try to imprint the sights on my brain to take home with me.

I try presence. Just being aware of all my senses. I am grateful to be out in the world at all, when so often I am indoors. I try to remember how lucky I am that I was able to come here. What a gift it is to see a doctor who understands, who listens and looks you in the eye, who can help me find answers. (Thank you Dr. Klimas!) That I have my brother and his beautiful family to stay with and help care for me. That it’s time together we wouldn’t have had were I well. Yes, I have a body that feels like a decomposing pumpkin at times. And I actually feel I may look like a decomposing pumpkin at times. (See video below) But so many moments to be grateful for. So many gifts. Count them. Keep counting. They add up faster the more awake you are.

Keep fighting. Last year was hard. I believe somewhere in my depths, this one will be better, no matter the directional trend my health takes. I know we’re getting close. I tip the Uber driver and leave feedback. “Thank you for the quiet.”

Health, Happiness, Counting

All awesome artwork by Eugenia Loli

*Bonus*: I’m on Day 9 of my migraine cycle! Here is a clip of yesterday morning. It was kind funny in that tragically comical way.

Airports.

Published on by Mary Gelpi4 Comments

I am somewhere between supine and upright on my couch where I have taken residence the entire week. My postcards read Greetings From the Couch! Most the movement taking place is in a continual rearrangement of pillows, positions and blankets in a futile effort to achieve positional comfort one way or another. No success yet. There must be an ergonomic texting/reading chair somewhere out there.

Outside it thunders, as it has every afternoon this week. It’s hinting at another storm, but has yet to produce rain. Monty is in mental disarray, gyrating off and on in these vibrational fits, all due to thunder. I’m still surprised he exhibits such outward fear this way, mostly due to the frequency of thunder in Louisiana–like fearing snow in Colorado. It’s instinct, apparently, that guides him to squeeze his awkward, girthy body into the narrowest nooks of his own making around the house, which right now is between the sofa and coffee table beneath my outstretched legs. When I go to the bathroom, he follows close behind and then wedges himself between the toilet and the wall. Another round of gyrating. Every time it cracks suddenly or it grumbles in that deep rocky tenor, he stares up at me suspiciously with visceral worry in the whites of his eyes. It’s like he’s saying “See, I told you” as though the sound of thunder was proof that it were dangerous. Maybe it is and we’re in harm ways;  I’m just too dense to know it.

My petting and reassuring him with extremely human explanations, my instinct, apparently, does nothing to quell his fear. A boyfriend once told me, as is distinctly male instinct, that it’s my own cushioning and coddling him in my high-pitched, soothing voice that makes him nervous because it communicates that there’s something to be nervous about. If you only acted normal, so would he. But I am beyond certain now that this is an incorrect hypothesis, not just because of the many instances of thunder and attached panic I’ve witnessed, but because once, a year or so ago, I came home from the grocery store in the middle of an aggressively loud storm. Unable to find Monty, I finally discovered him not only in the bathroom, but in the bathtub, quivering. This is still both one of the saddest and funniest discoveries I think I’ve ever made. Being righteous as I am I noted right away that this fear of his is no the result of my coddling, but from some primive instinct to get the hell under something, squeeze into a tiny space and quiver till it’s over. Interestingly enough, they say the bathtub is the safest spot to seek during a tornado etc. That’s what my mom says anyway, to which her husband cackles As if there’s a safe place to go during a tornado. 

