Toothless

Last night I watched the film “Pursuit of Happiness”.  I’d heard that it was a bit of a tearjerker – that it had emotional clout.  I generally avoid emotionally loaded films.  I prefer fight scenes and explosions and high speed chases.  Things that don’t require that I care.  But I’d also heard it was a good movie.  And good movies are something I can appreciate – especially when the quality comes from good writing and good acting and a certain amount of fidelity to the state of humanity.  The film delivered.  But it didn’t jerk any tears.  Because it represented something I understand far too well.

The main character in the movie does not seem able to get a decent break.  He spends most of the film teetering so close to the edge that the slightest breeze will send him over.  And that it doesn’t is something of a testament to his tenacity, but also a bit of simple luck.  Not destiny.  Not divinity.  Dumb luck.

I can identify.  It seems that no matter how hard I work or how much effort I put out, I’m still teetering on the edge.  Last week I found out that the $3k in dental work I had done back in 2008 was done so poorly that I now need to have those teeth pulled.  I am faced with choosing between spending $4k for a set of bridges that I already know will break, or spending $9k to get implants that may actually last.  May being the operative term.

I’ve had the surgery on my wrist twice.  I’ve had my crowns all replaced – none of them have lasted more than 5 years.  I’ve replaced all of my fillings at least once.  No injury actually heals.  It goes into remission.  My ankle?  Remission.  Ready to re-awaken the moment I think I might actually want to run again.  My heel?  I have plantar fasciaitis.  God how mundane.  And stupidly painful.  And it will be another thing that goes in and out of focus.

I do not have the money for this dental work.  I do not foresee a time when I will have the money.  My student loans are coming due.  I already live in the ghetto.  I will admit that I spent some money recently.  I bought a new coat.  I got a gym membership.  I changed the oil in my car.  And most terrifying, I already had a root canal and a crown done.  Because the filling broke, and I didn’t have insurance and I couldn’t afford to have it fixed when it just would have been a filling.

When Mitt Romney said his shit about the very poor having a safety net… I thought I would be ill.  There is no safety.  There is no net.  There are just numbers on a budget sheet – a piddly sum that can only help one out of a thousand qualified needy.  The rest of us?  We lose our teeth.

I have dental insurance now.  It will not cover the implant.  Or the bone graft necessary to make it happen.  And I cannot currently afford the implant.  I might be able to pay for the bone graft though.  But not the bone graft and the bridge.  I have to choose.  Do I want an implant someday?  Do I want a bridge that I will break in five years?  Does it matter to me if I have teeth?  What if it takes me four or five years to save enough money?  Is it worth it to have two teeth missing for five years?

I hadn’t planned on having to pay for my wrist surgery twice.  That is the catch.  Funny how something that was so critical in May of 2011 can have such resounding impacts on decisions in February of 2012.  I don’t know what I could have done differently.  Maybe not gone to Italy.  Or maybe I shouldn’t have taken the job I have now.  The job that is so close to being right and yet so very wrong at exactly the same time.  Pointless to consider I guess.

I have decided what I will do.  I decided on the way home for the dentist, when I surprised myself by crying on the freeway.  I’d thought I was immune to these sorts of twist of fate.  I’ve accepted that things just go wrong.  I really have.  I do not expect things to go right.  My friends tell me that this just means that things absolutely will go wrong, but they misunderstand.  I have no control over the quality of the seal on the crowns that the sham dentist put in.  I knew they were poorly done, but I didn’t have the money to have them re-done.  As it is, I have no control over the majority of things that go wrong in my life.  These things aren’t the result of some sort of wantonness or short sighted desire for pleasure regardless of consequences.  Most of them are beyond my control – the results of other people’s actions or the workings of time or the results of extended poverty.  They are things that just happen.  I do my best to let it roll off my back, to not allow myself to be subsumed by the almost constant barrage of “bad luck”, but seriously, it is comical the way things happen around here.  There is a crazy screen-plan in this.  Though I wonder if it has a happy ending.

I’ve decided to do the bone grafts.  And I’ll leave the spaces empty.  That means I’ll be short two molars – indefinitely.  Maybe someday I’ll be able to afford the implants.  Maybe I’ll learn not to care.  Maybe I’ll lose weight and missing two key teeth will be the best diet ever.  Or maybe I’ll get in another car wreck and it will all be moot.  Who the hell knows.  But I will not go into debt for my teeth.  Not while I’m still in debt for my education.  Not while my job title still says “assistant”.  Not while I’m still living a fucking joke of a life.  It’s not worth it.  And this is something that needs to be worth it.  I need to be worth it.  And right now?  I’m not worth $9k.  Not to me.

The more I talk to other people, the more I understand that my existence resides in the tail end of the bell curve.  I’m off the map.  A social and cultural outlier, though not necessarily in a good way.  Not a genius or a savant or really talented in any way, unless misfortune is a kind of talent.  And there I go feeling sorry for myself.  Again.  Pity is such a waste.  Particularly self-pity.

I wonder what it will feel like to have missing teeth.  I’m also playing with the idea of having the first extraction done with local anesthetic only.  It’s cheaper.  Except, I’ve never actually had a local anesthetic really work.  I always feel something – usually quite a lot.  I have a mantra that gets me through drilling and root canals (this too shall pass – nothing lasts forever – on a long enough time line…).  But maybe feeling my tooth being pulled (or chipped out, as it is a molar) will be cathartic.  Maybe it will satisfy my self-destructive urges for a while.  Or maybe it will give me a mother of a headache.  Maybe I should just pay the extra for a nice shot of laughing gas.  At least then I’d have a wee bit of euphoria for my pain.

