Harnessing the healing power of snark
Hey, everybody!
I know I haven’t been around here in a while; I’ve been taking a couple of writing classes, and so all of my words have been going there. But I’m feeling newly inspired as I write, so the benefits will soon be spilling over here.
I just wanted to observe my Bloggy Birthday, and to thank everyone here-old reader or new-for hanging out here with me in my little corner of the Internet 🙂
So I spent last week with my parents since my husband was on a business trip, and since my dad had to travel as well for a couple of days, my mom and I decided to have a girls’ night out.
As we split an exquisite slice of chocolate cheesecake we shared stories of crazy experiences we’d had-or heard of-on the job, such as corporate controllers who did not believe in math, companies who listed as one of their values the ability to make fast decisions with little to no information, and people who based their decisions on whether or not to purchase inventory on a simulation tool rather than the reality of which items actually were or were not in stock.
As my mom and I have both spent a number of years as teachers, eventually talk turned to our crazy experiences as educators.
“You know I worked with a principal once who believed that as long as someone had the textbook, then any person was capable of teaching any subject,” my mom said.
“Oh yes, I remember him,” I replied.
“Well I also worked with a colleague-another math teacher-who was adamant about the fact that he did not believe in Indirect Proofs.”
Now, I am the first to admit that I myself hold some crazy beliefs. For example, I don’t believe in peanut butter as dessert. And I do believe that having a goatee turns you into the Evil Version of yourself. But I’d never before heard of a math teacher who did not believe in a particular part of math.
“So what did you say?” I asked.
“I told him that I didn’t realize that that was a belief stance. Plus, you can’t prove that the square root of 2 is irrational without indirect proofs.” (Which apparently is an important thing to be able to do, but I’m not sure exactly why that is, because math makes my head hurt. So I sort of tuned that part out.)
“That’s like being a language teacher who doesn’t believe in verbs,” I said. “But you couldn’t proclaim this belief, because you couldn’t use the kinds of words in which you didn’t believe. So it would be like, ‘I! No!’ Which would make it pretty difficult to convert anyone to your cause.”
**Disclaimer**I wrote this last week when I was at the apex of one of the worst pain flare-ups I’ve ever had. But I took my meds and got my pain down, and checked in with all my support people, and I’m doing much better now. So please don’t worry that I’m about to hurt myself, because I am OK. This is just what it feels like to be in that moment.**
Right this very minute there’s a bird singing outside my office window, and I wish to God that it would Just. Shut. Up.
I don’t hate birds; I suffer with a chronic illness. I have fibromyalgia which, among other things, is a chronic pain disorder that takes even the sweetest, gentlest sensory input and turns it into unbearable physical agony, as if your nervous system is constantly being struck by lightning
In addition to the crippling pain, debilitating fatigue, and the need to take so much medication that God only knows what your insides look like by now, this illness also steals away your ability to savor and enjoy your experience of your life.
So maybe it’s not my nervous system’s reaction to birdsong that hurts so much. Maybe it’s that I can’t remember the last time I wanted to sing.
I usually keep these feelings to myself, because I’m afraid to let other people know how dark a place I’m in when I’m in excruciating, never-ending pain.
I can admit it to myself. Being sick like this means that I spend a lot-maybe most-of my time alone with The Demon of The Truth.
I know, down to the marrow in my bones, what it’s like to get up every damn day and choose to show up for this raw, unvarnished, ugly life. I know what it is like to put one bare foot in front of another, navigating the razor’s edge of existence. I know, more than most people, what it really means to choose life. And it ain’t pretty.
My normal reaction is to protect those around me from knowing these things, but not today.
Today I am suffering. And that is what I need you to know.
I’m currently taking this amazing writing class, and since I’m (finally!) generating new material, I thought I’d post some of these pieces here on my blog. This first piece takes place back when my husband and I were newly engaged.
