LET ME LOVE YOU

• I dream about Pop-Tarts. Like, seriously. All the time.
• I only seem to sleep from 5am-8am.
• I spend hours imagining what my life will be like when this is over. It involves a throne of Pop-Tarts and I’m the queen, sitting on the throne/eating the throne.
• I go out in public after spending hours in my bed and forget how to interact with people. Seriously. This is me, in every single human interaction.

• In a moment of high stress, I begin to have grand (and decidedly false) impressions of my capabilities. (I AM GOING TO WALK TWO BLOCKS.) And then fail, miserably. (I DIDN’T EVEN MAKE IT TO THE SIDEWALK.)
• I think about cereal all the time.
• Like, ALL the time. I could eat the shit out of a box of Cocoa Krispies right now. And a box of Frosted Flakes. AND a box of Apple Jacks.
• My brain breaks and I make up words. The other day, I actually told the radiologist that we were waiting for surgery because my insides were, “Inflam…um, inflammat…uh, uh, INFLAMMATED.”
• At 3am, I’ll suddenly become overwhelmed by everything happening and have a crying, snotty meltdown. Then I wake Will up and make him feel my belly because I’m certain it’s blowing up like a balloon and about to explode because the stent has failed.
• (Maybe that last one never actually happened in college.)
• At the end of this, I’ll have nothing to show for my experience except eleventy billion bills and a stomach I don’t recognize.

Still, there are good things happening. I’m down to just ONE drain in my body (sorry, but drains are the new black) and it’s barely putting out any fluid, which could mean it maybe could come out before the next surgery. OR it could mean the fluid is going elsewhere but I’m choosing to remain optimistic about this.

One way I’m finding my optimism is by looking for the perks of this new reality. To that end, I’d like to introduce you to Super Awesome Perk #1: My PICC line.

My Secret Weapon

Y’all, this thing is seriously amazing. I mean, sure, it’s not my first choice in spring accessories, but it does a good job of helping me get what I want. Case in point? Mother’s Day.

See, my favorite restaurant in Seattle is Chaco Canyon Cafe. Back when I was a normal person who ate normal things, I was probably their best customer. Seriously. Best lentil burger you’ll ever have. And also smoothies and juices. And cookies. And everything else. On Mother’s Day, Chaco was having a special promotion. Bring your mother to the restaurant and get a free “mother” (a kombucha starter in a jar). My sister saw the sign last week and got so excited because she’s been wanting to brew her own kombucha forever. She wasn’t able to join us for Mother’s Day, so Mom and I thought we’d stop by Chaco and pick up a mother for her.

We did not anticipate the line that was nearly out the door. Normally we’d just wait it out, but I get tired so quickly and we had a movie to catch (the new Oz movie; highly recommend if taking a nap in the theater is your jam) in 30 minutes. At first, I was discouraged but THEN I REMEMBERED MY SECRET WEAPON. I shrugged off my sweater and went directly to the front of the line, bumping people with my PICC line and apologizing. I grabbed the first employee I could find.

Me: (waving my arm weirdly, so the PICC line was clack clack clacking in the breeze) Hi! Sorry, I don’t mean to bother you. It’s just we needed to pick up the kombucha mother and are in a bit of a hurry. (Still waving my arm. Like a crazy person. With a PICC line.)

Uncomfortable Employee: (staring at the tubes coming out of my arm) Um, what? Oh. Okay. A starter. RIGHT. Okay. I’ll grab it.

Me: (clack clack clack crazy person) THANK YOU SO MUCH! (emphatic PICC-style gesturing)

UE: (grabbing the starter and shoving it into my hand, the one not connected to the PICC arm) No problem? Thank you?

Me: NO THANK YOU. (clack. clack clack.)

It was 100% awesome and I feel zero guilty.

Today, though, bigger guns were needed. Meet Super Awesome Perk #2: My Drain Bag.

This hides under my clothes at all times. Mostly.

Do you like the kicky gray bag with the pretty yarn? My lovely sister made it for me. I’m too nice to show y’all the actual drain. Because I can’t even really look at it. Since it grosses me out so much, Ceci actually sewed this lovely accessory and gave me iron-on narwhals with which to decorate it. I’m considering saving those for a sweatshirt though. Like, my very own I Had Drains But Now I Don’t celebration sweatshirt. Hipsters everywhere will be SO JEALOUS.

A few days ago, I realized that I probably needed to see if I could freeze my gym membership. I can barely walk to the mailbox without taking thirteen bazillion breaks. It will be awhile before I grace another spin class. So Mom and I loaded up in the car this morning and drove to the gym to see what our options were.

Me: (dressed in a normal dress with a sweater covering my PICC line) Hi! I need to speak to someone about putting a hold on my membership dues.

Michael the Gym Guy: Why do you need a hold?

Me: Well, I’ve been pretty sick lately, in and out of the hospital, and won’t be able to exercise for another couple of months, at least.

MtGG: We can probably do that. Do you have documentation?

Me: Documentation?

