Hey guess what?  Patience has never been my virtue.  Not sure if you’ve noticed, but this Type A personality doesn’t like sitting around waiting for things.  I especially don’t like sitting around being sick, especially when nothing I can do but give my body time is the only remedy. 

I decided to just test out my lungs today, so I did a lap around my driveway.  Nope, my lungs can’t breathe, the coughing fit that followed left my head feeling like it was going to explode, and my neighbor probably wanted to dial 911 because I sounded like I was in the death throes of some heinous respiratory thing. 

Pneumonia sucks.  I’ve had respiratory infections and bronchitis - yeah, those were bad, but this thing is kicking my ASS. 

It’s like my breathing has been narrowed from a fire hose-sized tube down to a kiddie straw.  Air doesn’t flow right, and when it does, my chest rattles and wheezes and as Running Boy so kindly pointed out, I sound like an old person with emphysema.  (and my brain isn’t working right either; i would normally be able to spell emphysema in my sleep, but i actually had to look it up after spelling it emphesema, emphsyma, and empasema)

On an entirely different note, Running Boy can laugh at my coughing fits, but he’s the one who consistently calls cicadas (of which we have many, here in Virginia) quesadillas.  I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to look at the tortilla version the same way again. 

So, it looks like one more week until I can attempt a run again.  I might throw caution to the wind and try to catch up with my training team on Saturday; I have to play it by ear. I don’t really trust my ear, because my “ear” is what got me in this mess in the first place.

I was talking to Meg earlier today contemplating why I got so sick.  This is honestly the most sick I’ve been since I don’t know when.  Part of my promise to myself, way back when my life came off the rails, was to take care of myself.  This meant mitigating my stress, managing my food intake, prioritizing exercise, and taking time for myself.  A big part of it was making sure I got enough sleep.  Throughout the past two years, periods of insomnia have caused me major issues. 

Looking back at the past month, it’s easy to see why I got sick.  Some of it was truly out of my control (I hadn’t planned for my mother’s stroke; she hadn’t either for that matter, and I underestimated the emotional impact it would have on me).  Some of it was just unfortunate - I didn’t really think about the fact that my triathlon training would overlap with the start of half marathon training, and instead of trying to just focus on the tri training, I insisted on keeping up with both.  I wasn’t sleeping much and I was going through a period of stress with the Boy.  My vacation that I’d looked forward to for so long had blown up into a million tiny pieces.  I was interviewing for jobs (again), and trying to figure out how to manage my internet site’s busy season at the same time as my part time job’s busy season.  I was eating poorly and working out in a manner that wasn’t healthy, either.  Too much of a good thing ends up in plantar fasciitis, inflamed hip bursitis and shin splints. 

Still, I was thinking my body could have sent me a slightly more subtle message than full-blown pneumonia.  In one week, we had an earthquake, a hurricane, and I got pneumonia.  I felt a little overwhelmed. 

We tried to make the best of the vacation week.  I left town for a few days with Running Boy and his kids - we headed to his hometown for some fun.  I was already going downhill by the time we arrived last Sunday night.  I spent the better part of the evening in a run-down ER full of people who, god bless them, looked either like viable contenders for the upcoming season of “Teen Mom” or extras on the set of a 1984 Whitesnake video.  After the diagnosis and a purse full of pills, I managed two days in my Oscar-winning role of “heavy burden girlfriend coughing germs all over my parent’s house” before I called Nicole and begged her to come pick me up.

Two days in Christiansburg with Dan and Nicole was great; I got to catch up with them, kick them out of their bed, and spread my germs all over a new town.  Nicole let me do nothing and we watched hours of Style and HGTV.  It was awesome.  I knew I was truly emotional and still sick when Jerry Maguire’s “You Complete Me” speech reduced me to tears. 