I’ll think on it.  And tomorrow I’ll schedule the first extraction.  Might as well get on with it.  Before something else happens.

Habit Forming

My grandfather was a work addict.  I remember when he fell from the roof of our barn and shattered his foot.  He was in a wheelchair for almost a month while they did the surgeries and inserted the pins and then waited to see if it would heal right.

It mostly did.  He limped for the rest of his life though.

It was less than a week after his last surgery before he had figured how to get that wheelchair to the factory where he worked and then how to get around the factory in the wheelchair.  This was before the age of ADA, and I know that what he did was far from easy.  But he could not not work.  That would be insanity.

I never figured that I had that kind of work ethic.  Or addiction.  I like to lounge around and read and write and play music and think.  I like time off.  I like five hour trips to the gym and spending a day exploring trails on foot or on a bike.  I like those things so much that in the past I chose my jobs based on how much time I would have to do the things I enjoy.

Somewhere along the way things changed.  I still love all those things that are not work.  I crave them.  But now, work comes first.  Ok, so that sounds like a no-brainer.  Of course work comes first.  Bills to pay, things to get done, all that nonsense.  I’m not talking about that.  I’ve always been good about going to work every day that I was supposed to and doing all the tasks that I was supposed to do.  This is a different kind of first.  This is a first that is before everything else – before food or sleep or exercise or friends or dog or family.  It has been this all-absorbing totally consuming experience.

It has not been pleasant.

Apart from the physical manifestations of stress – hives being the prime example (it is always a joy to realize that you have once again gotten into a situation where you have become allergic to your life) – I slipped into some very self-destructive patterns.  Not exercising.  Drinking ridiculous amounts of booze.  And by ridiculous I mean much more than what I usually consider heavy drinking.  Sleeping pills.  Uppers.  Downers.  Everything else that is required to feign normalcy when nothing is normal.

I used to tell people that I don’t have an addictive personality.  That is a lie.  I do not have the kind of addictive personality that gets hooked on cigarettes or drugs or even alcohol.  But I do get hooked on behaviors.  Like exercise.  Like work.  Like picking at my fingers until they bleed when I am stressed.  And when I get hooked on a behavior that disrupts my positive addictions then I fall back on the superficial – on the chemicals and the additives and the supplements and whatever else will feed my physical ability to pursue my new addiction.

For the last several months – since June, really, I’ve been working some ridiculous hours.  And it isn’t the kind of work where you do some task, and then you wait or you take a break or you regroup and then do another task.  This is the kind of work where there are three or four tasks going on simultaneously, and any pause in the one is filled by effort on another.  Lunch is a cup of soup at the desk.  There are no breaks.  I get up to either pull something off the printer or run something upstairs.  It got to a point where my deadlines were so tight and the meetings scheduled on top of each other and my general workload was so heavy that I didn’t have time to go to the restroom.

It is a crazy feeling to need to pee but have to pass the bathroom because there is a huge group of VIPs waiting for you to come do your presentation, and you don’t see a break in your schedule for at least another 2 hours.  And I do not just mean crazy as in strange.  I mean crazy as in insane.

Two weeks ago I hit my limit.  I’d been sick on and off for over six weeks.  Two days in a row I was trying so hard to get all caught up and to not miss any deadlines that I sat in my office chair for almost 6 hours straight before I got up, raced to the bathroom, the breakroom and then back again to continue what I was doing.  And three days that week I fell asleep in my car – while it was parked – because I was so exhausted, but I couldn’t go home just yet – I had more work to do.  Two weeks ago I decided that drinking myself numb every night, going to bed at midnight, and then getting up at 5 and trying to be productive was no longer working for me and that something needed to change.

Last week I started my new habits by not drinking alone, going to be by 10 every night, making sure the dog got walked, and still getting some exercise for myself every day.  It wasn’t five hours at the gym.  There were no endorphin rushes, no sense of accomplishment.  And I still felt depressed and stressed and generally unhappy.  But I didn’t have a migraine.  I didn’t fall asleep in my car.  I was ridiculously productive.  And I had enough energy that when the weekend finally rolled around I was able to work on my thesis – good work, not just a couple of paragraphs that I know I will need to either edit or totally rewrite later.  That was enough reward for me to decide to try to do it again this week.  No drinking alone, no sleeping meds, a little exercise every day, and going to bed early.

I’m determined to not let myself be derailed again.  I want this new pattern to become an addiction.  I want to need to not drink during the week and to go to bed early and to get my exercise.  And I want to learn to step away from work a bit too.  I want to stop working through lunch and sitting for three and four and five hours straight.  I want some perspective and some balance.  And if I have to drop some of the smaller balls at my job to make that happen, then gravity can do its thing.  I doubt they will fire me for it.

And if they did, well, it isn’t my dream job anyway.  I mean, it is ok now, and I could like it if things were a little different.  But for now, it is what it is.

A paycheck.

It’s time to make some new habits.

Like the one now, where I step away from the computer and go practice my guitar for a while.

