daily life
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and so it is
My internal dialogue is tired. But like all internal dialogues, it also never stops. My day time thoughts slip into night time dreams and back again, over and over, days and weeks slipping by. It’s the middle of September already. The middle of September last year feels a world away. We lived in a different house, a different town, a different place. We prioritized different things. We had people in our lives that are now gone.
It was a different life.
I keep waiting to feel relief … from something? anything? everything? … but relief never comes. Hours seemingly disappear and suddenly it’s dinner time. I haven’t showered. Or done half the things that were on my To Do list. I’m exhausted. A migraine is lurking. I can’t catch up.
I think maybe this feeling will never stop. I will always be pushing to feel caught up, to catch a breath. I forget that two years ago things *also* felt hard. I forget that my rose-colored glasses and nostalgia don’t serve me. I feel sad. I miss my mother.
We moved home because we missed home. Because we didn’t know for sure it was home until we weren’t there anymore. And now we are back. And I am racing to make up for lost time. I am continually surprised – nay, shocked – at the changes that happened in 18 months. It simultaneously feels like we never left and also like we’ve been gone for decades. Time is trippy, weird.
I talk about writing. I fleetingly think about reading. But I can’t keep up with life, so no writing happens. No reading happens. My fatigue governs my days, as my clothing piles up in my cluttered “I’ll get to it this week” closet of horrors. Haha. Things that used to feel easy or routine are a heavy lift. I talk to myself out loud ~ “You’re okay,” I say repeatedly. I say it, but do I believe it? My knees buckle underneath me, I stumble and reach for anything to steady my steps. I am defeated, my inner dialogue says. I have lost. I look at my reflection in the mirror and fail to see anything positive. I see the fatigue, the pain, the weight gained. The creases around my eyes and forehead. The evidence that no matter what my inner monologue says, time keeps marching forward. I am forty-four. I look it.
I look tired.
I am happy to be home. I am happy in this little life that husby and I have carved out for ourselves. Me, him, our Tiny Terrorist dog Eli. I know these things. I reach for them when everything else feels overwhelming.
Xoxo, g
Here today
Last year in August, hubs and I were preparing to host guests for multiple weekends. We’d worked long and hard to make sure each guest room was practically perfect in every way. It’s funny to be repeating the same action this year – moving into a new house – while having a completely different experience. Boxes sit unpacked in hallways. Random assortments of ‘things’ piled on top of other ‘things’ sit in closets, in bathrooms. I have lost all ability to human. I am struggling to surface, to survive. There is nothing resembling ‘thriving’ at the moment.
I’m not sure if my body was running on adrenaline for seven months or if I was just handling stress better (I’m pretty sure it’s the former) but I have crashed and burned, skidded out spectacularly like a wrecked car on a race track. Even the things I held onto – the things that got me through the dark, cold early months of this year offer little solace. I don’t have the energy or focus to get to yoga every day. I can barely get out of bed sometimes. Is this an MS thing? I wonder too often. I blame my disease because it’s easier – because it makes sense to others, and honestly to myself. When the truth is that I’m just bottoming out. The stress has been too much. I have arrived. My body is done fighting.
We have reached the final destination. We have no more storage units or PODS or belongings tucked into my father’s house. We are here. Eli is here. All our stuff (and there is a tremendous amount of stuff) is here. And my body and my brain are done.
Yesterday I found old writing and I have fallen into a deep trance – enamored with this former version of myself who wrote so well. Who so elegantly evoked such strong feelings from decrepit old me. Who was this sad young girl? Did she not know she was brilliant? How did I so exquisitely waste all her talent? It makes my heart sad.
I am tired. Bone deep tired. Exhausted. Fatigued.
This is a side of MS I work hard to avoid. But it has enveloped me. I hope – as husby and I work piece by piece to put our life back together – that I somehow also manage to heal myself.
Xox, g
10 octobre 2023
Every time I think I’ve gotten myself caught up I glance at my calendar and realize – with sinking finality – that there is no break in the action coming any time soon.
