A Broken Typewriter.

For my last birthday, my sister crawled through my parents’ grove and unearthed a beautiful, decayed typewriter to give to me.  It’s gorgeous.  I love typewriters for the same reason I love paper—they represent the possibility to manipulate language for story. 

But this typewriter is pretty much just for looks: the keys are stuck, the roller won’t budge, and it’s full of corrosion and filth, leaves and twigs and dust. 

October’s been a rough month for my brain.  I’m still transitioning to my new medication, and as a result, I’ve had a lot of seizures in the past few weeks.  Over a dozen. 

I’ve fallen into a sort of pattern with these seizures, as many epileptics do, preferring the same idiosyncrasies: I march in place, twiddle my thumbs, and talk nonsense, mostly about food—carrot nubs and garlic cloves in particular.  (I guess this is an improvement over a phase I went through in 2012, in which I would take off my own pants…)

In the moments before a seizure, during the wave of nausea and nerves that course through me, I always believe I can stop it, that I can maintain my composure, that I have some sort of control over this disease. 

I don’t.

But after my marching and thumb twiddling and food talk (which I never remember afterwards), I always believe that I somehow overruled my seizure, that I kept it from happening, that I overpowered it and kept it under control.  I pick up the thread of conversation where it left off.  The only indication that anything went wrong is found in those who witness it: this startled, sad expression, gentle words, an offer to sit down, a hug, a glass of water to swallow down my pills. 

I hate it.

Not their kindness, never that.  I just hate needing it.  I hate finding out that I didn’t have as much control over my own body and mind as I thought.  I’ll admit, watching people reenact my drum majorette march and my thumb twiddles for me is kind of funny. 

The part that’s really embarrassing is finding out what stupid things I’ve said.

During my seizures, I’ve said the following things, within absolutely no context whatsoever—these were lovingly recorded by my friends and family members who’ve witnessed my brain fails:

“You be the zombie sitting in the chair.”  

“Matthew in my lap—I’m going to eat his throat out.” (I said this while repeatedly punching my fist into a plate of cake.)

“The carrot nubs will make me stop marching.” (I said this while petting the inside of my purse.)

“You go through the door first.”

“The mermaids at the end of the driveway made me do it.”

“The garlic will make me stop marching.” (I said this while pointing at some garlic cloves and laughing hysterically.)

I’ve also laughed hysterically about our dog barking and about nothing whatsoever. 

I sometimes have this strange semi-awareness during my episodes, and I do recall that during the two where I was talking about food (the carrot nubs and the garlic), I was thinking that I should probably take an Ativan tablet, which can abort a seizure.  I knew I needed it, and I was trying to articulate that need, but the words just came out all wrong.  

I like words.  A lot.  I was an early reader.  I’ve been writing since I could hold a crayon.  I taught English for seven years.  So to have a disease that robs me—even momentarily—of the capacity to use language properly is devastating.  I lock up, I malfunction, my keys get jumbled, the paper gets jammed.  I feel like that typewriter my sister found for me—created to use words, but completely helpless to do so.

Lessons from Plants.

My foster son’s birth mother gave me some presents when we picked up his belongings and moved him into our house.  (She was in the process of moving and everything had to go.)  She gave me a gorgeous iron birdbath, a rusty old tractor tire rim (which made a perfect fire pit), and an umbrella tree. 

The umbrella tree had long since outgrown its small white pot.  It had slowly inched towards what little light it could reach, and in doing so, had developed a serious hunch.  (It could barely stand upright.) 

But the son was rather proud of it all the same.  It was a little piece of his home, his past, his history, and we were taking it into our home right along with him.  It was in dire need of a bigger pot and better light, so we picked out a new pot and together, the three of us (foster parents and son) gently replanted this tree. 

Perhaps “gently” is the wrong word here—our intentions were gentle, true, but the actual act was not.  The son held the branches while the two of us held the pot, and we grunted and tugged and yanked until it pulled free.  There was no other way to do it. I was worried we’d damage it somehow in the move, and there was talk of destroying the white pot to remove it, but together, we prevailed.  The son held the tree in the new pot and we poured handfuls of fresh black dirt around it, and we tried our best to correct that hunch in the process. 

