Dr. Bitz and The Fruit Fly Mystery: A tale of suspense, shame, and heroism

First of all, I’d just like to say to my office mates: I am so, so sorry.

*ahem* (That was me, clearing my throat as I steel myself to tell this story. It’s so bad that I don’t know if I should put it on the interwebs. My strong need to self-deprecate, however, has won the day.) 

We’ve had a bit of a fruit fly problem in our office suite at work these past few months. It’s arguably been the worst back in my office—or at least, I was the one bitching the most about it. On any given day there were at least one or two of the little buggers flying in my face, or worse, in my clients’ faces. It’s been not only annoying, but downright embarrassing, to have to apologize to my clients about this. “Oh, I’m so sorry…I’m apparently a filthy person. My bad.”

I’ve been on an investigative mission to find the source of these effing pests. Let’s call it Operation: Find the Funk. Granted, it’s been slow going. Probably because this operation mostly involves me sitting in my chair, scratching my head, and wondering what’s going on, more than me actually doing anything. Also, complaining to my office mate Megan is an important part of this operation.

A couple of times, I’ve gotten up to check some places. My initial suspicions centered on my purse. Let me tell you about me and purses: I choose to carry one big enough to hold all of these items on any given workday: my big fat wallet, a water bottle, a bag of toiletries, my phone, my Nook, my writing notebook, some files, my laptop and the charger, my lunch, and then whatever other random stuff I need to be carrying around that day. Sometimes an extra pair of shoes goes in there. Also, another small bag (for shopping trips) must be able to fit within the larger purse-- because who could lug that big one into a store, if they needed to shop?

As you’ve probably figured out, the handbags I choose are voluminous and accommodating—too accommodating, really, because I have no respect for them. I’m downright abusive. They get all banged up, slammed around. Small items, once placed in them, are gone forever—my purse is the Bermuda Triangle of children’s toys. And food gets spilled in pretty much every bag I've ever owned. One time I somehow dropped an entire buffalo chicken wing into a purse, and rather than getting mad I was all like “yep, that seems about right.”

That being said, having the thought that perhaps I had put a banana or an apple in my purse and forgotten about it indefinitely, hence generating lots of fruit flies, was completely legitimate. (Portable fruit flies! Bonus!)  Note: I have done this many times before. Purses have been tossed straight into the trash due to finding black sludge at the bottom of it that was once a banana.

But I checked my purse, and I checked it again and again: no decayed fruit. I even bought a new purse, thinking maybe there were fruit remnants from some past forgotten fruit incident in the old one--- like maybe old stank fruit juice was soaked into the liner or something and the fruit flies were living there. But no—even with the new, huge handbag in tow, the fruit flies in my office persisted.

I checked under the couch, my chair, and under my bookcases, just in case an apple or orange had gone rogue and rolled under there. Nope. I take the trash out regularly, so I knew the trash wasn’t the culprit.

Eventually I just gave up and accepted my fate as Our Lady of Flies—like a patron saint for household pests. I figured there was a rotting piece of fruit somewhere else in the office suite that none of us had noticed yet.

And then today happened.

Today I opened my food drawer. Yeah, I’ve got an entire drawer in my office dedicated to random food. It’s mostly chocolate, but also a couple of packages of Ramen (for super emergency “I forgot my lunch” days), an almost-finished bag of Cheetos, gum, other random stuff I’ve acquired as gifts, including a big bottle of Fireball (also only for super emergencies, mostly)…and one, super old, long-forgotten about cup of applesauce. I’ve literally had that cup of applesauce since internship, because I remember bringing it from my old office at Creighton to my current office.  In 2012. Whoops.

You might see where this is going.

Somehow…at some point…the foil cover of the applesauce was punctured. Guess what happened?

Spoiler alert: Fruit flies happened.

I have no idea when this started or how long it has been going on. (cue intense shame)

Oh my gosh, you guys…it was so gross. Have you ever seen the little cocoon shells that fruit flies hatch out of? Neither had I, until today. And boy, did I see them, all transparent and crusty, covering at least a third of the area of the applesauce lid. Cocoon on top of cocoon on top of cocoon. A pile of used tiny worm incubators. *shudder*

I was possibly more bothered by this than the average bear would be. Ask my mom: I have indoor worm issues. Outdoor worms: whatever, do your thing, you are good for fishing and keeping my soil fertile, so thanks. But as for you indoor worms: you have no place in my life. In high school, I went on a cleaning rampage in our family’s entire kitchen on several different occasions, each time tossing almost all of the dry goods, because of a weevil infestation. (Or at least what I perceived to be an infestation.) I HATE indoor worms. I have a VENDETTA against indoor worms. There is nothing about a worm that belongs indoors.

