Road Trip Part Two
Gentle readers, forgive me. I should never write a āPart 1ā of anything without at least planning out āPart 2.ā It was my full and honest intention to start the blog rolling again, to build up steam, to really get back into good writing habits, itās really important, just like dental hygiene I always say, flossing and writing, yep, gotta do it every day, anyway where was I…
Yes. I got a cold and turned into a sniveling miserable snot factory for a week. Rockinā.
I shouldnāt complain; it had been a year and a half since my last sniffle. Colds come to us all, lower our defenses and our dignity, and reduce us to huddling under blankets making pitiful noises until the fever breaks. But that was almost two days ago for me, so letās do this thing.
Day 2 of my drive to Nashville was sunny perfection. The novelty of driving was wearing off a little but the novelty of picking my own music had not. Once I was rolling out of Bulls Gap, I wondered how soon I would reach a more populated area. I was thinking of the miles and miles of dark, scary-thunderstorm-enshrouded dusk Iād driven through the night before, seeing only the odd gas station or scary motel. How far would I have to go to see more choices?
Did you guess āThe next exitā? Because of course youād be right. Within ten miles I found a half-dozen other clean, modern chain hotels to choose from, most of which probably would have been less expensive. Oops.
Didnāt matter! Iād had a safe, pleasant evening and a decent meal, and could ask for absolutely nothing more. I pushed on, starting to wonder about Central Time, and when I would reach it. Itās west of Knoxville, thatās what I remembered. But āwest of Knoxvilleā describes a huge chunk of Tennessee, so I kept my eyes peeled.
My eyes kept getting distracted by Sonic signs, though. See, hereās the thing. If you live in an area where there are Sonic Drive-Ins, maybe you donāt think much of them. Maybe they are just like other fast-food places littering the landscape, like McDonaldās or Wendyās is for me. But a few years back Sonicās ad campaign went truly nationwide even though its restaurants werenāt; more precisely I kept seeing ads and never getting to eat there. What exotic land of treats was this?! Different fruit drinks? Ice cream desserts? TATER TOTS?!
Yes. Itās true that in the near future the greater Baltimore area will be blessed (or cursed, whatever your perspective) with Sonic Drive-Ins, and then they will fade back into the background for me. But before I left for this trip I joked about āstopping at every Sonic between here and Nashville.ā I may have been kidding, but only to a point. I was definitely stopping. The breakfast bar at the Best Western left a lot to be desired, and I’d been glad I still had a banana and some trail mix with me. I got hungry pretty early, around noon, maybe 12:30.
That was before I hit Central Time, though. I checked in with the Dugans and realized how insanely early it really appeared I was eating lunch: 11:30 a.m.! Stupid time travel. Threw me right off. Didnāt know what end was up. Fortunately tater tots grounded me back in reality.
The rest of the trip was really cake. The weather stayed nice and the traffic was fine, even right through downtown Nashville. I got a wake-up call when I checked in with Mandy, though – she had to give me different directions from what Google Maps wanted to tell me because a road was closed from the flooding. Oh.
Even driving through downtown I didnāt really notice it, not from the highway, the highway was cleaned up and cleared by then of course. As I came out on the west side of town, and got closer to their neighborhood, it started showing up. Not just as something on the news, sandwiched between other disasters, but as a real thing that happened to real human beings. House upon house with piles out in front: piles of furniture, piles of insulation, piles of drywall, piles of books and toys and every little thing that goes into our homes. Itās not our lives; fortunately the people in the vast majority of those homes lost their things but not their lives. But a lot of people lost a lot, and it was a sobering end to the start of my vacation.
There were good things to see happening, though. Lots and lots of people out volunteering, cleaning up. Collections and aide stations on every other block. People coming together, fixing and rebuilding, sharing and helping. It was good to see. Good like seeing your oldest friend for the first time in a while. Good like coming home.
June 11, 2010
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Jen Ā· 
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Road Trip, Part One
It was the farthest Iād ever driven on my own. According to Google Maps, from my front door to the Duganās front door was 704 miles. If itās a drive you ever get to take, across the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains, take it. Itās never less than lovely, and occasionally breathtaking.