And in so many ways thats a great thing. I get to see two of my bests this weekend, revisit my high school days and share it with John, I get to see my brother and sister-in-law and then a family Thanksgiving (a little early but when people live on different continents you make adjustments). Then more friend time and game time and then another (different) family holiday, more friends and cooking and football and then all of a sudden it’s December and we have tickets to see John Mulaney and birthday trips and work holiday parties and then … it’s next year. Whew!
Currently, Eli is away at Puppy Sleepaway Camp (aka training) and we are both enjoying sleeping in while simultaneously maniacally stalking the social media pages of his training facility. We miss our Tiny Terrorist.
There are also men putting up a fence around our back yard which will be a nice surprise for TT when he gets home next week. I have a project list an arm’s length and rather than do anything, I’m sitting and trying to type using my left pinkie for the first time in nearly five weeks. I have a doctor’s appt this afternoon and John & I meal-planned for the first time in weeks, so I know what the plan is for tonight (which really takes a lot of pressure off). I’m starting to feel … settled? (Shhh, don’t say it too loudly, it could get jinxed!)
This move has been incredibly character-building (aka hard as f*ck). We are nearly at the end. Rosehilll is sold and we only have four more guests (and four more times cleaning and doing laundry for people I don’t know – what a relief!)
I might be getting on a plane in less than 365 days to go see my fam bam in the UK and that fills my heart with happiness. Eli might come home and not boop me in face which would be a huge win. Hubs is adjusting to his new work role after the big shake-up at the start of the fiscal year. He has a week of hunting planned with his boys visiting and crashing at the house for early rises and daily treks around local, public lands. (The joy he gets from his trail cam is a mystery to me but I love it for him).
I realized that all the things I thought I wanted to do when we lived in Chester County have changed now that we live up here. I’m working on figuring out who I want to be in this era of life (to reference, for no apparent reason, Taylor Swift). I think I’ll be okay.
I didn’t know if I’d ever get here. I’m glad we made it. I don’t know how, but as Robin says (often) in her rides, the only way out is through.
And we’re getting through.
Xox, g
2 octobre 2023
Sometimes I feel as though life gets distilled down to very clear delineations between YES and NO. Not in a basic kind of way but rather a life-affirming kind of way. YES, this is important. NO, this is not. YES, I should care about this and put the time in or NO, this isn’t helping. I’ve had a few of these moments of clarity in my life – disease being one, death another. Everything, for just a moment, comes into focus and it’s abundantly clear what’s worth it and what isn’t.
Last Thursday I had my second colonoscopy/endoscopy. The first one was brutal. So going into the second I wasn’t just skeptical, I was scared. And scared little me gets defensive, bullish and all around not fun. When it was all over with, and I drifted up out of my anesthesia haze, gripping John’s hand as though a lifeline, my first thought was confusion. How did I get into a different room surrounded by different people? But my second thought was of relief. Yes, of course the clock starts again at that point, counting down to the next colonoscopy, but it’s a very very long timer. It’s a five year timer. Possibly seven. Because the colonoscopy was good. Even better than the one four years ago. So thats a good thing. And in that moment, I was through it.
But now here I am. Wondering about that clarity. Wondering what my next steps are. Wondering.
I think I’ll finally finish my 200 hour teacher training. Perhaps also finish the philosophy course. Consider doing the 300 hour. I’ll keep writing. I’ll keep working every day to eat better food. Drink more water. And get quality sleep. I’ll probably still binge TV shows, and buy tickets for Marvel releases at 9 in the morning the day the tickets go on sale. I’ll continue to drink chai lattes. And I hope travel and smile and be grateful for this little life I lead.
But what does that look like? This I don’t know. This, I have to build from the ground up. All on my own.