So you can imagine my horror at realizing that I had been the cause of Indoor Wormageddon/ Fruit Fly Hell.

At least I know how to handle this shit. My high school anti-worm agenda prepared me well.

Out went the applesauce. Out went all the food. Anything that was not less than a week old: out, out, out.

In came the dustbuster. I sucked up the leftover worm cocoon casings. And then, because I had a couple of last-minute cancellations today, I spent the rest of the afternoon zapping the fruit flies up in the dustbuster while writing assessment reports. It was kind of fun. I felt like a superhero. They call me Dr. Dustbuster—Warrior Psychologist.

So, Operation Find the Funk draws to an end. My dignity dies with it.  (That’s so not true, by the way. I ran plum out of dignity a long, long time ago. Reference my previous posts on chasing mice while naked and sucking laundry detergent out of a straw, if you have questions as to the whereabouts of my dignity.)

Now that the story is out, I would be remiss to not offer one more sincere apology to my office mates, the distinguished Drs. Prendes-Lintel, Watson, Furr, and Davis. You guys, I’m sorry that I accidentally made our office gross. Also, let’s not tell the landlord.

One last time

If you knew you were doing a thing for the last time, would you do it differently?

I’ve been sitting around thinking about this a lot lately. Or standing around. Because, you know, shower thoughts.

Seriously, though: If you somehow knew that whatever you were doing was the last time you were going to do it…how would it be? How would you be?

It’s kind of freeing to know when you’re right in the middle of a last time. Graduation. A farewell bash. The last day at a job you’d planned to leave. The final day of vacation. The break-up. The watching your friend’s moving van drive away, with her in it. The doing one last thing with your cherished mentor, who you’ve found out is leaving. (Like Hamilton in One Last Time. Sorry, the nod had to happen.) It’s not like this stuff isn’t hard and sad sometimes, but at least you know what’s going on. Hopefully you’re being present and really taking in what you need to take in, saying the things you want to say to people you won’t see again, making your peace with the loose ends as well as you can.  

The last night my grad school friends and I were all together: We were eating supper at a local restaurant, and we all knew what it was…and there was this moment that we all went silent and just looked at each other, tears in our eyes (or running down our faces). That night is inked into my memory, like a tattoo that makes me sad to look at, but that I’m proud that I got. I’m glad I knew it was our last night together. I’m grateful we had that chance to say goodbye, painful as it was.

I’ve had some other Last Time memories tattooed onto me. Experiences seared into my very being, right as they were happening.

But sometimes you don’t know they’re coming. You’re doing something that you’ll never do again, and you never even knew it.  The tattoo doesn’t happen in the moment: it comes later.

I’ve pondered on simple lasts that could happen, things that don’t mean a whole lot. Like, if today was for some reason the very last day I could ever eat Rocky Road ice cream, would I eat it differently? Would I slow down, really savor every nut, every swirl of marshmallow? I don’t know. I like Rocky Road, but there there’d still be Mint Chip and Butter Brickle and Zesto Peanut Butter Cup Mix-Ins….I mean,  I’m pretty sure I’d be okay just tearing through my last bowl of Rocky Road, business as usual. (I eat ice cream Like. A. Boss.)

And for years and years I was a designated butt wiper, and then one day, when Jonah finally, at age six, decided enough was enough, I was butt-wiper no more. Eight solid years of cleaning other people’s assholes came to a screeching halt. I was good with that. No tattoo needed on that one.

Some Last Times have been and would be a lot harder, though. I spend more time thinking about these things. Of course. Because it’s me and my head’s all like “Buzzkill, buzzkill, buzzkill” all the time.

What if tonight was the last night that one of my kiddos asked me to come lay with them? I get asked by one or the other of them almost every night. To be honest, I’m usually annoyed—it’s inevitably already past when they were supposed to be asleep, I’m tired, they’re tired, and I just want to sit and drink a cup of hot tea and space out. And I also know that asking me to lay with them is the crème de la crème of their sophisticated arsenal of Bedtime Stall Tactics. But beyond the ulterior motives, I think they still crave the warmth and solidity of me beside them, that this makes them feel safer and calmer. And I like the feeling of them beside me, too—the feeling of unconditional love, oozing out of these squirmy, noncompliant and precious little people. Last night I laid with Jonah for a little bit…and I wondered: what if tonight is the last time I do this? Would I stay longer? Would I let myself fall asleep, with my nose buried into his curls? I didn’t. But I wonder.