And on the first day I was hell bent to drive through it as quickly as possible. It wasnāt precisely that I was in a rush to āget thereā – on the first leg, there wasnāt a there to get to. I was going to drive until I was tired of driving and find a place to crash. My only plan was to push more than halfway, so that Saturday would be the easier day of driving. That way Iād arrive more refreshed and less worn-out, at least in theory. Also I wouldnāt have to get up as early to still make it there by early afternoon.
As I headed west on Route 66 (its motto should actually be: āPercentage of kicks gotten increases geometrically as you leave the greater Washington, D.C. areaā but thatās not too snappy), I could feel myself settling into a groove. Iād lost my radio station about, oh, six or seven miles south of home as per usual, and ever since then Iād been on iPhone power. The USB connection for my car stereo was the best decision EVER. Thousands upon thousands of songs, available for me to sing along with! No one else there to get a vote! Or to protest if I decide to play the new Josh Ritter album like three times in a row. (It was more like two and a half times, really. On the drive down, at least.)
There are definitely a lot of joys on a shared road trip. Two sets of eyes find more things in the landscape, and conversation is a lot more surprising and engaging than picking what albums to sing with. But there was so much to get out of driving on my own. I listened to new music, yes, but I also listened to old music, albums that are well-worn friends. And it gave me so much time to myself, to think or not, to laugh or cry or just look at the beauty going past the windows.
The last city in Virginia as you head south on Route 81 is Bristol. Itās a good-sized city, sometimes crowded with tourists due to the big motor raceway there. Bristol is more or less the halfway point; certainly the most easily marked halfway point. Per my plan, then, I was going to drive past Bristol and find a place to stay. I got to Bristol around 6, maybe 6:30 p.m. It was a little early to stop, it seemed, and I still had spring in my step. In the back of my mind, though, was a conversation Iād recently had with a friend who had grown up in the general area:
FRIEND: So youāll probably stop around Bristol?
ME: Enh, I was thinking Iād push past Bristol. Iād like to get a little more than halfway there.
FRIEND: There isnāt anything much past Bristol.
ME: Thereās gotta be something between there and Knoxville.
FRIEND: Oh, there is. Eventually.
The hour between 6:30 and 7:30 saw my outlook completely change. All Iād eaten since I got on the road was the occasional handful of trail mix, a Cherry Coke Zero, and a bunch of water. The sky was starting to turn an ominous shade, reminiscent of some scary storms Iād driven through the last time Iād taken a road trip through Tennessee. Yep, it was time to find a hotel, and a place to eat, so I could get a good nightās sleep and let the scary storms pass me by after I got off the mountainous roads.
Except I was past Bristol. OH. Now I get it.
I was getting ready to white-knuckle it a little but the worst of the rain stayed away, as I drove along the storm boundary going southwest. I felt it all at once: I was tired, and hungry, and Iād actually gone close to two-thirds of the way there. I told myself, out loud, āNext hotel I see, Iām stopping.ā
The next hotel I āsawā popped up on one of those blue āLodgingā signs. The associated āFoodā and āGasā signs were discouragingly empty and the hotel was…āMOTEL 36.ā Right. Sure.
āThe next chain hotel I see, preferably AAA rated, Iām stopping.ā
And so I did, at a Best Western in Bulls Gap, TN, near the official historic birthplace of Davy Crockett. How colorful! How quaint! How quickly can I get in my dang room and out of the maybe-downpour?!
When it was time to eat I faced another choice. There was Tonyās BBQ. āOh, a local eatery! How colorful! How qua…ā I drove up to it and saw one car in the parking lot, and a very dark interior paired with a half-broken āOPENā sign in bleeding neon. Nobody in the world, I thought to myself, knows quite where I am right now. Cell signal isnāt strong. Iām a smart, capable woman traveling on my own, and Iām gonna make a sound decision! āRight, so, Dairy Queen it is then!ā And I took myself to the Dairy Queen across the street and I had a burger and I had a Blizzard because Iād been very good all day, eating trail mix and whatnot.