(I hate Tom Cruise)

Back in Richmond, I am making the best of my recuperation time while waiting for my kids to return from their vacation with their father.  I’ve never gone this long without seeing them, so I’m a bit keyed up.  Add to this nearly 2 weeks without any exercise and minimal time with the Boy and I’ve got some seriously stored energy.  I’ve been catching up on long-lost DVR programming and doing a lot of laundry.  I’ve slept a bunch, too, and tomorrow I’ll attempt to process payroll without falling asleep on it or blowing pneumo-germs all over the time sheets. 

I say all this humorously, or at least I try to.  The truth is, I’m so annoyed that I’m sick and that it’s taking THIS LONG to get over it.  I’ve got a 4th (and please god let it be the final) interview on Wednesday, my kids start school on Tuesday, and I have a freakin’ half marathon to train for.  I do NOT have time to be sick and this is frustrating me.  I go back to the old tried and true sayings of therapists around the world and “look for the lesson” in all of this.  It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the lesson is that if I had taken MORE time to take care of myself, I might have avoided this . . . or maybe not.  Maybe it was just my turn to take the bullet and spend 3 weeks moaning and coughing and wheezing. 

I do know one thing - I cannot wait to get off this couch and back to living.

During the years of marriage, I was rarely in the situation we all call “a fight”.  We rarely “fought”.  Disagreed, yes.  Got on each other’s nerves, yeah, probably.  We used to take pride in the fact that we didn’t fight.  Later, it occurred to me that we weren’t arguing like other people because we weren’t really talking about the things that we really felt.  It was easier to ignore those things, let them roll off the proverbial duck’s back, play nice and be nice.  We were experts at playing nicely.  We were so good at it, I hardly noticed the silence between us. 

In the past two years, I’ve learned how normal arguments can be.  At first I was taken off guard - if I was fighting with someone (and by fighting, I mean talking passionately about whatever the major drama of the moment is), then it must mean we weren’t compatible and something was seriously wrong with both of us.  Even worse were the disagreements where my feelings would get hurt, or someone would hurl something mean at me.  I’d actually cry real tears.  The ex would have died before he let something out, knowing it would hurt my feelings, even if it meant we weren’t going to fix the real problems. 

Those few times I had a bruised ego or my feelings had been wiped with dirty feet, after the initial sucker punch feelings wore off I felt something strange:  I was feeling.  I had hurt feelings because my feelings were awake, and I was engaging enough with the other person to allow myself to see and be seen.  Some of these disagreements were the answer to any question I had about the longevity of the relationship.  Others either brought me closer to the arguer; on the best occasions, I learned something about myself or discovered yet another flaw or chink in my armor I hadn’t noticed previously. 

Now that I’ve set the scene, I have to say that Running Boy and I rarely argue.  This is mostly because if he irritates me (and he does, often), I let him know it immediately, usually as it’s happening.  When I get on his nerves (and I do, often), all it takes is a strained sigh or eyeball roll to let me know I’ve stepped over the line.  His honesty can be refreshing because unlike most men, he’s not scared of me in the slightest.  His honesty can also be pretty hard to hear because I’m not always right there ready to drink what he’s been mixing up for me.  Even the things he’s said that have hurt my feelings the most have become the stuff of legend; if he’d let me, I’d love to post what led up to me explaining to him what you can and can’t say to girls in general, but alas, I’d like to stay with him a bit longer. 

We’ve had a couple of serious miscommunications.  I think I’m being obvious - it’s not obvious enough to Captain Oblivious, and we end up sparring until he finally gets crabby and says, “OK out with it, what the hell is up with you?”  It’s that kind of in-your-face directness that is attractive to me.  There’s no point in being coy when your cover has been blown. 

We had our first major argument on Thursday night, and like most arguments, what caused it is really quite minor and insignificant.  I’ve always held that the things that make me angry aren’t usually directly related to what sets me off.  I hold a lot in, believe it or not, and try to go with the flow as long as possible.  The problem is, I don’t always know when my uncorking is going to happen, so something small may happen and good lord, watch out - Ima Gonna Break Bad on YOU.  We have an underlying disagreement about something and we butt heads on it occasionally, but this time I felt like I’d spoken many, many times and I was tired of what appeared to me as not being heard.  He was tired and cranky and feeling like he had no other options, and he was frankly annoyed by what appeared to him as me not being understanding. We got into it.  I was stormily folding laundry and he was talking, trying to get me to talk back, and finally he just demanded I stop being a quiet bitch and bring on the loud bitch. 

