Lessons from an Upside Down Turtle

I guess you could say the turtle was my mom's spirit animal.  She always loved the ocean, and living in Florida, she took the plight of turtle nesting season to heart.  She would send newspaper articles from the Florida newspapers outlining that season's plan to protect her favorite creature.  In fact, the last time I saw her she was excitedly showing me the turtle nest that had cropped up on her own lanai.  I believe she thought those eggs held her very own children.  Unfortunately, she would pass away suddenly shortly thereafter and miss the excitement of her brand new babies.  I suppose that is why running on the Mohawk Hudson Bike Trail these days is usually comforting.  That trail is lined with turtle nests this time of year and nearly every day I can spot turtles wandering around, or in the case of one particular turtle I see a lot, simply four turtle feet sticking straight up in the air out of a sea of mud.  It is truly a hilarious site.  In fact, I have seen that turtle enough that I am beginning to wonder if it can even survive like that.  Nonetheless, running right there is like having mom right there with me as I go.

Friday I decided to go hang with my turtle friends for a simple four miler.  I texted my accountability partner with the plan.  A simple,"two out, two back."  Yeah, I had that.  I set off on the trail feeling strong.  I had my virtual running coach coming through my headphones reminding me of my form, my breathing, my cadence.  I was in the zone, the sun was shining, and I even saw two friends I have dearly missed as I have not seen them since before the pandemic.  Oh yes, strong mile one.  Pretty soon the tide began to change.  Yes, the sun was out, in fact it was beating down on me.  It was 85 degrees and some obnoxiously high percentage of humidity.  I pushed through mile two trying desperately to maintain focus, but the reality was I was hot.  I was thirsty.  I was being dive bombed by these Kamikaze deer flies that seem to have taken a liking to me.  Not to mention the turtle nests that were normally so comforting, instead were reminding me that in a week it will be the three year anniversary of my mother's abrupt exit from this Earth.  

By mile 2.2 I would find myself walking.  I was no longer listening to the coach.  Instead, I was attending to the wave of grief that hit me all at once.  In fact, I found myself walking the remainder of the distance,  looking at the baby turtles along the way.  I was a bit relieved the deer flies were leaving me alone, as they are territorial and tend to attack when you are moving quickly. However, I was mostly wondering what life would be like if my mom was still here.    At the end of it all, I came to realize my head space had completely interrupted what I set out to do and I had to report the epic fail to my accountability partner who would assure me it was alright to grieve. 

Yesterday, I had to think long and hard about what it was my mom would have actually wanted from me in a time like this.  She was a strong independent woman who didn't take shit from anyone.  She would want me to pick my head up, take control and move ahead.  It seemed like a tall order, but as I often dish out the,"fake it til you make it advice" I supposed I had to get to it.    I was afraid I would let my accountability partner down again, so I didn't want to commit much there.  However, with that notion, I found myself asking a new question.  What if I made a promise to myself and followed through?  Historically I have not been good at this sort of thing, but what if I did it?  Seemed a bit on the terrifying side, but I was willing to try.  Besides, nobody would know if I failed but me, a free pass loophole from my usual commitment to accountability.

I ended up ghosting my accountability partner, committed to six miles on the stepper and got to work.  Point 4 mile intervals with heavy upper body weights in between.  Off I went, with the first few miles strong, and the last ones stronger.  Even the weights got heavier as I went.  When I hit mile six, I tossed in another .2, because 6 miles was just so damn close to a 10k, why not finish the job and be better than I planned?  I ended the workout with a PR, drenched, free of the grief that overtook me the day before and the air of a surprised satisfaction knowing I was much more capable of trusting myself than I ever thought.  

I ended up doing some reading on that crazy upside down turtle.  As it turns out, turtles do that to slow their metabolism down to barely existent, take on life giving oxygen from the surrounding water and simply recharge.  You know, I'm beginning to think those four feet sticking out of a sea of mud were not ridiculous after all.  Maybe that turtle had it right.  In fact, it is entirely possible my run on Friday was not the epic fail I made it out to be.  Maybe when life dive bombs you with the vengeance of a deer fly, the thing to do is slow down, stop the attack, lean into the hard stuff, trust your own abilities and don't forget to look for the turtles.  In the end, my mom may have missed her own baby turtles but it would seem she has sent plenty for me to enjoy to serve as a not so subtle reminder that the best is yet to come.