Something Else

This isn’t what I started out to write.  I started to write something else and realized that I wasn’t ready to put the concept in my head into actual words.  I’ve been told that people think in language.  I’m not sure that is true.  I think in language when I am thinking about talking to other people, but I think in pictures and sounds and actions when I think about other things.  Lots of the thoughts in my head play out like mini-movies – even the ideology and theory based ones – that must then be subtitled before they can be released at theatres.

I’m about to get back into my thesis writing.  I’m close to being done – if by close you mean 2/3 of the way.  When I run distances, I think of 2/3 as the home stretch – which is funny when the home stretch is 4 or 5 miles.  Still, I’m most of the way there.  The rest is doable.

I didn’t take a huge amount of time off of my thesis – just yesterday.  I had to.  My brain was not functioning.  I got sick on Monday and ran a fever on and off from Tuesday to Friday.  I could tell when the fever got worse because I would start getting the fever chills, and they would last for a few hours and then go away and I’d feel a little better for a while and then they would come back again and so on and so forth.

I worked through this – thesis work, not work work – and Thursday I even went to the library to get some more data, even though I was light headed and dizzy and prone to confusion.  I kept having to rest on the stairs because I thought I was going to faint.  But there really wasn’t much choice – or rather, the choice to not work means extending the level of stress that had made me vulnerable to illness in the first place, so better to get it over with sooner rather than later.

Friday night though I realized that I had nothing left to think with.  I felt drained physically and mentally.  So yesterday, instead of working like I had planned, I read.  I didn’t even read anything meaningful or educational.  I read comic books – comic books I’d already read once before even – for the whole day and did nothing on my thesis.  I didn’t even go outside except to take care of the dog – not walk the dog, because I was still a little light headed – but take care of as in water and feed.

Today I feel more like myself than I have felt in a long time.  Today I walked the dog.  Today I will work on my thesis and hopefully move that 2/3 into the 3/4 zone.  I’m still hacking and coughing and my jaw still hurts from the ear-ache (you know you have a gnarly ear-ache when it feels like your jaw has been dislocated and popped back into place) and standing up too fast is a bad idea, but I no longer feel like I’m going to fall down if I have to walk more than a block, or like I’ve been gargling battery acid.

Tomorrow I go in to have my wrist x-ray done – and if possible – schedule the surgery to get it fixed.  Almost everything I do at this point hurts.  Rolling over in my sleep wakes me up.  Pulling the blanket up when I get cold is painful.  And the numbness in my palm and thumb are growing worse.  I’m almost positive at this point that whatever is growing in there is putting some pressure on a nerve – and not just the one that goes “ouch”.  There was still some numbness in my palm from the last surgery, so it is a little difficult to know the exact line of old and new – but the thumb is definitely new and it is a very strange sensation.

Whatever happens, I am not going to let this summer pass with me in pain.  I refuse.

Not long ago my boss asked if I am one of “those” people – as in one of the people to whom bad things just happen.  And it sure seems to be true.  Not that it stops me – or even slows me down that much.  And it isn’t like the things that happen are all that devastating – though they have been in the past.  They are just normal bad things that seem to happen with abnormal frequency.  I don’t even mention most of them anymore – they just the way of things.  But sometimes I wonder if there is any way I can change this.  I do get tired of the extra struggle.  For instance, my thesis is hard enough without getting sicker than I have been in almost two years, and without the damaged wrist, and without the rats in the attic, and without setting my hand on the stove, and without the hives on my sides and hips.  Just the thesis is enough.  The rest is dead weight.  Itchy dead weight.

My positive thinking experiment is still working for me – despite not being able to work out regularly for two weeks now, and despite the frustration and depression that come with being sick and stressed out at the same time.  I’m still ok with myself.  And I’m starting to wonder if maybe something like that can change the way that things work for me.  It is one thing to keep a positive attitude and not let yourself get too low when things go wrong.  But it would be so much better if things just didn’t go wrong so often.

Ok.  That is it for now.  I wrote this to try and get my mind back in writing/thinking mode after a day off.  I think this is as close as I’m going to get to functional.  Back to work.

Pending Mental Refresh

I have just finished the text of my literature review.  I need to go back and read it through and edit it before I send it off, but first I need to think about something else for a bit – to cleanse my mental palate so to speak.  I’m pretty drained mentally right now.  Yesterday was a great step towards refilling the intellectual coffers a bit but it was only a start.  I’ll run through everything I accumulated yesterday before I am done tonight.

I got on the scale at the gym Friday.  I don’t know why I did.  I knew it was not a good time to weigh myself – I’m in the midst of another weight gain cycle.  I’m not particularly anxious – or at least I wasn’t until I got on the scale and it told me that I was 14lbs over my target.  Now I’ll grant that my target is 5lbs under my average.  I cannot seem to lose those last 5lbs.  And that’s fine.  At some point I’ll have to reassess the target.  Some future point, that is.  But 14?  Good grief!

There is the bit where muscle weighs more than fat.  Yeah, ok.  I’ve been lifting weights three days a week for a month now.  I haven’t seen much increase in my strength – which is to say that I’ve only gone up between 5 and 10 lbs in the amount of weight I’m lifting (barbell curls with 20lbs!  it’s a first for me) but I think that if I keep it up I might actually be able to do a pull-up by the end of the semester.  So maybe some of that 14lbs is muscle.  Maybe 3lbs of it.  Maybe.  The rest?  Stress fat – aka Booze and cookie fat.