MtGG: You know, proof of your illness?

Me: (giddy inside) Oh. I actually DO  have documentation! (pulling off my sweater to reveal my glam PICC line clacking in the breeze) THIS IS MY DOCUMENTATION! I eat food through these tubes sometimes! And this is how they take my blood EVERY WEEK.

MtGG: (shocked and uncomfortable) Um…

Me: (maniacal laugh inside my head) Oh, do you need other proof? (lifting up my skirt a little) HERE LOOK. THIS IS MY DRAIN BAG. IT IS CURRENTLY DRAINING BILE FROM MY ABDOMEN. LIKE RIGHT NOW WHILE WE ARE TALKING TO EACH OTHER.

MtGG: (looks away immediately and cannot make eye contact)

Random Other Employee: (WIDE-EYED SHOCK)

Smoothie Girl Across the Room: (looks disgusted and glares at me the entire rest of the time)

MtGG: (still not making eye contact) Um, more like a note from your doctor.

Me: (holding my drain bag and my PICC line) Oh. I thought you meant documentation like this. Like, you know, these tubes in my arm or, you know, this bag of bile? Right here? That I’m holding?

MtGG: (hating my existence and wishing he’d gone into sheep shearing instead of kinesiology) Yeah, no. Just a piece of paper.

Me: Oh, that’s all at home. We’ll come back tomorrow.

And we will. Because he said they couldn’t retroactively freeze my membership, even during the time I was in the ICU but I think that’s bunk so I’m going to fight them a little bit. Because what good is it to be on a ventilator if you can’t get FREE GYM CREDITS.

Moral: When life gives you a drain bag, try to get free shit. 

**This lesson brought to you by PICC, Drain Bags, and Slowly Returning Optimism. Sorry if I grossed you out. But actually not sorry because it’s entirely awesome.** 

Via Sam Brown at Exploding Dog

After I came home from the hospital, I thought things were going to get so much better. I was sure that I’d start to feel like myself again and that, just by being home, I’d be able to rest and heal from the perforation and all the damage done to my body.

I was wrong.

Instead, I came home from the hospital and found everything had changed. It was our house still, but it was different. The dining room looks like a hospital supply closet. There was an IV pole and giant bags of TPN in the fridge. There are still IVs in my arm because of the PICC line. I couldn’t even walk up the stairs to the front door without having to stop and rest a few times. Everything was the same, same couch, same bed, same joy to be living with Will, but everything was also starkly different.

I began to have panic attacks, moments where I could feel my skin crawling and was hyper-aware of every part of my body. At one point, I could have sworn I felt my spleen. I felt vulnerable, unsafe. What if something else happened? What if we couldn’t get to the hospital in time? These are the thoughts that kept me from sleeping, along with the fact that I couldn’t get comfortable, as I am only allowed to sleep on my back, elevated. My back has a drain coming out of it, which makes sleeping very uncomfortable. Plus, I’m a tummy sleeper. Always have been.

As the twitchiness continued, and got worse, I realized there was something bigger I had to deal with, some trauma that needed to be processed.

Here’s the truth: I could have died. I’m not trying to be dramatic, but it’s true. When my duodenum was perforated, the fluid filling my abdomen could easily have made me septic, which can often cause organs to shut down. This is part of what I have to process, part of what I have to deal with in order to make it through the next few weeks, and the next surgery.

So I’m going to write about it. Because that’s how I process and deal and align myself with the reality of my situation.

Here’s what I remember: On the morning of the ERCP, we were all scared. Mom, Will, my sister, me. Nobody wanted the ERCP because we had a bad feeling about it. But there was no choice. It had to be done to help figure out what was causing all the problems. Dr. Brandabur came in to pre-op at around 1, to chat with us, explain the procedure, and answer our questions. My mother looked him in the eyes and said, “Don’t mess up.” He took her very seriously and said he’d do his best.

They wheeled me back into the procedure room, where the anesthesiologist, who was lovely, gave me something to relax me. Then everything went dark.

When I woke up after the procedure, I couldn’t open my eyes. I was in total darkness. I had no idea where I was or what had happened. I just felt pain. Then I realized I was choking. I started to sputter, cough, and tried to pull the foreign object from my throat. That’s when I realized my wrists were in restraints. I couldn’t move at all. It was dark, my abdomen was on fire, I was choking, and I was tied down.

It was, by far, the scariest thing that has ever happened to me. It brought up dusty memories and I thought I was going to be sick.

I don’t know how long I was like that, awake but in the dark. It felt like hours. It could have just been 30 seconds. There’s no way to know. When I did open my eyes, I saw Mom and Will. They were blurry but they were there. I began to frantically sign to them using the ASL alphabet.

W-H-E-N. W-H-E-N. W-H-E-N. Over and over again. Will realized what I was doing and pulled up the ASL alphabet on his phone. The answer wasn’t good. They said it would be awhile, maybe an hour or two. I was choking, panicking, and stuck. I realized something had gone horribly wrong, but had no idea how serious it was.

