Ignorance is Bliss

"Hey, Erica, were you singing Cee Lo yesterday?"

I glanced nervously around the diner table, full of half full mugs of coffee and pools of grease upon which eggs and bacon recently sat. I'd been dreading this moment. The expectant faces of my downstairs neighbors waited as I gave an inward resigned sigh, "Yeah, probably," and then, "you could hear that?" I didn't want to know the answer, but I couldn't help myself.

Ever since I've come back, I've been much more attune to sounds. By that I mean the sounds I hear in my apartment and the sounds that other tenants might hear coming from mine. Let me just say that I love my neighbors. I live in the best shoebox building in Denver and it's full of amazing people who have become close friends of mine these past two years. That said, it's not that music and voices soaking into my apartment bother me, I just find it interesting that I never noticed it before. I guess four months in a big, sparsely-populated house with more than a foot of insulation from neighbors made me soft. Now, whenever I hear someone else, I immediately want to know what they can hear from me. I haven't wanted to ask, though, because if the answer was everything, I wouldn't be able to sing rawly and uninhibited anymore. Any time I sang to my shampoos or danced around my kitchen belting this, that or the other thing, I would be doing so knowing that everyone could hear me, and I don't know if I'm quite secure enough for that.

In the vinyl booth, I couldn't decide if I was relieved to know the answer or brokenhearted at what the answer was. Yes, it was me singing Cee Lo. I was singing it quite loudly because I was not aware that I was giving a free concert to an audience that can't just get up and leave cause they live there! I sang and I danced as I unloaded my dishwasher and hung up clothes and it was wonderful. Now I look back with nostalgia to yesterday afternoon, and, bittersweetly, I think to myself that ignorance is bliss.

Strides for Epilepsy

Hey Team!

Every year, the Epilepsy Foundation holds a 5K walk/run called Strides for Epilepsy. I don't run, I hate running and am bad at it, but I'm a top notch walker, so this year I'm participating! The Stroll will raise money for programs that help to raise awareness about epilepsy, promote research, and give support to epileptics and their families. Some of the programs they run include themed support groups, mentoring programs, events to bring together people with epilepsy and their loved ones with people like them, and the Jason Fleishman Summer Camp for kids with epilepsy that's too severe for them to be able to go to regular summer camp. Kids should go to summer camp. I went every year, and while I hated it sometimes and cursed the horseback riding (which I wasn't particularly skilled in) with eight year old bad words like, "stupid" and "hate", I wouldn't change it for anything. I got to swim in the St. Croix river and learned how to make ridiculous numbers of friendship bracelets. Lots of kids with epilepsy don't get to do that because the camps don't have the resources to support them.

So pretty much, the Epilepsy Foundation of Colorado is awesome and I'm really looking forward to this walk. Any donation that you can give, even if it's just five dollars, is huge. Your support really means more to me than I can say. Living In a Brainstorm is putting together a team, so visit our page here!

On a completely unrelated note, I've been thinking about it and it's time that Living in a Brainstorm has a logo. I am not skilled in drawing or graphic-making, so I wanted to see if anyone else is! If you have an idea for a logo, email me!

That's all, but again, any contribution you can make to Strides is amazing and will really help everyone affected by epilepsy all over.

Volunteer

The silver cord was just clear enough to show foggy images of wires inside, producing an overall effect of techy and cool. As far as you can call a USB cord “cool”, that is.

Two ends, one shaped for a USB port - that’s easy, fits into my computer in the hole with the matching picture over it - and one shaped like a square with rounded edges at the top. Hmm, that must be the printer side. I moved my hands around the back of the printer, trying to find the glass slipper to the silver foot at the end of the cord.

After collecting enough dust to let a dust bunny retire early, I pushed the square-ish peg in the square-ish hole, completing the connection to my laptop. I sat crosslegged on the floor in front of the screen, my elbow angled just far enough from the edge of the shelves I’d pushed away from the wall to reveal the outlet behind them. All I had to do then was click print and I’d be in business. Maybe click it twice, just for good measure. I looked at the silent, unmoving printer with mounting frustration, willing it to do its job, but to no avail. Clearly it hated me. I proceeded through each of the tricks I could think of, fudging names and numbers when necessary, but still nothing. Finally giving up (a whopping ten minutes later, fifteen maybe), I sighed and started to scroll down the pdf on the screen: “The Children’s Hospital Volunteer Application”.

