I'm so tired.

So very, very tired.

 

Center for Reproductive Rights

National Network of Abortion Funds

Planned Parenthood

 

 

Shall we dance?

We had a for-real dance showcase this year! In a for-real theatre! With all the usual things that go with a for-real dance showcase in a for-real theatre!

Of course, nothing went quite as planned.

Last week, two of the senior girls got The Dread Disease. That put a huge ol' monkey wrench in the works because they were in about eleventy-bajillion dances each. Cue much mad scrambling to pull in replacement people and/or change choreography, etc. The ballet piece I was meant to have been in but pulled myself from because of the whole pinched nerve situation suddenly became more replacement dancers than original dancers. Our Thursday rehearsal (Yes, I was still in rehearsals. Someone had to keep our choreographer on task!) was chaos with two completely new people learning the whole piece in an hour, from scratch. But learn it they did, and we were on track again.

Until...

Yeah, Friday? Another dancer out sick--my replacement. So our choreographer had to stand in at the VERY last minute, and that meant that I had to stand in the wings during the piece and mark it for her like we do for the baby classes so that she had a security blanket.

Still, we muddled through. The closing number--the senior girls doing an abridged version of Cell Block Tango from the musical Chicago--became a trio rather than its original sextet, with two of the three girls standing in for the break-out solos which, of course, belonged to two of the sick girls. Still, it could have been worse. Maybe. Probably. I guess.

Since I was only doing one of the three pieces I was originally supposed to be in, I volunteered to help out at both shows. (I mean, I would have volunteered anyway, but it's harder to do the actual work when you're running around dealing with costume changes and the like, you know?) I think I went up and down the stairs from stage level to dressing room level about eighty-seven times, usually with about twelve small humans trailing after me. Of course, the small humans provided an entertainment all their own. One especially small human--who had to be newly three, if she was a day--got hold of my hand on the trip down to the dressing rooms...and then wouldn't let go. One of the older girls, we'll call her J., who helps in that class spotted this and together we did our best to get the kid to go to her, but I think the noise and chaos got the better of the little booger, because she was not having it. We finally had to pry the kid's hand out of mine and shove it into J.'s so that I could get away and collect the next batch of children to be delivered.

I now know how mama ducks feel. All the kids in a row, following behind, sometimes falling behind and having to be rounded up...

I was stationed in the older, non-competition-team girls' dressing room for the second show, mostly to make sure that no one died and any necessary costume changes got done. These kids were old enough to entertain themselves...for the most part. As we were finally getting toward the end of the show, one of the younger girls sidled up to me.

"I'm bored!"

I need you all to appreciate the fact that I did NOT respond with, "Hi, Bored! I'm Elizabeth!"

So, yeah. It was A Day. It felt like a battle. If battles were engaged in in tulle and sequins. But we made it, it's done with, and we don't have to do it again until next June, by which time we will have forgotten just how much effort it takes and will run gleefully into the fray...for about five minutes before we start questioning all of our life choices. Again.

Whoops...

Accidental week off because I legit forgot how time worked this week.

Love y'all loads!

I. Hate. Prednisone.

So I've had this pinched nerve since April 23rd, right? My right sciatic nerve. It has not been fun. I still don't have full control of my right leg. There was a lot of time spent at the beginning trying to get the pain medication to the right place so that I was at least comfortable. I have been living at the chiropractor's office. X-rays were taken. Doctors were consulted.

It's been all kinds of fun. ::massive eye roll::

Before she would clear me to get an MRI--because my chiropractor is fairly certain that the root cause is a bit of disc bulge--my regular doctor wanted me to go see her in person. Okay, fine, that makes sense. The annoying thing is that trying to get appointments right now is like trying to catch a lubed-up, over-caffeinated weasel, so I had to wait a couple of weeks...and then make the MRI appointment another couple of weeks out...you can see where this is going. In the meantime, my doctor put me on a tapered course of Prednisone to try to target the inflammation and hopefully get this whole thing more of a jump start on healing itself. 