Xox, g
19 septembre 2023
I woke this morning to cool air, soft blankets and the sounds of construction. I didn’t mind. Someone (Eli) had slept mostly quietly through the night. And woken with his Dad earlier than me. This is a small (perhaps medium-sized?) miracle as we are working on crate training and we are all (John + I included!) terrible at it. Eli – for all his manic energy, pouncing and jumping – is an excellent snuggle bug and fits perfectly between John + I most nights for at least a few hours before retiring to his own bed for the majority of his resting time. It works well for all of us, as we have crafted our lives this way – hubs and me and puppy. The dynamic shifted – in some ways dramatically – from Lucy to Eli but both have moments and traditions that fill our hearts (& memories) with untold joy.
In a few moments I’ll hop in my Volvo crossover (which we almost traded in this weekend but that’s another story for another day) and drive down to our local coffee shop and get John a brew and me a chai. I will smile driving past Talleyrand Park because its beauty is untold and just grows from season to season and I will have a moment of true contentment. Because the road to here has been awful, very bad, painfully hard – and sometimes it’s hard to remember and appreciate all the good.
Like open windows and birdsong. Crickets and peepers to drift to sleep to. And a beautiful house that fulfilled so many dreams.
A year ago John was away at NIH. I was home alone, with no obligations because my Dad & Lenny were enjoying themselves with friends on HHI. I got Covid. It was pretty awful for a full 48 hours. By the time John got home he’d decided that waiting a year from Lucy’s death to consider another dog no longer worked for him. Eli came home with us that Saturday.
He was eight weeks old so all his quirks and challenging issues now are pretty much completely our fault. But I was still sick. And we had already been feeling fidgety in life. Little Eli Emerson was just along for the ride. When we decided to sell our house in Chester County (a place, may I remind you, we thought we’d retire to eventually before making it happen much sooner than anticipated, so we loved it there) and move permanently to Centre County … well, because, there were myriad things we didn’t anticipate. Honestly we had reasons to do it. A lot of them. Mostly valid. All still more or less true. We just didn’t anticipate everything that would fall out from underneath us as the journey progressed.
Anyway, we did all the things that go along with moving. We cleaned (sometimes things that might never before have been cleaned – like the baseboards in our stairwells), we de-cluttered and staged. We left for weekends and Open Houses happened,. Two weeks, and a lot of blood, sweat and tears later, we had a cash offer and a close date. We’d done it.
Sort of.
After the selling came the moving and the storage units and the logistics of John working from home in our tiny Penn State house. It became about taking care of Eli while we spent Christmas in France with my brother and his wife (a trip we booked after Lucy, but obviously before Eli). It became about figuring out how to survive, endure. And sometimes, it became about making biscuits.
We put a (substantial) deposit down on new construction in December and we waited. And waited. The building process didn’t start until the second week in March (more on that another time because it elevates my blood pressure in unhealthy ways). By which time I was fairly certain we’d made a colossal mistake. I was miserable, trapped, sick. Eli was insane. Life felt impossible.
When closing finally arrived (construction was not complete yet … WTF) I was still on the fence. I knew that time – life – everything only moved in one direction. And that direction was forward. So I had to just get on with it – movers again and painters and contractors for various projects we felt we wanted to do straight away. But I spent most of my free time (which, to be fair, wasn’t much) wondering what hellscape I’d landed in. And couldn’t escape.
Everything – and I mean everything – felt hard.
Sometimes, it still feels hard. John’s company, and in turn his job, completely changed direction and focus and in their mess, John found himself in a completely new job, new duties, new products … the list goes on and on. We are still in that and it has been incredibly difficult. But here’s the silver lining for all those Pollyanna types – unlike at the start of Covid when John lost his job – right now, he still has one. With benefits and retirement contributions. Everything else has been flipped on its head, but that’s still true. And for that we are grateful.
I took a vicious fall a few weeks ago. That’s been challenging. For my ego, for my health, for my happiness. My yoga studio up here isn’t what my studio used to be. I miss that. More than I ever thought possible. I miss my friends, I miss my flow. I miss the community. That is a wound that is not currently healing well.