I thought I was dying.

About an hour later, the breathing tube was removed (which was awful and painful and I hope to never experience that again). Mom and Will came over the the bed and tried to fill me in on what had happened.

It had been almost 24 hours since I’d gone in for the procedure. The scope perforated the duodenum, as well as an outpooching of unknown origin. It could have been a cyst or a diverticullum, but we didn’t know. It just shouldn’t have been there. The doctor explained it this way: “I went to clip the sphincter of oddi (which should have helped the pain I was having initially) and turned the scope. Suddenly, I was looking out into nothing, which meant I’d perforated the duodenum and was staring into the black space of the peritoneum.

When that happened, my body started to leak peritoneal fluid and bile in the abdomen. This is a very bad thing because it can cause infection, which often leads to sepsis. Dr. Brandabur tried to quickly place a stent in my bile duct (the other thing that needed to be fixed) but it was so scarred and shriveled that the stents wouldn’t fit. He finally used a makeshift stent that likely won’t hold for more than 6 weeks.

After the procedure, which took hours longer than we were expecting, I was moved to the ICU. Mom and Will were finally allowed to come back and see me at around 7 that night. Nobody told them I would be on a ventilator, so my mom panicked and demanded to know what had happened. She didn’t get answers until close to 1am. I could breathe on my own, but they needed to let my body decompress as much as possible. Also, they were worried about all the fluid in my body because, if I were breathing on my own, I could have easily aspirated the fluid, which would be bad.

From my perspective, I went to sleep on Monday, feeling a little sore, and work up on Tuesday, choking, tied down, in pain, and having no idea what had happened or why we were there.

I asked two questions, when I could finally talk.

-What happened?

-Am I dying?

And even though they explained the complications and even though Mom and Will swore that I wasn’t dying, I spent the rest of my time in ICU feeling terrified. I was in and out of consciousness, due to all the medication they were giving me. I felt totally separate from my body, while being trapped inside and aware of everything around me.

It was awful, you guys. I was convinced I was going to die and I was really sad, because there’s so much more I want to do.

Once we got out of the hospital, all of this hit me. The fear hasn’t gone away. Every time we have to go back to the hospital (for scans and tests and, just last week, another unexpected 3 day stay because of issues with the drains in my abdomen), I panic. I sit in waiting rooms, or lie on gurneys, and tears drip down my cheeks, unchecked. It all hurts and it’s all awful and I have no control over any of it. If they want to cut me open, they do. If they want to shove another drain into my body, this time in my stomach right by my belly button, they do. It doesn’t matter how much it hurts, or how it makes walking so difficult we had to rent a wheelchair, just so I could get out of the house like a normal person.

Except nothing about this is normal. It isn’t normal to wake up choking and panicked and restrained to a hospital bed. It isn’t normal to have a tube going through your nose and into your stomach, sucking the bile from your stomach into a canister. It isn’t normal to have two drains coming out of your body that have to be emptied and measured twice a day. Nothing about this is normal.

I ran a half marathon less than 8 months ago. Now? Now I need a wheelchair to go to Target, or to take my mom to see the tulips in Skagit Valley. Now I take handfuls of antibiotics every day, to keep the fluid that is still in my body from becoming infected. I spent 12 hours a day hooked up to TPN, my new nutrition, which makes me feel nauseated and puts a horrible taste in my mouth, all the time.

Nothing about this is normal.

I’m sorry I’m not being all Bright Side today. I’ve tried, with no luck. There are milestones people keep celebrating. “Look! The doctor said you can have two bits of soup! Real food!” And I know I should be excited but instead, all I can think is, “How did I get here? How did two bites of veggie soup become the greatest thing to happen in my life? And when will this be over?”

We don’t know.

So I’ll just sit here, on the same couch, and keep processing. I’ve come to terms with what happened to me in the ICU, or almost. But there’s another surgery out there, looming, scary. It’s like a grenade we won’t see coming until we feel the heat of the explosion.

And I’m scared I’m going to die on the operating table. Which is a silly fear. Because all the complications are minute, unlikely to happen.

Except it did happen, a complication. And it’s caused the last month to be complete hell.

So there’s no Susie Sunshine in this post. There’s just me. Scared, tired, sad, and mostly worried about how everything is different, especially for the people around me. I worry about my mom, who has been here for a month to help me deal with all of this. She spends her days flushing my drains and changing dressings and taking my temperature and checking my blood sugar, and hooking me up to TPN, even though we both know it’s going to make me feel awful. I worry about Will, who has a full-time job, plus a full course load at school, plus training for the big National Championship race in August. I worry about the burden I’ve become and how I’m not the person I was 6 months ago. I worry for his happiness because I’m not doing very much to add to it right now.

I feel like so much has been taken from me. And it’s difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel because the tunnel keeps changing with each setback.

I’m scared.

This has been a post.