Evie used to call eyelashes “eyeflashes.” And then one day she started saying the correct word. And I wish she would just say eyeflashes in her sweet singsong voice again, because I wasn’t ready for her to be done with this.  If I’d have known the last day of this was the last day of this, I’d have recorded it. So I could watch it again and again.

I work in a field that involves a lot of last times. Transition is central to being a therapist. I meet someone, that someone shares the most painful or shameful or scary things about their lives with me, we develop a trusting bond, and then the client leaves and I never see them again. Repeat: I never see them again. (Usually.) It’s a super weird thing, if you think about it.  Ideally, I know my clients are leaving. Maybe they’ve gotten better (*fist pump!*) and are ready to stop coming to therapy, and so we plan for that and do a final session together to say goodbye. Maybe they’re moving away—and again, we know that’s coming and plan for a goodbye session. But sometimes, people just stop coming...they’re just gone. Sometimes even people I’d been seeing for awhile. I knew them intimately, and then poof, they’re gone, like they never existed. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that this sometimes sucks. If I’d known that the last time I saw them was going to be the last time I EVER saw them, EVER…there were things I might have said to try to be a helper, one last time.

I’m pretty sure the Big Guy upstairs is laughing at me. I built this woman to have a love of laughter, and to be absolutely abysmal at transition…and so what does she do with her life? She becomes a therapist. Hardy har har, Allison. You are cheap entertainment.

Indeed.

One workaround to all of this painful wonder, all of this “oh hell, what if everything is different tomorrow?” is to accept that tomorrow is inevitably going to be different than today was. It just will be. I don’t know in what ways, but it will be. I might do something for a last time and not know it.  So I should probably do that unrealistic shit that song lyricists and overly optimistic people say to do: Walk through every day like it’s your last. Live like you’re dying. Treat today like it’s the most important day of your life. Etc.

Ugh. That shit is hard, though…am I right? If today was really the last day of my life, would I go to work? Would I clean the toilet? No and no. Yet I have to do that stuff. (Theoretically. If you snuck a peek at my toilets right now, you’d think that maybe I really am living each day like my last. YOLO.)

Damnit, I don’t know if there’s a great resolve to this post. I really don’t. Which ironically fricking fits—sometimes endings are hard and unknown and I don’t know how to do them right. Oh jeez.

Even acknowledging that irony...I still crave the neat ending. I wish for a way to tie this all up. It'd also be neat if I had all of the answers to how to do life, including how to really cherish experiences Just Because or Just In Case.

Hmph.

Okay. Let’s do for myself what I would try to get my clients to do for themselves. One heaping dose of self-compassion and a realism chaser, coming up: It’s probably okay that I don’t have all the answers. Because I can’t. Because I’m human and inherently messy and rough around the edges.

Oh snap. I found my resolve after all.

             

             

             

             

              

Sucking at life...and laundry

Guys, I really want to write something new and funny. Like, I really really want to. For me and for you. This election cycle and October and just everything feels full of doom and gloom, and dagnabit, I'd like to bring us all a little joy!

Yet it seems that I'm encountering sort of a humor constipation these past two weeks. When I look inward for levity, past or present...I draw a blank. I assume this is a temporary thing. It's got to be.

In the meanwhile, an old story. This happened to me in 2011, during another rough patch in my life, another time I was grieving and floundering-- much like me currently. I've already blogged this story once, in a past blog life, but whatever, I'm re-using, AKA what is now known as "repurposing."  "Repurposing" makes me feel like a cool hipster. Next thing you know, I'll be turning my worn out jeans into aprons and headbands and shit and overusing the word "rad." (No, actually. That's not going to happen.)

****

5/25/2011

In 1969, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross proposed a five-pronged model of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Scholars have argued to the moon and back about whether her model is “scientific” and “empirically validatable,” and all of these things that scholars care about. Basically, what they want to know is: does her model actually fit the typical grieving process? Forty-two years later, the verdict is still out on that one.

In spite of this, the verdict is in regarding the first four of MY stages of grief: 1) denial, 2) over-reliance on psychologically numbing agents and behaviors (this is the drinking stage, folks), 3) sublimation, 4) CRANKY, and 5) ?  

Tonight I’d like to talk about stage four, CRANKY, because that’s where I am tonight. I’m actually so cranky that I thought I was too cranky to blog, and wasn’t going to. I was going to put up my feet, continue on in my sixth reread of the Harry Potter series (an attempt at a lateral move to numbing, see grief step 2), and go to sleep early. I know going to bed would be a good choice for me, because part of the reason I’m cranky is because I’m tired. Tired+ me= no good, for anyone, least of all me. Or maybe least of all you, if you're lucky enough to get to hang out with me when I'm tired. You tell me. 