It was one of the best arguments of my life.  Although my feelings got hurt once again, and I almost grabbed my stuff and left his house because he was being a butthead, the entire time we argued and went back and forth over the issues we were both alternating between laughter and insistence.  I never thought, “This fight is going to end us.”  I knew he’d get over it and I knew I would too.  That kind of security allows you to talk without too much fear.

I wasn’t being heard, so I talked more loudly - more emphatically - and probably stopped folding laundry to show him how MAD I was.  He started to smile and I glared at him.  “WHAT is so FUNNY???” I shouted.  He laughed then, a big belly laugh.  “We’re totally fighting!  It’s our first fight!”  This made him laugh even harder and made me start to smile, as well.  Later, when the smiles had faded and we were back into it again, he was raising his voice and I giggled.  We were both just so tired, and frustrated, and we knew it was a stupid argument to be having any way.  At some point, we gave up on the laundry and the discussion and arm wrestled.  And that is not a euphemism for something else. 

I’m not sure he gets what I was mad about, and I’m pretty sure we’re going to have this same “discussion” again, probably on another upcoming Thursday night.  It’s one of those things I’ve realized about being in a relationship again.  The same things are going to drive each other crazy.  It’s more a matter of being able to say it outright, and know that you’re going to try to fix it but will probably not be successful and the other person is just going to have to suck it up and live with your quirks and weirdness.  I know that our future arguments might not include the laughing and pointing this one had, but if they can be similar, I think we can overcome a large majority of crap. 

A short, incomplete, and not well-thought-out list of areas I need to improve.  Or could improve. 

1. I suck at asking for what I want.  I expect people to read my mind.  When they are incapable of penetrating the dark, smoggy forests of my brain, I dislike them for their inability to figure me out.  I mean, REALLY.  Why are things that are so obvious to me so difficult for others to discern?  If it’s clear in my head, it should be clear in others.  Unfortunately, I’m deluded, and the things that are clear to me are almost never clear to others.  I think this is because my brain is wired backwards.  If I were a car, I’d go sideways instead of forward or back. 

2.  When I do ask for what I want, I suck at dealing with the response.  See, here’s the rub in asking.  When I drop all pretense of coolness or humility, and I ask for what I want or need, the end result is usually the same as if I hadn’t asked in the first place.  We are all sort of selfish, and we do what we want and what makes us feel good.  It is not other people’s fault that I give more than I have to give or put my personal needs aside because theirs seem suddenly so much more important.  My reaction to being turned down is disproportionate in their mind because really, I asked them, they answered, and now I’m having a full-blown hissy fit.  Hey man.  Don’t ask the question if you fear the answer. 

3.  Staying upright on my bike.  I may just bite the bullet and invest in the egg beater thingies that Julie recommended.  I think I might have figured out my problem with the clips on my bike but I’ve been too nervous to ride on my own lest I fall in front of a Mac truck again. 

4.  Time management.  Now that I have a GIN-YEW-WHINE job, I’m trying to find time to train for a triathlon, run my normal amount of miles, be a good mother, stay on top of the laundry (normally impossible anyway), attempt to have a relationship with someone, and not lose my patience every 5 seconds. 

5.  Friendship. I hate talking on the phone.  This is problematic when 85% of my friends are not within a day’s driving distance of Richmond. 

6.  Being patient.  I find the thinner I am stretched, the crankier I become.  My crappy refrigerator doesn’t like being opened without something inside breaking.  Tonight, one of the shelves fell open onto my foot.  This is the same foot that is going to carry me 8 miles tomorrow morning.  Grape jelly and an old bottle of wine landed on me.  I cursed and tried not to scream.  Simultaneously Lily started chanting “Mommy!!!! Mommy!!! Mommy!”  Turns out she just wanted to inform me that she’d put something in my room, but at that moment, I needed everything quiet to prevent myself from losing it.  Poor thing.  I apologized later. Patience, it is a virtue.  It is one I do not possess.