I got some good advice from my aunt after writing about my anxieties surrounding starting to work again: she said to try some part time volunteer positions. That way I can get back into a structured atmosphere, possibly even in an office setting, without the stresses of a full time job. It’s a way for me to dip my toes in the water and swirl them around a bit so I can be sure I know when it’s time to dive in. So I read through the application and decided to just drive over to the hospital and apply in person. Maybe that way I could be seen by someone rather than just mailing in a printed out application with saliva on the back of the envelope and a crooked stamp on the front.

The Denver Children’s Hospital is somewhere between and five and ten minute drive from my place, and would probably equate to a twenty minute to half hour walk on nice days or when I had the time. The street in front of the hospital didn’t have any parking meters, so I hopped out of my car and walked purposefully through the revolving door and to the front desk. The front desk happened to be a security desk guarding the space between the hospital on the right and an eating disorder clinic on the left. Taking off my sunglasses, I cheerfully stated that I would like to apply for a volunteer position and inquired as to where I might do that.

“The main campus. In Aurora.”

The main Children’s Hospital campus in Aurora is a thirty minute drive from my place in minimal traffic. I looked at the digital clock on my phone and saw that I had exactly an hour and a half before pilates. Okay, then, Aurora it is, I thought.

And the drive was as long and exasperating as I’d dreamed, hitting every red light on eight miles of Colfax. My foot itched on the break each time I glanced at the arrival estimate on my Garmin GPS navigator and saw it readjust farther and farther away from the time on the clock below it. I thought of the times I’d had athlete’s foot as a kid.

My hands tapped on the steering wheel as I looked for a parking place; my shoes tapped against the tile floor as I made my way through the lobby; my breath tapped quickly in my chest as I opened the door to the volunteer office. “Hi, I’d like to apply to be a volunteer”, I offered almost as cheerily as the first time.

I was handed an envelope with a printed out version of the online application. I should hear back at some time in the future, hopefully.

Productive Member of Society

I've been thinking a lot about jobs lately. I'm trying to figure out when I should go back to work. When is it time to rejoin the workforce and become a productive member of society?

I feel like my mind is sound and I can perform most tasks, but my stamina is still so low that I need to either nap or take some quiet time everyday. But which of my reasons are valid and which are just excuses? Am I really ready to go back to work or should I trust how I feel? Even if I do trust how I feel, how much longer do I stay in this stage where I spend my days writing, napping, learning how to take care of myself again and only sleeping on my right? I wish I had the answers; I hate that I don't.

The thought of going back to work fills me with so much anxiety. I don't know my mental limitations yet and don't know how far I can stretch my attention span before I glaze over from too much stimulation. Finding those limits as I start and learn a new job scares me. How is that going to hamper my ability to perform? What if I'm bad at it? I think that's the real question at the root of it: what if I'm bad at it? My confidence in my ability is shaky at best, and having that confidence smashed by under-performing or getting yelled at by a boss sounds awful. I've come so far as a person since last October that anything that could possibly de-rail me and send me back to the person I used to be terrifies me.

I guess the question is: how do I know when I'm ready to go back to work?

Cold Night, Warm Heart

Tonight more than any night yet, it really hit me how happy I am to be back. Standing outside at my apartment building, wearing a heavy sweater underneath a sweatshirt with a hat and a scarf, holding a beer in a mittened hand, I looked around at my friends and couldn’t stop a smile from spreading its way across my face. It wasn’t planned, there was no evite, it was just a night like any other, but shifting my weight from foot to foot to stay warm, I felt special. I felt accepted. I felt like I had a place; no matter how adrift I may be, I had a place. And I felt so lucky.

Writing Habits

I’ve gotten into the habit of writing at the end of the day, sitting in my bed as I reflect on my life. It’s usually nighttime when I feel most reflective and insightful, but the problem is that I keep falling asleep on top of my computer. Therefore, I’ve decided I need to train myself to be more thoughtful during the day.

