Home Identity Crisis

It never fails that when I sob hysterically on planes I’m pinned between two large gentlemen. And it never fails that whilst sobbing, at least one of the gentlemen will stir uncomfortably in his seat, set sunglasses over his eyes to avert any eye contact with the crazy overly -emotional woman gripping a bridesmaid bouquet on a flight from Vegas to Salt Lake. A flight that until now was one of pleasure, escaping a home of 13 years for a home of only a few months, trading one home I didn’t think I wanted, for another home I really thought I did.

The couple months leading up to Heather’s wedding acted as a backstabbing roommate: you pretend everything is fine, but deep down you know in your soul that he or she is eating your Frosted Flakes and using your shampoo. You fear confronting your backstabbing roommate for worry of retaliation (perhaps PEEING in the said shampoo) or worse yet, your roommie bailing out and leaving you with the full rent. And really, isn’t it easier to just play naiive than confront an uncomfortable and possibly volital  situation? The roommate, in actuality, is my new “dream” job, and the shampoo is my soul said dream job is devouring.

My last post, in fact, “Rise of the Grumpasaurus”, is an indicator as to how long with soul-crushing has continued. However, it wasn’t until about two weeks ago that I ran face first into the truth.

“Alison, are you okay?” my workmate concernedly questions me one morning. “It’s okay to admit you’re overwhelmed.”

Though I had admitted it verbally earlier in the school year, I never digested how intense my move, my change of life really had been. I sold a house, said goodbye to some of the most amazing friends and family, left an otherwise fantastic job, and drove into the sunset…er, the mountains. I changed how I lived and where I lived. I filled every moment of my life, more subconsciously to be numb to the culture shock I was pretending not to have. Coaching soccer, coaching debate, teaching three brand new preps, taking new hire year-long courses, taking extra conferences as asked by the district, and learning all the political nuances associated with small-town school districts ended up as the “pink elephant” on my chest–something so heavy I couldn’t breathe, and something I couldn’t admit to.

So, I admitted it. I ranted. I stormed. I screamed. I gave up my good life in Las Vegas for THIS? The political bullcrap that impedes teaching and instead forces people to become unfeeling machines was too much. “You have to play the game and fly under the radar” was the advice the same coworker gave me on Friday. My response was a loud and emphatic NO–there is no career or paycheck that is worth handing over my soul! And yet, I realized, I already had.

Deep breath. The elephant had at least moved off my chest but still loomed in the room.

The flight to Vegas that evening was uneventful, but thrilling. For a brief period I could leave the elephant in Utah, let it whither away or, more likely, grow double in size, but whilst I was in another state, the elephant didn’t exist, didn’t breathe my air, didn’t threaten my happiness. I was coming to a place where I knew people loved me once and would love me forever, to a place where my roots will always remain, where elephants aren’t allowed. This isn’t to say that Nevada has gone without its problems. Though my friends are amazing, we lack the fundamental similarities that make up who I am. They don’t obsess over snowboarding or soccer or mountain biking or rock climbing. And dating is especially brutal when you don’t look like a showgirl or act like Jersey Shore.

My brother pulls up to the curbside of passenger pickup and I escape the sea of Vegas-weekender “club warriors” and women in “hooker heels”. I swear he’s exactly the same as he was 20 years ago, save the grey additions to his beard. At his home, the dog welcomes me, the boys welcome me, my sister in law welcomes me. There is no “oh, she’s here” but instead a grand celebration. Jen and I watch a movie so late we barely can crawl to bed, only to then be awakened a few hours later (okay 5) by an eyeball dramatically close to my own. “It’s 6:30…why are you waking me up?” I ask my eight year old nephew. “Because we wanted to play with you!” Sleepy and cranky as I was, there’s no turning down a request like that! Someone WANTS to be with me! To love me! To just enjoy his time with me! This, dear readers, is what true family is.

What feels like only a few hours later, I’m at the wedding rehearsal space–the Springs Preserve. The weather is perfect, albeit chilly, and each friend I see hugs me warmly, followed with smiles and laughter. We walk through the steps of the wedding, the sharp sun burning my skin (I forgot it happened so fast here!), all the while chatting about how we’ll do our hair or what new underwear sets we purchased for the occasion or what tequila we’ll drink later.Thought it’s only been a few months, it’s also as though I never left.