I stepped into the sanctuary, pausing to dip my finger in the holy water, and breathing in the familiar mix of incense, wood polish, and flowers. Taking a deep breath and exhaling hard through my mouth, I scanned the crowd and then headed toward the pew where my future in-laws were sitting.
I slid easily onto the pew, polished smooth by many years and many backsides, and leaned forward to pull down the kneeler. With the knuckle of my folded hands pressing painfully into my forehead, I only had one prayer in mind: Dear God, please let the bishop say yes.
My prayers were interrupted by the cantor announcing the opening hymn, and as I stood to sing I turned to watch the familiar procession. Altar servers, deacon, priest, and lector all strode slowly and purposefully down the center aisle, stopping to genuflect before they climbed up onto the altar.
I clenched my jaw tight and tried to control my nervous leg-shaking as those on the altar plodded through the opening rituals. Please, let this just be over, I prayed, knowing full well that this prayer would not be answered. Because not only were we there for mass, but we were also there to watch the bishop administer the Rite of Confirmation to my future sister-in-law’s confirmation class.
I really don’t remember any of that service. I just remember my surging adrenaline, racing heart, and continuous waves of anxiety as I waited to see if my fiancé and I would be granted an audience with the bishop.
You see, we were engaged to be married, and deep into wedding plans, but we had run into a pretty large snag in that his family is Catholic, and my family is not. Like, in the sense of, “If you get married in a Catholic church, then we’re not coming,” kind of way. So we had jumped through a million official hoops and petitioned the bishop for permission to be married “in the church”, priest and all, just not in a Catholic church. And this was our moment of truth.
I remember a blur of sensations as Father Bill, the head priest of the parish, came to collect us. I thought I heard him say that the bishop had granted us the permission we sought, but I was afraid I’d just imagined it. We had had to go through so much that I was afraid to believe it was finally over.
Father Bill led us behind the altar into the sacristy, and then suddenly, there we were, in front of the man himself.
As we huddled together in that dark, cramped hallway, the bishop closed his eyes, held his hands over our heads, and gave us a quick blessing.
We bowed our heads and murmured our thanks, quietly soaking in the reverence of the moment. “Congratulations,” the bishop announced, “you are now officially betrothed.”
We smiled gently and turned to leave, but the bishop stopped us, having one last message to impart to me.
“What this means now,” he said, grinning from ear to ear, “is that if he breaks off your engagement, then you can sue him for breach of contract. Just wanted you to know.”
“When you’re changing a diaper, this is the writing life. When you are steaming the foam for a customers latte, this is your writing life. When you are paying bills, driving carpool, setting the alarm clock to a cruelly early hour, this is your writing life. This may sound as unromantic as tying your shoes, but the fact is that writing is just another thing that we writers do.”
– Sage Cohen
Dear My Hair:
We were doing so well together. What happened? Do you like spending every day in a Time Out Ponytail?
Dear Shameless Raccoon Who Keeps Blatantly Flaunting Your Presence On Our Deck In The Middle Of The Day:
We are not your personal, snack-filled vending machine.
GO AWAY!
Dear My Pain Meds:
I know we’ve been spending a lot of time together lately. I so appreciate that you are always there for me when I need you.
But could you p-l-e-a-s-e stop trashing my nervous system with your raucous, frat-boy party-like side effects as I wean myself off of you?
KTHXBAI.
Dear My Body:
I am so sorry that I took this pain-free morning as a sign that I could do 30 minutes of high-intensity aerobics, 10 minutes of Dance of Shiva, and then15 minutes raking up cat hair from my office floor.
Sometimes I get being-sick amnesia and then I do stupid things. Sorry about that.
Dear My Mood Cycling, Bipolar, Borderline Personality Disorders:
Dude-seriously: CHILL THE F***OUT ALREADY.
I’ve kind of got a lot on my plate right now.
I mean, did you not read the part about the Raccoon-Slaying, Amnesiac, Exploding Hair Rebellion? Geez.