I bent over and untied my shoes, brown Roos with blue trim and matching blue laces. I keep them tied loosely enough that I can slip my feet in without untying them, but for a long walk like today, I wanted them to hug my feet and support the ankle I sprained last year that still bothers me. I loosened the laces and shoved each white-socked foot in its proper Roo. I pulled hard on the laces at each turn around, dragging the sides across the tongue, as close together as I could get them. I stood up and glanced at the clock on the microwave as I picked up my backpack: 10:46.

My keys sat heavily in one pocket of my zip-up sweatshirt, my phone heavy in the other. I reached back and found a fiver in the back pocket of my jeans. Sweet. The purple backpack I’d bought last year when I thought I might become a hiker and regularly climb fourteeners (mountains with a summit at an altitude of 14,000 feet or more – it’s a thing) – a ridiculous idea that I abandoned after I realized that fourteeners reside in the eighth circle of hell – was lighter than usual, just carrying my computer, notebook and the essentials from my purse. I flicked off the light and left, noting that my door needs some WD40.

It’s a little colder than I thought it’d be, so I pulled up my hood as I crossed the street and entered the park. I was on my way to a coffee shop just short of the other side. I was going to write. There’s so much inside of me that I need to get out; I need to purge myself of the thoughts, the feelings, that seep from my mind into my body, filling it up like a viscous liquid that rises and rises until I can’t breathe. Not until the words form in the ether within me and spill forth from my fingers am I able to sigh again. So on I walked. The park has changed since I left last November; the paths have gone from worn grass shortcuts to clean, white concrete, weaving its way along the perimeter, loosely following the road I take to avoid the constant intersections of residential streets.

No one was sitting on blankets in the grass or playing Frisbee with friends while dogs run back and forth around them. It’s too cold today. A woman with a Mohawk walked next to one with a shaved head ahead of me, the first wearing spandex workout clothes and carrying an ipod, and I wondered to myself if she’d suited up for the walk or if they’d met up after her run. A man in a heavy, worn coat and hat sat on a bench feeding peanuts to squirrels. They sat in a semi-circle around him, munching and waiting for more. They scattered when I walked through, and I almost felt bad for breaking the man’s spell, but changed my mind and decided it was weird.

Remembering Lessons Learned

Two and a half months since it was shaved, my hair is long enough to curl again. Just a little, not a full curl rotation, but I can tell it's coming, especially in my bangs. I'm not sure how I feel about curl versus curl-less, but I have about a week before I need to cross that bridge.

That's not what I wanted to write about though.

I used to talk about how I needed to learn how to depend on others, not try to do everything on my own, and during the surgery I learned. Lying in a hospital bed, not able to sit up, too weak to feed myself, scared and in pain, I had no choice but to lean on the support and love of everyone around me. My mind foggy, my body tired, I finally saw that they'd been there all along, arms up, hands waiting to catch me.

Figuring that out changed me. I understood, really understood on a basic level, that people want to help, and accepting that help doesn't make me any less strong or less able. Life became easier, happier, when I began to let people in. Now the challenge is to remember that.

I'm back in Colorado, and without my parents to ask for help from, it's easy to slip back into not asking for help for fear of bothering anyone. The problem with that is that I still need help, and furthermore, people want to help. People like to be needed, and right now, I need them, both for emotional support and physical support. Moving back into my shoebox, there are a lot of things that need lifting and shoving and bending and carrying, and I can't do that. Wait, let me amend that: I can do it, but I shouldn't do it. I'm able to lift heavier things, but I'm still not supposed to. What I'm supposed to do is figure out another way to get the heavy box full of my books up three floors to my apartment, meaning ask someone else to help me. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm guessing the power drill follows similar rules. It's frustrating when I know I can do something but needing to get somebody else to do it for me.

I guess there is a silver lining though, because despite my frustrations, my limitations are forcing me to remember the lessons I learned back when I didn't have a choice but to let people in.

Gushy Brains!

I finally got the pictures of my brain from the two surgeries! Two show the grid of electrodes placed on the surface of my brain, one is my brain with the dura on it, and two show my brain without the the chunk they took out. Pretty cool stuff!! Enjoy!!