And then I furrow my brow…why DID I leave again?

The rehearsal dinner, casually in the penthouse of a local hotel, is filled with chittering and laughter, delicious food, amazing wine. My anxiety is throbbing in my chest. The misery of the last three or so months feels like it’s being torn from my chest in painful strokes, my lack of acclimating to a new life tearing our bit by bit. Our table is filled with old friends, and conversation never lulls, especially the more wine we consume. At last the room clears and it is only the bride and myself in the suite; after helping finish favors I retire to my jacuzzi bath, replete with bubbles and my iTunes and my thoughts.

I was miserable in Las Vegas for what the city couldn’t provide. I am miserable in Park City for what my career can’t provide. In short–am I just miserable?

The next morning there is no time to think. The bridal party (well, the women) arrive for breakfast and hair styling. We speed to the venue to change and to breathe. I know I’ll cry, I tell the other bridesmaids. So will I, another admits. And I just found out I’m pregnant so I’m hormonal, a third chimes in. This might be a beautiful disaster, I think.

Lined up, almost a little nervous, after photos, late guests arriving, I watch each pass by, and smile as I see friends I haven’t laid eyes on in months. And then lose my breath when a “ghost” from my almost romantic past walks by. Breathe, I remind myself, but it’s hard to breathe when you are standing up in front of a crowd of mostly friends, imbalanced by the recently removed elephant, and there is Heather, walked down the aisle by both parents, looking more beautiful than I have ever seen, so loved by her mom and dad, so loved by the people in the audience, so loved by those standing up for her, but moreso, so loved by the man taking her hand.

The tears start and Sasha discreetly slips me a tissue and I try to think about other things, anything, but then I see the “ghost” again and feel my heart fall. I ignore it as only I can until after the vows, until after the rings, until after the passionate “I love you and will forever”‘s.

I’m almost attacked by those I have not seen in so long, those I abandoned for some wild dream of happiness where the grass is greener. I had hopes of this new place I moved to that it would hold everything that Vegas never did–that the outdoors life was the life I was after, that somehow here my “prince” would appear as Heather had found hers, in an unlikely place granted, but one that is so meant to be. I hoped the schools here would hold true to their exterior “front” of education, educators, and students first. I hoped that the center wouldn’t fall out of my universe.

But sometimes hope isn’t enough.

At the table we all talk. Some are so unhappy with their work, some are just starting their dream careers. I know, listening and talking with them, that though this particular school may not be the dream, I can find another that will fit me better. Of that, right then and right now, I have no doubt. As we chitter, I notice I am the only member at the table without a date. This bothers me, but I pretend it doesn’t. Remember, I’m great at avoiding the elephant in the room, when it’s my own elephant. Later in the evening, at the after party, I walk into a room where several of my friends are talking, realizing that each of the women in our group married two years apart. Heather this year, Michelle two years prior, and so forth. “Alison,” they barrage me, “will get married in 2014!” They are so excited, but right then I could only think about my ghost and my series of unfortunate dating events. “I think there’s a problem with that. I can’t even get a third date at this point.” Though I met a good deal of men in moving to Utah, I also seemed to find the broken ones: the ones not ready to date but dating anyway, the ones who ask you out and then expect you to pay, the ones who don’t actually pursue you unless they are bored, the ones who only want you to bring over a bottle of wine to their houses when you’ve just met them, worse yet the ones who live too far away. I wanted to tell them about my ghost, about how seeing him reminded me of the passionate love I so want, about how for the last decade that has been anything but reality. Cheerfully they respond to what must have been a melting face: “Alison, you never know when it will happen!” I loved their positive attitude, but hated that they were wrong. I knew if I’d fight it I’d become Negative Nancy, so I merely smiled and kept walking through. They want the best for me, they wish the love and life I want. How often do you find people in your life more concerned with what you want for yourself then what they can get from you? Though my heart was still as heavy as an elephant, I was uplifted by their love for me.