Ok, not cookies per se.  I’m not a huge cookie fan.  Instead I eat these cardboard flavored granola bars.  I figured that if I got the ones that just tasted bad then I wouldn’t be so tempted to eat the whole box in one sitting.  Instead I’ve developed a taste for them – which is good in that it’s toned down my sweet tooth a bit and bad in that I was buying them by the Costco box.  I’m still trying to keep on the higher protein/lower processed carbs diet.  But I’m struggling a bit.  Mostly because it isn’t habit yet.  And I’m finding that I run out of my protein foods and my fresh veggies much faster than I ran out of carb based foods.  AND they’re more expensive.  So not only do I have to go to the grocery store more often (hell!) but I’m paying more when I do (depressing!).

To sum up, we’re going back on the no drink during the week pattern.  Just so I can continue to fit in my jeans, please.  I cannot afford a new wardrobe right now – especially since I want to buy some travel friendly clothes for my upcoming trip.  I am going to have to find something though that I can turn to for my after meal/pre-bed fidgets.  That is usually when my sweet tooth hits hardest, and I’m most vulnerable to eating all the dark chocolate in the freezer, drinking half a bottle of Amaretto and finishing it off with a big snifter of brandy.  Not a friendly way to end the evening, if your waistline is at risk.

I keep thinking about how things will be different when I’m not longer tied to my thesis.  I’m tempted to put some high expectations on this coming summer.  Tempted, but I’m going to resist.  It will be what it will be.  And it might take me a while to find myself again.  I was chatting with a friend Friday night.  She is one of the half-dozen or so good friends that I have made since I started grad school – only two of which are actually from school.  I told her that I thought they might be surprised to see how my personality is different when I’m not constantly struggling with too much work and too little time and way too much stress.  I told her that I was way more laid back.  That was kind of a lie.  Not to say that I’m not generally easy to get along with, but I was thinking about the last time I was unencumbered.  Hindsight being what it is and all that, I realize now that I was a bit intense.  It was not unusual for me to pick people up and carry them along with me – often farther and faster than they were ready to go.  I learned the hard way not to do that anymore, but I do wonder what will happen when I have recovered my energy.  I might need to take up a new hobby – or three.  🙂

The Future is Now

When I started Grad School I knew I was going to be putting my life on hold for a while.  There were the financial considerations for sure, but more than that, I knew that if I was going to do it right I was going to have to commit a huge amount of time.  Not just class time and reading time and writing time, but thinking time and understanding time.  That is about to come to an end.

Granted, it is going to get more intense before it is over.  I know that.  I’m prepared.  But I also know that I’m going to need a reset when this is over.  I haven’t had a real vacation – the kind where you don’t take work or textbooks with you – since 2005.  And those breaks I have had were short.  I think there was one time where I had five days in a row off.

It was between jobs.

Tonight I cleaned out my savings account and bought tickets to Rome.  I didn’t consult with anyone before doing this.  I didn’t ask my employer (it looks like I really will have a job with the City once my internship is finished in a couple of weeks).  I didn’t talk to any friends.  I haven’t told my parents.  There are a handful of logistic issues that will need to be addressed – Dog being the major one.  Three weeks – yes, three weeks – is a long time to leave Dog anywhere.  I don’t want to send her back to my brother’s house to be chained to the patio, but that is definitely an option.  So is boarding her at the vet’s.  They love her there.

I have no idea how I will finance the rest of the trip – the plane tickets cleaned me out.  It will all work out though.  I have a really good feeling about it.  And if worst comes to worst, I have a credit card – that I have once again paid off to 0.  Plus, I think I have a couple hundred euros around here somewhere from my first European trip.  I had food poisoning on the way back and didn’t have the patience to get the currency exchanged at the airport.  It’s been in a ziplock bag ever since.

There is a big change in the works.  I can smell it.  Or maybe that is Dog’s Frito Feet.  Either way, snacky!

I’ve realized two things in the last few weeks.  First, I really need to adjust my diet.  Second, I need to do something about my depression.

The diet – I’ve been on a severely calorie restricted diet for years now.  Most days of the week I ingest 1600 or fewer calories.  Considering that a 1000 calorie workout is not an unusual thing for me, you’d think I was rail thin.  No so.  I’m not overweight, but my body refuses to let go of the last layer of subcutaneous fat no matter what I do.  I’ve finally accepted that maybe that is because my body thinks it will starve to death if it does.  So this week I’ve started a new diet.  I’ve doubled my protein intake and cut my processed carbs and sugars by 70 or 80%.  So far it has been interesting.  I’ve had a little more energy, and, since the protein and veggies I’ve been eating are by default lower calorie than the carbs, I’ve allowed myself to eat more – to eat until I feel full.  I’m not used to eating until I feel full.  It usually only happens one meal a week or so.  Today it happened three times.  And while I did have the sugar craving, I didn’t have the between meals snack attacks that I usually have.  I’ll give it two more weeks to see how it goes – if I have any noticeable changes in my weight/energy levels/muscle tone before I re-assess.

The sugar is going to be the hardest part to give up.  I can already tell.

