The Next Part

"You have to let yourself feel everything," a friend reminds me. "You can't keep it all in."

"Oh, don't worry," I say.

I'm not.

*     *     *     *     *

It's Diagnosis Day. I'm in the ambulance going from my local hospital into Boston. It's 5:30 in the afternoon and there's a Bruins game; traffic is awful. I've had this news that I have a brain tumor for about an hour and a half now and this ride is giving me too much time to think. I tell myself the same thing I told myself in the E.R. when the doctor said the words that changed everything: find out what it is, and then make a plan to deal with it.

I look at my watch.

I should be home right now. I should be making dinner for the boys right now.

I don't want to cry in front of the EMT who is sitting next to me, monitoring my vitals. I don't want to cry, but I can't help it, a few tears spill over and splash on my red shirt, part of an outfit I will throw away two days later because I never want to see it again.

I'd give anything to be standing in my kitchen right now. I just want to be with my boys, in my kitchen, like a normal Wednesday night.

We're almost at the hospital. I think of my father and my grandmother and am surprised that I can feel them, one on each side of me. I've never felt anything like this before, but the sense that they are each resting a hand on my shoulder is very strong. I'm afraid; I don't know why they are here. I don't know if they're here for reassurance or if they are here because I'm about to be told that there is nothing that can be done.

We're at the hospital now.

And I'm bracing for the next part.

*     *     *     *     *

"Where are we?" the doctor asks.

This is part of a neurological exam. I'll do this again and again and again over the course of the next month. In fact, I'll do it with this same doctor immediately before my surgery.

"Brigham & Women's Hospital," I say.

"And where is that?" he asks.

"Boston," I say. Gold star for me.

"What year is it?"

"It's..."

My mind is saying '19'.

I know that's not right, but I can't quite find the right answer. 

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck.

I look at him. He's waiting, but this is too long, everyone can see it's too long. My mind finally lands on '2000' but I know there's more after that.

I just can't remember what.

Suddenly, I can see it, written out, 2013. But I can't say it. It takes that long to find the information, and then I can't make my mouth say it.

I start to cry.

"It's okay," he says warmly, but it isn't. It really isn't okay, and he knows it and I know it and my two friends who come closer to the bed as I let the whole thing wash over me know it too.

"2013," I finally say through the tears. 

But it's still not okay.

I need to get to the next part. 

*     *     *     *     *

It's a week after surgery and I'm back in the E.R.

I went to bed with building pressure and pain in my head. The neurosurgeon on call told my brother, who is in from Seattle and is staying with me, to bring me in if I have nausea, vomiting, or changes in vision (which, given that I have double vision on a GOOD day, never fails to amuse me).

I woke up at 4 a.m. and started throwing up.

They've given me morphine for the pain and all I want to do is sleep. We're waiting for the CT scan to be read in order to rule out bleeding in my brain.

I have to go the bathroom, but between the dizziness and nausea, I know I can't walk. I don't know if the young woman who brings me a wheelchair is a nurse or not, but she helps me into the chair, hands me something to get sick in should I need it, and pushes me into the bathroom.

"I'm going to be right outside the door if you need me," she says. "Or I can stay in here with you."

 I hate this. I HATE it. I am 38 years old.

"I think I need you to stay," I tell her.

I KNOW I need her to stay. I know that I'm too unsteady to take a chance of moving from the chair to the toilet and risk falling. This is humiliating.

She helps me to sit and I start to cry.

"I'm sorry," I say. "I can do the rest, I just...I hate that I need someone to help me with any of this. I'm a grown woman."

"This is what I'm here for. And besides, this is the easiest thing I've done all day," she says, smiling.

Once I'm done, she helps me back into the chair and wheels me to the sink so I can wash my hands. I look at my face in the mirror, my right eye covered so I won't see double, and my head wrapped with a thick turban of gauze. I wipe my tears away as she asks me if I'm ready.

"Yes," I tell her, hoping we'll have the results from the CT scan by the time we get back. The scan will come back clear, but I don't know that yet.

Yes.

I'm ready for the next part.

  

Unfortunately, Instead

There's a small yellow bowl sitting on the table, a handful of cereal still in the bottom. My son left it there on Wednesday morning. My stomach drops when I see it.

Brush your teeth, I said.
Where are your shoes? I asked.
Don't forget your belt, I said.

It would be our last normal morning for a while, but I didn't know that then. 