I’ll say this up front: I am a notorious plant killer.  (I buy brand new houseplants every six months or so to keep up the illusion that I have a green thumb, but I just…lack the tender skill required to care for plants.  I am getting better at it, but I’m still not that great.)  So I was terrified that I was going to kill this plant, this piece of our new son’s old life, that it would shrivel and die in my clumsy care.  I was terrified that the repotting had stressed it, had damaged it, and that it would be beyond all help.

But that didn’t happen.

I mean, yeah, we had it a little too close to the air conditioner vent for awhile (it didn’t like that—it lost a lot of leaves), and there were a couple times when it got way too much (or not enough) water, but after we moved it somewhere warmer and brighter and figured out what its needs were, it flourished.  It stopped shedding leaves, and it started growing new ones. 

The other day, my foster son—a deep thinker if ever there was one—was standing over this tree, chin in hand, contemplating.  “It’s doing so well,” he said, reaching down to touch the new growth.  “I think it just needed a new place to live.”

I was struck by his choice of words: a new place to live.

I don’t think he was just talking about that plant. 

He’s right, you know—sometimes, it just takes a new environment to flourish.  (He is living proof of this.)  Sometimes it just takes eating right and sunshine and fresh air and room to stretch your legs (or roots, what have you). 

And I hope that is what we have done for him. 

Homecoming, Revisited.

I never really got into the homecoming hoopla when I was in high school.  The only thing it meant to me was pajama day and attending one football game a season. I know that homecoming is meant for the graduates, but after I graduated high school, I didn’t really care.  I only went to one homecoming game.           

One. 

That was it.   

When I was teaching, homecoming still meant pajama day (the second-best day of the school year!) and attending a single football game, but it became something more.  And not just an entire week of ridiculous dress-up days, either.  (Although, I participated in those with far more enthusiasm and school spirit than I ever did in high school.) I’m not much of a sports fan, but I always went to that single football game and cheered my heart out and rubbed elbows with the recent (and not-so-recent) graduates and their parents and their siblings and grandparents.  (Such is life in a small town--everyone turns out for the school sporting events.)   

It was never truly homecoming for me, though, because I was already home.

That made this year my first true homecoming.  

Homecoming never meant much to me as a student.  It meant quite a bit more to me as a teacher.  But this year, as a former teacher, I revisited the topic, and homecoming took on a new sort of significance.  

Last Friday I went to that homecoming game and “chaperoned” the following dance (I pretty much just danced).

In the spirit of homecoming, of coming home, I returned to the little school that had been my home for seven beautiful years, and for the first time, I understood what homecoming is all about.  It’s about hugs and spirit and face paint and shrieks of laughter and joy and the best pork chops (on a stick, even!) that I’ve ever had in my life. 

It’s about being embraced by those you’ve missed.

And embraced I was—I was mauled with hugs and love and kind words, and my dorky dance moves were a hit.  And although I did shed a few bittersweet and frustrated tears on the ride back to my house—I miss that school, those people like crazy, and I hate that my epilepsy stole that from me—I must, like a high school graduate, move on.  I must create myself a new home, but always remember and celebrate the first.

The Shrine in my Office.

This morning, for the first time since I was six, I DIDN’T have my first day of school.

It was so strange—getting the son up and packing him a lunch and rushing him out the door, and then…not having anywhere to go myself.  Not having anything to do.

Because I’m not a teacher anymore.

Oh, yeah.

It’s so weird.  I felt this immense freedom when I initially quit my job, and now…I’m embarrassed to admit this, but when I go into a store and see a school supply display, I nearly break down and cry.

I can’t stop thinking about everything I gave up.

I catch myself lesson planning in my sleep—I wake up with brilliant ideas about my classes, and then I remember that they’re not my classes to teach anymore.