Yet as I prepared to leave my world for Hogwarts, I saw the jeans strewn across my bed and sighed— they’re physically dirty and also starting to have that “reworn one too many times” funk about them. I need them for tomorrow, and there’s no way I could possibly wear them again without offending someone...like myself. Being able to smell yourself is almost never a good thing. So I hefted my damn jeans and my damn dress pants and some damn shirts downstairs to throw in the damn laundry.

I put all of that crap in the washer and dumped in the detergent. Now, Jeb and I got ourselves this fancy new-fangled HE Washer & Dryer set last year. The washer has very specific places to deposit each washer agent—the detergent goes HERE and only here, the softener goes HERE, etc. Well, I’ll be damned if I didn’t put the detergent in the fabric softener hole. SHIT. The other fun thing is that there is no way to dump the liquid back out; the liquid holder is attached to the washer.

To recap: I was already super bitchy, and now I’d irreversibly dumped the wrong fluid into the wrong damn hole (shame on you if you had a dirty thought after reading that line). 

I considered putting the softener into the detergent hole and starting the load up anyway, just to “see what happens.” I considered yelling at Jeb and getting him to fix this issue for me. I considered wiping the detergent out of the fabric softener hole with a cloth and trying again-- but alas, we were down to our last "serving" of detergent, and those damn jeans need to be clean tonight, son!

What to do, what to do?

I'm not sure what made it happen: divine gift, desperation, whatever-- but as I stood there, surveying my wrong-hole debacle, I got a flash of memory from my undergrad freshman biology lab: the time we had to breathe through straws to inflate a rat’s lungs. Second flash of inspiration was the bendy straws that we keep in our kitchen to populate Evie’s spill-proof cups. Eureka!

So how did I spend the next five minutes of my night? Sucking laundry detergent out of the fabric softener hole and spitting it, by blowing it back out of the straw, into the right hole. (I feel that by doing this I may have somehow bastardized my fancy washing machine.)  It was all going so well-- until one overzealous pull left me with a small mouthful of Tide. I rinsed thoroughly afterwards, but I still feel like I could open my mouth and spurt soap bubbles on demand. 

I wish I could end this story with saying “And then the whole thing was so humorous that I just started laughing and my bad mood was gone, just like that, POOF, up in smoke! Rainbows and unicorns everywhere!!!”

But nope, double nope. I’m still cranky as hell. I opened up my computer to try to write this post and it was running slow, and I seriously wanted to punch it. I might have thrown it a little jab.

And as I sit here writing in my foul, foul mood, I'm aware of how long the aftertaste of Tide lasts in one's mouth, which was information I could have gone my whole life without knowing. (Was it karma? Is this soapy mouth the Universe's way of punishing me for all of the cursing?)

Also, I'm now wearing my retainer. I wanted you to have the complete image of me just as I am now, with my soapy mouth, and my sulky face, and my big metal retainer in place. Pretty sure I've also got a little zit starting on my chin. I'm not sitting in front of a mirror right now (thank God) but I'm thinking the look is somewhere between deranged sixth grader and Cathy. I have never felt sexier.

And that, my friends, is all. I’m putting my cranky ass to bed. After Ron whisks Harry away from the Dursley’s in the flying car, mind you.

Revised 10/18/2016; Originally published 5/25/2011 here: http://ideclarelifecrisis.blogspot.com/2011/05/sucking-at-lifeand-laundry.html

Dear America, You are Hurting Me

Dear America—

You are hurting me.

I don’t think you mean to. I think you, a young nation, are moving along as best as you can. Trying to figure yourself out. Exploring your identity. Things that adolescents tend to do.

But I have to level with you—your identity crisis is eating me up inside.

You know I’m a pretty sensitive person, right? You’ve seen me—my emotions are right out there on my sleeve a majority of the time. Remember that time a client told me that she hardly needed my words to know how I felt, my face was that expressive? I liked that. I took that as a compliment. (Yet I will also heed your warning to never seek a career in professional poker playing.)

You also know I try really hard not to cry in front others. It’s a vulnerability avoidance thing. Also, usually I don’t want to mess up my mascara. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

But America, if I would let the outside of me match the inside of me…oh boy. Cue the waterworks.

I’m hurting. You’re hurting me, America. Some of what’s going on inside of me isn’t about you, I’ll give you that. Some of it is my own bullshit, and I’m working on it. But even hurting, I want to be a part of you, America. I want to be engaged with you, and from within you, with my world.  So I poke my head out of my own self-absorption and take a look at you, America. And I whisper to you: Here I am. How can I help?

