I am tired of you ripping the
skin off my nose
and littering
my bedside table.
February
can’t come soon enough.
Monthly Archives: January 2014
Ode to my Breathe Right Strip
When January winds stir golden dust
Of cedars (really junipers) in the land,
My sinuses swell up with ev’ry gust,
Eyes are runny and tissues in both hands.
To ease the pain I’ll swallow any pill
Empty drug store shelves in desperation.
But Claritin, Zyrtec, and Bendryl
Fail to bring my symptoms to cessation.
And so, dear Breathe Right Strip, I turn to you
To save me from this annual nasal plight.
As air flows in, more so than hitherto,
I give thanks that you made me feel alright.
O, Breathe Right Strip! With you I can inhale!
I gasp, I gulp, so happy I could weep.
Over evil pollen I will prevail
And drift off into restorative sleep.
A guy I met
So, today I met a guy who had some things in common with me or people I know. It was not a comforting experience.
This guy was average height and weight. Polite and kind of quiet. He was disorganized, could not find the papers he needed in his messenger bag. Been there! (About 12 times a day, actually.)
Turns out, this guy also has some pretty common mental health problems. Nothing unusual – depression, anxiety. Been there, too. Do I know anyone who doesn’t have one or the other or both?
And, this guy has recently been hospitalized for his mental health problems. I’ve not had that experience, but I am close to people who have.
Here is where things get uncomfortable: this guy is homeless and penniless. When I met him, he was seeking help to get his prescriptions filled after just being released from the hospital. I started to imagine what the things we had in common would be like if I didn’t have regular health care, a family, a house. I started to imagine people I know who have been hospitalized going home with the meds they need to a safe home and a network of friends and family. And then I imagined them getting out and not having any of that.
There were other people I met today who were trying to get IDs to get a job, or asking for a new pair of shoes, or meeting with a caseworker. These are things that your homeless neighbors do when they are struggling against a mountain of obstacles to climb out of poverty. But what do you do when the urge to climb that mountain is overwhelmed by mental illness?
While I like to think that I can take care of myself, what separates me most from the guy I met today is not what I do to keep myself healthy and safe, but what others do to keep me that way. If I get sick, I have a spouse, a parent, and siblings who will care for me. If I am late getting home, there are a dozen neighbors I can count on to greet my kid at the bus stop. On the few occasions when I have been laid up, there were casseroles and offers to care for my kids and people to run errands and bring flowers.
Even the prayers I get via email and Facebook are more than this guy had. He was utterly alone, devastatingly poor, trying to manage his health with virtually no resources. And he knew it, was nervous about it. How would he get through today? He could barely hold a conversation for the dread.
There is no real way to wrap this post up with a nice lesson learned or happy ending. I don’t know how it ends and I am pretty sure I’ll see another version of it next week. But I do know that in this case, being grateful for what I have doesn’t make me feel any better. Being uncomfortable is an appropriate response to what I know. I am grateful, but no matter how good I’ve got it, there are still too many people out there trying to get through a long, cold night alone in our big, crowded world. Surely, there is enough medicine and friendship and compassion and warmth to spare for them.
Grief
On the morning of New Years Eve, our dog Lucy died. It was not a surprise – she was fifteen and a half and had been very sick for a couple of months. Still, losing her was emotional for our family, each of us expressing grief in a different way.
My 12-year-old son is having a hard time. I remember dealing with death for the first time at about his age. He’s just old enough to really understand the permanence of it. He’ll go a whole day just fine and then break down crying the next. His 6 year-old sister wasn’t bothered by the news at all – which really irks him. How can she not understand?!
All of this is throwing me back to when my father died and the varied ways all his loved ones grieved. It is such an individual process, the way you grieve. My mother gave herself a strict routine and packed her schedule with activities – hiking, dance, university classes. I had a three-week old baby at the time and willingly went into denial for about 6 months just so that I could take care of her and get the sleep I needed. My son, the one who is grieving the loss of his dog now, missed his Pops, but was mostly affected by how emotional I was. At first, he was really scared to see me so upset. Even my father’s dog grieved; his scent was still in the house and she kept waiting for him to come home – even stopped eating for a while.
It is a cliche, but life’s losses are what give it meaning. Our loved ones are all the more dear to us because we know we have a limited time with them. I know that my son will understand this as he gets older and experiences more loss. But for now, it is just a huge, unfair feeling in his gut.
There is a stretch of road on the way to my house that I drive nearly every day. For the past four days, as I’ve headed home, I imagine Lucy racing alongside my car. She loved to run – there is a path worn into our lawn from her high-spirited circuits around the house. Even as an older dog with arthritis, she would outpace younger dogs. Now, she is forever running in my memory, running home.