I’m supposed to be on a 4:00 plane to Miami tomorrow. I’m visiting my Brother & Company for a week and then attending my best friends Miami Bachelorette Party at the week’s end through labor day, braving ourselves amid the Zika hysteria. I’m in no shape physically to travel right now, but I’m hoping and praying for some kind of divine help. For more than a week, I’ve been, what’s the phrase…Out of Service. Technical difficulties. Shit For Brains. The usual Crash buffet. I’ve rested pretty continuously, changing couch to chair one day, trying a different room the next, mixing it up as much as is possible right now. Among the physical shiftiness  I find myself really grateful that I have the time and space to actually rest. I always recall my last few months of working full-time, when I felt this way daily. The added angst of knowing that on top of being that sick I had to show up somewhere and be a functioning human being was enough for a nervous breakdown. Those were incredibly tough days, but I’m glad I had them. It swells my gratitude now that I don’t have to push through the pain, fake a smile, tell people I’m fine when I’m half certain I’m about to croak. It’s a gift that I don’t have to live like that now, and I try to stay aware of it. I know that traveling to Miami and sleeping somewhere that isn’t home is going to take a lot out of me, annoyingly, because I always prided myself on being a low-maintenance traveler. I’m still able to sleep almost anywhere and don’t require a lot of amenities, except water for pills and sometimes an emergency room. But I don’t think I qualify as low-mainenance anymore. And there’s a price to pay in leaving home now, and that’s just part of the deal. “Vacations” are not relaxing things really. They are usually a lot of fun, but they are always costly. It’s one of many things that, due to physical restraint, has become depressingly large– mundane things are no longer right-sized.  Laundry. Packing. Putting bags into smaller bags. Remembering. Prescription refills. Pharmacy lines. Doctor authorizations. Insurance Authorization. Pharmacy on-hold music. Monty’s sad face when I get out the suitcase. Lifting and carrying and dragging a portable box of crap on wheels around.The normal stuff everyone endures. When you think of all the steps you’ve gone through by the time you’re sitting on an airplane seat, it’s a lot! It’s the same except for the burden it will bear later. An ongoing debt you have to pay, for a bunch of crap you don’t even want! Hah. Am I done complaining yet? Maybe.

I’m thinking of one of the largest culprits of exertional consumption: Airports. Like Vegas, it’s a surprising amount of walking. Standing. Waiting. Discerning boarding announcments. Taking off and putting on shoes and jackets and giving the laptop its own bin and PLEASE MOVE OUT OF THE WAY MA’AM. It’s the meanest display of manners one will ever encounter. A harsh environment in many respects, the airport is like entering this fluorescently lit void where nothing is permanent and you’ll live a little while–but only as a stop on your way somewhere else. Not so different from the no-name town interstate exit you take on a road-trip at 3 am, strictly to use the bathroom and gas the car. It’s a blurred cross-section of time zones cultures and classes that feels like one wavelength just outside reality. The normal rules don’t apply. What time is it? It could be so many different o’clocks at once!

It’s a funny place. It does things to perspective, to experience, even physiologically. You walk but somehow it feels like you’re running. Down a transient track you go, walkrunning to your gate, (your  3 am exit) as bits of conversation and commerce and commotion fly past you in quick succession, one second glances in the eyes of strangers, some of them feeling oddly familiar. Snapshots of children having tantrums among bulky luggage in a news store inline. So many incremental, rapid snapshots of all the others in the world. You forget they’re out there. They flash by at such a rapid pace, and just as quickly they’re gone. I always feel incredibly slow, unable to keep up with a pace that is either insanely hurried or intolerably slow. I feel standstill among it, even when I’m walk-running. There’s a certain nervousness I detect; most people aren’t really reading their books. I know because I’m creepy and I watch while they wait. They’re always looking up and around, just making a general visual sweep, assuring their psyches that no one in the vicinity has lost their mind yet or look like they’re going to. The people watching went down a few notches with the introduction of cell phones. Now people are actually entrenched in what they’re doing–looking at Facebook or Twitter or any of it on their phones, and probably someone could lose their shit really loudly and they’d hardly notice at all. Anyway, inevitably, there’s the well dressed business man running full speed with his expensive roller suitcase in toe and his jacket flapping behind him. Excuse me!! He yells with importance and people seem to respond. Yes move please thank you! Some people give him a dirty look, but they’ve forgotten solidarity! We have all been that man running like an idiot to our gate. I must say the image always makes me smile. It’s the quintessential reminder that yes, you’ve arrived to the airport. Buy something trashy and take a seat. Read, don’t read, you’ll enjoy yourself regardless because there’s something pervertedly entertaining about watching people dressed nicely and running at high speeds. I know I know, solidarity. But it’s just too easy. Thousands of people you’ll never see again.

