ruminations
now browsing by category
time
It’s been a week.
I have discovered – in the most humbling of ways – that I am not actually capable of keeping all balls in the air without some crashing to pieces.
I thought – incredibly naively – that I could continue to manage my company’s daily business AND be a present and supportive wife during John’s surgery. This was a vast miscalculation. It was flat out impossible. There were moments this week that I could not have been counted on to spell my own name correctly, let alone handle anything of significance at all. On Wednesday night – after seeing John safely ensconced in the ICU unit with his incredibly capable nurses — I barely made it back to the hotel. I was seriously whacked out with fatigue. I lay down on the bed fully clothed (the energy to remove my sneakers seemed impossible to summon). I fell asleep before my dinner arrived. I couldn’t focus on anything. All my energy – for hours, for days, had been so solely focused on surviving John’s surgery that I had unknowingly exhausted myself.
I can tell you right now that my husband’s eyes rolled while reading that last sentence. He’s a seasoned pro at MEN, he’s had three prior surgeries. In fact, he mislead me about his surgery’s duration just to alleviate my stress levels because he thinks I take all of this stuff too seriously. Maybe I do. But I don’t think I ever want to become jaded, hardened, disillusioned. Surgery is a miracle, a beautiful art that man has been perfecting for years. The knowledge that all the people who took care of my husband have – mind-blowing. And these people work at one of the premier places of medicine in our country. They are incredible.
I have never felt this tired in all my life. And I have MS folks, so I feel tired ALL.THE.TIME. I thought I could be super woman – do it all – but a point came when I knew I didn’t care. Not even a little bit, not for a moment. About anything other than my husband. Life is a short, beautiful journey. And we all spend so much time fussing about insignificant things.
I love my husband. I love my family. I love my friends – especially Kate (God only knows why she’s still friends with me but I am so grateful that she is!). I am grateful for my life and my job – the purpose it provides me on a daily basis. I am not grateful for the stress, or the fact that no time is a sacred time outside of work. I do not love that I felt pulled in a thousand directions this week when I should have only been present in one.
That’s both my fault and a product of our society. We are all going so fast, things are so vital — we forget to stop and appreciate what is important.
I’m not entirely sure how to fix that. Or change it. But it was incredibly evident this week. And it was uncomfortable. I don’t think I should have felt any pressure outside of the surgery John faced. And I think – as a society — we need to figure out how to stop and smell the roses a little. Be in the Moment.
thoughts from The Palm
I remember when John first told me he had MEN Type 1. I remember it very clearly … And not clearly at all. Memory is strange that way.
We were lying on his bed in the apartment he lived in when we met, facing each other. It was bright, because all the lights were on. I don’t know how we’d gotten there. I don’t remember what preceded it. But I remember him talking to me in a clear, calm voice. Explaining in the best way he knew how what his disease was – how it affected his life.
I can say now – seven years later, marriage vows taken, MS faced — I had no comprehension of his disease until yesterday.
I stood in ICU, nearly delirious with fatigue – nearly uncomprehending from the pressure of surgery and hospitals and well, reality — and his surgeon drew me a diagram on a dry erase board and explained things in a way I understood. I think I will forever be in love with her for that — that, and she loves the restaurant scene in Philadelphia. (Plus, she seems to perpetually be in heels, and that just deserves respect!).
As I have mentioned – probably more times than necessary – John and I have been together for about seven and a half years. Every year he’s spent a week at NIH (National Institutes of Health in Washington DC) where his doctors have monitored his disease, any changes, any progressions. I’ve stayed at home. Watched ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ live, gone to dinner with my girlfriends … Made him feel bad for leaving me alone.
John is my whole world. He is the reason I am strong every day – the reason I schlep to Penn for my meds with a smile, and fight for normalcy. He is the happiness in my life, the voice in my darkness, the light at the end of every tunnel. He is reason and spontaneity and comfort all rolled into one. I know his breath in the stillness of night, his smell, his warmth. I do not ever want to know life without him. Because I already have – and it’s not what life is now.
I think a lot about our bedroom right now. Not in an amorous way. I’m not that girl. But because I yearn for its comforts, its quietness – the sound of Lucy’s snuffles in the night. As I ride the subway to the hospital every day, and collapse into bed at night, my mind is filled with memories of this disease, memories of things he has told me and I didn’t fully register.
I remember tears falling slowly, one by one, as he talked about MEN. I was trying to be strong, but my heart was so full of love for this man, and everything was so new, and i couldn’t hide that this news was devastating. But as time passed … we moved in together, we traveled to Wyoming, we adopted Lucy … it faded — it became part of our dialog but not actually part of our life.
All that changed in October. We weren’t anticipating it. But he drove down for a day trip, for some tests to be run, for a study he had joined to scan his body. And he came home with the news. He would need surgery. Sooner rather than later.