The next day was much the same. Spending the day with Michelle and her husband I realized how blessed I am. For the past few days I got to be loved by my nephews, adored by my friends, and feel beautiful for at least an entire day. As we ate lunch at a local Irish pub, Franco and I focused in on the soccer match on the TV. I had forgotten. It had been months since I had even cared about watching soccer. My favorite team nosedived in recent seasons, so in the move I opted to not have cable. I had forgotten how much I loved the sport, adored watching the Premireship. I sipped my Stella between shouts and realized I had been denying who I was.

It wasn’t just the soccer. Yes, that’s an enormous part of my life, and I miss having someone to share that with. Most of those I know here willing to watch with me are “newbs” and not as passionately obsessed as I (normally) am. It isn’t the same watching a match and EXPLAINING it as it is to just cheer or groan or talk about the news or just talk smack about our teams. I also had denied myself expressing dance or art, I disallowed myself time to play, to be free, to be connected. I didn’t allow myself the opportunity to be sad for what I left behind, and so I cut off anything remotely similar to my Las Vegas life.

So as the plane is lifting off, my bouquet neatly stored by my feet, I am watching the town that was my home for 13 years move farther and father away. For the first time in all the months I’ve lived in Utah did I allow myself to feel that sadness, that sense of loss. So, I cried. I sobbed. Granted, it was quietly, but I let the tears fall for a life I did very much love, a life I am so very thankful for, a life that made me who I am now. I mourned the end of one era, and so now I will celebrate the dawn of another, a life where I will have the connections I made in Nevada, mixed with the connections I will make in Utah. Life is an adventure, and adventure is never easy. However, taking risks and going on adventures is also what is good for repairing the soul.

Rise of the grumpasaurus.

There will be good days and bad, which means that some days I may be cranky and some days really cranky!” –Peter Jennings

Of late, a new dinosaur has emerged: the grumpasaurus. This beast can be found anywhere and at any given time, but its unique quality is that it takes over the minds and souls of generally affable humans, morphing into callous, cantankerous, short-termpered, grouchy Gremlins that will destroy any good time with friends and most likely send multiple frustrating and nasty text messages over the span of grumpasaurus occupation.

Sadly, I’ve recently given a self-diagnosis that this beast has been occupying my cerebral cortex the last two weeks. Unfortunately, I cannot find a cause or a cure. What I’ve stumbled upon in my research is vague at best: grumpiness can be caused by bad sleep habits, cold weather, even low-card dietary restraints. Or perhaps all three. A very over-used explanation is PMS, though I venture to postulate my hormones rarely betray me in said manner. However, any of the above could be a participating factor right now as I suffer from insomnia, it’s March, I cut bread out of my diet, and I’m a woman.

Perhaps it’s all of the above. Perhaps it’s hormonal, the lack of sun, the horrible dreams of my apartment burning down, and not enough bread.  In that case, my friends are pretty screwed (sorry). However, I’ve found some sound advice for dealing with said grumpasauruses at How to Deal with Cranky People. Essentially, start by diffusing the anger. Step back and realize that your crankasore is most likely not attacking you personally, but is instead venting some either named or unknown frustration. Once calmed, take a seat and a breath and talk about it. Address the issue as it stands, giving the other person time to digest the situation and possibly give some sort of reasoning behind said behavior. That said, if the grump won’t sit, give them “time out” quiet time and wait for a better time to approach. Hopefully, a good chat and a cocktail will resolve any unhappiness.

However, if it comes to light that there is no cure, perhaps I should just embrace my new-found grumpiness and become a licensed curmudgeon. At least this way everyone knows beforehand and I can proudly display my grumptastic state. But if I’m proud, wouldn’t that make me happy?

Workoholics Anonymous

“You’re STILL coaching?”

Alas, the motto of my life. For three months a year, for the past seven years, I have spent August through October hidden on the soccer “pitch”. The response to friendly invites and familiar obligations has become a reflex during this time: “Sorry, I have soccer.”

Rarely is an approving nod or smile the retort.

Guilt-ridden as I sometimes feel, jealous of my friends’ escapades as I occasionally am, it’s been almost a decade that I’ve accepted coaching as primary over all other functions in life. For years I’ve joked that there are only two seasons: soccer and snowboarding. When I’m not obsessing over one, I favor the other.