Speed Training Meets Old Demons

Anyone who knows anything about me and my wellness journey knows I come from a lifetime of obesity.  Honestly, the landscape was quite different growing up in the 70's and 80's.  There were no electronics until the advent of Atari. While we are on the subject, I was quite skilled at Donkey Kong,  there was something about smashing barrels with a large sledge that gave a certain satisfaction, ahhh.... I digress.  Anyway, as a result kids were healthier.  There was nothing to do but play outside until night fell in the summers.  Consequently, come school time, you would see the emergence of the token fat kid.  The one kid who stood out from the rest.  The one picked last in gym class, or if the gym teacher felt sorry for them, they were made team captain and did the picking.  Let's just say, I was that kid.  I remember the uncomfortable picking when I was made team captain.  The mutterings by the other kids just a bit too loud,"Not me.  Don't pick me."  There was the complete lack of eye contact as I stared down the row of children hoping someone wouldn't be angry with me because they wanted nothing more than to be on another team.

Following the school yard antics of elementary school, came the horrible timed runs of PE class in junior high and high school.  There was the Presidential Fitness mile run.  Each time I was forced to do this, it always ended the same way.  I attempted to run, where I never did outside of these godforsaken events. I wouldn't get far before  I would end up an obese, wheezy mess, finishing at a painful walk well behind everyone else, left with facing the rest of the class at the finish as I tried to just make it all go away. A humiliation I would not wish on anyone.

Oh, I have plenty of blog entries on this very subject.  I often talk about taking on this race or that, crossing a finish, getting a medal.....  oh yeah.  From obese bullied kid to Spartan racing badass.  Yes this is historic underdog crap.  I even have standard phrases I use when people talk about my racing, 14 Spartans, 2 Dopeys, 5 half marathons, countless10k's and 5k's....  People complement me and as I admittedly do not handle compliments well, I end up explaining,"I was obese my whole life.  I didn't start running until the age of 45.  I am 50 now.  So, yes, I have done a lot of races, but I'm slow.  I won't break any speed records, but can run a long time.  I'm just glad to be able to be out there at this age."

What follows this conversation is usually something on the order of,"if I can, you can," and yes.  I believe this is true with every fiber of my being, and inspiring others on their journeys is something that matters a whole lot to me.  However, there is something I must rat myself out on here.  "I'm just glad to be out there at this age."  That right there?  The biggest bullshit lie I have sold to myself in some time.  Yes, running at 50  That's cool and all, but you know what's cooler?  The thing I never would dare to think about?  Running fast.  Yet, I never seem to get all that much faster despite years of training, and as a result the,"I can't" on this subject is quite loud in my head.

 "I can't because I have never been a runner and at 5 ft 10 and large framed, I'm not built for it."

 "I can't because in a year I have put on 15 pounds of muscle and that will slow me down. "

"I have proven I can't because in years of training everyone else got faster but me, and I train hard."

"I can't"

"I can't"

"I can't"


And so it goes, the self rationalization that leads me back to,"hey, I'm just glad to be doing it."  Round and round it goes.  I suppose everyone on a journey like mine should have an accountability partner.  You know, the guy you love to hate.  The one you promise stupid crap to, hate him every moment of doing it, than appreciate it when the tasks are done.  I was talking about this very thing to him recently.  He kept saying,"you can run fast.  You just don't know you can run fast."  Again, that guy is full of crap, but let me prove to him how much.  He suggested a running coach.  Oh right.  That's what I need.  Someone to observe my slow running up close and personal to remind me how slow it actually is and telling me I am doing it all wrong.  Sure, that's a great idea, it's like junior high all over again.

