Well shit. Currently it’s one-thirty in the morning, and I just got back from the emergency room. When I woke up this morning, my right nipple was hurting. Honestly, I just thought it was a pimple, since sometimes that happens. But then this afternoon my other nipple (the left one) started hurting too, so I was like, That’s odd, I feel like I’m going through puberty again, I wonder if I’ll start lactating. Anyway, around midnight I took my shirt off to examine things, and the red bumps had spread to my armpits, so I thought, Houston, we have a problem. Fortunately, I didn’t freak out too much, since something similar happened about six months ago. But since I’m going out-of-town tomorrow, I did want to get it checked out, so thus the emergency room.
Anticipating a long wait, I took my laptop to the hospital and just figured I would blog while waiting. Well, sometimes life throws you a bone, and no one else was there. I mean, the staff was there, but no one was in the waiting room. Y’all, they had me back in a room in under a minute and were taking my vitals before they even asked me my name. They were awesome. The doctor was back in no time, and I quickly got a diagnosis–folliculitis, which is inflammation of the hair follicles, usually due to infection. So he gave me a pill for the night, slapped me on the ass, and sent me back home with prescriptions to fill tomorrow.
He didn’t really slap me on my ass. (That only happens in porn.)
I asked the doctor if it was a hygiene problem, and he said, “You seem like a clean person. It’s probably just bad luck.” But Google said you can get folliculitis from using a hot tub, so that’s probably it. Suffice it to say, I should probably bathe after using hot tubs and stop thinking of the hot tub itself as a bath. Lesson learned.
This afternoon the chiropractor ran ultrasound therapy on the spot in my mid back that’s been giving me shit for a few months now, and I think it’s actually helping, so that feels like a small miracle. Then I had my oil changed, and the hot guy behind the cash register kept calling me sir, so that did not feel like a small miracle. Then I met with the three ladies I’ve been working with lately for their last dance lesson before their performance this weekend. Y’all, I’m so proud of them. Today they showed up for a full dress rehearsal and they looked killer, all decked out in fishnet hose, white tails, and top hats. They’ve come SO far from where we started a few months ago. As a teacher (and just a human), it’s really rewarding to see people work their butts off for something and have it come together.
After the dance lesson, Bonnie fed me and gave me beer. The whole family gathered in the living room for dinner and conversation, and I’m not exactly sure how to describe it. I guess most the time I always have this feeling that no matter what I’m doing, I should be doing something else. My mind is go, go, go nine times out of ten. But there’s something about Bonnie and Todd’s house, whether it’s their living room or front porch, something that says, Sit down, stay a while–you can relax and be yourself. After a while, we all settled into our devices, and I borrowed their high-speed internet to work on another writing project and go ahead and download the photos for tonight’s blog.
Tomorrow I leave for a weekend, spiritual retreat of sorts in Colorado. I’ll be breaking up the drive, and I’ll keep you posted as a I go along. Thursday’s blog may look like, Drove all day, tired, and that’s about it. We’ll see. Anyway, the retreat is basically about–I think–finding that place in yourself that’s always calm and centered. My therapist says I’m “going to get enlightened,” but I’m sure that’s not really something that happens over the course of three days and two nights. (I’m sure she doesn’t think that either.) Whatever happens, I’ll let you know how it goes, but now I’m all nervous and wondering how I’m going to get everything done before I leave and how I’ll have time to blog every day.
I’m taking the nerves as confirmation that I’m still in need of enlightenment, and therefore not wasting my time and money.
For the longest time I used to think that getting sick was some sort of personal failure. Maybe since I was a teenager, it’s always felt like if I ate better, exercised more, and didn’t “sin” so much (whatever that means), I’d be healthier. Consequently, going to the doctor was a problem because not only did I feel sick and vulnerable, I also felt–well–guilty. Thankfully, these thoughts and feelings have seriously subsided over the last few years. I mean, I certainly believe I have a huge role in the health of my body, but I also believe shit happens. Tonight at the emergency room, more than anything, I felt grateful–I walked right in, had wonderful care, and got answers. And people smiled at me.
This, of course, is not a little thing.
It seems to me that healing happens in little pieces. You spend most your life feeling afraid and even cynical, maybe for good reason. Life, after all, can be a real bitch sometimes. But then one day you wake up, and even if your nipples hurt, you still think the world is a good place to live. Or maybe you start at zero with a dance routine, and every time you move your body it feels like a question mark. Week after week you work, then finally things click, and you’re ready to light up the stage. So many times I think that life is some sort of dress rehearsal for something bigger, but the show is clearly right here, right now. (It’s not where we’re going, it’s how we get there.) On this stage you and I are not so different–we smile, we stumble, we get back up again. I’m starting to believe that deep down there’s a part of us that’s always calm and centered, confident in the knowledge that we can relax and be ourselves wherever we go. If we’re lucky, this part rises.
Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)
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Suddenly the sun breaks through the clouds. A dove appears--the storm is over.
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