Snowboarding aside (as a topic for another day), the focus of soccer is an obsession many of my friends begrudgingly support. I attempt to relay the passion I feel watching my players, the joy in the comradiere, the pride in witnessing these teens grow on both the field and off. The soccer field, I interject almost too excitedly, is where I feel at home.

Imagine the worst work day you’ve ever had. Consider if that work day included 150 teenagers…and occasionally their parents…and then state officials…and district officials…and the world caves in when it seems you’ve become the scapegoat. Those days, my head throbs. I contemplate perfectly placing my skull in my open desk drawer and slamming it closed repeatedly. This, I am certain, would be less painful then the days you are blamed for all the failures of one student or ALL students combined. These are the days I want to crawl home, seek unemployment, and fill myself with enough Ben and Jerry’s to make me a contender on Biggest Loser.

Then I step on the pitch. Something magical happens when I breathe in the open air, feel the greens beneath my toes, the dedicated players anticipating the practice ahead. Time it. Five minutes and the heavy burdens that once cemented my feet to the bottom of the ocean now break away, every blaming word dissipates into the cloud of dust from running cleats. The banter, the advice, the laughing, the planning. These few moments take away hours of sometimes abusive weight.

But then I check my phone. How many missed calls and missed opportunities with friends? They’ve either accepted my choice of job, or given up. And it wasn’t until this last week when I started to tiredly count down the days, only to realize I didn’t want it to end, that I also realized my friends were counting down the days, too.

Twelve-hour days are the norm during soccer season. Add on two or three hours for grading, and this recipe yields one disaster of a girl. By the culmination of season, I’ve become a heap of a mess, and am terrified that my friends have disowned me. This lead me to wonder–is it worth it?

I coach because it is who I am. It makes me complete. There is a quote from the Bible that says, “I, the Teacher, was king of Israel and I lived in Jerusalem. I devoted myself to search for understanding and to explore by wisdom everything being done in the world. I soon discovered that God has dealt a tragic existence to the human race. Everything under the sun is meaningless, like chasing the wind” (Ecclesiastes 1:12-15 NLT). Without purpose, without meaning and giving to others, without community, I feel as though everything under the sun is meaningless. But in giving so much of myself, do I lose myself, too?

Last week, I counted down the days, the seconds, couldn’t wait for the end, thought in cussing whispers the days would be better spent doing any of the thousand activities I love. This week, with the end nigh, I whimper in the loss of my team. Is this the definition of a workaholic?

In Japan, workaholism is blamed for early deaths of workers, called karōshi. The prime minister even suffered from this fate, dying from a stroke. Though many in the United States claim workaholism a “respectable addiction,” it is nonetheless an addiction to keeping busy. This all-occupying obsession prevents “maintaining healthy relationships, outside interests, or even take measures to protect their health.” (Wikipedia) The worst is that they suffer sleep deprivation.

I have sleep deprivation through most of soccer season. I don’t have time to date, though a goal of mine is to someday marry, maybe even have kids. I rarely have time to play soccer myself, or just run, or climb, or mountain bike, or sleep (see the start of this paragraph). I must, therefore, be a workaholic.

Yet I stagger here. Without coaching, I feel a void has consumed me. I don’t have the connection to the community I do during season. I don’t see the immediate positive outcome of my hard work, I don’t feel as productive in making this world the better place I want it to be. I don’t feel…complete.

I suppose the question is do I give up that which I love so dearly, that which has become an extension of myself in order to maintain my relationships over three months, or do I beg forgiveness for my absence for that time, hoping and praying that the other nine months will make up for my disease?

This is certainly something to consider. I will spend much time mulling this over tomorrow, when I’m coaching, out on the soccer field.

A Time to Move…on to new technology

It has been said by a very wise man (my father) that technology is the future. As children, my brother and I were equipped with computers since my father felt it would serve in our best interests to be prepared for the future. For my students currently, this doesn’t seem out of the ordinary. When I remind them that such extravagance came YEARS before cable, before microwaves, generations before the cell phone, then my father’s wisdom carries more clout.