As the discussion with any good accountability partner goes, the subject never seemed to die.  Over and over with the,"you can run faster.  You just don't know you can."  I decided I would show him he didn't know what he was talking about by hitting a happy medium.  I took on a speed training app with a virtual coach.  Saved the in person humiliation, and I didn't have to talk about it anymore.  I took on my first speed run a couple weeks ago. In trying to run fast for the first interval, I realized I was anxious.  I held my breath.  I couldn't breathe.  My chest felt tight.  I was moving my legs as fast as I could and it felt out of control.  It was all the things of the junior high mile, and my head screamed at me to stop.  It was then I realized I wasn't listening to the coaching at all.  I would take the first recovery to reset and vowed to be smarter for the second interval, as I had many more intervals to do.  Why did I do this?  This was going to be as awful as I thought, but then I started really focusing on what the coach was saying.  I needed to run relaxed and strong.  Control my breathing.  Yeah, none of that took place the first time.  I was sure I was slower but thought well, let me start someplace, and at least that didn't feel so bad.  The virtual coach repeatedly reminding me to relax, and each time he did, I realized the anxiety of it had crept back in.  This was going to be  a challenge for sure.  I couldn't see my interval paces while I was running, so it was a bit of a surprise when I was done and I would see I ran some of the intervals at a 9:30 pace.  I'll be damned.  I guess I could maybe be faster than I thought, as my last 10k was a 13 min pace and my last few 5k's at nearly a 12 min pace.

Since that time I have done a lot of other speed training runs, with my last PR of 7:22 for that same interval a mere two weeks later.  I guess the question is this.  Did I discover some miracle app that made me two minutes faster in two weeks?  If I did, I'd sure like a piece of that.....  No.  I had the realization that all those demons I so carefully thought I slayed along the way never totally went away.  In fact, if anything I had become firmly anchored to them, allowing them to dictate my speed to avoid the discomfort instead of learning what this new version of myself was actually capable of.  I have decided that 2020 will be my year of speed training.  Each run I get a little more confident, a little less anxious and faster than I ever thought I could be and, in case there was a question.  Yes, I did go back to my accountability partner with a cleansing post 7:22 pace,"I was wrong.  You were right.  I needed a coach and to believe I could be faster."  Damn that guy is annoying, and if I am truly being transparent, he's not the first guy to tell me I could run faster.  Off hand I count four others in recent years.  Anyway, this experience makes me wonder how many times do we unknowingly hold on to the things that slow us down, sugarcoating the contentment of the situation, and ignore the people in our lives who see our potential when we cannot see it ourselves, because let's face it, demon slaying is hard work, running slow is not.  I have a sneaking suspicion I will get faster this summer, and look out post pandemic racing.  My best is yet to come.

Learning Balance from the Stress of a Hibiscus

I suppose you could say COVID has changed even my daily life despite being a healthcare worker.  During the height of the pandemic something very unusual happened for me.  My urgent care was not busy.  Coverage was cut and I found myself with strings of days off.  Kids home.  No school.  Vacation cancelled.  No place to go.....  attacking the laundry list of home projects that had piled up during my year on the road for work it was.  I attacked these like I do anything else, 100 mph of throwing shit away, scrubbing nooks and crannies and replacing old broken crap.  I think I truly frightened the children, as they feared they would be tossed out next.  With the biggest of the projects finished it was time to turn my attention to my yard.  If I am being honest, my other half's heart surgery two years ago coupled with me on the road for a year for work, had left my yard in sorry shape.  With little else to do,a few weeks ago, I would find myself frequenting the garden center.  One trip adding lilies, another hanging baskets,  and multiple trips later to get a total of 82 bags of mulch to finally get my yard to be presentable.

I have to say, I don't really have all that much experience with this sort of thing.  In my adult life, if I had flowers it was two things.  It was typically something in the bulb family or hanging baskets.  I found bulbs to be simple plants that are fairly hardy, tough to screw up and come back year after year with very little effort.  Hanging baskets were similar.  Simply read the label, consider the placement and see how much sun they need..... and done. 

In the past couple of weeks, work has been very busy with the start COVID testing, so simple watering here and there was all I really needed to do to keep things going in my yard.  This week though, I took the leap.  I found myself with an unexpected few hours off.   A little time on my hands had  me wondering what I could put in on my newly appointed outdoor space brick patio (It had been power washed, redone and fire pit added on a previous pandemic boredom day).  A simple trip to the garden center and I would find myself with two braided hibiscus trees, a peach one and a pink one, well according to the label.  Neither had bloomed yet.  What exactly did I know about hibiscus trees?  Not a damn thing, but the braided trunks looked cool for sure. 

