Number of days I’ve lived in this house
and driven up and down the driveway:

3,666

Number of days we’ve owned three cars:

3,021

Number of days I’ve successfully backed
out of the driveway without
smashing into the third car:

3,020

Having a very understanding husband
who told me not to worry, and that it
would be okay:

Priceless.

So you’ve probably noticed that it’s been kind of quiet around here lately. Even though I’ve been moving through so many different situations at what seems like the speed of light, for the first time in my 35 years, I seem to be out of words to describe what’s currently going on in my life.

I haven’t really known how to BE in this place, because always before, even if everything else fell apart, I could always fall back on a cushion of words to soften the blow. So I turned to one of my tried and true coping strategies, namely; “When in doubt, freak out.”

Because I am nothing if not generous, not to mention an excellent Drama Queen, I decided to share the freaky love with my coach during one of our sessions.

“GOD,” I announced, in my best, quivering, innocent-victim-of-the-universe voice, “God has taken all my words away! The one thing I most loved to do in the world, and now He’s taken it away from me for no reason!”

In what can only be described as a Superhuman Exercise Of Will which most likely led to severe internal hemorrhaging on her part, not only did my coach NOT laugh at me, but somehow she was also able to ask me helpful, non-mocking coachful questions to help me work through this issue.

“Well,” she asked, “does everything you write on your blog have to be funny?”

“Uh, DUH! YES!!” I replied. (Aren’t I just a dream client? Don’t you want to coach me too?) Fortunately she has raised two children, so she never takes snottiness personally.

“OK,” she replied, recognizing an Intractable Brick Wall Of Stubbornness when she saw one, “think about this. You had a plan for your blog when you started it three years ago. But you’re not the same person you were three years ago. Think about everything that has happened over the past year. So what if you could allow your blog and your writing to change, and reflect who and where you are now?”

She makes a good point. Especially given the fact that, if I had to give it a title, the theme of this past year would be,

I have hurt, in some way, every single day, for the past eight months.

Eight months of sickness, trauma, my life being completely out of my control, and pain.

One day last October I lost my health. Not because of anything I did or didn’t do. Not for any logical, rational reason. Just ‘cuz.

Overnight, I lost the ability to be the person I had been, and do everything I’d been doing up to that point.

This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with.

I never knew pain could hurt like this.

And even though I seem to have reached a place where the original illness is gone and the side effects are more or less managed, who’s to say they won’t show up again one day, out of the blue, for absolutely no reason at all? My body, my mind, my emotions, they are all tied up in knots and braced against more pain. Because I remember the pain. And I don’t know if I could bear to go through it again.

This was, and continues to be, a huge trauma for me. And I really don’t know how to be with it.

But I am still here. I do show up every day, even if all I do is open my eyes in the morning and acknowledge that I’ve arrived at the beginning of another day.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s enough.

Someone to whom you can make the following, urgent request, even if they’re in the middle of an important business meeting involving people scattered across 3 different countries:

“Hi, it’s me. I’m calling because I need you to tell me that just because the active, throbbing joint pain of the last 3 days seems to be gone for the moment, that does NOT mean that it is time for me to get dressed and drive 15 miles up the highway to the bookstore, simply because they just emailed me a coupon for 30% off of one item.”

Last week I went to see my sleep doctor to update him on my progress with my CPAP machine. I have a new air delivery system called a “nasal pillow”, which is much better than my mask. It doesn’t hurt the bridge of my nose, it doesn’t make my face break out, and it doesn’t at all make me feel as though I’m inserting two tiny rubber penises into my nose every night. Oh, no wait-it DOES do that. But I digress.

Even though I had to get on 3 different highways and drive to what felt like Alabama to get to his office, I was looking forward to this appointment because I would also get to report progress on my WEIGHT LOSS.

So I got checked in, and the nurse put me in the examination room, and the doctor came in, and we began to chat, and then he asked how things had been going for me, and I got to say, “I joined Weight Watchers and I have lost 18 pounds since February!!”

And do you know what his response was, this health care professional, this man who was supposed to be dedicated to my health and well-being, this man who had told me to lose weight in the first place to see if it helped to relieve my sleep apnea?

“Hm. On purpose?”

On. Purpose.

Then he told me that I was one of, like, less than 1% of people who actually did what he told them to.

Really? Hm. I wonder why that could be?

You may have noticed that lately, I appear to have dropped off the face of the earth. Unfortunately, this is due to my having had a pretty major relapse in my recovery from The Autumn Of Illness. Thankfully, there has not been a return of The Hostile Alien Bacteria. But everything else-the arthritis, the fatigue, the feeling like I’m being pulled naked across asphalt all day long-that’s all back.

I finally had my first pain-free day in about a month last Sunday. And I’m tentatively optimistic, because I’ve now had 3 in a row.

So hopefully I should have a little more to say around here. I appreciate everyone sticking around while I’ve peeled myself up off the floor yet again.

Like I’m on the outside, looking in.

Here’s what I mean.

This afternoon I went to Barnes & Noble to get a couple of books to read this weekend in between wedding festivities for my sister-in-law.

I put my choices down on the counter and smiled at the bookseller who I knew by sight, if not by name, owing to the fact that the bookstore is my second home. And here is how our conversation went.

Bookseller: “How are you doing today?”

Me: “Really well, thanks.”

Bookseller: “And did you find everything you were looking for?”

Me: “Oh, yes.”

Bookseller: “Actually, Tina…”

Me: WTF?!

Me: (noticing that he and I are the only two visible people at the counter.)

Me: (looking around surreptitiously to see if I had accidentally transported myself into a parallel universe where in fact I was Tina).

Bookseller: “…something like 80% of homicides are committed by men.”

Me: hoping, HOPING, that he’s not trying to send me some kind of message. Because, did I mention the fact that WE WERE ALONE?!

Me: (smiling, in an attempt to look as little like a potential homicide victim as possible.)

Bookseller: “And the rest are committed by women. Mostly as a result of infidelity.”

And this is why I spend my days with cats.

A day in which you finally fix the four pieces of laundry you accidentally dyed red, only to discover that somehow during this process, ten entirely new pieces of laundry were mysteriously dyed blue.

So the other night we received a phone call from our next door neighbor at almost 10:00 at night.

“Do you have any idea why the police are walking around our neighborhood with dogs?” she asked.

We did not know, as a matter of fact, having been blissfully unaware of the presence of law enforcement on our quiet, weekday evening. But as it happens, we do know someone who could probably find out for us.

So we left our friend a voice mail asking, “Um, say, just hypothetically speaking, there were a bunch of police walking around our neighborhood at night with dogs. What might that be about?”

We heard back from our friend today. They haven’t yet found out the details of this specific incident, but they did pass on one little nugget of law enforcement wisdom:

“If the dogs come out, then someone’s getting bitten.”

Lovely.