Work with me here, people.
Dear My Primary Care Physician Of 13 Years Who Retired Last December 31st And Did Not Tell Me About It:
NOT cool dude. Not cool.
Dear My Kindle:
I love you. Please marry me.
Be there in a sec.
XOXO
Well I don’t know about you, but so far I have spent all of 2012 trying to deal with all the crap that happened at the end of 2011.
First off was the disappearance of an online group of which I’d been a member for the past 3 years. I LOVED that place. I met the coolest people there. We had a bunch of different forums where we could rejoice with, sympathize with, and brainstorm ideas with each other, which really knit us together as a community. Plus we had monthly teleclasses on topics ranging from copy writing and marketing, to leaning the principles of non-violent communication, to how to deal with the scary stuff that can come up when we’re working on our relationship to money. It was a really safe incubator for personal and professional growth, and we saw lots of different dreams come to fruition over those 3 years, including Cranky Fibro Girl.
But then the woman running it decided that she didn’t want to run it anymore, and so she shut it down. It was a big investment on her part to maintain it, but no more so than our investment of our time and our money. So then this wonderful place, which for me and many others was our main source of support and community, was suddenly gone. And not only had it ended, but it had ended badly, with lots of hurt. So everything was made that much worse, because the place where we would all normally go to work through our hurt was the place that was causing the hurt. So we were kind of screwed. And it really, really sucked.
So now there’s this quiet, sad, empty space inside me where this community used to be. I know that something new will eventually arrive for me, but it hasn’t shown up yet. And since I spent most of my online time over the past 3 years interacting with that community, going online now just reminds me of what isn’t there for me anymore. So I’ve been avoiding The Internetz until that starts to feel better.
Then there was a little experiment that I decided to try last November. For the past couple of years or so I have been a practitioner of something called Shiva Nata, or Dance Of Shiva. It’s part movement practice, part brain-stretching practice, and part meditation/noticing-your-process practice. So in November I decided to do a little bit of Shiva every day, and then blog about my personal process, as well as any insights that showed up for me.
It started off great, but unfortunately I sort of forgot that anytime I start focusing intently on my inner processes for an extended period of time, it triggers my bi-polar, mood-cycling things. I’m not really sure why this happens, but if I’m not careful I just get lost in my own mind.
It finally got awful enough that I had to stop my practice and find a way to recover. Plus, it was also all tied up with the online community I mentioned above. So because Dance of Shiva has all these anxious, emotional, charged associations for me I’ve been kind of gun shy about starting to practice again. And so that’s another loss I’ve been grieving.
As a matter of fact, my emotions were so intense, and so out of whack that I made an appointment to go see my psychiatric nurse a few days before Christmas. I was afraid that something bad might happen while we were all off for the holidays.
So we talked and decided that between my Shiva experiment, the never-ending health problems that kept cropping up over the previous three months, and all the pain medicine I was currently taking for my fibromyalgia, it was not surprising that I was experiencing so much emotional overwhelm.
And then as we were getting ready to leave, I asked her a question I’d been wondering about for a while; namely, what was my “official” diagnosis. (Extremely Important Side Note That I CANNOT Stress Enough: If you ever ask a question like that, make sure you really, REALLY want to know the answer. Because once you know, you can never not-know again.)
She told me Bi-Polar II, which would account for the anxiety and depression I experience. And then she said, “Have we ever talked about Borderline Personality Disorder?”
We had not. But we did then.
On the one hand, when she was reading all the diagnostic criteria my body actually started to vibrate, and in the flash of one second I saw my entire life played backwards and thought, “Oh. I GET it now.” But on the other hand I just thought, “Huh,” and was kind of thrown for a loop, and I’ve been trying to figure out how to come to terms with this latest diagnosis.
So I’ve had kind of a lot going on over the past few months, but I think I’m coming back to myself, and words are starting to show up again.
So Happy Friday to everyone, and thanks for sticking around 🙂