8 hours later, I was sitting alone on a bed in the emergency room, knees tucked up under my johnny as a handsome doctor stood before me.

"Unfortunately-"

I watched his mouth, shutting one eye so that I would not see two of him. It was the sudden onset of double vision the day before that had brought me to my doctor, who in turn had sent me to the ER. That morning I had tried to put toothpaste on my toothbrush, bringing it close to my face so I could see. When I brought the toothbrush to my mouth, I realized I had missed, spotting a thick glob in the sink, inches back from where I thought it had been.

Something wasn't right.

"Unfortunately-"

I watched this man's mouth and the words that followed seem to stretch out slowly as my hands began to shake and my heart began to pound.

"-the CT scan showed a tumor on your brain. We're concerned-"

There was more after that, and I continued watching his mouth move as I listened to the words, part of me present and understanding, and part of me focused on the heat spreading in my chest as a shock of adrenaline flowed through my system.

"Do you understand?" he asked.

"Yes," I answered. I understood perfectly.

"Do I have time to go home first?" I asked.

He shot a quick look to the other doctor in the room and then turned back to me. 

"You're not a prisoner, I can't stop you from leaving if you want to. But...no.  I think you should go now."

I nodded. They left to make the arrangements for an ambulance to bring me into Boston. I sat for a moment, unsure of what to do with myself. I was alone with this big news.

tumor on your brain

I pulled at the velcro of the blood pressure cuff on my arm. I pulled off the pulse oximeter from my fingertip. Fuck this, I thought. I got dressed, brushed my hair, and fumbled through my purse for my lipstick.

I started making phone calls.

My first call was to my ex-husband. "I need you to take the kids, and I don't know how long for."

And that was when I cried, because I knew my sweet babies were already wondering why mom didn't pick them up from school. Now they would be wondering why they were going to their dad's on a Wednesday night.

"Just tell them..." I trailed. "Tell them I'm still at the doctor's and will be until after dinner."

As I write this, it is 12:40 on a Friday. I should be at work, getting ready to wrap up my day with my class. I should be buttoning coats and helping with backpacks.

But instead I am at home, waiting for surgery to remove a golf-ball sized tumor from my head. Instead, I am feeling myself become more symptomatic as my right side grows weaker. Instead, I am at home looking at a yellow bowl with a handful of cereal at the bottom, missing my sons.

Fuck this, I think.

Instead, I am at home getting ready to do this because I am SO. FUCKING. READY. 

Instead, I am at home learning that strangers will pray for you, they will open their hearts for someone they don't know, have never met, someone who is nothing more than a name or a picture and they will send you love.

Instead, I am at home bearing witness to the enormity of my friends' and family's hearts, the generosity of their time, the beauty that they wear not only on their faces but in their actions.


I feel grateful.
I feel blessed.

I feel lucky.

Let's Talk About Sex, Baby

Tonight I learned an important lesson.

It is called: When Your Son Refers To His Testicles As His Bladder, Just Let That Shit Go.

Otherwise, you will stumble into the sex talk, like THE. SEX. TALK. because, in the middle of pointing out that his bladder is actually INSIDE his body, he will say this:

"Ian said that you make a baby when a boy puts his privates into the girl's privates."

Really, would it have fucking killed you to just have been like, "Yup, that's your bladder alright, now get your jammies on"?

Apparently, you didn't learn an earlier form of this lesson when, having used the word vagina during both the 'where is your penis' and 'how does the baby get out' talks, your son somehow turned that into the word 'pachini', leading to this conversation one night when he found out you were making fettuccine alfredo for dinner:

"WHAT? WHAT IS PACHINI ALFREDO?"

"Oh my God, FET-A-CHEE-NI! NOT vagina!"

Instead, you're going to wind up feeling the same way you did when you walked into English class not having read the previous night's chapters of Pride and Prejudice and found out that, SURPRISE! ITS POP QUIZ DAY, MOTHERFUCKERS! and you had to hope that your teacher would maybe give you partial credit because, instead of just leaving blank spaces, you at least tried to be creative and make up weird answers involving Elvis impersonators.

Because having the sex talk when you're not ready for the sex talk is exactly like that.

It is exactly like a Pride and Prejudice pop quiz about Elvis impersonators.

Boston, You're My Home

I tend to wake up early; sometimes at 3, sometimes at 4.

Always while it's still dark.

This morning I was sitting at my computer, drinking a cup of coffee.  My computer sits in a small room off of my living room. It has 7 windows, 3 of which face east. I opened the curtains to watch the sun rise.