MEN Type 1 affects the endocrine system. It’s a genetic disease (John shares the disease with his father and would have a 50% chance of sharing it with any biological children he might have). It manifests itself in a myriad of ways — many people are mis-diagnosed with a symptom of MEN, and not MEN itself.
The scan told his doctors that he needed surgery, and it needed to happen right away. My husband is incredibly strong, and would deny it today, but the heaviness of the news weighed on him, it darkened the words he spoke as he told me about it. It was evident in the lines around his eyes, the set of his mouth.
I felt the heaviness but I didn’t realize it’s weight until the surgeon came to speak with me in the waiting room — much earlier than I had anticipated — and told me that things had gone well. He smiled — which seemed insignificant to me at the time — but my father-in-law said afterwards he didn’t recall if he’d ever seen that doctor smile before.
I know now what MEN Type 1 means. I know that it will never stop being part of my life, of my husband’s life. I will become more familiar with NIH than I ever imagined. But I am grateful for NIH, for the study he is part of, for the doctors who examine him and keep him safe. I understand now — more than I ever thought I would — what this disease is, what it means, how it will continue to silently ravage my husband’s body.
I sit and I type and my eyelids droop from fatigue and I miss my husband by my side. And I finally understand.
jeh
There are moments in life that take the breath right out of you.
You’d thought you had every side protected, every loose string accounted for — but that small sliver of weakness leaves you raw and exposed and it’s so sudden, and so unexpected, you spend a fair amount of time staring into space, uncomprehending.
Marriage isn’t easy. I feel super blessed, because I married the right man and we are best friends — he’s my favorite person to be with, to laugh with, to hold hands. But marriage isn’t just about two people who dig each other’s company. It’s so much more than that. It’s every breath, it’s every challenge, it’s every triumph. It’s every mountain, whether you want to climb it or not. John and I have been together for over seven years (!!!) and we’ve faced poverty, multiple sclerosis, MEN type I, our parents health (which includes cancer on both sides), difficult family relations, a dog who is a vegetarian, frustrations at work, depression …. The list is not short. We’ve also found solace in each other, in the quiet moments eating soup and watching mindless TV, in buying a house together, in traveling to new and exciting places, in brother-in-laws, in food and wine and football. And I know that no matter what we come across on this road of life, we’ll get through it together.
Eight years ago, my grandmother died. She ate steak and banana cream pie at the casino days before she passed away, so she went out on a good note — I hope. I miss her every day — not in that aching, I-can’t-continue-to-live kind of way. But in the I-wish-I-could-call-and-b.s.-on-the-phone kind of way. She moved in with my family when I was five years old, and she made breakfast for my brother and I every morning before school, she was there when we came home, she chased us with a wooden spoon when we made her mad, but she also spoiled us rotten when she thought my parents weren’t looking. She was stubborn as a mule, and very opinionated but she was every kind of fabulous. I was her little girl, her only granddaughter. She bought me so much clothing (in an attempt to ignite in me her love of fashion and jewelry and perfumes …. it didn’t totally work). She tried to get me to collect porcelain dolls. She fed our dogs potato chips.
She died and two months later, I met John.
I think she sent him to me. I know, I know — it sounds naive and ridiculous. But I think she knew I would need someone solid beside me for my life’s journey. She probably knew things I didn’t know yet. She probably knew the man I was with at her funeral wasn’t the right man for me. She was right.
Sometimes life takes the breath right out of you. And nothing seems familiar. Or fair. And in the end, I guess you just have to hold your precious people close to you and hope and pray for the best. You have to believe you’ve made the right decisions. And if I’ve only made one right decision in my life, it was choosing John. And I will do anything and everything to protect that, to protect him and to protect us. And I think that’s the best thing — maybe the only thing — I can really do.
my favorite month
My favorite month is October.
You would think it would be December — my birthday, Christmas, my mom’s birthday, Christmas, my birthday. But at some hazy point in my past I knew without a doubt that October was the ultimate — the bee’s knees, the motts.
There’s something so essentially autumnal about it — more than September or November. It’s orange leaves and sweatshirts and football and bonfires. It’s the smell of leaf piles and apple cider. It’s comforting, a brief breath of time that feels exactly as it should. Without fail, every year.
Today was a gray October day with spitting rain … and then actual rain as I heaved food home in ripping paper bags the three blocks to the train station and then the absurdly long trek from the far side of the tracks to my car. A stranger shared his umbrella with me for part of the walk — it was such a beautiful reminder of the goodness of people. That gets forgotten a lot in the course of a day at work, fighting losing/lost battles and being constantly challenged to the point where you have no idea if anyone is on your side.