I slept well and showered well, with my own stuff because the Best Western featured a shampoo dispenser mounted on the wall which seemed chancy, ate a sub-par continental breakfast, and got back on the road. It was a brilliant, sunshiny day.
I did not get a prize for arriving during National Tourism Week.
June 1, 2010
Ā· Jen Ā· 3 Comments
Tags: road trip, travel, vacation Ā· Posted in: Uncategorized
Back from vacation.
Deciding to drive, instead of fly, to Nashville for this vacation was a great decision. The hours to myself, beautiful mountain scenes all around me, singing at the top of my lungs – they just sort of swept everything away. Work and life and everything that might not seem so big taken on their own, that piles up and piles up and becomes the thing we need to escape from, the whole need for vacation; those things were shoveled off by theĀ time I got to the Best Western in Bulls Gap, TN.
Arriving to a houseful of loving people and good friends was a whole different kind of balm, and break. Living by myself itās easy to get caught up in my own things. And while it is good to be self-aware, thereās a real value for me in breaking out of my self-filled routine. Itās a very different sort of life there than the one I have, and it makes me appreciate both of them all the more.
Because while I was sad to leave, taking the days to myself to drive home were valuable too. What would I miss? What was I most looking forward to? Where will my focus be? Each day will be renewed, all thanks to a few days on vacation…and a few days just driving and driving.
City square in Franklin, TN
May 23, 2010
Ā· Jen Ā· 4 Comments
Tags: Friends, vacation Ā· Posted in: Uncategorized
Caesura.
I fear I have been remiss in posting here, not for lack of anything to say, but more for lack of time to put it all into words. Life feels busy to me, and fulfilling, if not without frustration – overall, it feels good, and whole.
But Iāve felt it coming for a while now. Vacation. The need for a break, for time to get away. It hasnāt been quite a year since my last vacation, but of course a whole heck of a lot has happened between now and then.
Probably for exactly that reason, the siren song of vacation has grown ever louder the past week or so. And now weāre down to it! This Friday, I will pack up and drive out to Nashville, to visit dear friends (fortunately, not seriously affected by the recent floods). Iām taking two days to drive there and another two to drive back. Iām looking forward to the alone time, the driving-time, the freedom of on-the-road time so much. And then Iām looking forward equally to the renewal of bonds of friendship, and godmothership!, in a relaxed and welcoming environment.
Iām going to take pictures, and write, and hopefully blog too. Iāll be finding the time to do this regularly again, very soon. But first I think I need this break, this pause.
May 9, 2010
Ā· Jen Ā· No Comments
Tags: family, Friends, vacation Ā· Posted in: family
The Evolution of Privacy
When I was a kid we only had one phone in the house. Most houses at the time were built with only one, maybe two phone jacks tops. Ours was centrally located in the kitchen, where it hung on the wall near the table where we ate dinner. We always kept a long, long phone cord on it so that it could stretch far enough to let you reach the stove or refrigerator, so you could talk and keep an eye on dinner at the same time. It was smack in the center of family life, with no possible expectation of privacy unless you were to stretch the cord out to the hall closet and hide yourself in there while you talked.
Eventually the government broke up the telephone monopolies and let us citizens install our own phones, if you can imagine. First we got a cheap cordless phone that was shoddy and terrible, but would let you take the phone into another room that was NOT a hall closet. There was nothing to sit on in there but shoes! And it was dark! And kind of stuffy! A small extra bit of privacy was achieved with the cordless, but call quality suffered. As long as we were in the old house we werenāt going to get any more phone jacks, because no one was going to pay to have them wired in.
When I was a freshman in high school my parents decided to sell the house they had been living in since 1967 and move across town to a new development. It was exciting, picking out a house that hadnāt been built, because we got to pick things like the color of the linoleum in the bathroom and the color of the linoleum in the kitchen, as well as the color of the linoleum in the other bathroom. I know! But the big deal, the really Huge Thing for me as a 14-year-old was: a phone jack in every bedroom.
ME: So I can get a phone, right? Since there is a phone jack in my bedroom?
MY PARENTS: Well you canāt tie the line up all night or anything.