In mid-February, I started to have severe abdominal pain. I was diagnosed with a kidney infection and given a round of antibiotics. I also had my IUD removed, which made a huge difference because that thing was the worst. When I was feeling better, iWill and I celebrated with a gigantic, decidedly non-vegan but crazy delicious bacon cheeseburger and fries. Thirty minutes after finishing my dinner, I had one of the worst stomachaches of my life.

The next day (Monday), I went back to my doctor, who referred me to a GI specialist. After mashing around on my belly, we realized the pain was localized in the right side of my upper abdomen. When I had the bad stomachache, the pain ballooned through my chest and went into my back right shoulder blade. The GI doc ordered a CT scan that day and scheduled an endoscopy/colonoscopy for the following week.

The CT looked fine, but within 3 days of seeing the GI doc, I couldn’t eat anything without severe pain. The only way I could get any food into my body was by taking a tiny bite of a Saltine cracker, waiting 20 minutes, and then taking another bite. Repeat for an hour an a half until the cracker was gone. After two days of this, iWill and I headed to the emergency room. This was at the beginning of March. I was admitted to the hospital and spent the weekend undergoing a series of tests (all the ‘scopies, plus a HIDA scan that tests gallbladder function and more CT scans).

Every single test and blood work came back normal/negative. One doctor diagnosed me with IBS and another diagnosed me with inflammation of the stomach, caused by the kidney infection. These diagnoses came within 10 minutes of each other. Essentially, nobody knew what was happening, so they just told me to wait it out. I was released on a Tuesday.

The following night, the pain was so severe we were back in the ER. I was given pain meds, more tests, and again, no answers.

I went back to the GI doctor, who said, “Look. All your tests are normal. Clearly there is something wrong but at this point, we can’t know what it is. You could have cancer in your pancreas the size of a pea and we wouldn’t know for another 18 months. Your pain is real but there’s nothing we can do.” He sent me to a pain management specialist.

At this point, I started looking for a new GI doctor. Weeks went by, with incredible pain. I was tethered to the couch, unable to work. I had lost 20 pounds in 6 weeks and was miserable and weak. Finally, I got in with a new GI doctor, who said it might be my gallbladder and it was worth visiting a surgeon. On April 1st, we visited the surgeon, Dr. Reimel, who agreed and scheduled the surgery for the gallbladder removal for the 9th.

Surgery went well and my gallbladder showed signs of scarring and disease, consistent with at least 6 weeks of the pain I’d been having. The surgeon also noticed my bile duct was oddly tapered. The bile duct is usually about the size of a finger. Mine started that way, but tapered to be the size of string. She brought in a GI specialist to look at the pictures they took during surgery.

The GI specialist, Dr. Brandabur, told us that the gallbladder surgery might not cure all the pain, due to my strange bile duct. The plan was to go home from the hospital, recover for a few days, see if I could eat normally. If I could, great. Done. If not, I needed one more test, an ERCP, during which he might put in a stent to help my bile duct drain properly. An ERCP carries a lot of risk, so we wanted to avoid it if at all possible.

Unfortunately, the pain didn’t go away. I’d try to eat and then boom, 30 minutes later the pain would come back. We scheduled the ERCP for Monday, April 15th. At this point, I was really scared because of the risks. Pancreatitis is a big one, and usually includes a 2-3 day stay in the hospital with IV antibiotics. I hate hospitals and really didn’t want that to happen.

Before the procedure, Dr. Brandabur came to the prep room and walked through the entire thing. He drew pictures, explained everything, and said it should only take about 30-45 minutes. I would be under anesthesia and wouldn’t remember anything. We all hoped this would be the end of the stomach issues.

The next thing I knew, I woke up in the ICU, choking because I was on a ventilator. My arms were in restraints and I had no idea what was going on. After about an hour or two, once the doctors knew I would breathe on my own, they removed the breathing tube. My mother had flown in for the gallbladder surgery and was still in town, so she was there with Will and they both explained what had happened.

Simply put, my anatomy is weird and my duodenum was perforated by the scope. This is apparently extremely serious and dangerous. Dr. Brandabur told me later that he turned the scope and was suddenly staring into nothingness, which is a very scary thing. I was moved to the ICU, put on all sorts of antibiotics, and knocked out on the ventilator to try and let my body work fast to heal and keep me from going into sepsis. 

This complication happens to roughly 0.6% of people who undergo the ERCP. It is awful, y’all. I had an NG tube for over a week, draining the bile from my stomach out through my nose. It was as unpleasant as it sounds. I had two drains put in my body, one on the side of my pelvis and one in my lower back, both to drain the bile and other fluids from the perforation. They put in a PICC line, so they could feed me through tubes in my shoulder. 

And this is all just from the complication. The main issue, the weird anatomy, the pain that sent me to the hospital, has not been solved. 