Eli is still a maniac. Jumping and chewing and just generally being more enthusiastic than I can always handle. He leaves for boot camp in a few weeks (hence the crate training) and John and I are both hopeful and terrified. I hate the idea of him being away from us but I *love* the idea of him learning some very helpful skills (like not jumping on people and knocking them over… to start).
But this past weekend we had no guests. We had no home football. We just had us and our house and coffee dates and movies and NFL. We slept in. We opened windows. We cooked dinner. It was -in a word – blissful. Everything we hoped moving here would be it was. Even if only for a few days. Just a whisper in the chaos that is currently life.
The Giants had a miraculous comeback. The Steelers won because their defense was rock solid (or at least T.J. Watt was). Penn State won away. We fell asleep with open windows, votive candles flickering their last flame. For a brief moment, it felt as though we’d come out the other side.
Xox, g
28 juillet 2023
I’m sitting in my office. I am surrounded by piles and piles of ‘stuff.’ Upon first glance it’s just papers and books and seemingly unimportant junk that has been carried from house to house to house. But it’s still sitting here, drowning me, because when I take the time to go through it, there is meaning; there are memories on each page, in each piece of battered memorabilia.
I have reached a stage of paralysis. I’m not sure what to do next. Where to focus. Everything feels overwhelmingly difficult and expensive. Life feels unfairly hard. I am on the verge of tears daily … they fall down my face routinely doing seemingly simple things. How did I get here? I wonder, my lips quivering, my hands shaking. How do I get out?
But that’s the real challenge. Because I didn’t accidentally wind up here. I have made the choices that got me here – every single step of the way. I have been searching, aching, wondering where I will find that illusive ‘something’ that will fill me up. It continues to allude me.
I knew when we made this choice that I would be walking away from so many things. I knew that no matter what, I would survive. Because I’ve been doing this my whole life – packing everything into boxes, unpacking it. Beginning again. What I didn’t fully realize until this move was how much I didn’t want to do that anymore. How very much I was searching for home.
Where is home? How do I find it, how do I define it? Is it where I was born? Is it where I last was? I’m not sure. I think I know. I think I’ve figured it out. But knowing that doesn’t change the fact that home isn’t here. Here is where I live. It’s where all my stuff – good, bad or indifferent – now resides. Piles of it. Stuffed into closets, piled in corners. I feel defeated, moving slowly from morning to afternoon to night, not sure what the point is, not sure what I’m doing or more importantly why.
I have sat here, watching the construction, the crazy idiots flying up the street and dodging all the other vehicles and stacks of 2x4s, the neighbors walking their dogs laboriously through the thick, oppressive heat. I have asked myself again and again – what do I want? What am I doing?
I’m 43. I’m just kind of faking it through life. I haven’t done anything noteworthy or extraordinary. What is my plan? What is my endgame? Because a lot of life feels really pointless at the moment. How is it fair that I only get it in retrospect? How have I never learned to get in while I’m in it?
Eli is losing his mind and John has work calls so right now, in this moment, I’m going to take my insane dog for a walk. He’s exhausting but at least he provides purpose.
Xoxo, g
27 juin 2023
When John and I got a bee in our bonnet last fall to sell our house and move up to Bellefonte permanently, we knew in theory it was going to be a long road, but we definitely did not have any idea just how hard these past seven months would end up being.
Add in a healthy dash of multiple sclerosis bullshit and the American healthcare system, and it’s been a very long, very difficult, very eye-opening 2023.
Tomorrow, we are due to close on our house.
This is not our first closing. It’s our third, so it’s not completely unfamiliar territory. But when the builder sent an email on May 31st saying that our closing date would be June 28, you could have knocked us over with a gentle breeze. This house building process has been anything but smooth and has left me at times heartbroken, disappointed and angrier than hell. I’ve never in my life spent so much money and had so little control. I have smiled longer and harder in the face of just mind-numbing condescension and bullshit than I did when I worked and let me tell you … that’s saying something.