7.  Properly medicating.  I’m starting to think I’m way under-medicated.  I hate taking medication so the least amount I can get away with is what I take.  Perhaps I should start listening to my doctor and taking what she says I should take. 

8.  Letting go.  When things don’t go my way, no matter how much that may suck, I really need to learn to how look for the chocolate-lining in that cloud.  I’m really, really bad at this.  It’s almost as if letting go of the disappointment means I’m cool with being disappointed.  Yeah, it makes no sense because I’m the only one suffering. 

9.  Taking Care.  Some people in my life love to think I’m selfish because I do things for myself occasionally (like hiring babysitters so I can run on Saturday mornings).  In some ways, I’m good at taking care of myself.  In important ways, though, I totally miss the mark.  See item number 1. 

10.  Being nice to myself.  I’m still so harsh on my inner-workings.  Every time I think I’ve stopped abusing myself from the inside out, I find a new way to do it without noticing it.  Maybe I’m worse now because I haven’t had therapy in months and I have no one calling me on my crap besides Running Boy.  Maybe I’m worse now because I’m generally dissatisfied (and concerned) about the direction of my life at the moment.  Whatever the reason, I need to give it a rest already. 

I’ve been struggling with the post for a while.  I know I have a hard post to write when I actually have to outline, dammit.  Outlines are the bane of my existence.  Doing one way back when for NaNoWriMo nearly killed me.  How I managed a degree in Creative Writing without ever embracing the outline I do not know, but this might be why my writing lives a tangential existence and goes where it wants.  I merely follow it, trying to keep up with the flow. 

This post IS about a person, and I’ll get into that (according to my outline, in the next paragraph).  It’s also, however, a post about my own insecurities and sadness regarding my station in life and where my own creative genius ended up.  It’s also about how nothing is ever good enough for me, and plenty of people, who truly have one gift or another. 

Having spent many years running in an “artistic” crowd, I’ve met plenty of talented people.  Musicians, writers, artists, poets, photographers.  This is to say that I’ve met plenty of talented creatives, but in my short 40 years, I’ve only met one or two truly brilliant people.  When I first met Paul, he was older, drove a convertible missing most of the floorboards, and had a coveted job at an “alternative”* clothing store.  He was also the stand-out art student of that year, and probably the previous 10 and the following 20.  What made him different was that he was gifted and brilliant and all those things, but he wasn’t interested in acting tortured.  He was funny as hell and even today I can remember how his laughter would sneak out of him when he least expected it and we would all start laughing just because he was.  He was the quintessential cool kid, and since he no longer is, I can say that he was overweight but no one seemed to notice.  I have no idea how we met, but it was probably because I was working on the school newspaper and he was probably doing something hilarious and artsy for it.  I could also be wrong, but he asked me out on a date.  The date was to go listen to some jazz band or other.  JAZZ.  I was 15.  (Being 15 meant I wasn’t allowed to go, but I managed to convince my parents to let me do something else with him, and that escapes memory as well.)

I don’t remember how long we dated but it was never serious.  We stayed friends.  I am fairly certain there was some douchebaggery surrounding us deciding not to date any longer (read:  Paul decided, I accepted ungraciously).  But it was high school.  This is how things went.  Then I got a boyfriend - my first real one - and Paul went off to Rhode Island School of Design.  I ended up in Kalamazoo, Michigan for my freshman year of college.  Paul was exploring Boston and Providence and meeting other brilliant (and mostly crazy) people.  I was going crazy all on my own in KaZoo.  Somehow I scraped up enough money to buy a train ticket to Boston.  I spent a few days roaming around Providence, not fitting in (see, even at my most “alternative”, I wasn’t alternative enough to fit in with real artists), meeting his friends and roommates, drinking excessive amounts of caffeine and feeling like I was about to come unglued.  I totally and completely didn’t get the sculpture major thing. I could appreciate the beauty of what he, and his friends, were creating, but I went to Rhode Island expected to see bronzed labradors or sculpted marble. I wasn’t aware of any other kind of sculpture.  When I realized my mistake, I was horribly embarrassed but too insecure to be able to laugh about it. 