So, I did what I always do.  I bought some dirt designed for trees and shrubs and plopped them in that and watered.  Easy peasy.  Then it happened.  In the days that followed, the peach one would have a few leaves turn yellow.  Then they began to fall off.  I would pull off the dead stuff and the next day there would be more.  The pink one did not have that problem.  In fact, it had a bloom.  A simple consultation with Google would tell me my poor peach hibiscus tree was "stressed."  Ok.  A stressed tree?   It gave me multiple different explanations as to why.  Too much water, not enough water, too much sun, not enough sun, some variety of spider, the PH was wrong......  and go.  It was my job to figure it out.  Well crap.  I have clearly left the simplicity of bulbs and premade baskets and entered the deeply emotional world of the hibiscus.  However, I like a challenge and was not ready to let my little tree die. 

Multiple times a day I found myself babysitting my hibiscus tree as if it were my own child.  I test the soil.  No, it's moist.  I let it dry out a few days, as maybe it was too moist, no change.  Soil PH?  I got nothin'.  More leaves falling, no blooms.....  Now I'm stressed right along with my little tree.  Was my tree going to make it?  Yet here's the pink one on flower number three, with a few yellow leaves that were there when I planted it.  Yesterday, before my shift, I found myself just staring at the trees.  I was determined to figure this out.  What was the difference?  Same soil.  Same water.  Same flower food.  It was then I noticed it.  The peach one was placed in a corner.  It made sense to have one on either side of the patio door for the sake of symmetry.  Then I realized, that same symmtry meant far less sunlight, so  I moved it next to it's sibling.  This afternoon, just 24 hours later, I would walk out to no new yellow leaves and the most beautiful bloom I have ever seen, with new growth on all of the branches and my tree was back in the game. 

All of this shuffling around and concern for my stressed out tree has me thinking about how many times I take life at 100 mph.  I carefully balance working the long shift, taking on school for the kids, home obligations, running a business and race training.  Every minute of every day snatched up with a list of tasks so large I could never possibly get it all done in the time I have.  I'd love to say it doesn't end up for me the same way as it does for my stressed out tree.  I'd love to say I don't have insomnia or that there are not times that clumps of my hair come out in the shower much like my stressed out leaf shedding tree.  As my work hours have ramped up lately, I can neither confirm, nor deny that has been the case as of late.

However, this weekend I had on my list a virtual 5K.  A race put on by some friends who always support me, and as it was a good cause so I had registered twice.  So, yesterday, I found myself at the trail head staring down the 10k with a bit of anxiety as most of my long runs as of late have been cut short due to other obligations.  I would set out on the trail and run solid for an hour and 18 minutes.  Along the way, I found bright sunshine, cool temps, even splits and even saw a gigantic turtle.  At the end, I would see a good friend running the same race and she would cheer me on to the finish.  All of my other friends did the run as well and posted their results in a community effort that felt like the first normal thing this spring.  In the shower that followed, there were no hair clumps and last night, despite my mild sunburn from a glorious run,  I admittedly slept a bit better for the first time in a while.  I suppose we all need to pay better attention to the times our own proverbial leaves are falling off, and our blooms of progress are no longer present.  We need to see that at times, although the design of life appears to be logical and symmetrical, strictly adhering to it at 100 mph can leave us in the dark corners of stress actually achieving very little balance and stunting our own ability to move forward and grow.  Maybe the trick is to find those people in our lives who can help us to pump the brakes a bit, pull us from the dark to join them in the light so that we can once again find balance and  burst into full bloom just the way we were meant to.  It is only in those moments we will see the best is yet to come. 

Doing the Awful Thing

When I graduated from NP school, I had two jobs to pick from.  One offered to me in an elevator on the fly one evening as I headed to the ER for one of my last RN shifts, and the other a formal interview and vetting process.  Me, being me, went with the on the fly offer and hoped for the best.  It happened to be in neurosurgery with a doc I had done some stroke research with and was regarded as the greatest local surgeon of that time.  He was an iconic member of the medical community and the most well respected guy around.  I suppose that's why the late night elevator offer seemed perfectly reasonable.  Besides, I kinda knew the guy so that made it easier out of the gate.