My 7 year old came downstairs. I pulled him onto my lap.

"Look at the sunrise," I told him. "Isn't it beautiful?"

He sat quietly. He rested his head under my chin. I breathed him in, even as my leg grew tired from his heavy body.

Our day went on.

And then, the world went mad here in Boston.

My hands shook. My voice shook. The tears came. I kept my sons away from the television

As night time crept closer, I began to feel the vulnerability seep in. The house made a weird noise. The light cast a scary shadow. I know I won't sleep tonight.

As I was putting my 9 year old to bed, I looked out his westward facing window.

There was the slightest glow remaining as the sun dipped below the horizon. The sky was a deep, midnight blue, not quite black. The moon stood out, a bright sliver. Venus was out.

There was beauty, even on a day as ugly as this.

The sun rose and then set, bookmarks to the madness.





Love and prayers to the victims, their families, the witnesses, and the first responders.

And to this city that I love.

This city that is home.  

10 Tips For Running The Boston Marathon (by a non-runner)

Tip #1: The marathon route is going to be jam-packed with other runners. Avoid the crowds; bring your GPS and take back roads.

Tip #2: Say "excuse me" when you'd like a runner in front of you to move out of your way so that you may pass him/her. Good manners are important and your mom will be proud.
   

Excuse me, people. You are in my way.

Tip #3: To avoid having to use the bathroom during the race, it's best to avoid all fluid intake before and during the race.

Tip #4: If you absolutely MUST have something to drink, make it whiskey, and a lot of it, as running down the street after peeing yourself is one of its widely-known side effects. Plus, you'll be drunk, so what do you care?

No to water. Yes to whiskey.

 

Tip #5: Run to win. Forget that nonsense about finishing being an accomplishment in itself because, honestly, winning makes for a way better story and is far more likely to get you laid. 

Tip #6:  If you're going to beat those Kenyans, you've got to run really, really fast. Not just regular fast, I mean like 'OMFG, a very hungry lion is chasing me' kind of fast.

"Get in mah belleh!"

Tip #7: Chafing sounds bad. Don't do that. 

Tip #8: It's not every day that you get to wear a tin-foil shawl, so you should consider wearing it through the entire race to maximize your shininess. 

Shine bright like a diamond. A wrinkly, crinkly diamond.

Tip #9:  Tie your shoes. I recommend a double, if not triple or quadruple knot. You don't want to trip.

Tip #10: Don't over-think your form. Aim for this method:



 Good luck, runners!

On Divorce

This is how you get divorced.

First, you get married.

Then, you grow apart.

One of you starts zigging while the other is busy zagging, each of you drifting off in ways that are so small, so imperceptible that when you look back, stunned and wondering Where The Hell It All Went Wrong, you will barely be able to recognize those first minuscule schisms and cracks.

You get busy with the house and the jobs and the babies and the life.

Then one day, in a matter that is not completely out of the blue, you have a thought. It is the sort of thought that, once conceived, cannot easily be unthought.

You think, "This doesn't feel right."

This thought sits with you for a very long time. You eventually share it with him, you talk about it, you even make plans to split. But then you hurl yourselves back at each other in a relieved moment of, "Thank God we didn't go through with it!" You go back to the way things were because there is comfort and safety there and you're fairly certain it's all going to be okay, that the part of you that sometimes still says, "HEY! This isn't working!" can be made to shut up long enough for you to figure out a way to smother her once and for all.

That works for a few years.

But then, it doesn't.

So you talk. You decide to separate. He finds an apartment. You tell the kids. 

Everyone cries. Everyone survives.

You get used to sleeping alone in the bed, used to a quiet house on the weekend, used to bracing against storms on your own. Everyone survives.

You fight over the house. You have cake together on your sons' birthdays. You fight over money. You sit and have a burger and a beer with him one night in his yard and hope that this is what the future holds, this friendly sort of way to be. You have big conversations that come in fits and starts, where one minute you're talking about a retainer for your nine year old and the next you're saying things like, "I'm sorry" or "We loved each other the very best we could" or "No, you're doing just fine, be good to yourself."

One night you both stand outside, beneath the light that hangs at the door of his place. It's snowing. He says, shakily, "I met someone, and I see now what you meant about this not being right because I found something that does feel right. I know it now." You're relieved over this, yet you both cry, him looking up at the light and you down at your feet.  Shame and guilt run down your cheeks, splashing and mixing with the snowflakes in your hair.  You give him an awkward hug.  This is a little bit of healing.

