want and need

I wore a little silver (fake) crystal bracelet today.  It isn’t an expensive piece of jewelry.  I bought it because I like clear stones and I love bracelets — they look so delicate and feminine as they hang just so on the wrist.

I was driving to lunch when the cuff of my jacket fell away from my wrist and my car was dappled by colorful, dancing light.  The crystal acted as a prism and bent the sunlight into the myriad colors of the spectrum.  The swinging of the beads about my wrist strobed the light across the dash, the ceiling, my shirt, my face.

No matter how many times I read about refraction and reflection and dispersion and the speed of light, it still seems magical and mystical to me.  Someday I shall have a bedroom with a picture window and I will wake to dancing light every morning.

************************

A “real-life” friend and I recently had a conversation — really more of a heated, emotional discussion — regarding want vs. need.  She told me she doesn’t need me.  She doesn’t really need anyone.  Not her husband or children.  Not her friends.  “Oh, sure,” she said.  “I want my husband and children and friends and family.  I’d be devastated and hollowed out and there would always be a sadness in me without them.   But I don’t need them to go on living.”

I had a very emotional reaction.  Who wants to believe they aren’t needed?  Especially by someone that they need, themselves?  If I am not needed by the people I love the most, what’s to stop them from walking away and never looking back?  And leaving me wounded and alone.

“I need my friends and family.  I need you,” I insisted.

We agreed to talk about it further when we were both feeling a little less emotional, a little less misunderstood.  She talked to her husband, I talked to mine.  We both talked to the friends through whom we filter our ideas during their early evolution.   I sent her a video of Barbra Streisand’s People.  Clever, no?

Twenty four hours later and she conceded that maybe she just tries very hard not to need anyone and is loathe to admit she’s not fully self-sufficient, independent, and bullet-proof.  I admitted that I’d understood, to an extent, what she meant but had made the discussion especially difficult for her because I was hurt.

What we haggled over, at the core, was the meaning of the word need.  She believes need implies physical survival.  She won’t die if she doesn’t have us.  She will wake up every morning and keep walking and working and surviving.

***************************************

I consider myself to be like a ray of light.  I’m not worthless or without beauty, all on my own.  But I’m pretty normal.  Pretty invisible, most of the time.  The people I need, they’re prisms.  Just by sheer virtue of knowing them and loving and being loved by them, I am bent, manipulated, and transformed into something more beautiful, more colorful, more lovely.

Because of them, the ordinary, least developed parts of my character and personality are developed from an entirely different angle.  My tendency toward sensitivity and sadness is refracted into compassion and empathy.  My rather infuriating sarcastic tendencies are diffused into a gentler observational humor.  My clinginess transforms into a steadfast loyalty.  My leanings toward reclusivity are thwarted when friendship and light, goodness and love are strobed across the canvas of my life.

No, I won’t die without the people I love –even if I want to.  That’s not why I need them.  I need them because of who I am because they are in my life.  I need them to help polish my character and transform the parts of me that could be harsh and less than desirable into something soft and pleasant.

I need them to bring me outside of myself, to make the light I shine onto the world softer and gentler.   I need them to help me dapple the world with dancing light.

I need them.

because Sharon also posted them

Clowning around in Morgantown with Sharon:

Everyone thinks she’s so shy and quiet . . .

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RJBNzkR_qY[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csBs8t22f_4[/youtube]

the circle of life

My friend Brenda came over tonight and cooked my favorite meal for all of us. On the menu was: brandy-blue cheese steak, rosemary and blue cheese mashed potatoes, green beans cooked with almonds and bell peppers, and rhubarb-blueberry cobbler. I was so thrilled that she was cooking for me that I also cooked one of her favorites for her: mandarin orange cake.

This was the first home-cooked meal any of us have had since before my surgery so I was even more grateful for Brenda’s selfless gift to me.

I’ve been thinking about how so many people have formed a protective circle around me and fussed over me and taken care of me ever since my hysterectomy was scheduled. I still can’t believe it. I can’t believe so many people care about me — and in such a fierce, protective, loving, and tender way!

But I was talking to Jellyhead last night about it all and I told her that all of the kindness and protectiveness is making me feel very good about myself and the way I have lived my life. I hope that doesn’t sound arrogant.

It’s just . . . I’ve always tried very hard to be tolerant (though I hate that word), kind, loyal, and giving. I am very much an alpha-female who hits the world head-on, make no mistake about that. I’ve never thought striving to be kind and good meant that I have to be a doormat. You’ll not find anyone who will tell you I am meek and mild. But you’ll also not find any who say that I am hard-hearted or cold.

I’ve never strived to be good to anyone because of what I thought I might get out of it. I am simply a very sensitive person who can’t find it in herself to contribute any more hatefulness or pain to this world.