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Hi your flight has been delayed six days
A mighty few are novelty travelers, for whom the airport is filled with opportunity and new adventure, and the unique sights and sounds are an exciting reminder of going somewhere new! But sadly many more represent the disgruntled traveler, the jaded one, the one with 3 million frequent flyer miles that he’ll never use–for a vacation anyway. Like the teacher who has been teaching far too long, he’s too familiar with the height of inefficiency he’s about to face, the hoards of human stupidity he’ll have to wait on and wade through just so he can board a vessel where all the pieces and parts of utility and supposed comfort are screaming “I’M TOO SMALL!” Inevitably he’ll be seated by a yelling toddler being spoken to as though he were 40, all so he can experience the miracle of flying at 40,000 feet, a height repeated by the captain 2 too many times along with others “uhhhs” and stutters and unnecessary bits of information. Then the final descent, a wobbly landing to applauding passengers for God knows why, in Cincinnati freaking Ohio.

Personally, I love flying.

The sky has finally opened its mouth to a downpour. Monty has calmed, but he sees the open suitcase in the corner and we’re both a little weary.

Health, Happiness, Seats Forward and Tray Tables up

 

Authors note: This was written ten days ago. Not that you care. 

Under Water.

Published on by Mary Gelpi16 Comments

I need to spend more time under water.

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

unnamed-2 unnamed

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

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

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

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

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

Health, Happiness, Thirty One.

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.

The Plague.

Published on by Mary Gelpi5 Comments

I feel the need to begin here by expressing my deep gratitude for the response to my last post. As usual, my decision to publish a raw and somewhat sad update was not without hesitation on my part. My preference is always to write in a happy and funny and optimistic tone, even if the words I am writing are happier, funnier and more positive than I actually am. In some ways it’s therapeutic, and in others it’s a challenge in creativity and authenticity. As much as I’d like my writing to point towards the fun and the funny, life is not always that way, is it? Sometimes it’s overwhelming and can feel too heavy to bear. I resist putting words out there like that for maybe the same reason I never liked to cry in public or ask for help when I needed it. It means, gasp, I’m not perfect. And that’s what the ego fears a lot. 

Over these last few years, the pride that held tears back and forced a facade that was untrue began to crumble. This writing project entered the picture when those superficial layers were starting to shed, and consequently this blog has some really vulnerable things in it, which can leave me uneasy. At the same time, I can feel that my most honest posts are the ones that connect most with strangers. (Duh) And that doesn’t mean they have to be in the tone of “True Life: I’m Sick All the Time.” Humor can be just as much genuine and communal. It’s the one I prefer, it’s just not the one that always is.

Anyway, it’s a battle inwardly and materially, but I just really need to extend my thank you to everyone who received my words and reciprocated with such loving support and encouragement. How can we lose faith in humanity when across the world, people sit down at a desk to uplift and strengthen a stranger with words? It’s a two-way street yall! I’ve been reflecting on so many responses from people I will never know, and that alone is healing. On a form level, it makes me trust in the direction that the blog is taking–one I did not design. On the formless level, it had me feeling so much better despite being so sick. That transaction served such a greater purpose than “You should try eating more JuJu Beans!” And I attribute that to all of us. This doesn’t feel like a solitary project anymore. So thank you. That’s all I’m saying, THANK YA VERY MUCH.

Now, onto the plague. I’ve been puking my guts out. But that’s not the plague I’m talking about.

My siblings with their partners and children rented a beach house in the Florida Keys last week. It happened to be the same weekend as the wedding of a long-time good friend. For two months I went back and forth. Beach house or wedding weekend? (Assuming I could move) I could always go to the beach and fly home for Saturday night and make it to the wedding just in time for the festivities, right!? But with the way I’ve been feeling, my unsteady ability to sustain, my mom didn’t even have to tell me with her eyes this time. I knew I couldn’t do both. Or maybe I could, but the price would be big, and these days the price of choices like that are not just gargantuan but scarily long lasting. Crash days have turned into crash months, and the basic goal is, Don’t do things that could set you back so far. 

Back and forth I went, and it was tortuous. It always is; I do this all the time.  Both choices seemed correct and incorrect simultaneously. My indecisiveness is one of my largest sources of anxiety. I won’t get into the details of why one choice was better than another, there were many pros and cons to both. But often when it comes to my immediate family, they’re the default decision. I don’t get to see them a lot and they’re my lifesavers after all. They’re my blood bro! After my brother called me a few days before the trip, started describing the waves and the weather and a hammock outside, I booked the ticket and felt confident momentarily that now I didn’t have to suffer. The decision was made and now I could relax. I guess.

