Eli Emerson
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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
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
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
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
27 janvier 2023
Having MS sometimes feels like a life of quiet desperation.
Right now I’m in the throws of it, having struggled quietly for weeks. Not sure exactly what’s wrong, not sure how to fix it. Just picking up the pieces and mending everything over and over again. Sometimes I feel like I’m losing my mind. I wonder when I lost it …. Was it fast and I just adjusted on the fly or has it been slow- little bits over and over again until I look in the mirror and don’t know myself anymore. Don’t know what to say or do. The weight of life pressing unrelentingly on my shoulders.
If you look up multiple sclerosis, amongst all the technical stuff (myelin sheaths etc etc) is usually a list of ‘probable’ symptoms. But as every article says, in one way or another, no two people’s MS is the same. So the symptoms vary, the severity varies, how each of our bodies react is different. Treatments, therapies … it’s all sort of a crap shoot. When you find something that works, hang on for as long as possible. No matter the potential side effects. Just keep doing what you need to do to live. I mean, that’s the gig.
I write a lot about how life used to seem black and white to me. And then I got MS, and everything became a blur of gray. Living in the gray was and continues to be uncomfortable. It makes me angry. I have good days and bad days and I ebb and flow between hopeless and hopeful. I smile a lot when I don’t mean it because it makes people uncomfortable to have to face my realities. It’s easier for healthy people to take me at face value and not lose any sleep. Besides, they have their own troubles, their own difficulties.
It’s fucking lonely.
I don’t know how to be a caretaker or a support person because what I used to think was good isn’t good for me. And so I try desperately to have compassion and grace for the people who don’t understand, can’t understand. Being the sick person and being the person who watches from the sidelines — those are two very different roles. When my mother was dying of cancer I know that she suffered unbelievably in the privacy of her own room, by herself. She made Herculean efforts to appear to all of us as though she was okay. But I think I knew she wasn’t okay, and I didn’t say enough because I was trying desperately to respect her humanity. Even though I understood the indignities of being sick I didn’t understand facing mortality and I certainly wasn’t going to make any assumptions. I allowed that space between us out of respect for her -or so I told myself – but probably also for myself, because I didn’t know how to bridge that gap without fumbling and making untold amounts of errors. Would she have felt less alone if I’d said something? Or would it have made her feel more vulnerable? I am not sure. I don’t know.
Right now I feel let down by my body, betrayed and wildly out of control. I don’t know what signals are being sent, if I’m getting them correctly (neuropathy) or understanding. I think I know and then find out, I don’t. I’m so tired and so sad and resentful. And we are living in a tiny house where neither one of us feels as though we have any personal space, and Eli is in peak terrorist mode. It’s been a really rough January. We are limping into February, wounded and defeated. Everything feels impossible.
I wish that the sadness wasn’t so all-consuming. So utterly palpable. I wish for so many things. And sometimes it feels absolutely impossible to remember the good. To remember that time is the great equalizer. It will continue to tick by, whether I’m happy or sad or defeated or triumphant. And we will continue to move through this life, this one and only precious life we have been given.
xox, g
18 janvier 2023
Sometimes the sadness is palpable. I’m driving in my car, my beautiful, I-love-it-so-deeply car, and the sadness thrums like the bass line in a Billie Eilish song. I wish I didn’t get sad, I wish I could ‘fix’ it, but the truth is that after 43 years, I know that the sadness comes and it lingers and then it goes. And it’s just a waiting game.
Last fall was a whirlwind of quick decisions and even quicker action. We decided to adopt Eli, and then we decided we liked it in State College better than Downingtown, and then we decided to sell our house and then we sold it and moved more than half our belongings into storage and then we went to France because isn’t that what you do?
It’s hard to remember fully what the last four months of 2022 were. They were hectic and quick and hard and exhausting and rewarding and …. so, so fast. One moment we were shuffling through paint swatches to paint the walls and the next we were on our hands and knees with Magic Erasers, cleaning the base boards of all the stairwells in anticipation of showings. Suddenly our home of seven years wasn’t our home anymore. All the routines, all the comforts we slowly built disintegrated as we took down pictures and packed boxes full of kitchen equipment and office supplies and books. We wedged things into our tiny Bellefonte home, hoping that we could get a new house built soon. Then we picked a lot to build and made deposits and picked carpets and flooring and light fixtures and where all the electric outlets would go. We picked more things than I’d ever thought about in a house. We signed piles of papers and wrote the biggest check I’ve ever written. Then we packed up our truck, scheduled walks for Eli, and got on a transatlantic flight. We rode trains and hiked through mountains to see glaciers and ate indulgent French food.