Second Night Back

Tonight is my second night back in Denver. So far it’s good. It’s really good to see my friends again spend time with them, going on walks around the park, “running errands” at Crate & Barrel, barbequing kebabs under the stairwell and just talking. I do miss my family, but it’s good for me to be around people my own age. My entire apartment is smaller than my parents’ kitchen, but it’s home and I like it. Of course my kitchen table triples as my dining room table and my office, but the wall behind it is lavender – every room is different colors: lavender, yellow, light lime green and deep red (the only one I didn’t pick and can’t paint over). It’s cheerful and homey and more of a haven than a cocoon. After months in my love cocoon, sleeping in my old bed, having dinner every night with my parents, it’s time for me to burst forth as a butterfly, leave the nest, and all of those other growing up clichés.

I haven’t been getting overwhelmed in the same way I used to, where I would shut down and need to extricate myself from the situation as quickly as possible. I do have to remind myself to take naps, though harder than that is actually tearing myself away from whatever I’m doing and make myself lie down so I’ll be able to make it through the rest of the day without glazing over and crashing. With all of the unpacking between reunions, I’ve been much more active than even in the Bahamas. I like it. As long as I do take breaks. It’s good for me to feel like part of society again; to feel like a twenty-something again. Tomorrow, my friends are throwing a little welcome home barbeque for me, complete with all non-alcoholic drinks (save one glass of champagne each to toast my successful surgeries). It’s also Palm Sunday, so I’m gonna go to church, which I’m excited about, but I’ll have to take a nap between the two activities since I’m not allowed to partake in the host’s espresso machine and I’d hate to fall asleep during my own party.

When I opened the door to my apartment for the first time on Thursday, there were flowers in all different shapes and shades of pink as well as a sign saying, “Welcome Home Erica”, signed by my friends in my building. The living room and my bedroom were full of the boxes that Eve brought over from the crawl space in which I’d put them back in November. I couldn’t, and still can’t, believe how lucky I am to have such wonderful friends.

It’s funny to come back home in the mid-afternoon or later at night, tired and ready to start in on this task or that, and have no background noise. No footfalls from different sizes of feet carrying varying weights that each move with their own timbre. No TV playing in the next room. No opening and closing of the fridge; no chopping or scraping; no one building a fire; no one asking where their keys are and saying they’ll be back after fill-in-the-blank. It’s quiet. Until I put on some music, the only sounds are people talking in the open-air stairwells of our building and the one next door. It’s strange living in an apartment that’s empty but for me and my thoughts. It makes me miss my parents, my aunts, and even the two girls who work for my dad’s consulting business. Most of me is glad to be on my own again, but likely it will be like the latter.

Now, finally, I’m completely exhausted and need to go sleep before I fall asleep on my computer permanently.

Good night.

Hurry Up And Wait - MSP To DIA

I still have an hour before my plane starts to board. I’ve been sitting here for one hour already, trying to get the wireless signal from my phone to tether itself to my computer, but apparently the airport has a blanket over all wireless so that you have to pay for theirs. Oh well.

I have my ear buds on to block out the symphony of an overhead tv, people talking on cell phones and a man in the chair across from me snoring like there’s no tomorrow. It’s actually quite impressive. I don’t have any music streaming to my ears, so the small sound blocker really isn’t working.

My head is itching. It’s slightly frustrating, because the itch is coming from the area of my head that is still numb, so scratching doesn’t do anything. Apparently the itching is from the nerves growing back, which will eventually bring the feeling back to the circle of numbness, but in the meantime, it’s quite irritating. I want to scratch!!

Goodbye Prelude To A Shower

At seven am, Remix To Ignition started to fill the silence covering my bedroom. Starting quietly, it grew and grew, like a weed with tentacles that reached out with a crescendo. I stirred, sleep fading from my eyes, dripping down to be absorbed again by my bed. I rolled onto my back and began to mouth along the lyrics, adding improvised hand motions to illustrate the words being sung (“Give me that toot toot, give me that beep beep” eliciting a train whistle and a honking horn).

