At Least They're Committed

My hair is a mess. There’s a blonde tangle sticking out of the right side of my head like an antler. I can’t believe I went out of the house like that. I can’t believe I’m halfway done with my shopping and I just now noticed that. I sigh. Thus my life  has been the past several months and so it shall be for a few to come. Struggling to pull myself together every morning only to wear down quickly, pushing myself through on weekdays and crashing at 8 p.m.; catnapping on weekends off and on throughout the day, maybe staying up until 10.

We’re driving. There’s nothing on the radio and I haven’t burned any new CDs so I find myself listening to Adele singing about love lasting sometimes and it not lasting sometimes and that whole line seems a bit melodramatic and “no shit” to me, like saying sometimes the sun shines and sometimes there are clouds, sometimes it’s hot and sometimes it’s not, you get the picture.

But it did get me thinking about love and how many people can just get married, gain weight and lose ambition, stopping, fulfilled in all their wants and needs, and I think that’s lovely. I couldn’t do it, though. I had promises to keep to everyone around me and myself and so I couldn’t stop.

I was on a total high yesterday. I passed my pre-op! I was frightened because some of the drugs made my blood pressure go up so I cut back on them and I was afraid it would still be high (and it was) and I was terrified they’d say, “We can’t fix you now!” and that made my blood pressure go even higher. But finally they got me relaxed enough and it went down to normal and they did an EKG just in case and it came back perfect so it’s game-on and I celebrated the rest of the day. Hooray! The last hurdle before I can be fixed!

The song by Adele got me thinking about that time you said to me, “I don’t think you can help who you fall in love with,” and it felt so out of place, what with where we were at and what we were talking about. But I do know I quickly turned my eyes away because the tough part of me wanted to snap back, “I can!” but that would have been a lie and something I wouldn’t have wanted you to believe.

I’m thinking of this as I’m trying to smooth my hair down and weave the knots free with my fingers. I’m sitting outside Target (yes, I do like to live dangerously) and I see that my skin is pale and my eyes are cloudy. And I’m not feeling as high as I was yesterday. In fact I’m feeling a little lost.

I was so proud yesterday when I called my mom and told her how the surgeon had bounced into the room for our one-on-one saying, “Are we ready?” very enthused-like and I nearly jumped off the table and high-fived him as I responded, “Yes we are!” And I told Mom how he looked at my chart, shook his head and said something like, “A fit patient in excellent health!” and he smiled at me and I was thinking, yeah, I probably am a breath of fresh air! 

Do you remember that time we ran into each other two years ago at breakfast? You came and stood close to me and we said good morning and chatted a second and then I took a step back and you looked insulted and that hurt my heart because all it was was that it occurred to me that I was standing in front of the biscuits and maybe you wanted one and maybe I was in the way. I’ve always wanted to tell you that.

Anyway, so I’m dragging myself through the store picking up last minute Christmas gifts and EBD is helping me and a couple of men my age are looking at me like, “oh yeah!” Or maybe it was ‘how do women let themselves go like that?’ (As if most men my age could talk.) Thing is, I don’t know anymore because I feel lame in more ways than one.

All this while I’m still pondering the whole love thing and it strikes me that not only can you not help who you fall in love with, you can’t make someone fall in love with you either. And there’s so much more to love than just love — there’s trust, compatibility, different levels and abilities to love, being in the same place in life, confidence and liking yourself.

I’m falling a little short lately in the last two of those categories. The reality of the surgeon’s words has today started to overcome the relief, crushing it into the dust as it catches up and passes; the knowledge that I will never be “fixed.” The entire chat with the surgeon seeps into my memory. I asked how long I’ll have to stay at a 90 degree angle and no farther, and he leaned in, his face growing serious and said, “well, forever.” Holy shit that’s a long time. And it’s bad enough that I can’t shave my legs starting today for the next two weeks, but with this latest revelation I realize I will never get to shave my legs again. And I’m wondering how I’ll put on pantyhose and my mind starts trying to sort that out and how most people who go through this are old, OLD and they don’t have anything left to do but I do and I’m irreparably damaged.

EBD and I carry the last of the gifts into an empty house. Lovely! I pour some eggnog, put on some Christmas tunes and head upstairs to wrap presents. (BTW, the line in “Blinded by the Light” is “rapped up like a deuce,” as in little deuce coupe, like a car. Not what everyone thinks it is.) Downstairs I hear EBD mutter something in alarm and then his heavy footsteps running up the stairs.

“MOM!” he’s knocking on the door (very wisely considering the time of year and all). I open it up, his eyes are wide and he’s smiling. “How long has it been since the Grinch worked?”

“The Grinch hasn’t worked in years,” I say, wistfully setting the scene with an ominous and slightly intrigued cadence.

“I heard this noise and I turned around and the Grinch is going like . . . ” he makes a whirring noise and starts twitching his head and arms. We crack up. I later check it out. He did it again . . . but he was turned off! (Scary music goes here!)

Thing is, I might have to use the “special” stalls in the bathrooms, I can’t play tennis ever again, I have to take antibiotics any time I need to do so much as get a teeth cleaning and all I can think of is, “can I get a trade-in?” But if God wants me here a little bit — or even a lot — longer so be it. I mean, you go through a whole bunch of shit like this (this is a time when the “better than the alternative” phrase will have to do) and so if you can do it, so can I. I just have to find a good place to get my legs waxed, get a wicked cool old fashioned bike, and figure out how to stop feeling so lame.