My eyes opened wide, here’s what I see in you, my country, my nation:  

Your ideals have polarized, America. They are polarizing more every day. 

Your sons and daughters are hurling insults at friends, at family, due to political division. Your sons and daughters are dehumanizing each other.

America, your culture somehow seems to thrive on hate and derisiveness. Which confuses me, because very few Americans I've ever met are inherently hateful people.

Your most marginalized people are becoming more marginalized, their voices drowned out by the cacophony of political ire and ideological differences. Their needs and their humanity are being swallowed whole by you, America.

America, one of your daughters is raped every two minutes, somewhere within your borders. You don’t seem to be ready to engage in the process of change that it will take to turn this around.

Your sons and daughters of color aren’t safe. America, your police officers also are not safe. I want to remind you, my nation, that the safety of these two populations is not a mutually exclusive proposition. Please don’t allow yourself to buy in to those who try to play on either/or thinking. This is an and/and proposition.

America, your children are hungry. 13.1 million of them. How is it, that in a country known for excess, your children are hungry?

People all over the world are suffering and dying, America. They are under attack. Babies lay dead in the street next to the bodies of their dead mothers, while we complain about the newest iPhone system update. Are we paying attention? Is there more we could be doing?

Despite the outlets for self-expression-- a privilege that you've afforded us, America-- whether it be via social media, text messaging, etc., we’re all lonely. We don’t feel connected to each other, regardless of all of the ways we have at our disposal for connecting.

America, your culture is one of fear. We are all so, so scared.

When I dare to poke my head out to interact with you, America, the doors of my heart are left intentionally open, all the better to care for the matters and the people that need to be cared for. And I watch and watch and listen and discuss and think. I try to figure out my role—what cog am I to be in this larger system? How can I be an agent of change?

Sometimes I come away with some idea of how to help. Sometimes I pull an Alexander Hamilton (one of your fathers, America) and I “write like I need it to survive.” Earlier this year, I wrote a letter to the paper regarding Syrian refugees, and it made it to press. I forwarded that letter to all of my elected officials. Sometimes I try to get connected with others. Two weeks ago, a colleague and I met with a senator to discuss how to be supportive of a family medical leave legislation that our state is working on.

Sadly, though, most of the time I retreat from you. I pull back into my own thoughts and stay there, stagnant. Helplessness comes for me, like a plague of locusts who feed upon my hope and my drive, and I give in. I let them take me. I’m scared. I’m tired. I’m disillusioned.

Keeping my heart open to you is hard, America. So more and more, you get the me who is cynical, critical. You get the me who will halfheartedly talk about important societal matters but who will eventually divert your attention with self-deprecating humor. You get the me who numbs out and retreats to reading fiction. You get the me who looks away rather than staying engaged.

And part of this is because I fear for my relationships. At the end of the day, my relationships matter far more to me than being right. It’s taken me years to learn this, but learned it I have. I don’t mind sparring with my fellow Americans about the issues we all face, but at the end of it, I want our connection to be solid. I want our base of mutual respect and caring to remain intact. Less and less do I feel that this is possible. I want to be able to talk to people about what I believe, hear what they believe, and keep the conversation going. Yet more and more, every type of social and political discourse feels like the best way to damage a relationship. When did this happen, America? When did we stop listening to each other, trying to find common ground?

In any case: America, you’re hurting me. Please, please try to be better. Please try to remember that people are people are people—we all bleed the same blood, we all carry within us hopes and dreams and fears. None of us has any more inherent value than any other person. And we belong to each other. It seems that as a nation we’ve forgotten, but we’re nothing without each other.

Much love from your daughter,

Allison

The Time I Had a Staredown with a Mouse (while naked)

Tonight I received a much-needed reminder of the virtues of humor. I spent a night out with my ladies--who, by the way, are amazing. I am so thankful for each and every one of them. We went to a comedy show, which was awesome, but I probably laughed just as hard at my friends’ stories throughout the night.

I rarely feel more like myself than when I'm laughing. Equally delightful is when I can make someone else laugh, which is one of my favorite things in the entire world. So tonight, as I laughed and made others laugh, I felt good. I felt like me. It was fantastic.

A few of my friends boosted me up, too, in overtly reminding me that I can be a funny lady sometimes. It felt like a revelation to hear this, as lately I have felt about as far from funny as is humanly possible.

Here’s the best part: These gals encouraged me to be silly. Write down your funny stories, they said. We want to hear about these things on your blog, they said.

