waiting in the car for the new cluster of meds to be filled. such promise! such hope! but look at the amazing vest that I made, ok?
Alrighty so if you are paying any attention to my internet comings and goings and the on-going saga of sick-for-fucking-ever winter of 22/23 and my partial/false exodus from social media, then maybe this is a good post for you. Who knows. Hopefully, it is a good post for me, which in all honestly is who this now vast, unorganized library of words is primarily for to begin with. Full stop. Sort of. Except I can’t stop! And maybe that is the point or at least what I am going to endeavor to clarify at least for myself in this particular excerpt if not also for you too. You are welcome. Stream of consciousness here we come.
Ok so on the sickness front, let’s see…. I went down with something or other, most likely the flu on Christmas Day. Waaaaaaay back then. We were all sick so it seemed part and parcel and in general let me say that I never permit myself to go down as hard as anyone else for obvious reasons that I will spell out anyway: Who the hell would take care of everyone if I were to be rendered non-functional??? This, of course, is a fantasy built on the back of very precarious scaffolding and one that was never made to stand the test of time. But, I digress. I felt like maybe I was on the back end of things the Friday before New Year’s Eve at which point I made the very foolish mistake of seeing if some movement would help. I hopped on my peloton (my postpartum purchase one payment away from mine in its entirety a short 38 months later!) for a relatively easy 30-minute spin. It felt mostly fine, there was some coughing but nothing too extreme. Until 12 or so hours later when I spiked a fever of 102.8. I was laid low.
I rode this out for 3 days, with all of the ibuprofen and Tylenol and Sudafed and Mucinex one can take before finally declaring uncle and spending a few hours in the ER on the 2nd. Not really ER-worthy and mainly because my primary was closed for the holiday, the respite was nice nonetheless. They swabbed me for all the things and I came back positive for RSV which as many of you I am sure know, there is not much to be done about. They gave me an inhaler- helpful- something for my nausea and for the cough-provoking tickle in my throat. Soooo much coughing good lord. Soooo little sleep during this stretch of days. Oof. The lovely nurses there also instructed me toward a much more rigorous protocol of pain relief meds which was also helpful. For better or for worse.
I think it was somewhere around this time that I declared my break from the social media apps which is somewhat laughable now but also totally affirming when I look at it all from my current vantage. I was just so sick, so non-functioning, I couldn’t really read my book, I certainly couldn’t knit, Wilfred was monopolizing the TV and I wasn’t able to make it downstairs anyway. So I would just passively scroll, hitting all of my limits (I think they are set for 60 minutes or so) and blowing right through them. The whole thing was so delirious and really just made me so incredibly nauseous that I felt I had no recourse but to draw an arbitrary line in the sand. And rather than slink away silently I wanted to make an accountable boundary for myself while at the same time asking for a little bit of support and help from my communities.
Fast forward to the end of that week, still not feeling better, still at the absolute bottom wrung of my familial wellness pit, I took a trip back to my doctor who diagnosed a double ear infection - often referred to as a sinus infection in adults, who knew- and prescribed a 10-day course of antibiotics while also encouraging me to stay on top of the NSAID pain management protocols. At this point I remember feeling a curious blend of relief and also panic, just feeling so derailed from my pre-holiday path of health and fitness. But it was at least something in the vast expanse of nothing but illness for soooooo fucking long already.
Also worth noting is how much I hated our woodstove during this whole ordeal. Our pipe/chimney is due for a cleaning (happening this coming Tuesday, not soon enough, but also, thank god) and our wood is perhaps a little less dry this year and well fires have just been a mega challenge to build and therefore, smokey. This collapse in air quality in our house I have felt acutely in my lungs. I have found a little bit of relief in the two fancy-ass fucking expensive air filters that we finally sprung for this winter. Yes, I know, late to the party on this by nearly three years, but also, maybe not?
slow build back to my preferred movement diet. it is gonna take some time! also humbling. and great honestly.
Over the course of the week, I began to slowly get up and do, trying to convince myself that things were improving at least somewhat and that my life was calling me to live it, in whatever fashion I could. So I did, more or less. However, my ear congestion and pain continued to be steady and persistent. And my energy stalled and joie de vivre was at what I can only really describe as “half-mast”. Not horrible. But a far cry from awesome. At which point I began to mentally jockey back and forth between feeling shameful and guilty over my own ableist privilege and perspective while also beginning to truly panic that perhaps I am permanently losing my hearing and that my previous functioning will never actually be restored to its previous levels. Boo Hoo. My friends, I have been whittled down.