Tonight I’m sitting in my little office and the darkness has taken over the skies — so much earlier than a few months ago when we first bought this house. It’s beginning to feel like home — as we settle into routines and do the things we used to do somewhere else, with different routines. I cooked yesterday, and I cooked this past weekend — and the kitchen has stopped feeling so foreign, so untouchable. It’s starting to feel like ours. Coming home and bundling up in a rain coat to take Lucy to get the mail feels normal. Turning on Sonos in every room and filling the house with music — it’s no longer a novelty. And tonight, I’ll curl up on the couch and watch my Steelers — my poor, depleted, beautiful Steelers — play their first divisional game of the season. While eating quiche. With my hubby and my little fur ball Lucy. Life is good.
Like I said, October is my favorite month and I am looking forward to this one with such joyous anticipation. And it’s so nice to be home.
memory lane
Friendship is a weird thing.
It’s been on my mind recently — I’ve reconnected with some old friends and been transported back to different times in my life, when I was a different person. And I have marveled that in fact, I have some lovely friends. People who have done extraordinary things with their lives, accomplished amazing feats. Are the epitome of joy and wonder and beauty.
And it has sort of made me reflect on all sorts of people who drifted in and out of my life.
Friendship changes as you age. As I have become more comfortable in my skin, and feel more secure in who I am — I don’t completely love having ‘friends’ who seem to think less of me than I think of myself. And weeding those people out, making those decisions — it’s really hard. There could be a possibility that I’m a terrible friend, which is why I look around and I only have a few good relationships. But … maybe I just feel less of a need to surround myself with people …. Thoughts ….
I have to spend every second of every day with myself, and I don’t know that it’s all that healthy to have friendships with people who don’t respect me, respect my life choices, or respect my spaces.
I can say without hesitation that I have a handful of people in my life who are just really good eggs. I couldn’t say a bad word about them if I tried (and I have zero desire to try). I feel blessed to have them in my life, to share stories and memories with them from time to time. And I have friends who are more like … habits? People who are in my life because of circumstance more than choice. It’s hard when you realize that — when something occurs and all of a sudden, things seem more clear than they’d ever seemed before.
Like I said. Friendship is a weird thing.
old and new
Tonight the man and I, along with our trusty sidekick Lucy Lou, are heading over to watch the Ambler Symphony play at Hope Lodge. We have tried to go every year (it hasn’t always worked out … honeymoon, Mini Cooper purchase, blah blah blah) but we are ‘traditions’ kind of people, and this is a good one.
Sadly, it will also probably be our last Ambler Symphony at Hope Lodge. It will be a long drive from our new abode on a Wednesday night. But it’s been fun re-visiting all the things we love to do in this area, and really appreciating them, before moving on to new traditions and routines.
I’m excited to see what our new home and community bring into our lives. But we have thus far been informed and influenced by our current traditions, and this is one of my favorites. I dutifully got an abundant charcuterie board from the restaurant, and even though we will be drinking fizzy water this year instead of a beautiful summer wine (I think we took Charles and Charles rose the last time we went and it was lovely!) I know we will have a great time.
This crazy journey of life is –in the words of The Beatles — a long and winding road. And even though this section is reaching its conclusion, I have loved the steps we’ve walked together in our home, in our little town. I will always remember this place with so much love and fondness.
blessings
I have moments every day, when life feels unbelievably frustrating, unfair, impossible to navigate — just plain bad. And I carry the stress in my shoulders, my back, my jaw. I make myself sick (legitimately sick) with fear and over thinking.
And then there are moments, when the man and I are driving with the windows down, Lucy’s head rested on the window sill, the Beatles or Bruce on the radio — nowhere to be, nothing to do, just a moment in time. And as I watch the country side slide by, the green grasses waving in the breeze, the bright blue sky dotted with puffs of white clouds, I think how full of blessings my life is.
Maybe things don’t always go my way. Maybe I have to do things I don’t want to do. Maybe there are restrictions on things that I don’t like. But — even if I can’t run today … it doesn’t mean I’ve never been able to run, and it doesn’t necessarily mean I won’t ever be able to run again (although that is a strong possibility).
But my point is – it’s so easy to get side-tracked by the ‘bad’ things. The ‘no’s’ and the ‘nevers’ — but if you discipline yourself to find the good, it’s sort of incredible how they mightily outweigh the bad. My husband and I will never have children, but we are blessed in each other, in our friendship and our enjoyment of each other’s company — the sound of each other’s voices. We have families we love and who love us, and perhaps the most high maintenance dog in.the.world. But Lucy’s high maintenance helps dissipate the heaviness of my high maintenance — and that’s sort of a beautiful gift.