Here’s the plan: they worked hard to get me stronger in the hospital, and my body cooperated. I got to come home last night, finally. I still have one drain in my back and I’m still eating through a tube in my shoulder and getting antibiotic infusions every day. Dr. Brandabur was able to put in a stent, but it isn’t a permanent fix. Picture a cocktail stirrer plugging a dam. It won’t hold for very long. The goal is for me to heal, get as strong as possible, for the next 3-4 weeks, or as long as the stent holds. Then, we’ll head back to the hospital for a larger surgery. At this point, we have no idea what they will do when they cut me open. They don’t know and won’t until they get a good look at what’s happening inside.

It’s scary but I trust my doctors completely. Dr. Reimel (my surgeon) saw me every single day during my hospitalization and my case has been discussed with every single surgeon on her team. Apparently my weird anatomy is very exciting for them. As we get closer to surgery, we might have more ideas about what it will entail. For now, I just know it will be big and the recovery will be long.

This has been very difficult but I’m so lucky. I have an amazing support system. Will has been incredible and has learned how to do all of the things involved with my IVs, drain, and “food”. My mother is still here and will stay as long as it takes to get me settled into a new routine at home. It takes 20 hours for the TPN (my food) to infuse, so I’ll be carrying a backpack with my food inside at all times, even when I leave the house. My sister keeps coming down from Olympia and took many nights in the hospital with me so my mother and Will could get rest. I wasn’t alone at all, during the entire 11 day hospital stay.

I don’t even have the words to explain how much better I feel just by being home again. Nothing about this has been easy, but it would have been so much harder without everyone in my life, visiting, checking in, sending notes and messages, and just showing me that I’m loved and cared for. I’m incredibly fortunate.

I’ll update again as soon as we know more about the next surgery. I hope it’s the final surgery and the last obstacle in my way before I’m on the path to healing.

Thank you for all your good thoughts throughout this experience. I cannot even tell you how much they are carrying me through. Love you all.

It is confetti because I am celebrating everything all the time now and because he is so great he gave me actual confetti instead of metaphorical confetti and also it is still in the plastic bag and yet there is confetti everywhere including on my FACE but I don’t care because CONFETTI.

He’s so great, y’all.

A few people have asked me what will happen now, post-Make It Happen. What are my words for 2013, they want to know. It’s hard, y’all. Make It Happen did so much and changed so much. There is a lot of pressure to come up with the perfect words to even maintain the same level of magic that happened in 2012. I’ve given it a lot of thought and finally, I think I figured it out. I have my words for 2013. Well, more accurately, I have my word.

Stretch.

It’s simple, which is good. Simple is maintainable. Simple is doable every day. Simple is how you change your life.

Stretch.

I learned so much last year. I was given so much and things are so completely different now. Sometimes all the change makes my head spin but mostly I just feel incredibly grateful. I know I don’t want to grow complacent, nor do I want to take anything for granted. I want to make the lessons of 2012 stick. And the best way to do that, I think, is to stretch.

I will stretch my mind. I love my new job and cannot believe I get to write for a living. I’m also lucky because I work with some of the smartest people I’ve ever met. I have the opportunity to learn from them every day. So I will stretch myself to become a better writer, a better coworker, and I will learn from the people around me.

I will stretch my body. I have learned how much I am capable of, physically, and I want to keep going. I want to push myself to go further, faster. There are so many races I want to run, so many things I want to try. I will stretch myself to start making those goals a reality.

I will stretch my friendship. I am thoroughly convinced that I would not have been able to make half of the amazing things of 2012 happen if it weren’t for my friends and the people in my life. They continue to show me kindness, grace, and love. When Kim was sick, I was constantly stunned by the way people would go out of their way to help us. Now it is my turn to give a little back.

I will stretch my hamstrings. Because they get injured a lot and stretching is good.

I will stretch my patience. As I grow older, I find myself losing patience with strangers a lot more quickly. I do not like this and want to grow to be more patient and understanding with everyone I meet.

I will stretch my budget because races are spendy and also I want to start planning for the future.

Stretch.

It’s a very simple concept, isn’t it? And I’m so excited about it, guys. I can’t wait to see where 2013 takes me. I don’t know if the lessons will be hard. I don’t know if I will laugh more than I cry. I hope so. I don’t really know how this is going to look. Maybe it will look a lot like last year, with growth and challenges and happiness. Or, maybe it will look like tonight, in which I made a ton of flatbread and ate each batch as it came out of the oven, standing over the sink, until my stomach hurt. (I will stretch my stomach.)

Whatever happens, I am very and extremely excited. It is going to be an adventure and I love those things.

Did you make words for 2013? I am so seriously curious. Please let me know what your words are so I can root for you the way you have always rooted for me.

PS: I have plenty of confetti to go around.

Stretch. It’s happening, guys.

Gym Guy: Why not?

Me: Because I moved.

Gym Guy: Where?

Me: To Australia!

Gym Guy: Whoa, that’s awesome!

Me: I KNOW! I LOVE IT HERE!

Gym Guy: It must be so nice. Wait, what time is it there?

Me: IT’S 4AM! I AM UP EARLY! BECAUSE I HAVEN’T ADJUSTED TO THE TIME DIFFERENCE.