But it doesn't last. The accumulated hurts rise and fall over the next few weeks as you trudge toward the finish line. You take turns having at each other. Attack. Defend. Counterattack. Apologize. Attack. Repeat.

And then, suddenly, it is the last day of your marriage.

You put on some nice clothes and go to court.

You sit, composed and eager to hurry through the whole thing, even as you lose a motion to keep your house. You have just lost what you've been fighting a year and a half for and you don't even care because you know you are about to lose something so much bigger. You know it was lost a long time ago.  

They call your name. You're already crying as you take your place before the judge. You stand together one last time, your final act as a married couple.

The judge asks if your marriage began on April 21, 2001.

You're wearing a white dress and stiff shoes.  You are standing before the priest, with everyone you love sitting behind you.  He's nervous as he takes a breath to say his vows; you squeeze his hand, trying to say, "Forget all of them; just talk to me. Right now, there is only you and me."  

The judge asks if this marriage did produce two children, born in February of 2004 and September of 2005.

You're running out of the bathroom with a pregnancy test, the sweet June air lilting in through the open bedroom windows. You're jumping onto the bed, bubbling and laughing, "Do you see it?  Do you SEE IT?"  

You're laying in the hospital bed 24 hours after giving birth, hormonal and exhausted. You haven't slept in 48 hours and the baby won't nurse. He climbs into your hospital bed to lie next to you. You finally sleep.

You're driving your youngest to preschool. You see him in the rear view mirror, small in his car seat, and ask him what he wants to be when he grows up. He says, "I think I'll go to work with Daddy. I'll ride the train with him and go to work with him and then we'll ride the train home." You nod and agree that this is a good plan.

You shut your eyes, not caring who sees the hot tears washing over your face. Your entire body is shaking. You sob silently. The bailiff brings you tissues and gives you a compassionate pat on the back.

The judge says, "Is this marriage irretrievably broken?"

"Fuck you," you're screaming at him, crying, his voice yelling back as loud as your own.

You're flying down the stairs in bare feet, grasping for your keys. He's booming at you not to run away.

He's standing on the porch, turning away with contempt and saying he can't even look at you. You cringe as you see yourself through his eyes.

Yes.  It is broken.

The judge says, "Is there any hope for reconcilliation?"

He made you a mother.  You made him a father. 

You were happy together for a long time.

You loved each other the best that you could.



You loved each other the best that you could.



The answer is no.

I'm sorry.  I'm sorry.  I'm sorry. 




And then

you are divorced.

Don't Touch the Hair

This morning, as I was cruising around the internets, I stumbled upon this:

This, for those of you not in the know, is the boy band One Direction, responsible for the earworm known as "What Makes You Beautiful", a song about a boy who finds a girl's shitty self-image to be really hot.

What gets me about this picture is not the fact that they look like a unicultural United Colors of Benetton ad that I would have found in Seventeen magazine as a teenager.

It's the hair.

I just...I can't...I'm not...

WHAT is up with the douchebag hair? 

And I was all ready to make fun of them and their douchebag hair when suddenly...

I remembered the 90's:

 

Hi, I'm Brandon and I'm a know-it-all gambling addict, but chicks dig my hair.

Hi, I'm Dylan and I'm a moody alcoholic/drug addict, but chicks dig my hair.

While Brandon and Dylan certainly owned stock in a far less scandalous mile-high club, they had nothing on these guys:

We are totally hangin' tough. 

Apparently there's something about a young teenage girl that makes her oblivious to just how ridiculous the object of her 14 year old desire actually looks.

Exhibit A (or, "My Favorite New Kid"):

This is Joe.  He's a Capricorn. He regularly pleaded with me, "Please don't go, girl," but he was competing with algebra homework, appointments for spiral perms, and getting my braces tightened. Pretty sure I ruined his whole world.

However, at some point, this guy started to catch my eye (I don't know, it might have had something to do with hormones.  Just a guess.):

This is Jordan.  He promised that he'd be lovin' me forever, and boys don't ever lie about that stuff. Also, he started singing with his shirt unbuttoned while a ginormous fan tried to blow him off stage. It was very hot.  

So I suppose there's not much I can say about One Direction and their birds-could-nest-in-this-shit-and-you'd-never-even-know hair.

Except:

Style it while you've got it, boys. 

'Cause it ain't yours to keep.