ME: But I can get my own phone, right?
MY PARENTS: That shouldnāt be a prob…
ME: In my own room, with a door I can shut, but there is a light and something to sit on thatās not shoes?
MY PARENTS: Knock yourself out.
Secretly they were thrilled. Neither one of them were big phone talkers and my Mom truly hates it even to this day. I was about to step into my time-honored role as the Teenage Daughter Who Is Always On The Phone To Her Friends About Some Boy Or Another, and I was going to keep the line tied up for them.
My assumption of this role was contingent upon a single key factor: privacy. As I talked to my girlfriends, and even possibly OH could it be? – boyfriends, I wanted that shut door between me and my parents, my older brother if he happened to be around, my sister-in-law-to-be if she was around, any passing adults who might want to listen in. Of course at 14 I also didnāt understand that most of those people could not possibly care less about my phone conversations, but still. It was the principle of the thing: a shut door. A space of my own for my own personal interaction.
Then someone invented the cell phone and shot the entire idea of privacy right down. Honestly, I donāt mean to sound like a crotchety old person, though I feel a bit like one. I should say right up front that I think cell phones are fantastic and useful inventions. I feel much better having one with me when I take long solo car trips, I like being reachable whenever I wish to be reachable, and of course now that I have an iPhone it is in fact like being in The Future. There are many awesome and awe-inspiring things that modern cell phones can do and Iām glad to have them around.
I simply wish that a few more people would shut themselves into hall closets to have some of their conversations. Okay, okay – it doesnāt have to be the closet. They donāt have to crouch on piles of rain boots in the dark, no matter how much character it builds. But what happened? What fundamental change occurred to make people think nothing of walking around talking to a widget jammed in their ear about the details of their latest dentist visit or intervention or domestic squabble? There are still times when Iām talking on my phone as I walk across my parking lot, and my voice drops down low and the person Iām talking to asks me to speak up and I say, āHold on, Iām almost insideā and I save the more personal parts of my conversation for when I am back in my apartment, behind my closed door. Call me old-fashioned, but I just like it better that way.
April 19, 2010
Ā· Jen Ā· 6 Comments
Tags: privacy Ā· Posted in: Uncategorized
Token.
Last weekend I traveled to Alliance, Ohio with my mother, to visit my aunt and uncle. It was a good weekend, if sometimes an emotional one. It was the first time we had seen them since Dadās funeral – my fatherās sister and her husband traveled down here to meet up for a hard visit. It was our first visit out to them since my grandmother passed away, almost exactly a year before my father.
It was great to see them without an agenda. Before, our visits were mainly centered around my grandmother. As my father and aunt took watchful care of their aging mother, our times together were on her schedule. We took meals according to what worked with the schedule at the nursing home, we attended Mass with her there as well. We were happy to do it, but I realized this weekend that I never saw much more of the town than my auntās house, the nursing home, our hotel, and the stretches of road in-between. As strange and changed as this visit was, it was unhurried, and friendly, and full of conversation and laughter.
While we were at my aunt and uncleās house on Saturday, my aunt brought out some things of my grandmotherās, jewelry mostly. There was a small beaded bag and another zipper bag and an old jewelry box, its hinge somewhat unwilling.
āI want you to have this,ā she said, handing me a small ring.
āWhat is it?ā I asked.
āItās Motherās original wedding band,ā she said, and I drew in a breath.
When I thought back, I couldnāt remember my grandmother wearing this ring. It has been sized up at least once, probably due to my grandmotherās arthritis making her knuckles bigger. It was harder and harder to take the ring off, and eventually it just got left off. It is a slender band of white gold, with five small diamonds set individually across the front. Inside it is engraved with my grandfatherās initials, āHPR,ā and with the date of their wedding, ā6-21-34.ā You can see what might be the beginning of my grandmotherās initials, but that is where the ring was sized.
Date, hard to make out
Itās funny, because I just wrote so recently about not hanging too much meaning on objects. There was a flashing moment as I took the ring from my aunt when I thought, āI could save it.ā Maybe I could put it aside, keep it for my own wedding one day, pass the meaning along. At the same time I was thinking, āNo.ā No, I want to wear it now. No, itās so beautiful. No, why should I save it? No, it probably wonāt fit anyway.