To the day I die I will remember playing “Lemonade” on our Apple (not yet Mac) 2e, a black screened monstrosity that required commands and arrow keys–yes, before the glorious mouse ever reared it’s roller-ball head. I remember watching, quizzically, over my older brother’s shoulder as he programmed…yes PROGRAMMED games for us to play when Lemonade proved too slow-paced. Is it any wonder that his career now settles in IT for an elite gaming company in Las Vegas? And once that computer ceased to function, along came our Commodore, a more “modern” version of the Apple, now replete with advanced DOS commands that today serves as “shortcuts” for the computer literate, when the mouse just takes too long.

Years of experience with computers has not made me wiser with technology, just more appreciative of it. Though purists of thought and education and media still balk at the idea of twittering our thoughts or “friending” or even “facebooking” each other, I do know how precious these advancements are, and how elevated our lives have become since the advance of Windows and Mac and social media. I have friends who protest against having Facebook accounts, but then grumble that they didn’t get an invite to so-and-so’s bbq or saw their coworkers new baby. Protest or not, technological life goes on without you. Our lives will never be the same, and without it, life is difficult.

I know this because I have no technology any more.

Yes, I am writing this on a computer, but it is a friend’s, one that I’ve borrowed since the early demise of my precious eight year old iBook. Motherboard fried, no reviving possible, I was left computerless, technologyless…Facebookless. It isn’t that I can’t survive without “FB.” Though I enjoy ribbing remarks and running commentary with my friends across the planet, if it ceased to be as an entity I’m fairly certain my life would become simpler and less fettered. So, to prove this to myself, I have not repurchased a computer. I was tempted, briefly, by an iPad, play occasionally on my cell phone, but ultimately I am keeping to the narrow path of no computer in my home.

Things change this way. I somehow feel a connection to those crazy pre-hippie Transendentalists as I “simplify, simplify, simplify.” No, I cannot view the absolutely pointless and unwanted link to random websites or recirculated forwarded picture of a cat sneezing or voting for someone you know who knows someone in a contest. No, I won’t hover around my FB or Yahoo! accounts hoping for remarks on my latest event. That doesn’t mean I don’t want comments–I LOVE comments on my FB and pertinent emails that tend toward friendship, but I just mean I can’t check all the time so now I’m free to do other things.

But then there’s the down side. I can’t blog. My fingers have been twitching for a month to get my thoughts into type, to push it out into the Internet ether, to somehow send my words and thoughts and worries and happinesses into a shared space, but handwriting and texting are both so limited. It’s been so long since I’ve written here I forgot my password and was forced to reset it. It’s still gnawing at me what my password could possibly have been that I’ve so diligently forgotten.

A loss of technology has made the pending short sale of my home frustrating, annoying, difficult on good days. I borrow computers from good friends who are bored with my working away quietly after about 20 minutes and demand (quite nicely, mind you) that my attention come back to them. And right it should, being that I’m in their homes taking up their time and trying to make it obvious that I’m not using them for technology only. I cannot finish what is needed in one sitting, but instead finagle my way into as many different homes as possible, parceling out my required paperwork and emailing and ebanking as efficiently as possible.

And what about photos friends have uploaded or searching for apartments in another state or mapping out those same apartments I’ve found? Impossible on an “intelligent-but-not-smart” phone. Though I try my best to find what I can on my little Kin, I’ve spent enough time on said cellular that I hardly want to text anymore (this is a big deal here!).

So, dear Thoreau, I tried. I simplified like the best of them. No working computer has entered my house in a month, so thereby cutting down my usage to merely work and short sale and apartment hunting. Facebooking and online shopping (I’ve missed you, ModCloth!) and frequent emailing has dwindled into an abyss. Though I might be a better person for it, I think it’s time to move on to new technology, to rejoin the future my father knew approached. I shall, it seems, soon rejoin the ranks of technologically chained. Shackle me, please, to my iTunes and iPod and iPad and…whatever “i” might find! After all, I’m just doing what my father told me.

Ending a Story.

It’s terrifying, leaving everything behind. Logically, the transition should be easy. Logically. My current school district is imploding, the class I alone taught and created and molded and developed and made students passionate about has been cut. 21 of my coworkers dismissed permanently. Our pay is reduced, our insurance cost is increased. Logically, one would assume any opportunity to flee such a crisis a blessing, yet there is that fear that lingers in the hearts of those of us rich with passion, those emotionally connected and charged. What’s so hard to leave in an economy so beaten?