Today, after cleaning our apartment more thoroughly than we’ve cleaned in quite some time (a person could pass out from the cleaning solution fumes) we packed Miss Lucy in the truck and we headed to a local restaurant (dog-friendly, of course) to enjoy some munchies while our landlords showed the apartment to potential new renters. And the real-ness of leaving this home set in — the excitement for our new adventure, and the sadness at leaving our beautiful, lovely space behind. And I thought how blessed we were to have lived in our apartment for six years, with landlords who have become our friends. How blessed we are to have arrived at this moment, when we are able to afford our first home — in the exact area we’ve always talked about wanting to live.
And I thought how important it was, how important it should always be — to appreciate all the things in our lives. Because life is precious, people are precious — and it all comes and goes so very fast.
soy milk, please
This morning, when I took a sip of my chai latte and realized the barista had used the wrong milk — that in fact, my $5 dollar ‘coffee’ drink was incorrect and therefore, unenjoyable, I began to cry.
I sat at the red light two intersections away and despite my best efforts, sobbed. I don’t know why — at that moment, about that subject — that I seemed to break wide open. But there it was. All I could think about was the fact that I had anticipated the enjoyment of my morning drink, and it was wrong. And therefore — according to my ‘in the moment’ logic — my entire day, my entire existence had been ruined.
It is a little silly in retrospect.
I ended up driving to my local Starbucks, and without any questions (perhaps it was my tear-stained face and the full venti cup I held forth to them) they made me a new drink.
But the entire scenario put something very clearly into perspective for me. I am holding it together by a thread right now. Everything is setting me off — crazy situations at work, troubling emails from my relatives — an incorrect drink at Starbucks. These are all things I have encountered in the past and at no time did they instigate hyperventilating water works.
So when I look back at June 2015, I hope this post reminds me that all the change, all the uncertainty — all the unknowns — those things have been very challenging for me. This girl of routine and habits. That mixed in with all the excited anticipation is a healthy dose of fear. Fear of failure, fear of things going wrong. Fear of making mistakes.
the second
Today was rife with challenges, but setting all that aside (work politics will never not be work politics, no matter the industry, no matter the time) it wasn’t a terrible day. I got home a little later than normal — possibly due to the steady rain – and the man and I set to packing more boxes.
It’s sort of crazy how packing tires you out. I can feel the tension reaching a pitch perfect point in my shoulder blades, and it seems so odd that I feel it so acutely. What is so stressful about putting things in boxes?
Today was a tough day. Both personally and professionally. Have you ever faced a decision, a situation, and you really don’t know what to do? Not a moment when you know the ‘right’ thing and the ‘wrong’ thing and can’t decide — but a situation when you really have no idea how you want to handle it?
Yes. I’m there. And it’s excruciating.
So just for my own peace of mind — to be able to say something in my own defence even if I’m shouting into nothingness — I am not a bad person. I have never been a bad person. I may have made bad decisions, but inherently, I’m not a bad person.
However, I can’t convince people who feel otherwise of my belief in who i am. And honestly, the older I get, the less I care. If you don’t like me, if you think terrible things about me, well, first – I’m not interested in having you in my life. And second, I don’t care anymore if you’ve never really gotten to know me past your assumptions.
All that being said, it is different when it’s family. And there’s the rub.
If I could continue to ignore the situation, I would. But I’m getting on a plane in three weeks, and things will be addressed so I need to figure out how I want to handle it now — and just do it. But there are SO many factors, so many sides, so many shades of each color …. It’s driving me nuts.
Life. She’s a real corker sometimes.
2/7
Today is my second wedding anniversary – but it’s also the seventh anniversary of John and I becoming an us. We celebrated like champions over the weekend, so today it was work, and then GoT in our pjs while the rain drummed and the thunder and lightening sparred in the sky.
I’ve been all over the place these past few days — the bubble of anticipation for the beginning of June nearly overwhelming. It’s a big month in the Hawn household. The man will be journeying to Scotland with me for the first time and our house — that wild and crazy decision we made in the depths of January — is near fruition. We snuck in yesterday and saw the flooring down, and the plumbing in every bathroom nearly complete. It seems that this long held dream will soon be a reality. Exhilarating and terrifying simultaneously!
The apartment is partially packed — boxes and rolls of tape leaning in corners near stacked belongings. Lucy has been pushing her food around and working herself up into a frenzy — we think it’s the transition of her home – the uncertainty. The nervous energy of John and I that she can inherently feel.
It’s an exciting time and a scary time — work continues to challenge us both (in varying degrees and at varying times) and this step — this leap into home ownership feels enormous. I want to remember these moments, the small breath in between the huge gulps of air — but I know that as time passes, things fade, images become blurry. There will be a moment in the future when I struggle to remember some detail of this apartment that seems ridiculously simple right now.
Today marks something so important – something so responsible for who I am today, where I am, who I’ve become. FInding John, choosing to forge a life together — it’s immense, significant. Humbling. I think it’s only fitting that a month as big as this month is setting out to be, begins with us. And I sincerely hope it ends with Lucy finding her appetite in her new house.
D5 Creation