manner

manner

Friday, January 24, 2014

bedside manner

when I was twenty-three I lived in an old apartment building that had once been a convalescence home for tuberculosis patients. the heating was old boiler furnace heat for the whole building, and I lived on the third floor. I'd unzip my coat in the foyer while I check my mail and shed clothing as I climbed the stairs to my apartment, arriving at my front door stripped down to a tank top. I would lie in bed with the windows open in january wondering how many people had died in that very room.

I drove a tank of a volvo back then with a cd player that played lots of ani and erykah badu. I was working at the group home, the fill-in for the married couple that lived there full-time. My schedule was sporadic at best. I was sort of dating a guy that lived in my apartment building, but "sporadic" would be an apt description of that situation as well. one night while brushing my teeth I noticed white spots in the back of my throat. my tonsils had always been huge (making them touch had been my party trick for years, gross I know), but white spots were something new. when I called to make a doctor's appointment (this was back in the olden days when I had health insurance and was not afraid to use it. if it happened now, I'd probably gargle salt water, take an extra dose of echinacea, and hope for the best.), my wonkity work schedule led me to take an open spot with a doctor I'd never seen before. 

so I stomped around for a few days before my appointment, inconvenienced with having to go to the doctor when I wasn't even really sick and anxious about the possibility of needing my tonsils taken out.  by the time I actually got there I was impatient with anxiety and in no mood for the jokester doctor who was peering into my mouth with his little flashlight.

"spots on tonsils mean one of three things," he said, snapping off his light. "tonsillitis, mono, or an early sign of HIV. you aren't sick, no fever, no aches, no tiredness, so it isn't tonsillitis or mono, which leaves us with HIV. I'm going to call an ENT friend to double check, but I think we need to do a blood draw while you're here today."

surely this guy was absent on the day in medical school when they discuss the importance of gentleness and tact when delivering heavy news like that.

his doctor friend confirmed his theories, so he sent me downstairs for lab work. "I'm sure it's nothing," he said as I walked out the door. "I'd bet a whole dollar that you are not HIV positive."  I stumbled into the lab where a large woman chatted aimlessly while gathering her supplies. she turned and asked for my arm and noticed then that I was sobbing. "oh honey," she said, smooshing my face into her chest in what she must have thought was a comforting hug. it was a friday, so I'd have the entire weekend to ponder my fate until the results were ready on monday.

I was not promiscuous. I had never done any weird needle-requiring drugs. so instead I sat and thought of every bandaid I had changed at camp, every scrapped knee and bloody nose. every pile of puke I'd cleaned up at the group home. all the soiled sheets I'd ever changed. all the kids from all the places I'd ever worked and volunteered. what do you do when you are twenty-three and faced with the thought that you might have HIV? you do not call your conservative parents who would not even know what questions to ask. you do not go to the guy you are sort of dating in your apartment building, the one you only really like because he tells you you are beautiful when he is drunk. you might try to call that boy you've been loving on and off for years now, the one who blows in and out of your life whenever he pleases, but who doesn't currently have a phone or the emotional stamina to deal with you. I felt more lonely than I think I ever have. of course I could tell myself the odds were ever in my favor, that there was no real way those results would come back anything but negative. but the reality was that even if it was all in my head, even if the drama was only for the weekend and life would go back to mediocrity come monday, I suddenly had my relationship statuses thrust in my face in a whole new way. where were the friends you could call for anything? where was the family that could handle all the biggest scariest stuff? and what was the common denominator in all those relationship wastelands? me. 

the results were, of course, negative. but I did need to have my tonsils out. that was pretty lonely, too. who would take care of me? shouldn't a twenty-four-year-old with a grown up job and her own apartment have a network wide enough to have someone willing to take her to the hospital and make her a milkshake afterwards? I did have that person in my network, but it took a lot of pride swallowing to admit to myself that it was my mom. I just felt like I was missing something, that I should have these awesome friends willing to step in for something this huge, that I should be dating someone willing to do this kind of dirty work, that my life was supposed to be figured out and on track enough to handle surgery and recovery. and it was in lots of ways that I just couldn't see because it didn't look the way I thought it should. my mom was willing to come, to stock my fridge, to drive me around, and put up with me-on-pain-medication (not an easy task). the couple at the group home was willing to give me a huge chunk of time off, to give me more time when I realized I was recovering more slowly than I had planned. a neighbor brought me movies and novels and chocolate. and so began (or at least reignited, perhaps) my life-long quest for connected community.   
 

cora, sweet little baby girl cora, is having her tonsils taken out next week. she already has two care packages here, just waiting for her recovery. my mom offered to come up. a friend has promised me a bagel and tea delivery while I sit in the waiting room. jamin and eric have big plans for a balloon bouquet. it is different this time: I am less angsty for sure, and more sure of what to ask for. I know how to see tribe for what it is, even if it isn't exactly what I thought it would be. I know that the network I wanted at twenty-four doesn't always magically appear overnight. I know how to be the friend I want to have. and I know how to trust my family with much more of the biggest and scariest stuff; they are far more capable and willing to live this messy life with me than I ever imagined at twenty-three.

so thank you tribe, near and far, then and now, for making life so much more fun. for doing hard work. for sticking around. and if you stop by our house to visit cora next week, I'm pretty sure erykah badu will be playing in my kitchen, just for old times' sake.

