On Tumbling Down the Hill (Blog #647)

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It’s after midnight, and I just finished my third set of rehab exercises for the day. Phew. It was a little tough to squeeze all three sets in today, since I did a lot of running around. Well, limping around. My left knee still doesn’t allow me to do a lot. I can walk, but not fast. Still, people keep saying it really is amazing that I’m no longer on crutches. Personally, I’m over it, ready for this nightmare to be finished. Every day I wake up, slog my way through my rehab routine, and pretend this isn’t my life. Then I go to bed, wake up the next day, and discover it still is.

This afternoon I helped a friend take down their outdoor Christmas lights, and you should have seen us. A senior citizen and a crippled trying to bend down and unwrap a string a of lights from around a tree trunk. We used every curse word we knew. But we did it–we did it! We even made a trip to Walmart for a storage bin, and I managed to not only get in and out of their low-riding car, but also drag my bum leg halfway across the store and back. My friend suggested I use one of those little scooters, and I said, “I do have SOME pride left.”

On the way home from Walmart, my friend and I stopped at Walgreens to pick up anti-inflammatories for me. (I forgot them at Walmart.) Then we grabbed some fried chicken and took it back to their house for dinner. There we laughed and laughed. I don’t even remember about what. I just remember that for a while, I didn’t remember any of my problems.

That was nice.

When I left my friend’s, I met my other friend Bonnie, and we went to see a movie–Mary Poppins Returns. Ugh. Talk about a delightful show. I laughed, I cried, my life was changed. Stop everything you’re doing and go see it now.

There’s a big dance number in the show called Trip a Little Light Fantastic. And whereas I spent the entire song jealous of all the dancers with working knees (that bend and everything), it really was glorious, about how things are always darkest before the dawn and how “if a spark can start inside your heart, then you can always find the way.” This is honestly the hardest thing, hanging on to hope when all the evidence in your life would suggest you do otherwise, keeping your chin up when you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders.

I don’t mean to sound glum. At last night’s theater party, I congratulated a friend on their good year (they’d said they’d had one on Facebook), and they asked how mine was. “Terrible,” I said. Later I thought, It wasn’t all bad. Some really lovely things happened. Funny how we classify our days years as good and bad when they’re really a mixture of both. Still, it’s obvious that some days and some years are easier than others. Maybe we fall in love, get a new job. Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Or maybe we have our heart broken, lose our job. Jack fell down and broke his crown, and Jill came tumbling after.

Personally, I don’t mind saying that last year sucked. I was sicker than I’ve ever been, broker than I’ve ever been, and alone as I’ve ever been. Oh, and just before Christmas, I fucked up my knee. And whereas I really wish I could tell you that I’m now on the other side of all this terror, I can’t. Am I making progress? Yes. Is it over? Not at all.

In my Facebook memories today, there was a quote by Stephen R. Covey I shared years ago–“You can’t have the fruits without the roots.” And that’s one thing I can say about this piece-of-shit last year. I grew some serious roots. Despite all the above-ground nonsense, maybe because of it, I now feel more grounded than I ever have. I’ve confronted everything that terrifies the crap out of me, and I’m still standing. Mostly on one leg, but still. And sure, I want the fruits, the outward signs that things are going my way, that this is my year. But roots first, fruits second, that’s what Stephen said. Plus, in the movie tonight–and I don’t think I’m giving anything away here–the day was saved literally at the last-minute. So you never know what life has up its sleeve. You never know when help is on the way. At some point, the dawn has to break. Jack and Jill can’t tumble down the hill forever.

[As an interesting aside, according to Wikipedia, apparently some of the earliest versions of the Jack and Jill nursery rhyme were actually about Jack and Gill, two boys.]

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"Beating yourself up is a far cry from self-respect."

Finding the Middle Path (Blog #306)

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Last night, despite trying, I couldn’t fall asleep until six in the morning. About four I realized it was a 98-percent-full moon, so I’m blaming that. This sort of thing has happened before. I’m guess I’m “sensitive.” That’s fine. But if I have to be up in the middle of the night, exhausted, at least I could turn into a werewolf or something cool, like Michael Jackson in Thriller. No such luck. No dancing with the dead for me. Nope–I only got four hours of sleep–and have absolutely nothing to show for it.

Let’s talk about my outfit.

Today I’m wearing a hat I got from my ninety-five-year-old friend Marina. She says she found it in a bar in Hawaii several years ago–on the head of a Greek sailor. (Swoon.) She apparently asked this guy for it, and he actually gave it to her! You’d just have to know Marina. Anyway, she passed it on to me last year. I’m not sure what the official style of the hat is, but it’s made my Cavanagh, originally cost eighteen dollars (according to the tag inside the brim), and fits my head perfectly. I saw my therapist today, and she said I looked like Elvis–“before he got fat and started singing in Las Vegas.” Talk about a compliment. “That was worth getting out bed for,” I said. “What do I owe you?”

Today we talked about the book I’m reading on Reichian Therapy. My therapist had heard of it, or at least its creator, but didn’t know much about it, so I explained the basic premise and what my experience with it has been thus far. This is something I appreciate about my therapist–like, she never acts territorial or suggests that her way is the only way. She almost never “directs” my therapy. Rather, she encourages me to explore different methods and find what’s right for me.

I told her the book I’m reading says over and over again to go slow. Again, she encouraged me to trust myself. She said, “Remember that those books are always written as if the reader knows absolutely nothing. They’re written for people who are just starting school. You’re at graduate level, so you can pace yourself how you think best. And if you ever get in over your head–just call me and make an appointment.”

Now that I’m processing it, this conversation went along with another one we’ve been having off and on lately, about trusting others and being able to ask them for help. Admittedly, I’m extremely self-sufficient. I hate asking for help. This, my therapist and I agree, is the result of being “let down” by the world on a number of occasions in my childhood. I’ll spare you the details, but I basically grew up thinking, Fuck all y’all. I’ll take care of this myself. (I don’t recommend this attitude, but if you got it, you got it.) My therapist said, “It’s okay to be able to take care of everything from A to Z, but–again–it’s about striking a balance and finding the middle path. You don’t have to do EVERYTHING all the time.”

I realized on the drive to therapy that I’m pretty overloaded lately. I’m working my ass off in therapy and on this blog, I’m reading all the time, and I’ve recently taken on this project for the swing dancing event. I told my therapist today that I’ve been listening to people solid for the last week and sharing their stories online, sometimes to critical reception. I said, “I don’t know how you do this every day and don’t drink yourself to sleep at night.” She said, “It’s hard.” So we discussed boundaries I can set with the projects, as well as other ways I can take care of myself. With this is mind, after therapy I went out for beer and pizza. Granted, this wasn’t one of my therapist’s specific suggestions, but I decided to improvise.

And it worked. I’ve had a delightful afternoon filled with carbs, self-nurturing, and more carbs.

Now it’s seven in the evening, and I’m at the library. I’m meeting a friend soon to see a movie, so I need to wrap this up. Like quick. I see both these acts–the movie and the shorter blog–as acts of further self-care and finding the middle path. No more work for the day, Marcus. It will be there tomorrow. Just enjoy your life. Just enjoy your damn life. So no more go-go-go. At least for now, it’s stop-stop-stop.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Sometimes we move with grace and sometimes we move with struggle. But at some point, standing still is no longer good enough.

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