When the song was over, I slid the “Off” button and climbed out of bed. I had more packing to do, but first, a shower. Mom and dad’s shower is nice and big and roomy compared to mine – both mine in the house and mine in my apartment – so obviously I wanted to use theirs for my Last Shower. I grabbed my towel and padded down the hallway in ripped plaid pajama pants and a t-shirt that advertised my milkshake as bringing all the boys to the yard. I crossed the familiar threshold into my parents’ room, the room I’d crept into countless times in the middle of the night as a child. This morning I felt like a child again, missing my parents already.

“Ca’I use your shower or do you need it?”

My mom looked at me, makeup done, wearing a black suit skirt under a pajama top, her hair still damp. Dad sat in bed with a cup of coffee and the Journal. Mom’s eyes had the glass and the sad, proud, conflicted smile that only a parent can wear. She stepped forward and hugged me to her, both of us trying not to cry. “I’ve loved having you here. I’m gonna miss having you around.” Her arms stayed around me, no intention of letting go. “You’ve really taken your place in this family, and I hope you hold onto it. We’re gonna make sure you do.” I’ve thought about that many times, wishing hard that the three of us hold on to the closeness we’ve found and being nervous that we’ll lose it. “I love you so much and I’m so proud of you.” The mom look of love threatened to pull tears from my eyes when she stepped back and held me by the shoulders. She went on about how proud she is of me and how much she loves me and all of the other things I try to hold on to and remember so that one day I can treasure them when she’s gone. Even writing about it makes me sad.

Her hair was still damp as she instructed me to call her every day. One more kiss and I turned around the way I’d come to wash up in a shower the size of my whole bathroom.

Packing Tired Cobras

It's my second to last night here before I move back to Colorado. I'm sitting cross-legged under the yellow striped duvet that covers my bed. The left side of the bed is covered with scarves and t-shirts that still have to be packed and two legal pads that I need to find a home for. This morning dad and I picked up some cardboard boxes I found free on Craig's List - three long, skinny boxes with handles, two big boxes and one small square one. I won't need all of them, but as I put everything together, I'm surprised at how much stuff I need to get back to Colorado. Since I'll be back here a couple times over the next few months for weddings and doctor appointments, I'll be able to collect and bring back whatever I leave here, so right now I'm only taking about half of my things. Still, half is turning out to take up more space that I would've guessed. They're all things I've used though, not just superfluous junk, which makes me feel better.

Today I found out that COBRA has decided to reinstate me. I can't begin to say how amazing I feel. A current of nervous electricity ran through me as I opened the email and read, "Hi Erica, I got you approval for reinstatement". An enormous weight was lifted off of my Atlas shoulders. I started laughing in my car, parked in front of my therapist's office, looking, I'm sure, like a total nut job, not quite sure if I should welcome or blink back the tears that waited just behind my eyes. I picked my phone back up and my hands shook as I typed my reply on the little slide-out keyboard. Everything has gone so much better than I could have ever hoped - the surgeries, the follow-up, the insurance - everything. I guess I must've done something right!

I feel like there are so many things I want to write about, so many little experiences, feelings, thoughts that I want to word, like a river inside me that transforms into a sparkling, sunkissed waterfall as it leaves my mouth and flows onto the page. I want to write about packing and the conflicting emotions it brings, knowing that it's the right time for me to go but already missing my parents and my aunts; how I can look in a mirror and like what I see and not feel all of the insecurities I felt in the Bahamas; how I started to use my body again as I walked to the Sea Center (or whatever it's called) in the Bahamas for nine am yoga, and how I almost passed out more than once during that first class but every day got better and better as the young instructor taught patiently in both English and French, ("inspirer, expirer" = "breathe in, breathe out"). I want to write about them all, but not tonight. My heavy eyelids are drooping over the eyes I got peach-scented soap in when I washed my face this evening, which I take as my cue to go to sleep.

Goodnight

Pretty

Bahamas, Day 6

I'm finally at the point where I'm interested in society again; interested social endeavors and interested in people. But now that I'm noticing other people, I'm noticing myself and how I might look in their eyes, and I don't really like what I see. I stand in front of the mirror, finished product, my makeup done, my eyes sparkling, and I think to myself, I'm the wingman's target. My hair is short like a boy's and curls where it shouldn't; a far cry from long and sexy. It accentuates the zit on my cheek, the way my clothes don't fit quite right, the body that's squishy from lack of use - all the things my long hair used to hide. I don't feel pretty. Why would a boy hit on me when all of my imperfections are so blatant, so glaring? I catch guys looking my way, but when I look back I see their gaze just a little bit off center, their smile being returned by someone else. I used to be that girl! Despite my old insecurities and neuroses, I hardly ever paid for my own drinks. Not that I can drink now, but that's not the point. The point is that now that I'm ready to get back in the game, no one really cares. I'm the target market of the wingman.