Thursday, January 16, 2014

throwback thursday

I am trying to make myself write more, share more, get more feedback on my writing, etc etc etc. I am taking a writing class (thanks to some heavy nudging from a friend who knows me all too well) and trying to post more often here, just to build good habits and get stuff out there. I've been keeping a journal since I was 13, so I have a whole shelf full of old material to pull from, most of which should probably never see the light of day. but some of it has some worth I think, and it is a good reminder of where I've been and where I am now or something like that.

so here is a space for some old school goodies, things eric loves to hear me read out loud and that are not too embarrassing to throw out to the universe. this one is from my 23-year-old self.



this is the life I have made
this combination of comings and goings
with an apartment I rarely see inside
and beer for breakfast most mornings
just to jump start the day into motion
when nutrition is so far from my mind.
the balance of bad and worse
strung together with the measure
of time passing makes for
moments measured in teaspoons of tears
rather than split second short comings.
I can hear rumbles in the distance;
be it school buses or thunderstorms,
or my own stomach calling for more
it is only a distraction from the task at hand
and this simply will not do. so now I will wake up from dreams
I cannot remember into a reality I
cannot forget where time is well spent,
invested in fact, and each day a reminder
of not looking back.

18 november 2003

Friday, January 10, 2014

twice upon a time

we think we know how stories go, or at least how they are supposed to go. I certainly do. there is a beginning, a middle, and an end. there is rising action and a climax and then some sort of finality. this formula works beautifully for fairy tales and most novels; it works so well in fact that I've assumed my life should look the same way. a bunch of stories tacked together somehow, but really all one big long formulaic tale. and the end is the end and the middle is messy and that is just the way it goes. we want our lives to be beautiful stories of reconciliation and hope, but we forget that reconciliation requires conflict and heartbreak to come first, all the gnashing and weeping and wallowing we all dread. we wish for happy endings, but would we be better served by happy middles instead?

our stories are full of second chances. the stories we thought we were finished living, the doors we thought we so firmly closed have an uncanny way of reincorporating themselves back into out plot lines. and our stories never really end. we give them endings because that is the way our brains work. we like endings. endings make sense and tidy up the world nicely. I like a nice tidy world. that feels much safer than the unpredictable swarm I am actually living. but if I settle for tidy, I miss out on some pretty amazing chances.

two years ago I thought my story as a foster parent was over. my heart was broken, our family was in shock, and the system was just too terribly messy to overcome anymore. eric said never again. the world marched on. our girl went to live with another family, transferred schools, moved on just fine. all I could feel was failure. and that was how the story ended: my failure as a parent, as a world changer, as a relationship grower. because when stories don't end the way we think they should, they can hardly be considered happy. there were good things that came out of it. there was even some joy in the ending, horrible as it was. there was relief to having the stress of not knowing gone for good. there was a refocusing and a new direction as a family. but there was still the over-arching cloud of failure for me. it was sad and ugly and dark. it was like a bad break-up, only with a government agency involved telling you how you have to handle your heart. I could hardly bear it some days. I certainly couldn't handle bumping into our girl at the grocery store or looking at her photos on facebook. but times help, and perspective is a blessing, and life is changing all the time. so it goes and goes and goes.

failure can only happen if I have a vision for what life is supposed to look like. and that vision is only final in my own mind. I thought success with our girl would come because she lived in our house and called us her family. I thought success meant adoption and a name change. anything less than my own vision of a happy ending meant failure, my own failure, not hers.

it took two years for my heart to soften. it took two years to see maybe my vision of success is dead wrong. it took going away and coming back to realize my story is never really finished. it took a long grieving process and lots of talking it all out, lots of wallowing and being very mean to myself. it took a summer spent among kids in the same place in life as our girl, watching them figure it all out and realizing that I can be a part of their lives, a part of their stories without being their mama. and after all of that, when our girl called to say she was getting married, I could smile and offer to meet her for lunch. I can hug her hard and tell her how much I've missed her. I can listen to her story with tears in my eyes and know that this is all part of the happy, messy middle.

my word for 2014 is season. to remind myself to keep in the rhythm of it all. to be present for what it is, to appreciate the fullness of it all. to season my life and my relationships gently and remember that a little seasoning can go a long way. to stick it out even when it doesn't look the way I think it should. to be aware that I can never see the whole story all at once. my life does not look the way I thought it would when I looked ahead ten years ago, and I don't dare to think about what it may look like ten years from now. but if I can be here for this season right in this moment, to acknowledge that this is not my whole life, but just the season I am in, maybe I can enjoy it all the more.


photos by andrew manner, pictures with attitude



"some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. delicious ambiguity..."

~gilda radner