I am only too eager to acquiesce, especially if it means I can make someone laugh. Bonus points if it heals me a little in the process.

And so, without further ado, tonight I will retell for you a True Story in the life de Allison—The Time I Had a Staredown with a Mouse (while Naked).

The year was 2007, and the month was October. At the time my husband and I lived in a small, bungalow-type house, and it was old—built in 1921. The one bathroom on the main floor had just a bathtub—a beautiful, deep, clawfoot tub that we’d fallen in love with as young, stupid, first-time pre-kid pseudo-hipster homebuyers—but no shower. The only shower in the home was in the basement—and no, not in a finished bathroom. It was one of those rigged-up standalone stall jobs that sat in a cement-floored room right next to our home’s second toilet. The toilet was extra cool, because it was elevated, situated about a foot off of the ground on its own round cement pedestal-- sitting on it made you feel like you were sitting on a throne. So regal. All of this was open to the rest of the room, which also housed our washer and dryer. The shower, washer, and air conditioner all drained to the same floor drain, right in the middle of that cold, ugly little room. And there were these random square mirrors stuck to the walls, for God knows what reason—I guess so you could see yourself unattractively using all of the various facilities?  The whole setup down there was so, so classy. (Ask my mom. She loved showering down there when she stayed with us. Always a highlight of her visits.)

One of the issues with the downstairs shower situation (among many) was that sometimes you’d forget your towel, and since we didn’t keep the towels in the basement, you’d be shit out of luck. On that brisk late October morning, I walked my still sleep fuzzy self into a steaming shower and sighed with relief—only to summarily realize that I hadn’t grabbed a towel. Damnit.

I was wet but not uber-wet, and so before things got too serious with hair washing and leg shaving and whatnot, I hopped out to run upstairs for a towel. I shook myself off like Golden Retriever does after a dip in the lake—pretty sure I was less graceful than a Golden, but you get my drift. And then I lumbered up the stairs, water still shaking off with each step.

Did I mention that I was eight months pregnant?

My cold, dripping, naked, pregnant, unassuming self schlepped up those stairs, which landed me in our kitchen.

And that’s when I saw it.

And it saw me.

And it saw that I saw it and I saw that it saw that I saw it. 

An effing mouse. Sitting on my stove. Holding a piece of dry macaroni in its stupid little front claws.

We’d had a mouse infestation that year—prior to that day, in late October, we’d already caught four or five. Keeping the mice at bay was always rough in that old house, which we’re guessing had multiple tiny holes and spaces to the outside, created over years of wear and settling. (Also, one time there was a snake in my basement. And no one believed me until years later, we found snakeskins in the storage room. The day we found the skins was one of the most vindicating days of my life. Also one of the grossest.)

So on the day of the naked staredown (mice are always naked, right?) with the mouse, I’d had enough. I was up to here with those little fuckers.

Neither me nor the mouse wanted to make the first move. I was frozen— right foot in the kitchen, left foot still on the second stair, arms suspended in motion, hardly able to blink. Not taking my eyes off of the vermin. The eye contact was intense. We may have seen into each others' souls. 

I’m also not sure who was more freaked out—it or me. Didn’t matter that I’d already seen a ton of those little guys, living and dying and dead—every time I saw one was slightly terrifying.  Which as I sit and re-read sounds pretty lame for a grown-ass woman, and one that could grow an entire child in her womb, but hell, honesty is always a good policy and mice sort of scare me because they’re fast and gross and ew.

I’m not sure how long we stared at each other without moving—could have been two seconds, could have been ten, who knows. Without breaking eye contact with it, I started a slow, sneaky walk into my kitchen, carefully placing one foot in front of the other. In the moment I felt like a panther, gracefully stalking its prey. Yet when I look back on it and think of my awkwardly lumpy pregnant naked body trying to do an elegant prowl, I just laugh. Had to look more like a not-so-sneaky hippopotamus.

Anyway, I’m “sneaky walking” towards my kitchen table, upon which I could see, out of the corner of my eye, sat an empty pot.

But my graceful hippo walk was too much for the mouse-- it dropped its contraband macaroni and ran. And I ran. I scrambled for the pot, grabbed it, and made chase. The mouse flew over the counter, me after it, slamming the pot indiscriminately down. Maybe bashing a few dents into counter, I didn’t know, I didn’t care, I just wanted the mouse.

I didn’t get the mouse. It was too quick, too wily. I blame pregnancy reflexes. And also the fact that I kept slipping on the linoleum, because I was still dripping wet.