I would start my eight years there with no idea what I was doing.  Dr. B patiently took me under his wing and taught me just about all there was to know about the nervous system and the various pathologies that existed under the realm of surgery.  There were disc herniations and brain tumors.  Hydrocephalus and traumatic bleeds.  As for me?  I grew to love every minute.  There is a certain order to the body's wiring that clicked perfectly with my fairly linear brain.  Besides, I had a mentor that had a love for fast cars, which went perfectly with his work life which was pedal to the metal, 100mph at all times.  Coming from an ER background, and a self proclaimed adrenaline junkie, this suited me just fine.

Over time we developed sort of a dance we did.  On surgery days, I handled the office, hospital rounds, and the ER, and he would catch up with me between cases to handle pressing things.  Those calls always went the same way.  I gave him the rundown of the day, and ultimately would present cases waiting in the ER.  Early on I tried so hard to be prepared, ready to answer any question, preferring not to get stumped by the master.  I had my facts straight, like "62 year old male anticoagulated on plavix with a right sided subdural hematoma with 4mm of shift...."

Oh yes.  I had this.  That is until he would stop me,"Amy...."

"Yes?"

He would ask,"Did you do that awful thing?"

"Um..."

He would then ever so gently say,"Go look at the patient."

I learned early on that he had been trained in an era there was no CT scan, no MRI, no fancy lasers or 3D imaging.  There was him and a patient.  Period.  He would teach me that your patient will always tell you what is wrong with them if you ask enough questions and do the right neurological exam.  The only reason to get imaging is to confirm what you already know. As he would say,"we don't treat films, we treat people."

I would come to learn that very often the patient did not look anything like the scan.  They were talking when they shouldn't be or unconscious when the studies did not necessarily support that and the studies we had were not capturing the problem.  I would also come to learn that his practice style was unique in an age where limitless imaging was available at our finger tips.  I would see other physicians ordering bunches of tests.  I asked him one time why they would do that.  He said this,"It's like this Amy.  If you fire a rifle into a tree full of birds, eventually you are going to hit something."  In other words, searching for a diagnosis without really listening to your patient.

I have been thinking a lot about this lately.  How many times do we look at our own health and get so desperate for an answer that we get wrapped up in the diet plan, the number on the scale, how fast our mile time is, counting macros and a million other measurements? I am wondering what would happen if we put down the proverbial rifle, walked away from the tree full of birds and did that awful thing of really spending time asking ourselves the hard questions to see where the root of our health failures lives.  Is it late night snacking?  Is it relying on past failures to hold us back from trying one more time?  Is it not trusting ourselves to be successful?  or a support system that really isn't all that supportive?  Only by working through these things are we able to systematically take control and figure out which of those birds in the tree it truly will take to make the changes lasting.

I have come to learn that Dr. B was right on a lot of things.  Nineteen years later I can honestly say he made me the provider I am today, and taught me a lot about life.  I was proud to call him mentor and friend.  Dr. B passed away today, leaving a hole in the hearts of thousands of patients and colleagues, not to mention his family.  Thank you for all that you taught me, RIP old friend, and I hope I continue to do you proud.  Don't forget to always drive fast and stay in your lane as the best is truly yet to come.

Roasting the Pandemic Marshmallow

Tonight I find myself sitting by my backyard fire pit, watching the kids use a "school night" to do an activity usually reserved for summer vacation, which is roasting marshmallows.  I am struck by just how different today actually is than what I envisioned four months ago.  It was then I secured a site for my 1DOS Albany 5k that was to be held on Saturday.  This was the week I was to be finalizing with sponsors, marking the course, picking up swag, welcoming my co-founder to Albany for the first time and admiring the cool ass shirts we designed.  However, like most things COVID related, my race has been postponed. 