I keep running into former students, or getting texts or emails or actual paper letters (from old coworkers, from past students, from parents of past students—I got the nicest one from a mom whose son graduated in 2009.  That’s FIVE YEARS AGO. I bawled.)  A 2014 graduate and her mother volunteered to help us decorate for my sister’s wedding and let us use their beautiful things.  (And trust me when I say, that wedding would not have been possible without their help.)

So, instead of heading off to school today, I spent quite a bit of time staring at the inside of my closet instead.

There, on the walls inside of my office closet, I have erected a shrine to commemorate my teaching experience.  

It can only be called a shrine.  It’s pretty spectacular—all my nerd posters, a ton of pictures, student artwork, encouraging notes, the wooden top of my first podium (autographed by the graduating classes of 2007, 2008, and 2009), and the bookshelf that was repaired and painted by the late, great David Sukalski.   I have a drawer full of letters and cards and thank-you notes and blessings and well wishes.  All of the “Welcome Back!” signs the kids made me after I was gone on medical leave are there, and, of course, the “We’re going to miss you…a lot!” poster that a bunch of kids signed for me on my last day.  (Which totally warmed my heart, even though “a lot” was written incorrectly as one word.)

It’s hard to open those doors without shedding a few tears.  It’s overwhelming, seeing all of those emotions/love/memories in one place. It’s nostalgic.  It’s beautiful.

But I had to shut those doors.

It’s one of the reasons I put the shrine in my closet.  (The main one was a lack of adequate wall space.)  But it ended up being a pretty cool metaphor: I needed to remind myself that those doors are closed now.  I can always open them up and feel that rush of emotions/love/memories, but they must close, so I can walk through the next door in my life.

And now, I sit here, alone, in my office, writing.

Which is exactly what I’ve always wanted to do.

Side Effects.

Medicating epilepsy is sort of a tricky business—you can’t really tell if a medication is working until it’s not.  There are no signs of improvement other than a lack of seizures, so it’s a total crapshoot.  It’s “working” as long as you don’t have a seizure.  You just kind of pop the pills and hope for the best.

No medication is without side effects; I know that.  When I was first diagnosed, my doctor presented me with a number of treatment options with a heavy recommendation for Keppra, as it is the “drug of choice” for partial epileptics.  But I shied away from it for one reason: it had the potential to alter my personality.

Yeah.

It had the power to change me, not just my epilepsy.  And not in a good way, either—we’re talking hostility, anger, aggression, irritability, mood swings, anxiety, and hallucinations.  (As if I need any more of those things in my life…)

Those words, that risk, terrified me, so I said no.  No, no, NO.

Hell no.

So I picked another drug from the list, a rather innocuous-sounding one called Lamictal, whose worst side effect was a fatal, skin-eating rash (among others, all of which sounded better than being something other than myself).

I played it safe and took Lamictal.

You can’t just start and stop taking epilepsy meds.  That can really mess you up, so you have to ease into them—you start at a super low dose, one that won’t even control epilepsy, and you work your way up to what you need.  (This is yet another complicated piece of the guessing game that is epilepsy management…)

I knew as soon as I started taking Lamictal that I’d made a mistake.

Not only did it make me super tired, but it destroyed my skin (I still bear those damn acne scars), it made my vision weird, and it made me want to kill myself.

There are countless commercials for medications that cause “suicidal thoughts,” which is a phrase that gets thrown around so much that it loses meaning, but let me tell you—they are no joke.  They are the most irrational, bizarre ideas.  They just pop into your head with their casual poison: Hey, what if you committed suicide today, okay?  Okay!  Put it on your to-do list! 

Killing myself: It seemed as rational and mundane as buying milk.

I had the meta-awareness to prevent myself from following through with these crazy plans, so I called my doctor, and we began the slow process of stopping this drug.

When I started the next drug, my doctor once again recommended Keppra, but after my last nightmare drug, I was loath to try it.  After all, it could turn me into a raging super bitch.