Turns out I was wrong. It fit perfectly on my right ring finger. I do not want to save it, to try to give it another meaning, because it already has a meaning. It is a part of my past, of my personal history and of the history of my family. My grandmother had that ring for 74 years. She wore it during her 46-year marriage, and treasured it the rest of her life whether she could wear it or not.
After asking my aunt seventeen times if she was sure she wanted to give it to me and not keep it for herself, I accepted it graciously if belatedly. I feel stronger when I wear that ring. I feel part of something more than myself. Family history is important, and not just in the snapshots I have or the moments that I remember. When my grandfather first slipped that ring onto my grandmotherās finger she was 24 years old, young and full of hope. She wasnāt the same kind, wise woman that I came to know, and yet she was. The ring is more than a totem of personal history, itās a reminder of the journey each of us takes.
And it is so, so beautiful.
April 13, 2010
Ā· Jen Ā· 6 Comments
Tags: family Ā· Posted in: family
Easter, 2010
April 4, 2010
Ā· Jen Ā· 2 Comments
Tags: dad Ā· Posted in: Uncategorized
The ones that got away.
When I was a senior in high school, my friends and I liked to take the D.C. Metro down into Georgetown. We would go down and have lunch and mainly window-shop, because Georgetown isnāt exactly known for its bargain basement deals.
My favorite thing to window-shop for was boots. There were a few good boot shops in Georgetown at the time, Commander Salamander and that other one. I never remembered its name but it was the better shop, as measured in Doc Marten selection. It was Doc Martens that inspired the most lust in me, and I would gaze lovingly at all of them, shining and kick-ass and far too expensive for me to buy on my part-time job at the library.
One bright afternoon I saw them. Any other passerby would see only a pair of 8-hole Docs primarily done in white satin, but with a patchwork design of other white fabrics – some lacy, some shiny, some textured. A stunning shoe, perhaps, but to any other passerby a mere shoe nonetheless.
To me, they were My Wedding Boots. As soon as I saw them I was granted a vision of myself, walking down the aisle in a dress probably far too inspired by Pretty in Pink, with those boots flashing out, completing the outfit, standing out, kicking ass. To say I wanted them would be cheating. It felt, to my 17-year-old heart, as though they already belonged to me. As if they were, in some way, my destiny.
They were $120.00.
I looked, I hemmed, I hawed. I tried to imagine my motherās face when I explained that I had used the For Emergencies Only credit card to buy boots, but it was okay, because they were for my wedding, even though my grand total dating experience at that time was one highly awkward 6-week relationship with a gangly young man who pretended we werenāt dating when we were around his friends. But it was okay! The boots, MY boots, werenāt for him! They were for me! And they were for my soulmate, the man who would be my other half, who would complete me, who would listen to me spout horrible cliches and love me anyway…me and my ass-kicking satin wedding boots.
I did not buy them.
I thought about them, oh yes I did. But I never saw them again. I knew they wouldnāt last, that shoes so special would win someone elseās heart, someone who could cough up a hundred and twenty bucks. For years afterward, I would sometimes feel a pang that I hadnāt bought them anyway, hadnāt saved up the money to pay back my parentsā credit card and put them on a shelf in my closet for the day the right man came along.
Eventually the internet happened, and with it the Doc Martens website, where you can get any number of stunning, beautiful pairs of boots in any color or style imaginable, but I have never seen those satin beauties again. I think they were a product of the ā80s and are unlikely to return.
Twenty-one years later and I still havenāt gotten married. I think about those boots sometimes and what would actually have happened to them if I had gotten them. They would have been moved so many times. Boxed up, unboxed. Shown off, bragged over. Iāve certainly told the story enough times.
Over time, though, the story has changed. When I first told it, it was a romantic tale, certain to have a fairy-tale ending. Then it was a chuckle of a tale at the follies of youth. And now Iām using it to illustrate why I donāt tend to hang weighty emotional expectations on articles of clothing anymore.