I tried to attend my 11 year old’s basketball game last night — a feat that turned out to be too ambitious for four days post-op. As I painfully made my way toward the door so Brad could take me home, a woman ran up to me and exclaimed, “Are you okay? Oh, I saw you were in the hospital and I was SO worried!” I explained that I’d been in the hospital for a hysterectomy. “So WHAT are you doing here? Huh? Go home and rest!” She led my by my elbow and I swear she would have hauled me over her shoulder to the car if I’d resisted.

That woman was a former patient of mine who happens to work in the business office of our hospital. She had a health problem that landed her in CCU years and years ago. I was her nurse. She was frightened to find herself in a critical care unit at such a young age. I was kind to her. I was gentle with her. I let her talk. I treated her the way I would wish to be treated in the same situation.

And now she is nearly tripping over herself to help me.

Another friend of mine saw my name on the OR schedule the day before my surgery. She saw that I was supposed to be on the 7th floor at 5 AM. She called me (but I wasn’t there so Brenda answered my phone) and insisted that I come to her unit at 6:30 so I could get some extra sleep and so she could assure that I was well-taken care of.

She happens to be the same friend who went into premature labor a few years ago. While she was on bedrest, I visited her often and took her books to read and pretty flowers for her hospital room. When she had the baby, I brought a gift and told her how beautiful her daughter was. I was kind to her.

And she was so happy to help me when I needed it.

I could go on and on with the stories. I could tell you that I’ve been Brenda’s biggest fan and staunchly loyal friend and colleague for many years and that’s why she has bent over backward to take care of me. I could tell you that I have friends whom I have pampered and showered affection upon when they needed it most and now I am the one being showered with gifts and love and attention.

I could tell you that I worried and cared for my step-father and fought fearlessly with his physicians so that he would have the best possible care when he was very sick and required emergency surgery a couple of years ago. I sat by his bedside and nursed him and loved him for days on end.

And he was at the hospital waiting for me the morning of my surgery. He warned the nurse to be careful with my little veins.

No, I never once considered that my personal policy of kindness, gentleness, love and loyalty would reap such rewards for me in my time and need. But I am so honored to be here to see how such things work in the circle of life.

And I am especially happy that my friend Brenda loved me enough to make me brandy-blue cheese steak tonight!

Thanks Brenda!

side effects

Well, here I am. Back home, minus a uterus. I like to think of it as the new, improved version. Heather 2.0, if you will.

I have been struck, utterly overwhelmed, completely awed by the outpouring of love and support from family and friends this week. I don’t know what I have ever done to merit such affection and devotion but I have been so thankful for the kindnesses bestowed upon me of late.

I woke very early Tuesday morning so to be at the hospital by 6:30. I moved about my bedroom by the warm light of a red-shaded bedside lamp, making sure I’d gathered all that I would need during my hospital stay. My husband watched me from his snug and warm place in the bed before stretching his hand out. I perched next to him and looked down, playing with his fingers. He leaned up and brushed away a rogue tear that had slipped down my cheek. “You scared?” I nodded. “It’s okay to be scared, baby.”

I called Brenda on the way to the hospital. I’d slept like a baby the night before the surgery and she’d slept not at all, watching my surgery in her dreams every time she nodded off. The day before, I’d made a joke that I was feeling confident about the surgery because Brenda would be there watching over me. “If I die when Brenda’s there, God really wants me. Because only God could stand up to Brenda and win. And even then, He might lose.”

My stepfather was waiting for me at the hospital. He’d gotten there before me despite the fact that it’s only a 10 minute drive for me and a 1 1/2 hour drive for him. And yet, I was not surprised that he beat me there in the least. He was that determined to be there for me.

The frantic flurry of activity that preceded the surgery is a blur to me. My parents and my husband’s parents were there. Brenda was there. My parents all behaved the same way they acted when I was in the hospital when I was twelve: My father stepped out of the room when the IV was started because he couldn’t bear it. My stepfather bravely looked on but told the nurse, “You have to be careful with her. She has teeny-tiny, fragile, little veins.”

A nurse slipped a pair of thigh high TED stockings on my legs after I’d shed all of my clothing and been enveloped in the voluminous, breezy hospital gown. Sharon called to ask how I was doing and I groused that I’d never felt so ugly and un-sexy in my life. She quipped, “You’re wearing thigh highs without any panties. What could be sexier than that?”

My doctor and scrub nurse popped through the curtain to wave and answer questions. The respiratory therapist gave me a breathing treatment and asked me several questions which I answered only to have her snap, “Don’t talk! Breathe!” My anesthesiologist, well-liked and personally chosen by me, introduced himself to my family and smiled down at me before pushing something into my IV. The last thing I remember was reaching out to my husband and feeling his warm hand clasp mine tightly.