I fell in love with Paul that weekend.  He fell out of love with me when he realized that my written voice - on all those pieces of paper, long before email, was really the best part about me.  Or that at least was what my memory tells me.  I first learned to hate my written self from Paul, because he always loved me more on paper than he did in the flesh.  It happened a number of times. Keith had an easier time loving my words and a much harder time loving the demanding, ever-present physical form of my body.  Doug loved me for my grammar and my intellect, and spent weeks editing the good stuff out of my Hopwood entry.  By the time he finished editing me, I no longer had a story that resembled the original.  I also no longer resembled myself, but that’s another blog post entirely, and one I probably won’t waste blog space writing. 

There was drama that following summer, or maybe it was the previous.  We “dated” again, albeit briefly, and I was dumped (again) unceremoniously when he failed to show at an agreed-upon time and stopped taking my phone calls.  He apologized later.  I’m fairly certain whoever she was that took up the rest of my summer with Paul was much taller, much prettier, and definitely understood that sculpture majors don’t really sculpt. 

After Paul, I swore off artists.  And I really meant it. I even avoided dating the writers in my creative writing circuit.  I found them either incredibly dull and self-serving, or flat-out crazy like the artists but with cheaper drugs and less finesse. 

In 1999, Paul found me again somehow.  He got my phone number and he called me.  He was in California and doing something cool, as he always was, living with someone (tall, beautiful, and nearly as brilliant as he was, I’m sure), happily working on random things.  I was engaged, or about to be engaged.  Frankly, I was still over the artists.  Paul was fascinating and he could tell a great story, but I wanted friends who cared enough about me to ask questions.  I felt just as I had years prior - a sounding board for other people, a blank white wall in which to throw paint or words against, a flat piece of glass reflecting a beautiful vision of what they wanted to see.  Frankly, I was annoyed.  Frankly, I just didn’t want to hear about his fabulous life, his beautiful work, his amazing girlfriend, or the fantastic climate of California.  I was in humid Virginia, about to get married, working in a job I hated, and living in a 1 bedroom apartment.  I wasn’t writing at all.  And all he wanted to know about me was whether or not I’d continued.  I hated admitting that after college and thousands of pages of fiction, I was burned out and could barely read a book, let alone think about writing one.

He called a few times.  I never responded.  I was wrapped up in my new life, buying a house, getting fired, wedding preparations, moving, the important things:  like which veil to choose.  I got married.  I loved my life for a few years. Most of the time, especially after having kids, I didn’t even mourn the loss of my “craft” anymore.  I didn’t have time to think about it.  Any free time I had, I wanted sleep more than anything else. 

It was, and is, no surprise to me or anyone who knew Paul “way back when” that he accomplished more than he thought he would.  He always assumed he’d fail or self-destruct and he nearly got his way, but the rest of us watching him knew without a doubt that he’d do something amazing.  He ended up working in film, which also didn’t surprise me as we used to spend breaks and hunks of summer vacations filming everything and everyone with a clunky video camera that weighed at least 20 pounds.  It was the 80’s. When he found me this last time, I was almost blase about his life - I never expected less.  I don’t buy movies on DVD unless they are really special.  Ironically, I owned one of the movies he worked on.  When watching it for the first time, I was struck by the titles and how they were used throughout the movie.  It was darkly funny.  It was my favorite part of the movie, aside from the subplot of twinkie hunting.  Maybe all these years later I related so much to the feel of those titles because they were so very much Paul.  It didn’t surprise me either that he was responsible for them. 

He doesn’t mince words.  His life sounds different from mine - very different.  It’s all very exciting and full of weird stories, neurotic people, demanding directors, exciting locations (except when he had to go film something in Michigan).  But it also sounds incredibly lonely.  If I worked a schedule like that, what with all my bipolar and sleep issues, I’d be kur-razy.  It would be one of the most unhealthy professions I could find myself in.  I also find that when surrounded by other entirely too intense and passionate people, I get entirely too intense as well. 