Do you know what those boots would be right now, if they still lived in a box in my closet? They would be an albatross. A spunky, satin-covered, ā80s-souled albatross. A box that sat there and smirked at me each time I entered the closet, mocking me for not needing those boots yet, laughing at my hopes and dreams.
Iām glad I donāt have them. If I ever do get married, I would rather get married in some kind of footwear that I picked as the person doing the marrying, not the stuff a dreaming teenager picked out decades ago. Something comfortable and fun and something I can wear again after the wedding because I donāt want to get saddled with shoes that are more meaning than foot-covering. And if I donāt ever get married, I want to feel free to buy white Doc Martens anyway, should the mood strike.
–
This was written for Genie’s monthly Living Out Loud project. Please check it out, read some of the other fantastic entries from the past 14 months, and think about writing one of your own!
April 1, 2010
Ā· Jen Ā· 15 Comments
Tags: life, living out loud, self, shoes Ā· Posted in: Uncategorized
“Diane, I hold in my hand a small box of chocolate bunnies…”
April 8, 1990 fell during Spring Break of my senior year of high school. Graduation was so close I could taste it. Big change was coming. Big things were bound to happen. But what was happening on April 8, 1990 was that I was cleaning my room. I remember this very distinctly. I was holed up, happily puttering in my junk. It was a Sunday night (the internet told me this – thanks internet!), and I canāt remember if it was the very start of break or the very end of it. I had dragged our tiny old black-and-white TV up to my room because there was a TV show I wanted to watch, one I was sure my Mom had no interest in. We didnāt have cable, so I knew the reception for ABC would be okay upstairs since it was okay downstairs. I cleaned, I puttered, and I tuned in to the pilot episode of Twin Peaks.
The other day I saw someone say on Twitter that if it had been in existence during Twin Peaks, it would have caused many a fail-whale sighting; Iām sure thatās true. There have been very few times in my life when a television show got inside my head and under my skin that much. And for once I wasnāt alone. Twin Peaks turned into a cultural phenomenon, āWho killed Laura Palmer?ā the next generationās (my generationās) āWho shot J.R.?ā It truly defined water cooler talk for months and months in 1990 and stretching into its scattershot finale in 1991.
It united people, the way the best shared experiences do. That night, after watching the pilot, with my mouth hanging open just a little and completely blown away by what Iād seen, I went downstairs. The first thing my mother said to me was, āOh, I just saw the most interesting TV show…ā Thatās right, it even sucked in my Mom. I was a little put out. All that time I could have been watching in color, downstairs! My Mom and I got in the habit of talking about the show every week, even though I frequently watched it with friends and not always at home. Eventually it got ātoo weirdā for her (and, it turned out, for most of the rest of the country), but for a while it was a ride a lot of us took together. And we enjoyed the hell out of it.
If social media had existed, yes, it would have exploded. To me, thatās one of the best things the internet can do: be a global water cooler. I could have shared theories on Lauraās killer on Twitter. I could have written blog posts about the terrifying being known as BOB. Someone could have started a Facebook group: āIf we can get 1,000,000 people to ask nicely, will David Lynch and Mark Frost promise never to let James, Donna, and cousin Maddy sing together again?!ā
But every week, instead, people just talked about it. Parents and kids, teenagers and young adults, a lot of people found something compelling in the charming little town of Twin Peaks with the sinister side. We drank a lot of coffee. We ate a lot of pie. And for a while we all shared the same dream-world. For a while, you could seek out like-minded folks just by saying āCOOP!ā in the right tone of voice. Youād know the like-minded folks because theyād answer, āToday you remind me of a small Mexican chi-wow-wow!ā No matter how off-the-rails it got by the end, itās still powerful to think of the commanding, haunting, uniting vision of that show. Twenty years later, itās still compelling. Believe me, Iām having a hard time not just getting out the DVDs right now.
Itās just…Lost is on tonight.
March 30, 2010
Ā· Jen Ā· No Comments
Tags: communication, connection, tv, twin peaks Ā· Posted in: Uncategorized
Talking it out.