The students. The school. My family. My friends.

Yes, the opportunity to arise from the ashes of a fallen educational system and flourish one state and 6 hours away couldn’t be more perfectly timed, and yes, I am taking that opportunity. But when it’s time to go, will I be watching my rearview mirror more than the road ahead?

The TV flips on; How I Met Your Mother focuses into the screen. It’s the episode where Ted (and other characters) freak out about moving: Ted to Stella’s, Lilly and Marshall to the new apartment, Robin to Japan. The distance or the circumstances are all different, but the commonality is the fear of change. It isn’t leaving that causes fear, it is instead the not knowing. Marshall at one point proclaims he’ll never leave because their current apartment is “safe and warm.” My current high school, the house I worked so hard for, my friends just a few minutes away…these are all safe and warm as well.

What if I hate living in the snow? What if I can’t make any new friends? What if I leave a good thing hoping for a greater thing and instead get a worse thing? What if my friendships here in Vegas turn to an out-of-focus long-distance photograph?

There are so many What Ifs in Life (to steal from an insurance commercial) that to harbor each one a person would never leave the house. What if I get hit by a truck? What if a student gives me the plague? Any number of raw fear What Ifs roam the halls of my mind, but certainly the only way to truly live is to stare that fear right in the eye, stare it down like the timid beast it is, stare it down and make it run.

Ted et al found that strength to push forward, to evolve, to keep from the static “safe” zone I’ve found myself in for the past 13 years. Tasting a new adventure, meeting new people, all things that mark not the ending of a story, but the beginning of a new one. So, here I go, feet first, jumping right in, drinking the entire burning shot, balancing on the highest rock, because after all, life is nothing if not lived well.

Sweet Temptations

How much sugar is in that chili? Before you bite into your next meal, consider that sugar lurks in American foods places most would never expect, like soups, pasta sauce, even crackers. Food companies seem to be riding on the coattails of the most widespread epidemic–sugar addiction. In 1999, American sugar consumption rose nearly 30% from previous years (USDA) whereas previous years the growth rate was merely 1% per year.  Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of the nonprofit CSPI, said that “Eating large amounts of soft drinks, candy, and other sugary foods squeezes healthier foods out of some people’s diets and promotes obesity in some people.”

In 2009, the American Heart Association published research that Americans, on average, are consuming added sugar at alarming rates: 22 teaspoons extra a day, to be exact.  Though this might seem insignificant, this equates to 355 empty calories. Toss that with a side of couch potato and the ingredients for obesity are obvious. Gaining weight shouldn’t be the only concern, however. Added sugar can wreck havoc on the body in other ways: depressing the immune system, asthma, mood swings, nervous disorders, gallstones, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, and possibly even add to arthritis.

, a website devoted to sugar education, Healingdaily notes that the common shopper identifies” highly refined sugars in the forms of sucrose (table sugar), dextrose (corn sugar), and high-fructose corn syrup [which] are being processed into so many foods such as bread, breakfast cereal, mayonnaise, peanut butter, ketchup, spaghetti sauce, and a plethora of microwave meals.” Sadly, honey also falls into this category if eaten at excessive amounts because 96% of the product is considered a “simple sugar” (that is, it breaks down and the body reacts to it just like table sugar) and what’s worse is some honey has traces of pesticides in it, assumably not organic honey, however.

Recently, I was challenged to follow the advice of  Dr. Scott Olson, the creator of 30 Days Sugar Free. Initially, it certainly seemed an easy challenge. Tea without sugar, cut back on the desserts, no issues there. Until I reached for the cereal boxes inhabiting my pantry:  that’s when the problems began. Bran flakes, flax seed crunch, oaty ohs…what they all had in common was the second ingredient: sugar. Not surprising, yes, but what shocked me was also what began my realization of where sugar lurks…everywhere. It’s in Vanilla Rice Dream, in Wheat Thins, in Amy’s tomato soup, in dried fruit snacks, in salad dressings, places I never really thought to look before. Now I was on the hunt for foodswithout added sugar.