It doesn’t mean I’m not sad, in a weird way.  As I said, I’m not surprised that he is where he is.  I never expected anything less.  What I am surprised about is my own life.  I don’t mean this in a negative way because my life is pretty awesome.  Here come the standard phrases justifying my awesome life, but I really do mean them:  awesome kids, a flatulent dog, a kind boyfriend, a decent ex-husband, my grasp on the english language, my businesses, my running, etc etc etc.  But looking back to a night of greasy food consumed in a diner near Providence, I did not envision my life looking like this.  I am disappointed that I spent so much of my 20’s floundering and wasting energy on relationships that didn’t deserve any part of me when I could have been writing.  This all begs the question to be answered:  if I was so talented, then why did I not do what I wanted to do? 

It’s possible we all think we’re way more talented than we actually are.  Paul always thought he was less talented.  The minute he finished something, his public admiration would begin but it was too late.  He was already ripping it apart, displeased with the end results, ready to throw it away and start again. I still know people who kept the shopping bags he used to doodle on when he worked at Irreverence because they were so different and so funny.  He is probably dying with shame over that sentence, but it’s true.  This is why I’ve spent years hating everything I’ve created, or thinking it could have been so much better.  In my case, it probably could have been.  In his case, he’s used his chronic disappointment in his ability to drive him forward, to get better and better, even if it’s cost him personally.  I didn’t have that kind of drive or passion within me, which is why I am satisfied with my 8 year old blog and my unedited novel, mouldering untouched on my c: drive. 

Talking to him recently has been good for me.  It’s made me reassess my feelings about my own dedication to the thing that I’m “best” at.  And maybe it’s time to stop assuming I suck at passion, and give it a shot again.  A real shot.  In the meantime, I’m holding all of the celebrity gossip hostage in the hopes he’ll give me a writing grant in exchange for my silence.  I’m also still trying to answer the question:  Can you be brilliant and still have a normal life?  I’d sure like to find out. 

*alternative and Traverse City: oxymoron.  At least in 1987. 

I’ve had my current dishes since 2000, as they were a wedding present from Mike’s mom and dad.  When we split up, he left me with most of them.  I have a weird mishmash of dishes now - 2 single small plates, a couple of mugs, too many dinner plates, not enough salad plates.  Every time I use them I’m reminded of when I got them, and how long I’ve had them.  The irony of the missing pieces is not lost on me. 

I already hate cooking in my kitchen because, well, it’s even uglier than the kitchen I had in my ramshackle Catherine street apartment in Ann Arbor.  Half the appliances barely work and the counters, though scrubbed with bleach, magic erasers and any other implement I can get my hands on, never look clean.  I call the oven a mini-bake oven because none of nice bakeware fits in it.  Apparently everything was smaller in 1963. 

Putting food prepared in an unhappy place onto unhappy dinnerware has made it even worse.  I don’t know why I have such strong attachments to things - how a song I listened to a lot in 1989 can actually bring back the smell of the bay in April, or how the feel of a certain pair of bedsheets can make me recall the exact temperature of my old bedroom in my last house with Mike.  The dishes have become one of those nagging reminders of what my life used to be like.

One of my deal sites had Ink Dish dinnerware on sale - and I’ve had my eye on these for quite some time (the pattern is called May).  I just couldn’t justify the expense.  Remind me of that when my kids talk me into yet another stuffed animal I’ll be making them donate in a year or two; I just don’t have the money anymore and when I do have it, I spend it on them.  Or running shoes. 

Soon, I’ll be eating off these.  They are totally my taste - I bought them only for me, and I didn’t give any consideration to what anyone else thinks of them.  They certainly wouldn’t go in my old Wyndham kitchen, and maybe someday soon I’ll have a new kitchen to match the feel of them. 

Bon Appetit. 

(yes, those are pigs roaming across the dinner plates)