Pressure:  pushing down on me,

Pressing down on you, no man ask for,

Under pressure that burns a building down

                                                                               - Queen and David Bowie

Longing for a sense of normalcy, I have been doing the Orangetheory at home workouts.  It isn't quite the same without my gym family around me, but I seem to be sticking with it and getting it done anyway.  However, I should probably apologize to  OTF corporate for muting their music and choosing instead the Bon Jovi station that today played this oh so appropriate song during a punishing core blast.  Now having the ability to do COVID testing is bringing with it a very busy season at work.  My time on my days off is largely being spent on the phone with nervous employees, arranging schedules and working on work flow.  Adding to this are my duties as elementary teacher, mom of stir crazy children and CEO of two businesses.  Tonight I find myself wishing for a normal day like the ones I had in February where my biggest frustrations were making sure the kids got up on time for the bus and repeating the speech that follows,"you have the flu" to patients dozens of times a day.  

That's the terror of knowing,

What this world is about.

Watching some good friends screaming,

"Let me out!"

With all these things running around my thoughts I am suddenly thinking about what an amazing thing it is to have my nine year old standing in front of me, barefoot, carefully roasting his marshmallow as he narrates the process as if he is the star of his own YouTube channel.....he wishes....  After weeks of horrible weather, being cooped up inside, and using the phrase,"I'm bored" like a comma, yes this was a welcome site.  

Insanity laughs under pressure

As I tuned into the commentary that followed, I couldn't help but smile, and eventually burst out laughing,"You have to turn it slowly.  Don't put it too close to the fire.  It's slow and steady rotation until it is the color of mom's arm.  Be sure it does not end up the color of my arm."  He is a very dark skinned Haitian.  In his mind a marshmallow that color is clearly ruined.  My daughter was commenting it would ok if it were her color, as she is lighter skinned, and so it went, until I had my 14 year old chiming in with his expertise.  The reality is all five of my children have a different approach to marshmallows, everything from the immediate jamming into the fire, lighting it up and waiting to eat it until it is a charred gooey mess, to slow roasting, to nearly raw, sparking an intelligent epic debate defending their point of view, which led to a full on fireside taste test, and a realization, there are other ways to approach the process that taste just as good and at times even better.

Having to adjust to this pandemic has been a challenge for sure, in fact I personally have had several runs at trying to establish a new "normal."  Some things have ended up a charred gooey mess, like when I tried to pluck my own eyebrows,  and others roasted perfection like realizing as much as I miss my gym family and cannot wait to work out with them again, I am more than capable of keeping myself going on my own workouts, a notion I never could have conceived of five years ago.  

This is our last dance,

This is our last dance,

This is ourselves

At the end of the day, I think the trick is to realize although we may have all been given the same pandemic marshmallow, it's all in the approach as to how we make it as palatable as it can be while not being afraid to change trajectory when the approach no longer tastes good.  As we begin to wind down with the corona pandemic and things begin to reopen, it is my hope that in final days of the last dance of isolation we take the time to try new things to help us find the best version of ourselves to launch into our new normal.  Only there we will be able to look ahead and see the best is yet to come.

Sisterhood

I suppose you could say, being the youngest of 3, and the only girl, growing up I really didn't know a whole lot about sisterhood.  I was the tomboy little sister who played basketball on the driveway, and chased fungos at the hand of my dad with my brothers on warm weekend afternoons.  Oh, I had friends who had sisters.  They shared sweaters and scrunchies.  They fought and they hugged.  Truly a culture I was really not all that well versed at, and didn't totally understand.  That is until I went to college. 

I found myself setting out for The University of Iowa in the fall of 1987, arriving a full week ahead of classes to go through the rush process.  My brother, two years my senior, had already attended that school for two years and was firmly entrenched in the Greek system and assured me this was the thing to do.  I had no idea really.  The only thing I did know was I was striking out alone for the first time in my life and launching myself into a sea of 24,000 strangers three hours from home and hoping for the best.  I guess I figured worst case, I would have a week ahead of most people, making it easier to navigate the sprawling campus when  classes actually started, and would likely get to know a friend or two.

I found the rush process to be a bit daunting.  I had grown up a fairly shy obese child who really wasn't sure of anything, and yet I was going to house after house, party after party, trying to put my best foot forward in 20 minute increments.  I'd watch skits, hear them sing, talk to a couple members and try to figure out where it was among these 14 houses I could actually fit in.  Each round cuts were made.  I was invited back to some houses, but not others, and by the end of the week, the field was narrowed to three, and eventually I got a bid for one.  Alpha Gamma Delta.  I called my brother to ask if this was a good thing.  His comment?  "I have several friends there.  They are a very diverse house."