Anyway, all this to say that as of today, we still have shit water pressure, our AC unit apparently won’t cool the house further than 68 degrees (words cannot articulate my horror at this news – that we would have to add to our HVAC unit in BRAND NEW CONSTRUCTION … ), our front porch pillars are 2x4s, no one knows how the generator hook-up works, people are still referring to the primary bedroom as master (can you see the steam coming from my ears?), the yard hasn’t been landscaped, our stove/oven is incorrect, there is a section of shingles that have been beaten all to hell (and on the other side of replacing our last roof after only six years, I can tell you that’s a sore spot for us), there is a portapotty on the edge of our driveway, a huge dumpster across the street and we have huge delivery trucks coming every day for the rest of the week. None of these issues include the things we have to do on our own – like the water softener so our pipes don’t get clogged with calcium and the tech consult so that our internet will work throughout the entire house.
Listen, it’s not all bad. This will be our very first single family home with a yard. The kitchen (other than the oven/stove 🤦🏻♀️) is beautiful. We are having custom closets designed. We just bought an incredible table and we can’t wait to settle in (even if Eli is going to most likely be a complete maniac).
I have a moment every day when I want to cry. I have many moments when all I want to do is sleep. But I also always think about all the things I’m grateful for – the parts of my life that make living easier. To begin, I don’t work. And even though I miss working, I am grateful every single day that hubs earns enough for us to be comfortable and be able to do all these crazy things. I’m grateful for air-conditioning and heating and NA wine and the ability to buy food and go to yoga and the salt room and all the things. I’m grateful for a husband and partner who loves me no matter what (and that gets tested a lot because MS is a lot). I’m grateful for my amazing family and my friends. I’m grateful for Eli. I’m grateful for travel and books and the movies. All the first world shit, Y’know?
Anyway. That’s where we’re at. I’m sitting at our kitchen table, frozen in a state of what should I do next? We aren’t moving a lot from this house so there isn’t a lot to pack. But … there is because clothing and toiletries (of which I have more than any one person should ever have!). We’re moving one fridge and having another delivered so food transfer shouldn’t be that bad. My high school reunion – which is Saturday – cancelled the day time portion so at least that freed up the weekend for us to work on getting settled in. I’m devastated (I’m the girl who wants to go to the reunion because she loved high school). But I also know that MS is knocking on the door and I’m going to spectacularly crash one of these days. And that’s not fair to John or Eli.
Xox, g
20 mars 2023
We endured a brutal weekend. This morning, as the alarm began to glow red (yes, we have a sunlight alarm because our room is like a cave in the morning) I think both hubs and I held our breaths, hoping Eli would stay curled up between us, hoping to keep this little moment of peace sacred.
Luckily, Eli was in a cuddly mood and hubs punted on his first call of the day (8am on Mondays!). Eli stretched and snuggled and gave many, many kisses. The red of the alarm lightened to pink and then bright white, and we finally got up and began our routine.
Every day has moments that remind us of our old life, before moving up here – we are both creatures of habit. But many things have changed. Eli changed us. He changed the shape of our days. He is absolutely nothing like Lucy in any way, other than Lucy was a boxer, as is Eli. He is feisty and loud and demanding. She was patient and quiet (but, to be fair, also demanding). They both reflect us, but in such strange and different ways. I find it fascinating on a daily basis.
Anyway, across our kitchen table are the parts of a cold plunge that I bought about ten days ago and which arrived on Saturday – at the very height of our household discontent. The fact that I managed to get it out of the packing materials is a small miracle. Eli and I did our regular hike this morning (he even found the remains of what I guessed to be a rabbit or squirrel and carried it with us for the entirety of the walk). Now he is stretched out near John, snoring softly. We have a few hours of respite before he wakes and demands more exercise, attention and movement.
I am trying to do a marathon day of laundry and save myself the trouble tomorrow. Mondays have somehow become my most flexible day – no yoga, no chiropractor, no salt cave. Nothing. So I can do whatever I want (within reason – I’m usually pretty tired on Mondays). Today I’m hoping to get the cold plunge up and functional, perhaps find some doctors and a vet for Eli. Maybe transfer the football tickets from my Dad’s name to mine. Who knows. We shall see.