“Indecisive Girl” by Carli Ihde

…Until I saw my friend who’s wedding I would miss and then saw all my old friends who I rarely see that would be there. And all the shit they gave me, it was more torture. What have I done?! I blew it! At the same time the trip was booked- let it go. You get to hang with your family on the beach. That rocks. That’s true. I got to the beach. I held my nieces and laughed with family around the dinner table eating fish my brothers caught that day. And then on day 2, I awoke at 5 am and had that feeling in my gut that something wasn’t right. And then at 5:30 I started puking up all those “not rights” I was feeling.  I had caught the stomach bug that half of my family had experienced the week before. My sister was up with the baby conveniently and she held my hair and that was nice. An hour later with my face pressed against the cold tile in between cycles of puke bursts, I moaned and tossed: “Shoulda gone to the wedding. Shoulda gone to the wedding. BLLLLURGGGH”  (puke sound)

I’m still recovering from that evil stomach bug and it’s a bummer. But the bug isn’t the issue here and I know that. I’m the problem. Shit happens that you can’t foresee or plan for. Regret and hesitation are such hinderers of the present. And we all know that the present is where peace lies. Happy is in the here and now. A lot of my unhappiness, and perhaps unhappiness in general, is being here and wishing to be there. I could easily have gone to the wedding and convinced myself I was missing a beach trip of a lifetime. I could have tried to breakdance and broken my butt. (That almost happened once) So while I lie here sick on an air mattress, in the living room, on vacation, (once again) I’m trying simply to just be here. I’m looking for the lesson. I’m trying to focus and trust in the experience I’m having instead of the one I did not. Thoughts like that are like swimming up-current–they consume and exhaust me even more. It’s just another battle that’s no use fighting.

I don’t know how long I’ve been plagued with indecisiveness like this. Though I remember even in middle school spending far too long picking out deodorant at Target, never certain I would choose the right scent. It’s been a long time. As always the first step to breaking a habit is awareness–creating a space between the routine reaction and a healthier one. Maybe it starts with knowing myself more. Trusting myself more. But maybe it’s simpler than that. In stillness the answer points to this idea; be where you are. Wherever that is.

I be sick in Miami! And it’s fine! Whatever!

Here’s something Tolle says: If you resist what happens, you are at the mercy of what happens, and the world will determine your happiness and unhappiness. …To be in alignment with what is means to be in a relationship of inner nonresistance with what happens. It means not to label it mentally as good or bad, but to let it be.

Pretty good no? I’m marinading on that one. Ew, marinade. I’m still queazy.

Health, Happiness, Plagues.

Artwork: Indecisive Girl from Carli Ihde

Greetings From Bed on Hard Knocks Island

Published on by Mary Gelpi20 Comments

I’m writing today from a very foggy place. I have to concentrate really hard when I consider what day it is, what the date is, and when someone asks me questions it takes an unwarranted amount of time to answer. This is my 3rd day in bed, and as much as I thought today would be better since I literally slept until 6 pm yesterday and fell back asleep at 9 pm for the night– I’m still not feeling much more alive. Luckily, my mom and I are still holding down the fort on rich people island. One of the worst parts of being in a full-blown crash is how isolated it feels. Luckily at this residence, my room has huge windows and an amazing view, so while I was only awake 3 hours yesterday, at least I had nice things to look at.

Not Too Shabby a View

I know to an outsider this seems ridiculous. And I’m sure there are people out there thinking “You’re simply sleeping TOO MUCH, and that’s why you’re so tired!!!” If I had a nickel…. It’s very hard to explain what my body feels like amidst a crash, and this one is one of the worst I’ve had in a long time. I think it was Laura Hillenbrand, author of Seabiscuit and longtime CFS sufferer who said “Calling it ‘tired’ is like calling the atomic bomb a firecracker.” The only reason I got out of bed yesterday was to go to the bathroom and to take medicine. My mom tried to wake me up a few times and get me moving, but the thought of being upright nauseated me. Finally at 6, she made me drink a huge class of orange juice and eat toast and eggs so my body wouldn’t be running on empty. While I ate we watched a show on the science channel about the science of memory, dreams, and what makes us who we are, which was pretty mind-blowing. But by 9 I had fallen asleep again. I remember really really wanting to brush my teeth last night but standing that long just wasn’t going to happen, so I skipped.