I would find that to be true.  We all came from different places and liked a lot of different things.  Not quite the cookie cutter girls I had seen in the movies.  I would also learn what sisterhood was all about.  I would move into the house my junior year and live with 25 other girls.  Oh sweaters were shared, boys were snuck in, late night deep chats were had after a night out.  There were the formals with many pics of big hair and shoulder pads, and more laughs than I can even begin to describe.  We loved one another when tragedy hit, when there was the loss of a parent for one sister, divorcing parents for others,  not to mention all of the boyfriend related issues that ended with a bottle of Boone's Farm drank out of plastic cups, and a skilled game of quarters.  We had our rituals that bound us together, and an element of community I had never experienced before. Certainly the best years of my college life. 

Then as life has a way of doing, we all drifted off to our various corners of the world.  We got married, we had kids, we raised our families and grew in our careers.  There were Christmas cards, and sisters that remained closer than others, but this is the way life is.  Right?  That is until a little thing called COVID-19 entered the scene.  I suppose it is the dark reality of the body bags lining the New York City, or the eerie quiet of a surreal lockdown none of us could have ever imagined, that have us pausing a bit.  In the pause, for a lot of us, comes the realization of what really matters in the midst of an invisible demon that can claim whoever it wants. 

On Friday, I would find myself parked at  my urgent care, N95 and PPE at the ready seeing patients when a lull would allow me to join the newly appointed Zoom Happy Hour with my sisters.   Back in the day we called it "FAC", code for the pre-party known as "Friday Afternoon Club."  I would look at all of the virtual faces.  We are now scattered across the country in Georgia, Illinois, New York, Arizona, California and Iowa to name just a few of the places.  Yet here we are on the same screen Brady Bunch Style talking about old times, with my sisters in their respective homes, sipping higher end wine from real glasses and laughing.  Pictures were shared, scrunchies were donned, and someone even had a collection of our coveted mascot, the squirrel.

 Side note, I did not understand then, nor do I now, why with every animal in the world AGD would pick the squirrel, nonetheless, they did, and we now all have a weird appreciation for the bushy tailed nut gatherer. 

It is pretty safe to say COVID-19 has had a significant impact on me.  I have a certain amount of nervousness about going to work every day.  I have moved into my guest suite so my exposure will not get my family sick and I have all new precautions for decontam when I get home from work.  So, to take some time on a Friday night to remember a time when life was a bit simpler and laugh with a sisterhood I have loved for so many years was just what I needed, and I am reasonably sure they did too.  When I finally got home that night, I joined a second Zoom call with some of my 1DOS Sharks in Kansas City, only this time it was my turn for high end wine, and laugh a whole lot more with people who have always supported the dreams of my foundation and matter a whole lot to me.

I think in the end we will find that COVID-19 was a vicious monster that claimed a lot of lives, but we will also see it allowed us to resurrect those things in our lives that truly matter.  Going forward, my sisters and I will continue on with our Friday night Zoom happy hour and continue to reconnect after so many years.  As for me, I have made one small change to my office at home.  I needed a less than subtle reminder that in all of the darkness surrounding difficult times, we need to pause and take the time to seek out those in our lives that bring the light and allow us to laugh.  I suspect with a little bit more joy we will be able to see that there is life past COVID-19, and that the best is yet to come.

Sadness or Euphoria

They say that these are not the best of times,

but they're the only times I've ever known,

and I believe there is a time for meditation, 

In cathedrals of our own

                                                                                 "Summer, Highland Falls"
                                                                                              -Billy Joel


Well, it's official.  After 22 straight years of spending spring break in southern Florida, almost half of my life, we are not going.  That bastard known as King Corona ended that tradition.  What he fails to understand is that this trip initially was about uninterrupted adult time with my mom.  It was a break in my day to day adulting of kids, work and home to reconnect with the woman who raised me.  In our time together down there, she helped me to understand that a lot of life's knots could be untied with a healthy dose of sun, sand, salty air and the gentle rhythm of the waves on the warm gulf coast.  That is why even after she moved back to Chicago, and later after she passed, I looked forward to this time away from my otherwise busy life. Even last week the denial was deep.  We couldn't fly, but we could drive....  Well, no, a mandatory 14 day quarantine was imposed, punishable by law.  Then there was the notion of we could go someplace else, maybe a luxury cabin in the Smokey Mountains with an indoor pool.....  No.  Now there were travel advisories, and the final deal breaker, we are in medicine and now have to work.  The irony of a virus squashing a vacation for this healthcare provider is not lost.  So, whether I agree with the lyrics or not, I'm forced to meditate in my own proverbial cathedral.