************************************************

Through the murky haze of sedation, I could hear Brenda order, “Heather! Wake up!” She says I was lying there looking half-dead one moment, occluding my airway and white as a sheet, and bolting upright the next moment and rubbing my head. Like, rubbing my head really hard with the palms of my hands. And fighting with my hair, causing it to tangle and mat.

When I woke up enough to be aware, my hair was neatly french-braided. That’s the type of friend Brenda is to me. She gently braids my hair for me when I am too sedated to appreciate it because she knows it will hurt to brush out the tangles later.

I wish I could remember more about those first several hours. I know that Brenda never left my side and neither did Brad, once he was permitted to see me. I know that I insisted on speaking with Sharon when I heard Brad or Brenda giving her updates on my condition and that I drunk-dialed her at least once. I know that my father and stepmother, inlaws, and my step-father all waited until they could see my face and be reassured I was okay before leaving the hospital. I know my husband and my mother stayed by my side until I was awake.

I remember my friend Angie calling me very soon after I was out of surgery but I don’t remember anything she said to me. Jellyhead called me bright and early Aussie-time and I’d been out of surgery for a couple of hours by then yet I still don’t remember anything she said, either. It doesn’t matter. What I remember is feeling loved. Very, very loved.

I received seven bouquets of flowers. I received several cards and phone calls. After my father called yesterday morning and I was crying because I was in pain and tired and the doctor was keeping me an extra day, I was the recipient of a soft, plushy stuffed animal with bright balloons tied to his ear. When my stepfather heard I’d been crying, he nearly drove the 90 mile stretch over here just to sit beside me. He told me to “just say the word.” The word I said was, “No.” I was okay. I really was.

The outpouring of love and support has only continued since I’ve been home. My mother, who was an invaluable help to me this week bought me some soft, feminine pajamas and some fuzzy slipper-socks to wear while I am recuperating. The woman who’s worked for us for years declared on Monday that she was going to take very good care of me and she has — she has come over every day at 1:30 when she gets off of her other job and she’s cleaned and done laundry and picked my children up from school. I tried to thank her today and she shushed me, “You do so much for me too, Heather. I am doing this for you now.”

I may have gone into the hospital for a hysterectomy but it’s my heart that’s been most affected. This feeling of being absolutely, unequivocally, and unconditionally loved has been the loveliest side effect I’ve ever experienced.

those little records are called 45s

Sharon sent me a CD the other day.  Twenty songs she likes that she wanted to share with me.  It’s an eclectic mix of country, jazz, classics and even silly songs.  There’s Enya, Mazzy Star, Rod Stewart, Harry Connick Jr. and Anne Murray to name a few.

She said to me, “I remembered that you liked Snowbird.”  I answered, “No, it’s Anne Murray that I like.  I’d never heard Snowbird until today.  But you’re right — I do like it.” I told her the story of how much I loved Daydream Believer by Anne Murray when I was a little girl.  I recounted, “It belonged to my mom.  It was one of those little records that had a single on each side.”

Sharon said, “Those little records?  They were called 45s.”  Then, with a heavy sigh, “I’m very old.”

I giggled because, well, it’s just funny.  But I brought it to her attention that she always tells people that she is seven years older than me when really she is only six years older than me.

“What’s up with that?”

She explained, “You’re about the same age as my brother and I am seven years older than him.  I remember running home from first grade just to hold him.”

And it is funny sometimes, the age difference.  I tease her that she’ll have a personal nurse to take care of her when she’s old since her best friend is so much younger than she is.  But, funny though it may be, it distresses me that so much can be made of the age gap– sometimes by her, sometimes by others.  We’re friends.  We’re so sympatico most of the time it’s not even funny.  A little six year age difference is nothing — unless we make it something.

I mused that the age difference only seems significant when we consider that I was in fourth grade when she was in tenth grade and so on and so forth.  When we were kids, the age difference would have been significant.

But I asked her to remember instead that we were getting married to our husbands at the same time (exactly two weeks apart, actually) and we were having babies at the same time and we are raising children who are close to the same age.  I may have been learning to write cursive when she was going to school dances but, overall, our life experiences have been, and continue to be, similar.

I might be well-advised to remember that the same is true of many women.  Most of us have joined lives with someone we love and experienced all of the growing pains that come along with a young marriage.  We’ve slept in the arms of one we love who also loves us.  We’ve whispered secrets in the middle of the night. We’ve fallen asleep with our lover’s scent on our skin.  Nearly all of us have had romantic rendezvous with our spouses interrupted by those same little miracles who are the product of past rendezvous.

Many of us have pushed babies into the world and held them to our breasts, feeling overwhelmed by love and responsibility.  More than a few of us have snuffled as we wave to our children on their first day of school.  We’ve leaned over our freshly scrubbed little ones for a kiss and a prayer at bedtime.  We’ve hurt along with them when they are teased or excluded at school or when they are disappointed in themselves.