The other thing is that I’ve accepted that I have a serious problem with the depression.  It isn’t constant – I don’t constantly feel like ending my life.  But periodically, and usually about one week before my cycle, I come down with the kind of depression that could and probably should put me in the mental ward.  I do a pretty good job of hiding it in front of other people.  Then again, I do a pretty good job of hiding all emotion in front of other people.  Unless I make an effort to express anger or happiness or whatever other people generally don’t know.  I’ve learned to make an effort – particularly with positive emotions – because I think that makes other people feel more connected and it lets me experiment with being emotionally exposed.  Which is a good thing.

I was not always like this.  I think my emotions used to be much closer to the surface.  Things have changed a lot though.

But the depression is definitely a problem.  Another month like the last – and I’m not sure what might happen.  That is part of the reason for the trip – it is something to look forward to no matter what.  It’s paid for.  Done deal.  No backing out.  And if it comes down to having something to look forward to and drugs, I’ll take the something to look forward to.  I’m hoping that having that something will help me to keep some perspective when the hormones take over.  I’m also hoping that the dietary adjustment will help prevent some of the rollercoaster that my processed carb diet was fueling.  Mostly, though, if March is like February, I’ll be going to the doctor and doing whatever I need to do to get the uppers or downers or whatever it takes to make it through that pre-cycle week.

Stuff like that makes me wish I had the kind of PMS associated with bitchiness and chocolate cravings – instead of wanting to kill myself.  Yeah.

So, to sum up, I think I have a real job offer in the works.  I’ll know the details next week.  I’ve planned for my post-grad vacation – the one I promised myself I would take but kept putting off the planning until I was almost convinced not to take it.  I’ve changed my diet – hopefully for the better.  And I’ve accepted that if I don’t get a real grip on my emotional variations, I need to get professional help.

And I’m in the thick of my thesis.

There is a chalkboard at work that is on the mid-floor landing of the staircase leading to the second story.  Every month somebody writes something at the top and invites people cruising the stairs to write responses.  Last month was a question about goals for 2011.  I didn’t write anything.  This month the question is “What inspires you?”  This time I had an answer.

A Challenge.

I’m feeling pretty inspired.  🙂

Mile 3

I know why I over-indulge when I drink alone.  I have no base of reference for my intoxication level when I am alone.  I’m not talking or trying to follow a conversation that I might be expected to contribute to.  I’m not moving around much.  I’m not really engaged in anything that requires specific skills.  I’m sitting and reading or writing.  Sometimes also knitting.  Sometimes also picking out chords on my guitar.  But that’s about it.  I won’t realize how intoxicated I am until I stand up to go to the kitchen or the bathroom and realize that I’m swaying.

I know that right now, with things as intense as they are, I shouldn’t drink alone.  I’m so pent-up all the time – so anxious and so stressed that even the vilest of liquor goes down like water and as soon as I start to feel even a little relaxed I want to feel a lot relaxed.  My self-control goes out the window.

Until 6 am that is.

And that is over sleeping.  That means I don’t get to workout in the morning.  That means I’m going to struggle getting to work on time.

So that was today.  Last night I got done with work and the gym and hit the books and at 9 pm I realized I was clenching my teeth and my shoulders were up around my ears and I was cranky so I had a vodka.  Then another.  Then, because I was feeling alright, a third.  This morning, when the alarm went off at 4:45, which is when I’m supposed to get up if I want to make it to the gym, I turned it off.  When the second alarm (I have to have a backup system.  There are three total) went off at 5:50, I thought it was still 4:45 and turned it off too.  When the third went off at 6, I knew things were bad.  Bad bad bad.

I went to work, and it hurt.  I got stuff done, but it was not pretty or efficient.

Then I went to my noon weightlifting class (Because student loan regulations require that I remain a half time student to keep my deferral and that meant taking another class.  Only I wanted one that had no writing required and minimal reading.) and it hurt too.  Actually my wrist is hurting again, and the weights really accentuate it.  I’m not sure if it is that it is still weak from the surgery last year or if it is the fact that the growth on the tendon is back.  Hard to know.  I mostly ignore it, but sometimes it gets a little persistent.  No matter, no health insurance, no fixing it.

After weightlifting class I put on my headphones and went for a run.  This was the first time I have run without Dog is so long that I can’t actually remember.  I knew that she slowed me down.  I knew that she stressed me out on our runs because I am constantly aware of the other runners and bicyclists and squirrels around me and I have to make sure that she and they are all safe.  And she has this habit of getting distracted and looking one way while she’s running the other and running into me and tripping me up so that we end up in a literal “dog pile”.  This is not to say that I don’t like running with her, but I do not get an endorphin high when we run together.  And I’m often frustrated and irritable after our runs – partly from the extra attention I have to pay and  partly because she must Pee on Everything and the constant stopping makes me nuts.

Today, though, was different.  It was sunny and calm and about 65 degrees.  The trail in the middle of the day was almost empty.  And even though every step hurt and I could feel the alcohol leaching from my system, I kept going.  Then I hit mile 3.  I felt the last of the alcohol leave my pores.  I instantly had my first endorphin hit in a couple of weeks, and for the remaining 2 miles I didn’t think about work or about my thesis or about my sore shoulder or about the fact that I’m 3000 miles overdue for an oil change, or that I need to clean the dog poop out of the yard, or that the leaves have blocked my gutter and there are mosquitoes breeding up there, or any of it.  It was just me and the trail and the sunshine filtered through the baby leaves of the still winter bare trees and the green grass and the river and a good soundtrack.  Who knew you could run to Snoop Dogg?