After the mouse had disappeared into some unseeable, unreachable corner of my kitchen, I stood there, heart pounding, breathing heavily from anxiety and exertion. I was cold, wet, and I’d just been bested by a rodent. What do you even do after that? 

I sat down the pot, got myself a towel, went back downstairs with my effing towel, took a shower, got ready and went to work. Like my pregnant ass hadn’t just chased a mouse around my kitchen naked. No big deal. It was all very anticlimactic.

But I shit you not: from that point on, every time I came up the stairs after a shower, I was vigilant. The song The Eye of the Tiger was lodged in my head as I made my daily ascent, and I kept my pots, pans, and reflexes at the ready. Being bested by a rodent was a shame that I could never, ever let happen again.

And then a year later, my husband installed a shower in our claw foot tub and my basement-showering days drew to a close. Over the years, my mouse PTSD has ever so slowly died away.

The End. 

What is Love? (Try not to dance like Chris Kattan)

Earlier this week, a client asked me what love is.

I’d never been asked that before.

Three separate images, all set to music, flashed into my head at approximately the same time. That’s how my brain works. Ever seen Scrubs? My head works a lot like JD’s. Let me just show you:

Image 1: I Wanna Know What Love Is (Foreigner). Quintessential butt rock.

Image 2: Moulin Rouge. "Love is...like oxygen! Love's a many splendored thing, love lifts us up where we belong, all you need is love." I don't have every word to this soundtrack memorized or anything. 

Image 3: Yeah, the no-brainer. Night at the Roxbury.

If you experienced all of that media as overwhelming....well, imagine living YOUR WHOLE LIFE in the inside of my head. It's a little crazy up in here.

So anyway, back to the story: I’m sitting in my office, all of these images and songs competing for space in my brain. I felt a strong compulsion to start bobbing my head a la Chris Kattan. 

Meanwhile, my client sat there, blinking at me, having just asked me an important question.

I stared wordlessly at her for a lot longer than either of us probably expected, far past what is socially acceptable. (Therapists do a lot of weird socially unacceptable things with silence, I’ll admit it. This one was unintentional on my part, though.)

Pretty sure my face looked like this:

Finally, I opened my mouth, and all I could think to say was, “Damn girl. I don’t know. But let’s work through that question together.”

And so we did. She was able to tell me a few things that love looked like and felt like to her. And I validated her experiences and added a few thoughts here and there. After she left, though, I sat still grappling with the question. What is love?

I’d always thought Duke Ellington said it best when he said, “Love is indescribable and unconditional. I could tell you a thousand things that it is not, but not one that it is.” I *ironically* love this statement—the honesty of it, the embracing of the ambiguity of love’s definition. Yet sometimes I crave definition and simplicity, and at these times, the ambiguity unsettles me. How can you know something is there if you can’t define it?

I suppose atheists have been asking the same thing of people of faith for centuries: How can you believe in a god that you can’t see or define or have proof of?

Yet, I’ve never talked to anyone who didn’t have a least a little faith in love. Who didn’t share some universal thoughts on what it is, and what it isn’t. People can’t describe it worth crap, yet they know it when they feel it.

So many questions linger within me, though.

Such as—what about when love gets complicated? When is gets all mixed up with one’s history, experiences, and other emotions? A bulk of my caseload is adult clients who have been abused as children, usually by a parent. So often, they grapple with still loving the parent that hurt them, and intense guilt or shame for that love still being there. Love, so celebrated an emotion, tears these folks up.

Which is a decent segue into this question: Can love really go away, all the way away, once it’s been there inside of you? Or does some bit of it remain, always felt, even if just a shadow of what once was, a faded imprint on one’s heart?

And what effect can we even have on our internal experiences of love? Can we make it go away if we want? Can we make it stronger if we want? How much of this operates outside of the sphere of our control?

Oh man, it’d be nice if just one thing in life could be simple. I want this to be simple.

In my desperation, I turned to those who, by default, give me clean answers.“What do you think love is?” I posed to my kids this morning. Their sleep-heavy eyes squinted as they mutually leaned their bed heads back into their cold car seats. “I don’t know,” Evie (8) said. Jonah (7) feigned sleep and said nothing.

At supper I asked again. “Did you have time to think about it? What is love?”

Evie said, “I think love is a heart.”

I can get behind that.

And Jonah shrugged and said, through a full mouth of Mac N Cheese, “Love is love.”

Indeed, son. Love is love.

Though apparently I can’t tell you what love is, or what it isn’t, I can beyond the shadow of a doubt tell you with a certainty that passes even my own understanding—and I never feel certain about much of anything—that I feel love when I look at those kids. I know what love is when I look into their sweet round faces, hold their grubby hands, or get the privilege of hearing their giggles.