Now we are forced to recognize our inhumanity,

A reason coexists with our insanity,

Though we choose between reality and madness,

It's either sadness or euphoria

Truth be told, due to a heavy first half of the month and lower numbers the second half, I have found myself home for the last few days.  Just like everyone else, watching the gut wrenching footage out of the emergency rooms just three hours south of me, coupled with phone calls of my own exposure and the actual contraction of the disease by a nurse friend of mine suddenly tied my proverbial knots of life just a little bit tighter. It seemed as though the insanity of all of this was not going away anytime soon, so I did what I do best.  I got busy.  In the last few days I have organized my office and dove headlong into the basement.  The basement.  This was kinda one of those things that was not urgent in the busyness of day to day life.  It wasn't going anywhere, it didn't really interfere with day to day life at Chez Summers, yet it was down there.  A full footprint of my 3500 square foot house, half of which is full of moving boxes and random Christmas clutter and God knows what else.  I should probably also admit we had a small flood a while back when the power went out, and the sump pump could not operate...  OK.  It was a mess.  

As I dug head long into the basement this weekend, I was reminded of something else.  When we moved here six years ago, our packers were a day late coming.  They had half the time to do the work as the truck was on the way.  This caused random shit to be thrown in boxes with no sort of organization or order as it was 2:00 am by the time they were done and really did not care at that point.  I had blankets from a closet with dishes from the kitchen in one box, master bedroom and front hall closet in another.  Quality packers we had for sure.

When we moved in, essentially when the day to day stuff was unpacked, the rest ended up down in the basement for another day.   Over the years I have looked at the mountain of said boxes and honestly wondered what on earth was in them.   We were operational day to day, so clearly it was not household stuff.  There were a few obvious things in them, like china, but what the hell was in the rest?  So, I started emptying boxes.  I found hidden treasures I had forgotten about mixed in with the random shit, like my high school year books, and sorority pics of me with gigantic hair that the kids thought was hilarious, packed with the linen closet.  Of course.  I found my high school softball letter jacket, and yes it fits.  It's actually too big in with the children's books.  There was the gold cross my mom had bought for my oldest when she got baptized, which shockingly was in a bin with her name on it.  Oh wait.  I packed that.  I found things I thought were lost forever, and things I forgot I had, and whole ton of crap I didn't need.  There were happy memories intermixed with twinges of grief as the purging progressed on.

For we are always what our situations hand us,

It's either sadness or euphoria

I am pleased to report about one third of the shit has been purged, and two van loads of garbage have been taken to the dumpster.  Yes, there is still a ways to go, but I am getting there a little at a time.  I suppose if King Corona had not cancelled my vacation I never would have found the important things today or gotten rid of the junk I never really needed to start with.  It makes  me think that sometimes having life as we know it come to a screeching halt can seem awful at first, but it also can be an opportunity to help us to take the time to stop, look in our own proverbial boxes stashed out of site.  The deep things we push away when life simply gets too busy.  These are the boxes that have been jammed with so much random shit, that we have lost site of our own treasures.  Interestingly, I am finding this process to be just as helpful as a quiet seat at the edge of the sea.  Yes, the job is a little messier, physically a little harder, and no my mom is not here. However, I did find a treasure that belonged to her, one that now holds a place of honor in my home. It is a Lladro nurse I bought for her many years ago as a teenager.  She was a highly educated, high ranking nurse who wrote national infection control standards for the country.  How appropriate I would find it today to watch over me as I head back to the front lines of Corona.  A little reminder that regardless of the invisible tyrant King Corona, we have the choice between embracing the sadness or choosing the euphoria associated with believing the best is still yet to come.