I didn’t get as much work done the rest of the day as I’d hoped.  But I finished what I’d planned to finish.  Mostly though, I remembered that there is a reason that I’m not supposed to drink alone, and it is because the real relaxation is not in the bottle.  If I want it, I have to make time for it – and not at 6 in the morning or 7:30 at night or whenever I’m trying to jam in my workouts in the dark.  And most of all, I have to quit this thing were I feel guilty if I decide to run without Dog.  She is doing ok.  Skipping a 5 mile run here or there isn’t going to ruin her life.

Mile 3.  It’s the magic mile.  I’d forgotten.  I’m glad I remembered.

Acceptance…

Acceptance is realizing that I will not be running on October 3rd.  I could agonize over it, I suppose.  But today, when I stepped off the curb while leaving my office and almost tripped from the sudden pain, I accepted.

I do not like it though.  I’m not as angry, and I no longer want to take a hammer to my ankle.  Well, maybe a small hammer – like a ball peen or a tack hammer.  But mostly, I’m resigned.

Honestly, it feels like I’ve lost a fight and now I’m crawling away with my tail between my legs plotting on what I need to do to win next time.  “You haven’t seen the last of meeeee!”  Which would honestly be pretty difficult because I’m both the winner and the loser in this fight – will vs. body.  Body may have won this round, but will has the better average (except when there is chocolate or whiskey because will is weak when it comes to chocolate and whiskey).  Body is going to win eventually – on a long enough time line the survival rate for everything drops to zero.  Yeah. I just quoted Fight Club.  Again.

Still, I resent this kind of interruption.  I especially resent it in that I don’t feel like I’ve been pushing myself all that hard – certainly not as hard as I did last summer or even last winter.  How dare this wad of flesh fail me when I’ve been so easy on it?

The worst of it is that I wish I was doing this pushing for vanity – because then it would be easy.  Do whatever gets me into the next smaller size.  Lather – rinse – repeat.  I’m not though.  I want performance.  I want to be able to run and climb and hike and lift weights and fight and ski and snowshoe and bicycle and dance and learn new martial arts and I want to do it all dammit – on the same day even.  I do not want to be on the injured list.  Not even for a moment.  I don’t have enough time to do all the cool stuff there is to do without wasting weeks with my foot elevated as it is.

Mostly, though, I don’t want to be too injured to run because it makes me sad.  Not “boo hoo” sad.  Give up  sad.  I’m an endorphin addict and I go through withdrawals when I’m injured.  Severe withdrawals.

Like Mr. Lewis said, “I need a new drug.”

Or at least an additional one.

So I’m not running.  In fact, I’m not going to do be doing much working out at all for the next two weeks.  Then I’m going to start over from scratch.  I’m going to begin rebuilding my body, looking for the weak spots that lead to these kinds of injuries, fixing the problem areas that I’ve been ignoring, and, if my physical therapist has anything to say about it, making sure that I address problems as soon as they manifest, and not let them go weeks and months without relief.

And in March?  I’ll run a race again.  And in June?  For my next birthday?  I’m signing up for Juijitsu.

Shhhh.  Don’t tell my therapist.

Second-Hand Goals

This morning I ran for the first time in three weeks.  It was only 3 miles.  Considering I have a 13 mile race in two weeks, three miles is distressingly little.  This time last year I was running 10 and 12 miles – comfortably.  Easily even.  Not today.  Not this year.

I’m pretty sure I have anterior Achilles bursitis.  Net result is that my right ankle was in so much pain that I couldn’t run.  I couldn’t walk without limping – and as recently as Thursday I was gimping the Dog around at the park.  But I got a new ankle brace, I’ve been trying to do some strengthening exercises, and I haven’t been running.  Which, in my world, means it should heal.

It hasn’t healed.  It has improved.  I was running pain free for the first two miles – the third started aching, but it was generally tolerable.  Or tolerable for me.  I am still learning that a high pain tolerance is not always a good thing.  Just because I can doesn’t mean I should.

Today was a test.  Do I run the race in two weeks?  Or do I accept that I’ve wasted the entry money?  I already know that all my previous goals are shit.  I won’t be running for time.  I’ll be running to see if I can finish.  And I’ve already run that race.  I already know I can run 13 consecutive miles.  I’ve run 13  consecutive miles on several occasions – both officially and in training.  There is nothing to prove there – nothing to gain.

And there may be something to lose – a more severe injury could mean a much longer recovery time – could mean months of not running, not just weeks.  Could mean even a doctor’s visit for a cortisone shot or worse.

Yet I hate the idea of not following through with my goals.  I hate it so much that I’m seriously considering running the race anyway – loading up on anti-inflamatories and vicodin, getting an even more severe ankle brace, and running the race.

I know what this is.  I know why I feel so strongly about it.  I have a story in my head about the kind of person I am.  When I was younger I had a habit of starting projects and never finishing them.  It still happens more than I like, but I’ve worked very hard the last 10 years to rewrite that part of the story – to become the kind of person who sticks with it and pushes through the boring parts and the painful parts and the time consuming parts and finishes what she starts.  That’s the kind of person I want to be – it’s the image I have of myself in my head – and it’s the reason that not running this race is so unsavory.  It would violate my story – invalidate that bit of myself that I’ve worked so hard to create – the bit that finishes what she starts.