And then we came home. And picked up a (much) larger Eli and trudged back to our tiny, stuffed home in Bellefonte, longing for our bed and our couch and our TV and our coffeeshop. And then, before we even got bored with this little moment of mundane-ness, we got *back* in the car and journeyed south again, for MRIs and medicine and doctors appointments, and Eli’s vet appointment to get neutered. Because in all the back and forth and packing and picking and planning and packing … we hadn’t gotten a new vet.
Tomorrow we drive again. For more meds. For Eli follow-ups. I’m not surprised I’m sad. I’m surprised I’m not more sick.
xox, g
17 janvier 2023
I blinked and fifteen days passed.
We spent over two days journeying home to America from France. First to Geneva, then Philadelphia via Madrid, then a night at Dad’s and then, finally … thankfully, we got home. Sleep in my own bed is like liquid gold. The soft snurfle of Eli curled up contentedly between us, the rhythm of our night time routine, the food we love in the fridge. So much cold water. Delicious.
And then more travel, doctors appointments, Eli’s little boy surgery to prevent any more little Elis.
I think I have a stomach bug but who knows anymore. My neurologist seems to be indifferent to the ebbs and flows of my health – as long as the MRI scans look solid, as long as my organs are functioning – all the other bi-products of MS are insignificant. Except, they aren’t insignificant to me. To my life. To the exhaustion and the fuzzy-headedness. The inability to function in a society that insists we be producing every moment of every day.
I’m so tired. I’m tired of being tired, I’m tired of explaining (with a smile and self-flagellation) the basics of my version of MS over and over and over again. I’m tired of feigning ‘okay-ness’. I’m tired of dreams slipping out of my fingers, of watching the time tick by slowly, unable to do anything except survive. I feel as though I’m drowning, slowly, sipping air every few minutes so that the agony never quite ends.
I’m tired of feeling alone.
I always wave it away, assuming I miss my mother and by default the loneliness cannot ever be assuaged. But I think I’ve always been alone. A little American girl overshadowed by a British family who never talked about anything, a family who shunned illness as though it was the worst of all deformities. A little American girl whose father loved her but didn’t quite understand her. Why isn’t she more British like her mother, his beloved wife? Why is she so … contrary?
Change is uncomfortable. I know this. I spent my life changing. Changing schools, changing houses, changing after-school activities, changing lives. It’s always uncomfortable because the unknown is uncomfortable. The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t. But why? Because the devil you don’t could be ANYTHING and at least the devil you know is a known quantity. Knowing is infinitely less scary than not knowing.
Walking away from a life – even one I consciously built – is what I do. It’s what I’ve always done. When things get too familiar, too comfortable, I get antsy.
This blog post is about nothing. It’s about this moment in time. Home from five days at my Dad’s house, finally back in a safe space – a space I can live and exist without having to justify or explain. That having MS is hard. And it’s unpredictable. And I can’t promise anything. Ever. That sometimes I don’t have the patience or bandwidth to be pleasant and nice and accommodating. That sometimes the bigotry and bias and lack of perspective is suffocating for me and I don’t have the forethought or inclination to sit silently by.
Did I mention I’m tired?
I’m so fucking tired.
xox, g
2 janvier 2023
I went to sleep last night knowing that there were two days of travel. Knowing that it would be hard and stressful and confusing and unnerving and all the things that travel is … but also knowing that I would survive it and when all was said and done, we would be home and reunited with our little boy.
I realized – upon revisiting the blog last night – that I stopped posting a few weeks before we drove to Honeybrook and adopted an eight week old puppy whom we promptly named Eli.
He turned five months old the day we flew to France and has been spending every day chewing my Dad’s shoelaces, going on walks with Bob (Erin’s husband – Erin of Zavino and Tredici days who began her own pet business last year) and curling up to sleep with my Aunt on the couch, all while enchanting everyone to fall promptly in love with him.
After today – fighting to get on the shuttle to Geneva and enjoying the most expensive burger I’ve ever eaten at the Geneva Hilton Hotel – and tomorrow when we fly home via Madrid and a four hour layover, we will be reunited with our tiny terrorist (and massive love bug) Eli Emerson.
The shuttle ride was a little over an hour and all I thought about was that it doesn’t do much good to look backwards. Time and life march forward and nothing and no one has ever been able to change that. The seconds tick into minutes tick into hours and then days ….. Life goes by bit by bit. And all we can do is appreciate the time we have, make the most of the seconds and minutes and hours and days.
Before we know it, we’ll have a brand new house in Bellefonte and Eli will be a year old and life will keep slipping by. The good times won’t last forever, but that bad times won’t last forever either. It all goes by, bit by bit. And all we can do is try to soak it up and enjoy it as much as we can.
That’s what I tell myself when the going is tough or rough or just overwhelming. This too shall pass.
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
Xox, g
D5 Creation