(Note: Here is a thing you might not know about me — when I lie, I tend to shout. Seriously. Ask iWill.)

Gym Guy: Why did you move to Australia?

Me: I GOT MARRIED!

And the conversation pretty much just fell apart from there. I told him all about my whirlwind romance and super quick marriage and moving to Australia within 3 months of meeting my new husband. It’s awful, I know, but it totally worked. The gym stopped calling me.

Except now I live in West Seattle again. And that gym? My old gym? It is the only gym with a swimming pool. And maybe perhaps a little I’m toying with the idea of doing a triathlon SOMEDAY. And it was cheaper for a couple to join. So I had to rejoin the gym. So far, they haven’t said anything about Australia, but I get funny looks whenever I check in because there’s only one other person in their system with my same name and next to her name it says TERMINATED and I think the jig is almost up.

So, don’t lie, y’all.

Anyway, now I’m a member of the gym. And I am excited because this time I actually like exercising (what??) and will actually go (double what??). In fact, I went yesterday, even though it is technically still January and my off season. But I felt like and really wanted to try a spin class. So I changed into my workout clothes at work and bused my lazy ass to the gym.

Spin classes? SO HARD. And also, ow. I don’t want to get too graphic, because this is a family-friendly blog, considering my most avid readers are the parents of me and Will and my friends (hi Mama, David, Susan, and GranJan!). But LET ME JUST TELL YOU. Spin class is hard and I broke my mysteries. When I woke up this morning, I felt like just like I did at Burningman, when I had to ride my bike on bumpy, unforgiving playa for days. I whimper every time I move, y’all. Mostly because I’m a drama queen but also because my mysteries should have been treated with more respect and I’m sorry, okay?

But I went to Spin class and I cheered for myself the whole time.

Alida to Alida: YOU ARE DOING THIS! YOU ARE ON A BIKE! I DO NOT THINK THE BIKE FITS BUT YOU ARE ON THE BIKE! AND YOU ARE PEDALING! SURE, EVERYONE ELSE IS GOING FASTER BUT YOU ARE PEDALING! OKAY, NOW THEY ARE STANDING UP AND PEDALING BUT NO MATTER! YOU ARE STILL PEDALING, GIRL! CONFETTI!

I actually had fun, y’all. And I will be going back again and again because I want to do all the things everyone else could do. I will conquer that bastard bike!

In other news, I took a vegan break on Sunday because it was after my birthday and Ceci and Tim came to town to see Hedwig and the Angry Inch (starring my very favorite drag queen, Jinkx Monsoon, currently a contestant on this season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, isn’t she GORGEOUS???) and we were going to have brunch because EGGS. I decided a vegan break was a good reason to make the chocolate chip cookie recipe I’ve been coveting for the last few years. You guys. YOU GUYS. They did not disappoint:

They were delicious and rich and I could only eat one and a half before I gave up so I took the rest to work on Monday and let those guys deal with the butter.

I used the fancy chocolate, y’all. Like, crazy fancy.

All this week, I’ve been counterbalancing non-vegan day with smoothies galore. We got a new blender this weekend. I was so excited. We got home from joining the gym on Saturday morning and as we got out of the car, I saw a FedEx truck down the street and I just KNEW it was our blender and so I started running to meet the truck. And then the driver slowed down and I started jumping up and down and shouting, “THAT IS MY BLENDER I AM GOING TO MAKE A SMOOTHIE RIGHT NOW MY NAME IS ALIDA DOES THE PACKAGE SAY ALIDA??” The driver didn’t seem to share my excitement but probably that’s just because he didn’t know that I’m the greatest smoothie maker in the whole world.

There’s spinach in there, y’all. And it’s SO GOOD.

So I pretty much drink these all day, every day. I make a gigantic pitcher in the morning and then take a gigantic cup of smoothie to work with me. It even has a special shaker ball. Which sounds vaguely dirty but it isn’t. It’s just a smoothie thing.

That is pretty much the update on My Life right now. Spin, smoothies, lying, cookies, vegan, non-vegan, drag queens OH AND ALSO I MADE FLATBREAD TONIGHT.

See that rosemary? It is fresh from our backyard. We have a gigantic rosemary bush growing. If you need rosemary ever, please let me know. Also, notice the flatbread in the background, the one I keep nibbling. iWill can consider himself lucky if there’s any left when he gets home from school.

If you’ve been following my running progress, you might have noticed that it’s been essentially Zero for the last couple of months. I finally succumbed to my hamstring injury, over and over again, this fall. For a long time, I felt guilty because I wasn’t running. I was barely moving. It wasn’t laziness but still, it felt like I was going against every Make It Happen fiber I’d developed over the last year. It was dumb, y’all. Guilt was serving no purpose because no matter what, I couldn’t run. And even when I would run a little, instead of being excited about running at all, I’d feel discouraged and upset by how little progress I’d made, or how much it hurt, or how difficult every step was.