So I’m at a conundrum.  I’m going to hurt either way.  Do I take the physical pain and maintain my inner story?  Or do I accept that the story is flawed and let the ankle continue to heal?  The second probably seems the most reasonable – to an outsider, but what would you do if it was your story that was at risk?

I guess I still have two weeks.  Sort of.  In the mean time, I have a collection of  ice packs in the freezer, and a bottle of pain killers in the cabinet.  Either way I’m prepared.

Pending…

It seems like my life tends to ebb and flow at a remarkable rate.  Maybe this is true for everyone.  But, I haven’t been anyone else, so all I know is what happens to me.  And lately?  That’s been a lot.  If this is more of a rundown than a thoughtful interpretation, well, I’ve spent more time this last week sitting in front of a computer than anything else – including sleeping.  Especially sleeping.  If this thing was anywhere else, I’d be there instead of here.  But here it is, so here I am.

First of all, I have a new job.  An internship really.  No benefits.  A slight cut in pay.  And a set of tasks that are truly challenging.  Yes, there is a lot of mundane.  But there is more that is interesting and important and just plain challenging.  Best of all, what I’m doing is what I’ve been learning to do.  It’s helping – albeit helping from a municipal position.  Which is a bureaucratic position.  Which is its own problem.  But that’s the system as it exists.  It is entrenched.  So entrenched that any change is going to come from within.  And I’m within a pretty good place.

I will say that I’m not used to working with so many people.  I’m at this workstation that is mostly open to the room, and there is constant traffic.  The first couple of days I found that I was having a ridiculously hard time keeping any sort of focus.  It’s gotten better, but I’m still astounded by the amount of walking and talking people do – while at the same time getting a pretty impressive amount of work done – or at least that is my impression.  The overall vibe is amazingly positive.  People are there because they want to be there – it is their career.  I think once I settle in, I’ll do well.  As it is, I’m still finding my stride.  Which has been more difficult than usual.

This is finals week.  I never thought that getting a Master’s degree would be easy.  However, even I’m impressed with the quantity and quality of information I’ve absorbed so far.  I keep running across people who are also pursuing post-graduate degrees.  I’ve started judging their programs by the number of bags under their eyes.  The darker the circles, the more sincere the education.  I’ve yet to rigorously test this theory, but I imagine I will.  I seem to be in that mode lately.

Anyway, this week has been one of the most intense I remember.  I mean, I can remember weeks where I had more homework, but then I was already stable in my job.  And I remember being new to my job, but it was the start of the semester and easy-going.  Both at the same time should be sending me right over the edge.  On top of that I haven’t had the time to get into the gym like I usually do.  Nor have I been exercising in the mornings like I’d planned.  I get up at the crack of dawn, work until dusk, go to class, go home, and then crash.  And the day’s I don’t work are the same, only I study.  Yet I’ve been surprisingly stable.

I think part of it is the new job.  It feels like I’m finally on the right path.  Even the hives have started to clear up.  And I know that part of it is that I’m simply getting used to this.  And I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I’ll be able to breathe come Tuesday.  Four days.  I can stand most anything for four days.

But I think the biggest change has been my new housemate.  Her name is Ryder and she’s an 80 lb Akita that belongs to my brother.  There are a lot of reasons that she ended up living here with me.  I mean, my house is not that big, and that is a lot of dog.  Plus, she’s 5 years old, which is middle age for Akitas.  Beyond that, she’s never really been a house dog – or even a suburban dog for that matter – let alone an urban critter.  She’s lived most of her life in a kennel out on a large piece of property in the country.  She was in the kennel not because she is aggressive or unstable, but because she is a natural hunter, and for prey is anything smaller than she is – and some things considerably larger.  After killing quite a few chickens, harassing enough cats, and playing with a goat until it could no longer walk, my brother had to keep her locked up.

So when somebody jumped my fence one night a few weeks ago while I wasn’t home, and after repeated eggings, and now that I’ve started noticing a lot of new people wandering around my neighborhood and a growing stream of obviously drugged out folks loitering around the abandoned duplex across the way, I finally started seriously thinking about getting a dog.  I had only to mention this to my brother and he offered to bring her here on a trial basis.  Here there are no chickens to kill (at least not anymore) or goats to play with, and I’m totally ok if she wants to chase the cats out of the yard.  It’s a small yard.  And she’s already filled it full of holes hiding buried tennis balls and rawhide bones.  But I’m ok with all of that.  I’m ok with the amazing quantities of hair.  I’m even ok with the lingering scent of dog that follows here everywhere she goes.  I don’t mind picking up poop.  And so far, I’ve been amazingly consistent with feeding times and water checking.  And I’m calm.  Even though I can feel the need to get to the gym growing, even though I’m under an incredible amount of pressure with new job and finals and papers and healthcare and money problems and far too much social isolation, I’m calm.

I talk to her constantly, which makes sense because she follows me around the house like a paranoid sycophant.  Actually she looks more intelligent than that.  She watches everything I do, as though she’s taking notes.  And she’s curious about everything.  The best part about a mature dog is that when she encounters something new, she doesn’t need to be taught over and over what the allowed behaviors are.  I had to tell her twice not to put her paws on the counter (she’d never been in a house before, so she didn’t know) and now she doesn’t even think about it.  She walks away from food when I tell her to.  She stops the seconds I say “no”, or even “nuh uh” which is more my style.  I save the “no” for the serious stuff, like paws on the counter, or the white chair.