I suppose maybe that’s simple enough.

****

How do you experience love? What is it? What ISN'T it? Can it go away once it's there? Share your thoughts in the comments: 

Dear Grieving Person-- I see you

Dear Grieving Person—

I see you.

You’ve lost someone. Or possibly, you’ve lost something dear, something precious. A marriage. A dream. Your health. Your livelihood.  

I see how hard you work to care for others around you. I see you apologizing for your own emotion when you can’t muster a smile, or when you break down in front of others. You draw back, as if you’re afraid to infect them with your sadness. And those around you draw back from you, uncomfortable, also afraid to catch the sadness.

If those around you don’t flee, they aren’t always good company. They’re searching for the “right things” to say, and in so searching, often say the wrong thing. “She’s with the angels now” “God must have needed him more,” and the worst, the ultimate insult to you, the griever, “Everything happens for a reason.” 

It’s all a bunch of bullshit, right?

Grieving is lonely. Grieving can isolate.

For those of you whose grief isn’t obvious—perhaps you are of the variety who have lost a dream or your sense of yourself, rather than a person—or perhaps you’re feeling grief for someone you think that you “shouldn’t” be grieving—your ex, your estranged father, this girl from high school who you used to be friends with but had fallen out with—you are especially lonely. How do you seek support for something you are afraid or ashamed to articulate? How do you reach out for understanding when your feelings defy your own understanding?

I see you.                 

                                                                                              

It pains me to see you, but I see you.

Sometimes I am the steady, compassionate therapist. Sometimes I am your rock and provide the place where you are safe to talk about the range of things that you feel, without judgment, without being shamed for “not moving on fast enough.” I ask about your loss. I ask you to share memories of the person that has gone, or of the dreams that will no longer be. We can do that together and I won’t back away from you.

Sometimes I am the well-intentioned but bumbling friend or family member. When I’m in my office working, the distance that I must maintain as a professional provides me with a shield— translucent, but still useful. When I’m outside of my office, shieldless and unprotected, I feel vulnerable. I feel raw. I get scared. I panic and forget what it is that I can do to be a comfort to you. Even though I know better, I’m afraid of catching your sadness. I flee—maybe not physically, but emotionally.

Sometimes I’m the griever. Sometimes I’m feeling the loss of something or someone in my life so poignantly that I’m not sure I have the capacity to be as open or as present as I’d like to be with you, griever.  Please forgive me.

Often I am all of these things at once.

But still, even in all of that, I see you.

I have hope for you.

I can tell you now that the grief that you’re feeling won’t go away. You won’t “get over” this. No one “gets over” loss.

Here’s what I think does happen:

If you are a vase, the grief is the thing that tosses you to the ground and shatters you into a million tiny shards. You think, How am I ever going to put myself back together? You think, I am never going to be the same, even if I do get the pieces back in order.

And you’re right. You’re never going to be the same.

Day by day, though, those pieces are going to find their way back into place. You keep putting one foot in front of the other, and it will happen. Some of those pieces are not going to want to stay in place. Some are going to fall out, over and over again. And yes, even when you think you've got yourself in order, you aren't immune to breaking again. And again. Sometimes when you least expect it, a piece will pop out, or maybe you crumble to the ground entirely, and you will think "Am I ever going to be okay?"

But progress will be made. In time there will be less crumbling, more assembly.

True, the pieces are now going to be joined by glue—you will be solid, and whole, but you’re going to look different. Some of the cracks are going to show. Some of the joints are going to be tenuous. Some pieces might not line up perfectly, their edges too ragged to bond solidly. Maybe some little pieces, the shards that broke off and flew away, too tiny to find, cannot be replaced. Maybe you let those tiny spaces be there. Or maybe you fill them with gold.

When you’re reassembled, you’ll be beautiful. Potentially stronger in the places where you’d shattered.

Even when you’re reassembled, the hurt doesn’t go away. What happens is that your heart makes room for it, and over time, as the pain finds a home where it can rest, it becomes less heavy, less gut-punching. Less likely to mess with your concentration or your ability to get out of bed. In time you’ll be able to notice the pain, breathe through it, and keep moving even as you feel it. It’s a miracle of humankind that we have the capacity to do this.

One day you will smile or laugh and not feel guilty for smiling or laughing. One day you will be able to hold the pain and simultaneously hold within you great joy, great hope, restored wonder.

Someday, someday. These things will happen in time.

For now, griever: just grieve.

I see you.

I am you.

**
Click here to read Part II in the Dear Griever series: I Still See You.