Finally, in January, I cut myself a break. I declared this month to be the month of my off-season. I wouldn’t exercise unless I felt like it and honestly? I haven’t felt like it much, aside from taking many walks because walking is my favorite and I love our new neighborhood. And the break was just what I needed. Because now it’s almost February and my off-season is almost over and I feel renewed energy for exercise. I am excited to make my training plan, to start picking my races for the season, to lace up my shoes and hit the pavement running, once more.

But it’s not going to be easy. I have stopped and started enough in my short career as a runner to know exactly how awful it’s going to be. So my challenge is not in starting again. My challenge is in my attitude, in how I deal with the runs that hurt, that feel slow and heavy and awkward.

Today, I stumbled across an article written by a serious runner, who is dealing with the same thing. And even though he’s run thousands of miles more than I have, and much faster, we are the same. And his words are helping me shift my attitude, to approach this challenge with optimism and kind determination.

“There’s no joy, poetry, or rhythm to those first few weeks. Your body seems to have forgotten that it’s been running since you were three years old. There’s no connection between your shoulders, your arms, your knees, and your feet. They don’t work together like the fluid, well-oiled machine you remember. Instead, they rattle and rumble and lumber along. You don’t run like a Kenyan, you run like a Quasimodo.

So far as I know, there is no way to avoid this process, and there is only one way through it: sheer will. You go out and force yourself to do the ugly thing tomorrow, and then the day after that, and then the day after that. You trust that a better day will come. No matter how slow, awkward, and horrible each run feels, you envision a more-fluid future. You stay optimistic.”

This is my challenge. I will put one foot in front of the other, I will run slowly, awkwardly, heavily, and I will do it all while being incredibly kind to myself. I will not judge my success by my pace or the miles I run. I will cheer for myself for putting on my purple running shoes. I will sing victory songs as I lock the door behind me and set out into the neighborhood. And I will throw confetti on myself when I get home, even if I’ve only run around the block one time. Because something is more than nothing and should be celebrated, with abandon. And I am a runner. Yesterday, today, and for the rest of my life.

I choked down black-eyed peas and resolved to change my life, to live with a very simple guideline: Make it happen. And then I did.

So here’s what happened. Under this banner of Doing, I changed things. It started small. Then, as things that are magic and exactly right tend to, snowballed into Everything. A few more minutes spent walking outside turned into running, which turned into a 5K which turned into a half-marathon at the end of October. A couple pounds lost, which turned into 10, then 20, then 45 total. A desire to write more turned into blog posts for Edible Seattle, which turned into a couple stories, which turned into a cover story this month, my first cover story. A contract position as a junior copywriter which turned into, just yesterday, a new full-time job as web content editor, including all the fun health insurance-y benefits.

And in the most magical and life-changing way, Make it Happen turned a casual friendship into a silly flirtation, with all the twirly butterflies, which flew into my stomach and made my head spin when the friendship became a relationship, which has morphed these last few months into a Thing, into Love. And I, the girl who learned how to feel, the former robot, find myself feeling big feelings, loveful feelings, happiness that makes my heart swell.

This year, I ate my black-eyed peas with eagerness, standing at the sink in the kitchen of the new house Will and I just moved into, together, while he unpacked boxes downstairs. I am very, extremely, and overwhelmingly thankful for the new life I live, though my head sometimes can’t keep up with all the changes. Hopefully there will be more words this year, fewer blog breaks, and many more lessons in how to love.

For now, I’ll be unearthing a home from beneath piles of boxes, exploring our new neighborhood, wrapped in the warmth of this new life I’ve been given, eyes big with looking at all the things I love.

Then Make it Happen happened. And things began to change. I got healthier. I got happier. I started to write professionally. I started to run. iWill ran with me. I watched the kids I nannied grow and change and turn from sweet little babies into amazingly, wonderfully unique and fun little kids. I got a new job, writing all day, every day, for a company that is fun and exciting and fast-paced, a job I could only love more if I were full-time and not contract. I’m learning more than I could have hoped, even in just the four short weeks I’ve been there. And I watched iWill become an Ironman, then complete his first huge trail race, as our friendship grew into something else, something kind of great and something that makes me happy every single day.

This is what I took with me as I headed off to Burningman this year. I took all the good things that have come after all the difficult things in the last year. I took my fears about everything good disappearing. It’s a valid fear. I’ve learned that things can change quickly, faster than a person can imagine. But instead of being paralyzed within my fear, or not moving forward or accepting the good things because I don’t want to deal with the pain of losing them, I decided to focus on something bigger: gratitude.

Whenever the fear hits, I take a breath and acknowledge how lucky I am, how much happiness is in my life. I say yes. I say thank you. And then I ask for more, please. This is what I took with me to the playa. And as I sat, covered in magic playa dust, thrilled to be back in the place that pushes my boundaries and teaches me how to ‘be’, I felt more gratitude for what has been given to me, and a newfound level of respect for what has been taken.