So we tried another. Its side effects were annoying (tiredness, dizziness, vision problems, coordination problems, dry mouth/eyes/nose), but I didn’t want to kill myself, so I was willing to put up with the other stuff.  And it seemed to work.

Until it didn’t.

I had that super seizure while I was driving, and then I knew I had to try something else.

My doctor brought up Keppra again (and brain surgery, which also sounded terrifying), and its risk weighed heavy in my mind, but after surviving suicidal thoughts, a year of medical leave, and a seizure-induced car accident, I figured I didn’t have much else left to lose…except my personality.

So, I took the Keppra prescription, and my hands trembled as I took that first dose, that yellowish horse pill almost bouncing out of my palm on its way to my mouth, but I sucked it up and swallowed it down.

You know what happened next?

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Nothing, nothing, nothing.

None of my fears about taking this medication came to pass.  I didn’t turn into a bitch.  (Well, not any worse than usual.)  I didn’t have any suicidal thoughts.  I didn’t get any more zits than usual.  I didn’t get super tired.  And I didn’t lose myself.

I’m still me.  Maybe even more than I’ve been since my diagnosis.  Time will tell.  I still don’t know how well it’s working to control my seizures (since I can only assume it’s working until it’s not), but I am learning to take one day at a time.  It’s all I can do.

There’s a lesson here: I let all that damn fear about what might happen keep me from enjoying and anticipating the good that willhappen.

Ohhhh, what a powerful metaphor that one was.

Fear and worry are powerful motivators, but only if we allow them to be.  We really don’t have any idea about what’s going to happen, and a lot of the things we worry about don’t even come to pass.  Worry is a waste of the imagination, and it just feeds our fears.  It’s a vicious cycle, and it’s one that we are responsible for instigating.

It’s best to just admit that—it’s a hard pill to swallow (pun completely intended), I know, but it’s impossible to live a full life if worry and fear keep you from doing so.

So face your fears.

Imagine something more beautiful than worry.

And take your meds.  Your doctor really does know best.

On Reflection, Prayers, and Bossy Love.

I was paging through my prayer journal this week, which always proves an interesting perusal.  I do it every once in awhile, and it’s always fascinating and painful and bittersweet and wonderful and just…good.  It’s good to see where I was, to see how my needs have been met, to be reminded that I am being cared for, that my prayers are important, and that they are heard.

But they are reminders, too, of my pain.  Those prayers are some of my most raw and honest writing, words I hope no one will ever see.  They are so personal and so ugly and so desperate, and they are so often born of sheer hopelessness.  They are, I admit, often a last resort, because I hate feeling weak enough to need to pray.

In one of my weaker moments, when the decision to quit teaching seemed less, Yes, this is clearly the path I must take and more,What the hell have I just done?!, when I was frantic about losing my adulthood identity and feeling all sorts of pressure to do what everyone else wanted me to do, I opened up my prayer journal and poured my heart out to God.

I felt like quitting teaching was right.  Even though I loved doing it and I think I was pretty good at it (read: bossy), I felt like it was time to move on.  But move on to…what?  We didn’t have a family that I could focus on like our other 30-something-year-old friends did.  (We cannot have children of our own—I’ve written many an angry prayer to God about that one.)  I couldn’t (and still can’t) drive myself anywhere.  So my prospects seemed rather dim.  And yet…quitting just felt right.  Confusing, but right.

Like going through a door.

So, in my desperation, I just…wrote.  I wrote, and I wrote, and I wrote—I wrote four pages that night, all of them full of confused, desperate, jumbled words.  I didn’t even really know what I was praying for, to be honest. It was as if my very soul were praying.  (My mind had nothing to do with it, save the task of controlling my pen.)  The words just fell out of me. I asked for an outlet for my bossy love.   I asked for true connection.  And I asked for love reciprocated.

And I reread those this week, and I was shocked and amazed, because that confused, desperate, jumbled prayer had been answered, because I became a foster mom mere days after I prayed those words.

True connection.  Love reciprocated.  An outlet for my bossy love.

And I got all three.

God is good.