It took a few days but I’m getting used to having another critter in the house.  I still wake up when she moves around, but I’ve noticed that my overall anxiety about sleeping has reduced.  There’s something about having another set of ears on that lets me drop my guard a bit.  It’s a relief, really.  Because lately I’d been jumping every time the fridge switched on.

There is another component to this experiment with the dog.  Beyond the security and the company, I’m testing the waters of attachment.  I’ve decided to let myself learn to really care about this animal.  I have become a master of detachment.  It is a long story, but with the exception of a very few people who have either been grandfathered in, or who, by some cosmic fluctuation managed to find me at the right time, I’ve learned to meet people, associate with them, and then leave when the leaving time came – all without the emotional turmoil and grief usually associated with such activities.  And I haven’t been emotionally engaged with an animal since I was 16.  It’s occurred to me that if I intend to ever actually use my heart, I’d best break it out of the safe it’s been hibernating in.  This is me cracking the combination.

So my life has been in high turmoil.

I’m so ready for this summer.  I have plans.  Grand plans, because really, should there be any other kind?

Clarity

I went for my first run since the half marathon today.  The extended break wasn’t intentional – quite the opposite.  As someone who relies on exercise to regulate my mental and emotional balance, extended breaks tend to wreak havoc on my internal operating system.  It starts off with just a general sense of negativity and if I don’t catch it in time I’m in full on Fuck It mode before I even know what happened.  Fuck It mode is the precursor to “I wonder how long I’ll sleep if I take this whole bottle of pills” and “hmm, I wonder what would happen if I drove off this bridge”.

When I say I have a self destructive streak I’m not talking about hanging out with the wrong people or making poor choices.  I mean self destruction.  As in the end of self.

Honestly, it’s been this way since I was a teenager.  In some ways it was worse then because I didn’t know what was happening or why or how to make it stop.  My parents didn’t believe that depression was a real condition – they thought it was something people made up to get out of working hard or taking responsibility for themselves.  It wasn’t until my mother had a bout of depression herself that she finally understood what it was about – and that was around seven years ago.  By that time I’d run the gauntlet of antidepressants and borderline alcoholism, over-eating and sleeping for days at a time.  I was well into my exercise addiction and had already made many of the connections about what I needed to do to keep stable.  Her understanding, while appreciated, was a little on the late side.

So going two weeks with only three trips to the gym is, for me, playing with fire.  I knew it Friday when I proceeded to drink myself stupid.  And I knew it yesterday when I came home from work and promptly fell asleep for four hours.  I knew it this morning when I woke up and wondered why the hell I was still breathing.

As a note, people who are impressed with the fact that I can run 12 or 13 miles at a time have no idea that that is nothing.  The hard part, the truly hard part is putting on your running shoes and your sports bra and pulling up your hair and going to the track and making yourself move when all you really want to do, the only thing that sounds right, the only thing that makes any sense, would be to curl up in a ball in bed under the blankets, and stay there until you simply stopped being.  Fighting that urge is a hundred times harder than pushing through the pain of the last 3 miles of a half marathon.  A thousand times.

It took me a couple of hours this morning to make myself go running.  I’d planned on going in the morning when it was cool and fresh out, before the blooms opened on the trees, before the trails crowded with people out getting some fresh air.  Things don’t always go as planned.  By the time I made it to the trail the air was heavy and the pollen thick.  I started running, and immediately I knew it was going to be a difficult run.  I couldn’t breathe.  Almost instantly I was light headed and no matter how I tried to regulate my breathing, I just couldn’t get enough air.  Plus, my body felt alien to me – like I was in someone else’s skin, trying to move their legs and arms and lungs – legs and arms and lungs that were not necessarily accustomed to my level of activity.

It hurt, is what I’m saying.  I ran five miles, and it was the hardest five miles in a very long time.  I have no idea how I ran 13 two weeks ago.  I wish I could blame it on the 35 degree temperature difference.  But I’ve run 12 miles in triple digits.  That wasn’t it.

The same thing has happened to my climbing.  Only this was much longer than 2 weeks in development.  I’m trying to work back into my climbing and weight lifting schedule, but it is not easy.  I see things that I could do before, and I try to do them now and I can’t.  Mentally I can, but physically I am unable.  I guess this is what happens to the guys who were football or track stars in high school and college and who don’t believe they’ve gained that much weight or lost that much muscle.  I am in awe.  I knew I was losing muscle mass the last few months – I had to really cut back on my activities, first because of my wrist and then because of my school schedule – but I had no idea it was this bad.

I followed up the run of patheticness with a couple of hours of pathetic climbing and another hour of pathetic weight lifting.  I’m so far below my usual standards that I feel like the punchline of a very unfunny joke.  BUT, the negativity is gone.  The urge to climb into my bed and disappear is fading.  The need for a drink is non-existant.  I’m ok.

And if I needed proof that the sleeping pills/alcohol/caffeine cycle was a bad idea, here it is.  I hear it loud and clear.  Now I just need to figure out how to keep my balance when school goes back in session.

I think I’ll worry about that bridge when I come to it.  One thing at a time.