Beyond the ridiculous fatigue are other symptoms that have been difficult to find relief to. I’ve had a non-specific pain radiating throughout my body, kind of like my bones are aching, that did not respond to pain killers. I’ve had a headache for a few days that is not a migraine but won’t go away does not respond to regular meds. Today at least the pain has let up and the headache has improved, but that heavy, wet-blanket fatigue hasn’t gone anywhere yet. When I woke up around 9 this morning, I sat up slowly in bed just to have my heart race and beat loud in my ears followed by a dash of dizziness to seal the deal. Good morning! God loves you!

The last symptom I’ll share, because we’re having so much fun here, is one of the most bizarre. I have this extreme sensitivity to sound that at times turns me into a crazy person. When I first became sick at age 9 this was one of my first and most jarring symptoms. Things like a hair-dryer, vacuum, or even the neighbors lawnmower were suddenly somehow painful, almost unbearable. I am noticing now that when my symptoms get bad, this sensitivity becomes heightened. It isn’t just loud noises either. For instance if someone leaves the laundry room door open with the washer or dryer running, I basically can’t relax or think straight until it’s closed. If someone is playing the radio in the car and there is static in the background, I feel like my head is about to explode until we switch the station. And it usually happens in the middle of someone telling a story that the sound of static becomes so overwhelming it’s all that I can hear, often causing me erupt in an erratic verbal explosion like “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD CAN SOMEONE TURN OFF THE FREAKING RADIO?! I FEEL LIKE I’M ON CRAZY PILLS!!!!” And then everyone looks at me like I’m on crazy pills. But in my brain, the sound is the equivalent to nails on a chalkboard. I’ve found that many people with CFS have at least one of their senses which is painfully heightened. For my mom it’s her sense of smell; one whiff of the wrong perfume and she can get an instant migraine. Don’t we sound like a bucket of fun!? We are. :)

On day 3 in bed, I was mulling over the last week in my head, trying to piece together the puzzle of what-in-God’s-name happened to land me in bed this long feeling like I was hit by a cement truck and then rolled over by it once or twice. There are a few possibilities and I’m pretty sure it was a combination of all of them which created the perfect storm, but one in particular: I pushed myself for too long. Since my family is rarely all together in the same city, I hate to miss out on anything when we are. My brothers are two of my favorite people–they’re a lot of fun. They’re also two of the most hyper people I’ve been around. They were very go, go, go while they were here, and since I love to be around them, I tried to go, go, go with them everywhere they went until I die die died. It’s the same lesson I’ve had to learn before that I will continue to learn until I get it right; I have to limit myself. No one will do it for me, mostly because no one else has to pay the price of overdoing it, only I do. And I’ve overdone it so many times you’d think I’d have it down by now, but I don’t. I have to learn to say no. It does mean missing out on some things that I’d like to partake in, but the alternative is missing out on 3 days of life, and you never get those back. The doctor calls this being proactive vs. reactive. If you can sustain yourself by limiting things and paying attention to your body, you can pretty effectively avoid crashes and super-sick days. There were a couple of days last week I didn’t feel great but made the decision to go to the beach anyway, or go fishing anyway, and those anyways ended up being pretty detrimental.

Just so we’re clear, I don’t write posts like these to be depressing. I’m not doing it to complain or fish for pity. It was my goal from the start to try my best and paint an accurate picture of what life with this illness looks like. And sadly, some days or weeks, it just sucks. No getting around it. At the same time, I remind myself this won’t last. I study the things that got me here, and I thank God I have family (mostly Dr. Mom) to see me through the really tough parts. I wonder a lot how anyone would survive this illness alone, and I honestly don’t think it’s possible. Everyone I talk to in the waiting room at the specialists office has one primary thing in common; they have one person to whom they owe their life. A spouse, a parent, brother or sister, child or friend. CFS isn’t terminal. You don’t die from the symptoms. But I really can’t imagine where I’d be if I didn’t have the help of so many people in the past. Sleeping under a bridge somewhere. Keyword: sleeping.

In the light of friendship, I’d like to share the Gelpi’s rendition of one of my all time favorite songs from one of my all time favorite shows: Thank You for Being a Friend, from the Golden Girls. Luckily my brother Doug can basically play any song you ask him to on the piano, so he did me a solid. My voice is terrible so I apologize in advance, but hey, it was fun. This is dedicated to Emily and Kaitlin aka Matt Damon.

Health, Happiness, Crash and Burns