A few weeks ago there was an episode of House entitled āPrivate Lives.ā Laura Prepon (of That ā70s Show fame) was the guest star and patient-of-the-week, a blogger whose entire life is lived out in the open. She first becomes ill while she is sitting up late at night, blogging about an argument she just had with her partner that is keeping her from being able to sleep, while he tosses and turns in the other room.
The episode actually has a lot of interesting things to say about blogging culture and the trend of living our lives publicly, in the view of all those that we connect with on Facebook, Twitter, our own blogs, our shared links on Google reader, or any one of a zillion other ways that weāre interacting today. Itās available online and worth taking a look.
For right now, though, Iām not here to talk directly about why we connect this way. Iām actually here to talk about health. And on this historic day, that will also mean talking a little about health care reform. In the House episode mentioned above, the patientās diagnosis is ultimately reached when House gets in her face and asks her…about her bowel movements. The character had recently changed to a vegetarian diet, influenced of course by commenters on her blog and in her online community. At first I was incredulous. āAll the stuff sheās written about,ā I thought, āand she never once asked any of her vegetarian or vegan online friends about changes to her bowel movements after a major dietary change?ā Then I reconsidered.
There are few things that are taboo any more, though of course those subjects do shift from person to person. But many, many people are not comfortable discussing digestive issues, and especially not digestive issues regarding waste elimination. For many people, across many cultures, issues of this nature are still deeply private, and can be a source of great shame. They shouldnāt be.
A little over ten years ago, in November of 1999, I got very sick. At first I thought it was stress, or indigestion – an ulcer, perhaps? At the time I was a person who eschewed doctors, but the first morning I saw blood in the toilet bowl I got over it, quick. I was put on several powerful antibiotics, and I got worse and worse. Throughout the holiday season, everything in my life centered around the bathroom. Around confusion. Around fear. Around pain. Around betrayal – I was 27 years old. What was my body doing to me? At the beginning of January I had a colonoscopy and my gastroenterologist was finally able to give me a diagnosis: I had ulcerative colitis, fairly severe but mainly concentrated on the left side of my colon.
Fortunately for me, my UC was brought under control without too much difficulty. Fortunately for me, I havenāt had too many complications. Fortunately for me, even when I didnāt have health insurance, my parents were there to help out with the cost of medication – which was fortunately hundreds of dollars a month, not thousands. Fortunately for me, I have friends who were willing to listen to me talk about my disease.
Unfortunately for me, I have been dealing with the consequences of the shame I felt at that diagnosis for the past decade. Pain, bewilderment, frustration and shame at the way my body betrayed me, showed me in no uncertain terms the way it could fail. Understanding and loving friends and family were wonderful, but there were still things I was too ashamed to talk about.
Iām blogging about it now because I was thinking of the woman in the TV show, thinking that if she had reached out earlier she might have gotten help earlier. I realize itās a fiction, but I see how easily it could really happen. When our bodies donāt work right it scares us. When our bowels donāt work right it shames us. I donāt know what can be done to change that, but we can start by talking.
And while weāre talking, let me just say a few words about health care. I was unemployed several times after my diagnosis with UC and could not afford COBRA coverage. I was lucky that when I was finally employed again in a group plan I was not turned down due to a pre-existing condition. Since the UC diagnosis ten years ago I have also been diagnosed with Type II diabetes, three and a half years ago. In no uncertain terms, I need health insurance to live. I have it right now. Knowing how quickly my body can turn on me, how quickly things can change…all I can say about policy today is that it is vital, vital for all Americans to have the health insurance that they need to live. Any step in that direction is a right step. Any step at all.
Iām not a political blogger and Iām not a medical advocate. Itās possible I didnāt need to go in both those directions today, but I had to address the fear behind both of these issues. If I have a point at all, it is that we should not be ashamed of our bodies or anything they do. If they need our attention we should be able to give that, no matter where we work or who we work for or what work we do. That may not have been exactly what FDR was referring to with āfreedom from wantā or āfreedom from fear,ā but I suspect he would agree.
March 23, 2010
Ā· Jen Ā· 4 Comments
Tags: body, health, self Ā· Posted in: Uncategorized