Last year at Burningman, I felt Kim’s death for the first time. This year, I accepted her death. I’ll never understand why things happened the way they did, why she had to die so young when she fought so hard to live, but I accepted the reality of her outcome, of what she meant to me, and how my life has changed because of her. I thanked whoever you thank for those things, those precious, ridiculously painful things. I made something for Kim, telling her story, just a small piece of her story but words unique to her all the same, and I hung it in the temple. And then, on the final night of the burn, I sat surrounded in a cocoon of my people, my RV crew, Lovely, Go2, Belle, and Curious, and we sipped tequila and pineapple as we watched the temple burn, at the exact moment we saw my art piece fall into the flames. And a few seconds later, a swirl of dust was sucked into the sky, like a dancer twirling, alive and happy, like someone who had been set free. I knew the feeling, felt gratitude, and thought of the one person who was missing in that moment, whose hand I wanted to be holding and who makes everything a little brighter. I hope he joins us next year. We’re already planning a playathlon because how else do you challenge an Ironman?

Last year at Burningman, I climbed a tree made of light. I overcame my fear of heights and climbed the metal branches, as fast as I could, as if climbing higher would take me away from all the sad things that had happened. I needed room, space I could only find above the noise and neon and thrumming energy of the playa. I felt alive and free, just for a moment, but it was exhilarating all the same. This year, our neighbors set up a huge structure with a rings course. For the first few days on the playa, I watched as people lined up to try to swing the length of all six rings. Finally, I decided to give it a try. I made it three rings before falling. So I watched more closely, determined to make it all six on my next try. Thanks to a lesson from an amazing and beautiful blonde acrobat, I not only made it all six rings, but I made it back to the starting platform. I was flying, swinging, laughing, and feeling stronger than I ever have before. I wasn’t trying to hide from anything. I wasn’t avoiding anything. I was swinging myself toward whatever will come next, good or bad, happy or sad, because life is life and I have very little control over what happens but I always have the one thing that makes everything seem like a gift.

Gratitude.

This is what the desert taught me, this year. I am grateful for the people in my life, the opportunities I’ve been given, the lessons I’ve learned from mistakes I continue to make. And as I sit here, on my purple couch, sipping hot tea with milk and sugar and nursing a playa sore throat for one more day, my heart feels light and my mind is wandering to the future, to what might come next, to making it happen more and more every day.

This is where I am, right now, in this moment. Dusty and happy, thankful and still.

More, please.

Almost.

Trail running is super fun. I’ve talked about it before, how much I love it. After the first Rainier run, iWill and I decided to head back up the mountain. This time we’d camp out, enjoy the trails, and get some good running in. I was able to run almost four miles before the elevation gain shut me down. Still, I turned the 4 mile run into a 10 mile hike and had a wonderful time. But the next day, my hamstring started to feel sore. I told you guys this also. Rest. Recovery. Etc. I was going to take it easy.

And I did. I took it way easy for another week and then had a couple semi-okay three mile runs. I thought I was ready for the 10 mile course preview.

My hamstring had other plans. The more I ran on the course, which was 100% trail, the louder my hamstring barked at me. By the time I stopped running (5 miles in) I was limping. I went back to the car to wait for iWill to finish his run. I called Erin and immediately started to cry. I knew I wouldn’t be able to run the half-marathon the way I’d planned. There was no way I could do 13 miles of that course without walking. I felt awful, disappointed in myself, like a quitter. Erin was wonderful, as always, and told me there was no shame in walking parts of the course. When iWill came back to the car, I was in a much better disposition but, as I started to tell him about my run, tears slipped out from underneath my sunglasses. He was wonderful also, reassuring me that I’d be able to finish the half-marathon, and who cared if I took a walk break or 10? There was a point in my life, not so long ago, when even a 5 mile run seemed out of reach. I just needed a few more rest days and a couple easy runs before the half; things would be fine.

Not so much.

I tried an easy jog a couple days ago and am very sad to report the hamstring was still cranky. I tried to think of a thousand ways I could still do the race while not hurting myself for my future goals. Turns out there are zero ways to do that. So I made the choice; I’m calling the race.

I am very and extremely bummed about having to drop out. But ultimately, I have bigger goals than this race. These goals require me to be healthy, with two strong legs. This race is just the first of many longer distance races I have planned over the next year. So it isn’t the end of the world, really. And I still get to go to the race to cheer iWill on AND because he’s all vegan and stuff, he said I can eat his chocolate finisher’s medal.

So that’s the new plan. Rest, some easy Pilates, lots of stretching. So many good things are happening in my life right now that really, when you think about it, having to miss one race is such a small unfortunate thing. I’ll run again. For now, I get to focus on my new job, and preparing for Burningman, and all the other loveful things happening in my life right now. There are a thousand things to be thankful for, y’all. Even the disappointment of missing the race is good because it just makes it clear that running isn’t a passing fad for me. It isn’t my new phase. It’s slowly and more steadily becoming a part of me, taking root in my identity and making me believe in myself more than I ever have before.
That’s pretty damn sweet, if you ask me.