What I do know is that even in the short time we’ve been here instead of there life has changed. We have changed. And that’s so interesting to me. The idea of falling into a routine and then becoming something different … almost indescribable but also true and authentic. A new me has molted from the old me. My life, the mark I’m leaving, is changing shape.
Anyway. That’s me today.
Xox, g
7 mars 2023
Something I try to remember – when things are really really good, or when they are really really bad – is that life is like the waves of the ocean. It never stops and it peaks and valleys and time is absolute and I will come to the end of one thing as the next is beginning and so on and so on ad infinitum.
I remind myself of this when luck goes our way (because usually it is on the heals of luck really, really not going our way). And it’s a reminder to myself to stay present and be in it. Because it will not last. It will either ebb or flow but it will not stay constant. Because the only constant is change.
When we decided to change our life and move permanently to the center of Pennsylvania, we had some pretty good and valid reasons. There have been moments since that decision that things have felt damn near impossible. That I’ve questioned everything. Wondered why I’m such a glutton for punishment. This move has not been easy. And as most of us know, moving is not for the faint of heart anyway. It’s a beast.
Today we woke to a fresh coat of snow and a bright blue sky. We hustled our butts and made it over to the game lands – the whole fam dam! – and took a wander in the early morning sunlight. It was breath-takingly beautiful. Even when Eli found the carcass of a dead animal and tossed it gleefully in the air all the while eluding our efforts to catch him and separate the still-furry skeleton from his mouth. This morning was a reminder of all the reasons we made this move. And all the reasons it is worth it.
Ground has finally broken on our new home and even though there are still miles to go before it is done, and so many hurdles to jump along the way, it feels as though we are sluggishly leaving the station. Which means we are moving. Which is GOOD.
John and I have settled into a somewhat stilted routine of work, managing Eli and attempting to adult. We have successes and we have some failures. But we don’t go to bed angry. And that is the greatest blessing. (Usually I go to sleep on an acupressure mat while Avengers:Endgame plays quietly in the background and John is either pacing (when Eli is calm) or scrolling (when Eli is not)).
The baristas at our local coffee house recognize us (I insist on bringing reusable cups) and smile, I found a yoga studio that is so much more than yoga and is wonderful (albeit incredibly different than BNB), Eli successfully navigated Puppy Primary Class and John is set and ready for spring fishing. We’re getting there, even if I still have to dig in Tupperware for clothing and have no idea where half my shoes are.
We are surviving.
Xox, g
10 fevrier 2023
Time is so tricky. It feels so long … and then as though it slips through your fingers like grains of sand in an instant. It heals, but also, sometimes it freezes and is inescapable.
I was thinking about this yesterday. My mother died over four years ago. Which sounds like a long time — it *is* a long time. But it’s also as though time completely stopped when she died and began again in a completely different way. As though my life is divided into two distinct periods – one when my mother was here, and the other when she is not. And they cannot bleed into each other, they are not the same.
Sometimes the pain is as though it happened yesterday. Everything still lives so clearly in my mind – the hospital, the doctors, the nurses, the sounds – beeping and plastic furniture, clog shoes on linoleum floors. The pile of her clothing that she would never wear again, that we would carry home like a pile of hopelessness, a pile of things that no longer had any purpose. Confused as to what to do with it – where to put it. And then remembering that it happened so long ago, and that coat and those shoes are long gone. Cleaned out by Lenny in her fervor to check boxes, to keep order.
I am two people – the human that my mother molded and encouraged and taught. And the human who has had to forge herself – alone and cold in this world. No longer protected by her mother’s unconditional love.
I cling to small things that bring me joy – hot chai tea lattes and fresh cut flowers. Clean sheets and jars and jars of skincare. I vacillate between strength and weakness, confidence and insecurity. I wonder – often – who I am. What is real and what is concocted out of a basic need to survive.
February is here and the days are a little less gray and we are a little closer to our home being built. And I am a little less sad and a little more tired.
Xox, g
D5 Creation