I used to feel pretty. I want that back.

Bahamas Day 2 - Sailboats and Sandy Feet

My chest, stomach and chin (which is not covered by my sun hat) are getting red, so I dragged my chair into the shade. The new view shows two sailboats gliding toward the pier before making perfectly synchronized pivots and heading back out to sea. The boats are cairried on the wind by their striped sails: red, yellow and blue standing out against the turquoise shore, the deep blue open sea and the light, blue-grey of the horizon it meets. Much better view than the topless Frenchie from earlier today. The crashing waves and rustling palm tree soundtrack is much more suited to sailboats and rolling water than maked people on blue beach towels.

Two more sailboats and two light blue windsurfers have joined the water. The breeze feels nice on my neck. When I reach out my legs, stretching them away from the rest of my folded body, my toes reach the sun. I wiggle them, happy of my choice of gold toenail polish. The tops of my feet are covered in fine, light sand. I do't look, but I'm sure the bottom is worse. The backs of my legs are spotted with sand kicked up by the flip flop of my flip flops when I walked down the beach. My heels are red and dry. I'm not sure why, but I'll put some coconut-lime lotion on them when I get back from the room.

Bahamas, Day 2 - Awkward View

The sound of the waves crashing to the sandy shore mingles with the wind rustling the palm trees and blowing in my ear. The music of the beach soothes and calms, no instructions or breathing exercises necessary. The water in the kind of turquoise that looks like the ocean was touched up in a glossy magazine. The waves roll gently, the water lifting and curling over itself. A thin layer of white foam forms on the crest just before it slides up the new one like it wants to be included in the crash that sends it up onto the sand and over the feet of a little girl playing or a young couple holding hands.

From my standard-issue lounge chair of blue mesh fastened like a canvas to a white plastic frame, I only see the ocean from my periphery. Jill and I pulled our chairs through the sand, leaving drag marks in our wake, to face the sun. We'll be damned if we get uneven tans. The only problem is the view: rather than the Bahamian ocean that changes colors like a mood ring depending on its depth, I'm awkwardly facing a French woman tanning topless. I'm really trying not to stare, but topless tanning is not really something I see back in the puritan U.S. of A. and it's distracting! Her huge, very white knockers kind of make me want to copy her. I have a sudden strong desire to boldly untie my frilly black top and fling it recklessly into the sand, but my parents are three umbrellas down, so I'll control myself... for now.

Virgin Pina Coladas

I have a song stuck in my head, but the waves are drowning any desire to put it on. The rhythmic crash as they hit a reef or the shore. The tympani crescendo as they near their fatal final destination builds to a clash of cymbals as the white cap overtakes the rolling turquoise and echos as the salty water spreads over the sand.

Since arriving in the Bahamas and settling into the paradise that is the sandy beach, canvas umbrellas over blue mesh lounge chairs, yoga in the sea breeze every morning, 100 SPF sunscreen on my scar and a shaded porch overlooking it all, I’ve only taken one dose of Tylenol. That would be this morning.

Right now I’m at a tall, wood table with a tan, canvas umbrella over me at the Snack Bar. I know it probably has some kind of clever name, but I couldn‘t tell you what it is. As long as they keep making me virgin pina coladas, I don’t actually care.

They’re playing some kind of beachy music punctuated every few minutes by blenders. I did see an older man in a Speedo order a cup of coffee, which I thought was crazy since it’s so exceedingly hot out, but maybe it’s an older Frenchman thing. Apparently all of the French people here leave tomorrow, so tonight there’s a big beach party, where I’m assuming everyone will get hammered except me, since I’m only allowed one drink per night. Very unfortunate since I let myself be a lush on vacations to hot beaches. Oh well, it’s good for me, both physically and psychologically. This way I’m still able to make it to nine am yoga every morning.