I was not thrilled about this.

I have had Prednisone once before, when I was a teenager, and I remember hating it because it made me balloon up. Right now, I'm a dancer who can't dance, and the thought of also having to look like a walrus because a pill made me that way wasn't exactly thrilling. However, the arguments for doing the course of the medication were far more compelling than the ones not to, so off to the pharmacy I went for my twelve days worth of gradually-decreasing-in-strength corticosteroids.

I have not slept properly in almost two weeks. I have had no appetite to speak of for that same length of time. I have had an extremely reduced capacity for concentration. I have been existing on an emotional roller coaster so rickety it makes those sketchy carnival rides look like Dumbo at Disneyland. I spent the majority of the first eight days in Level One Panic Attack mode, where I was essentially vibrating the whole time.

But nothing, NOTHING, was worse than Thursday. It was abysmal. I hit a low I haven't hit in years. It was the non-stop anxiety buzz with this...just heavy, heavy depression. I felt like my body was going to physically fly apart if I didn't somehow manage to contain it, while at the same time I was inexorably weighed down. I wanted to stop existing. (Not die, there's a difference.) The physical weight of it was like a cement blanket. Everything was hopeless. I felt dead inside--like there wasn't anything left of me. I was a shell. Hollow. And hollow things break under pressure. All I knew was that I wanted it to stop. It needed to stop, or I was going to break. The anxiety buzz was shaking my atoms and trying to send them flying while the low was sitting on me like the metaphorical 800-pound gorilla, and the only thing that kept me from spiraling out of control was my constant mantra of, "It's the meds, this will pass. It's the meds, this will pass. It's the meds, this will pass..."

And it did pass. I had enough work to keep me going during the day, then I had appointments and dance in the evening, and I forced myself to be a human and do all of those things, and I felt better for it. But you know something? That low?   

That low used to be my baseline.

I recognized it immediately. I existed in that state, continuously, for years. To experience it again was a fucking eye-opener. I honestly have no idea how I'm still alive. I've always said that existing is my biggest act of rebellion. It was always mostly a joke.

Except it's not.

Say Something

I went to a celebration of life for a Tommy Bahama enthusiast last Saturday.

Got that mental picture yet?

My father's cousin passed away unexpectedly last November. He was in Las Vegas having a lovely trip with his lady friend, and then, BOOM. Emergency surgeries. The ICU. People flying in to say goodbye, because it had been determined that this was the end of the line. It was a shock to everyone. And, of course, a great loss. There was a family-only service a short time later, which meant the rest of us had to wait to pay our final respects.

Our time finally came. A family-style meal at a favorite Italian restaurant, an open mic, and eleventy bajillion Tommy Bahama shirts. It was...floral, to say the least. Now, I don't own anything from the particular shop in question, so I went to the shed and dug out the button-down that my grandmother made for my dad in 196-something from a bolt of fabric a relative brought back from Hawai'i. It was close enough. And, you know, floral.

So, there we all were. Being floral. Eating, and kibbitzing, and 'oh-how-did-you-know-him'-ing. Well, my dad was, anyway. My mother and I retreated to a corner and stayed put. We don't do parties. Eventually the food settled, and the talking started.

Here's the thing. I think it's lovely that we all wax poetic about a person when they're gone. It's a need. It's a stage of grief. It helps us cope with the loss. Everyone who stood up to say something had a lovely story to tell. But what I want to know is how many of us put that kind of effort into actually telling people these kinds of things when they're still with us? How many of us can consciously stand up and say, "I have said to a person I love something that I would also say at their funeral"? We allow ourselves to speak those hidden inner truths once the person is gone because we feel like that's when we're expected to--and we should still do that. But we should also make the effort to say things before we're left behind.

"Oh, c'mon. That's soppy and weird."

Okay, so make it fuckin' weird! Normalize that shit! Sit your humans down, make solid eye contact, and tell them exactly what they mean to you.

Because they won't know unless you tell them. And who knows? You might get the same in return. And how nice would that be?