Today, while shopping and adhering dutifully to my list, I realized it took me twice as long to find the foods without sugar as normal, especially since I was shopping at a Walmart Neighborhood Market. When next I shop I certainly will be comparing the amount of unsweetened and natural products to those available at Walmart. Though I could have taken the easy route and tried on “fake” sugar for sweetness, I thought this to be a chance to challenge myself to be even healthier and more natural in my food choices. Packaged foods now get a discerning glance at the ingredients, which has made me much more aware ofother ingredients packed into convenient purchases. So how do we stay naturally sweet?

Apples are currently my favorite natural sweetness. Instead of adding sugar or honey to my oatmeal, I add apple juice and raisins. Apple juice goes nicely in my buckwheat pancakes, along with cinnamon and a little natural vanilla. When I need a fast sweet snack I slice up a green apple and dash cinnamon over it–no sugar needed! I’ve just purchased black grapes, hoping to find some sweet (pun intended) recipes to keep me away from the processed sugars. Though it certainly isn’t the breeze I anticipated it to be, I am going to continue my venture into no sugar land, always tempted by that corrupting sweet stuff,especially around Halloween. But for now, I’m already feeling healthier, more energetic, and perhaps a bit powerful, too, for making informed decisions. And I’m only 1 week in to my 4 weeks of the challenge!

Making up Time

The cold linoleum doctor’s office was spartan but for a sign requesting parents to take their dirty diapers with them. Focusing on the sign was my way to stay upright, my head throbbing as two anvils working double time were chiseling away at my frontal lobe.

But it wasn’t anvils, it was the fever.

The nurse strolled in to check on me, took my blood pressure, and noticed my skin warm to her touch. “Let me take your temperature,” she said concerned as she wheeled out of the room in a flash of white. In her absence my mind wandered to the plethora  of ways she could derive my temperature and my face squished up at the thought. When she returned, she came equipped with an ear thermometer (thank God) and once tested, she shouted out the results: “Oh, God! 104.9!”

I was more shocked by her reaction than the temperature itself, but after time the height of the fever set in. No wonder the last two days were blurs of fitful sleep and horrid nightmares. There had been very little difference between night and day, tossing with the pains of fever shooting through my body, my kidneys throbbing.  I chugged down the shot of water and two Tylenol she offered me, then returned to sitting in the plastic chair, listing though about to capsize. It wasn’t until the doctor entered that my gave moved from the weathered floor.

“So, it says here you’re one month pregnant. How’s the first trimester going for you?” I’m sure my fever spiked about 2 degrees with this question. Inside, my sarcastic self was yelling, “I was the last to know!” but before the doctored registered the shock on my face, he corrected himself. “Oh, so sorry, I misread the chart. It had the wrong date here.”

I wasn’t sure which was worse, the illness or the office giving me repeated heart attacks. I nodded along with all his instructions until he slowly, gingerly handed over the prescription: for antibiotics. It’s just what every kidney infection needs.  I shoved the paper in my purse and as quickly as my weak legs and dizzy head would allow I shuffled for the door, for the car, for the pharmacist.

“That’s $125,” the woman said behind the counter. My quizzicle, sweaty face must have proven to her that I knew this wasn’t correct. “Oh, wait, do you have insurance?” Nod. “Let me retry. Oh, that’s $25.” The third heart attack of the day and I hadn’t even returned home yet.

Once home, there was barely a moment between opening the door and falling face down on the bed, antibiotic digesting all the way. As I began to recover on Thursday I realized I’d lost almost an entire week of my life, and now also was kept from drinking alcohol at all as well. It was then that I had the epiphany.

I needed to get healthy.

For most people who know me, they’d laugh. I’m the healthiest person they know! But I still drink too much at times and don’t eat the right balance of foods and often don’t exercise as regularly as I should. Though I look healthy, and in essence am, I realized I never wanted to lose a week of my life to just “not enough”. It was that week, that lost week, that will keep reminding me to not eat that bowl of ice cream or do those shots or watch TV instead of going mountain biking or even just a walk. That missing week represents the laziness I fall prey to so often, and this is my pledge to never allow it to happen again.