All through this stretch of time I am finding myself doing at least some regrouping and reorienting to my own focus and direction for the year ahead and also beginning to engage to the best of my ability in the work of my family and my children, which is always at hand. And so I found myself wanting to write, more and more, as time opened up for this away from mindless scrolling and also in lieu of the larger-than-desired movement break I found myself in the midst of.
In general, I write words and ideas that I enjoy sharing. They are meant for me but they are also meant for others’ eyes. A friend of mine said to me over text tonight that she thinks I would probably still write even if nobody were reading it, to which I was like: would I? I mean yeah I probably would, and let’s be real, I have a very modest size readership. I love engaging over words and ideas and connecting through shared experiences and events and the general living of life that reveals a little bit about who we really are and what matters most underneath all of the comings and goings. HOWEVER, I do not really have a clear or effective way of sharing anything that I write that is independent of social media. This is kind of a bummer but also just what it is right now. I am into finding some kind of solution for this conundrum but I am also not very much into spending any time figuring it out at this point. So, when I have been writing something I then download an app, make a post and share a link directing folks over here and then do my best to engage whatever conversation results wherever it develops and then delete the app again. Sort of effective.
But I kinda miss sharing over in those spaces in general. I like telling stories and anchoring the attention of my day a little in those small and simple moments. I pay a different sort of attention to the detail in those instances I think. I love images. I love coupling words with images. In some ways, I miss the old-school Instagram pre-reels and pre-stories where it was just one image and a caption. Such purity in that particular creative form. I have grown myself into the use of the others but I do find it will tip into overwhelm and distraction if I do not stay mindful. I make a few rules for myself regarding primarily sharing my own content and happenings and not using it as a way to share too much of what is not my own original idea or work or life. If I were more organized and less lazy I would at this point link to other posts in which I have discussed this intention at length. But alas…
All of this, astoundingly and stunningly gets us through last weekend; and the most wretched attempt at making a birthday cake of my life along with the continued and unfortunate implosion of Eider’s school; and into this week in which I successfully and triumphantly weened Freddy off of the TV and re-regulated is similarly addled system. All while simultaneously enduring continued ear pain that wakes me up every night between 2 and 3 when the pain relief wears off and I lie in bed and question whether perhaps my ear drum is weathering this whole debacle intact, or no. This morning I got myself back to the clinic for another peek inside my ear and was prescribed a different course of antibiotics- yay another 10 days- and a steroid to help clear up space in my sinuses more quickly. The doctor did ask me how I was feeling better when things look very much identical to how they did the last time I was in 8 days ago; fluid and puss creating a bubble pushing up against my red and irritated eardrum. Ahem. To which I can only reply that I am either getting used to it and compartmentalizing my discomfort or that my will to live a good life is just that high. One or the other or probably both.
An unexpected and delightful result of the tv detox week is the emergence of a new marriage of loves for wilfs: his ongoing affinity for zoo animals coupled with a newfound puzzle preoccupation. It is very fun. And a big relief.
At any rate, here we are. On the mend in my slow and drawn out and anticlimactic way. Into whatever this year holds for me and my small corner of the world. And honestly, oddly reinspired by the community and connection that exists online, in all of these various spaces. There are real and true and good and important and meaningful things happening here and there if you know where to look and I think, to a certain degree, when you show up as what you are hoping to see, what you are longing to find. I was reminded of this in such massive ways when a friend, with whom I mostly have an online relationship, recently underwent profound trauma and loss but is continuing to show up in these spaces in all of her humanity and truth. The rugged raw realness of her sharing is in my estimation the very best example of how we can both show up and bear witness and offer support in these virtual spaces, as well as the ways in which we have the choice to stay vulnerable and available to the very real love and care that is available to us here, if this is how we would choose to receive it. I am humbled by the possibility of allowing these spaces to be an accurate and authentic portrayal of ourselves. Our lives, our loves, our losses, our triumphs, our ridiculous senses of humor, and the whole brutal/beautiful mess of our humanness. I am here for all of that. With some boundaries and with some breaks, but here nonetheless.
That’s all I got for this, I think. Here is the link to my most recent newsletter if ya wanna peek it. Chris thinks that I shouldn’t put all of the links down at the bottom of them because people will never see them because they have to read through too much in order to get to them. But I think that the whole point of the newsletter is wrapped up in wanting people to read the entire body of them and then the links are like a fun and hopefully interesting prize at the end. IDK. What do you think?
xxx,m