We’re all remarkably similar and incredibly unique all at the same time.  We all love and we all try and we all live our lives the best way we can.  Whether there’s six years difference in our ages or sixty years– we love, we live, and we try.

And if we’re lucky, we meet best friends along the way who love us despite our age, understand us despite our differences, and send us mix CDs in the mail so we know we are not forgotten, despite the distance.

quirks

A little over a week ago, while I was recovering from the plague my second stubborn cold in as many weeks, my friend Jellyhead popped online for one of our regular chats. She asked how I was feeling and I responded that I was better but my voice was very hoarse and froggy. The thought of me sounding all croaky was just too funny to her and thus she declared, “That makes me want to ring you so I can hear it for myself!”

And that’s what she did. She called me up on the telephone while we were still on the webcam.

And me? Well, I got very, very self-conscious. Something about knowing that she wanted to hear my froggy voice and something about her being able to see my face as I talked to her on the phone just overwhelmed me and I felt really . . . shy.

I told her as much and she was bewildered. “What?” she sputtered. “But I look at your face all the time while we are chatting!” I had no explanation for why I was suddenly so bashful. I just was.

We hung up and continued our chat via IM. Jellyhead remarked later on how . . . interesting she thought it was that I’d been unwilling to talk on the phone earlier in the evening. She was good-naturedly giving me a hard time and I remarked, “I think you sometimes forget just how quirky I am.”

And it’s true. I AM quirky. I don’t eat white foods. I get claustrophobic when I have to wear shoes. I sleep with a pillow on top of my head. I hang a sheet over the case full of china dolls in the guest bedroom at my in-laws house because I don’t want them to watch me sleep. Monkeys scare me. I can’t stand to wear my hair up.

I get shy on the telephone.

The list of my neuroses and idiosyncrasies is long and more than a little twisted, I suspect. But, as entertaining and/or downright pathologically insane as they may be, they are part of what makes me, me.

And it’s nice to know that friends like Jellyhead (who has plenty of quirks all her own!) accept that this is the way I am and love me in spite of (and sometimes because of) my quirky ways.

How about you? Do any of you have any unique quirks to your personality?

My friend Jellyhead called me tonight. She’s away on a two week vacation thus we’ve not been chatting almost daily as per our usual routine. I’m suffering greatly. I think she may need to take me with her on her next holiday. I’m just sayin’.

I told her, “I almost hacked into your blog to write a guest post but wasn’t sure how you’d feel about it.” She answered, “Aw, that’d be okay so long as you don’t reveal anything about me.” I giggled, “Girl, I am gonna tell alllllll your secrets.”

Then she said, in that lovely Australian accent, “You DO know how much power you have, right? Knowing so much about me?”

I assured her that I’d never tell her secrets to the world. After all, she knows my secrets too. I also let her know that I don’t feel powerful — only lucky to be her confidante.

But I’ve been thinking tonight about how right she is. In my opinion, learning to love and trust someone new is an act of unparalleled bravery. We have to screw up our courage in order to let ourselves be seen and known — the good and the bad. We have to emotionally disrobe and stand naked and shivering before we can be wrapped in the warmth of friendship and love.

Jellyhead’s right. We hand over immense power when we decide to love someone new. And then we have to pull the soft cloak of friendship tighter about us and pray that no one walks away with our heart.

*cross-posted at Jellyhead’s blog*

perks

Apparently, being my oldest friend comes with certain perks. Like being able to post really old pictures of me sparing no thought whatsoever for my inevitable embarrassment.

I jest. I enjoyed seeing the pictures Marcey posted on her blog. I sat and reminisced over the fun we used to have for quite a while after looking at them.

Thanks Marcey.

growing pains

The picture above is my best friend of 20 years, Angie, and her brand new daughter, born last Tuesday. (The date on the camera must be wrong.)I love this picture. I can’t look at it without tearing up, at the least, and blubbering and sobbing at the most.

Why do I love it? I love it because of the look on Angie’s face. She’s so happy and grateful to have her healthy baby in her arms. She’s in a place where no one can reach her. It’s just her and her baby and her silent and happy prayer of thanks that she’s sending up to God.

I love it because Angie looks so beautiful and radiant only moments after pushing nearly 8 pounds of baby into the world. Despite that she had a relatively easy labor and delivery, childbirth is still no small feat. But I can tell, in this picture, that she’s already forgotten about the pain.

I love it because I know there will come a time when her daughter is older, perhaps a teenager, and she will see this picture and know, without a doubt, that she was wanted and loved and cherished and that her mother was overcome with love and tenderness on first sight of her.

Why does the picture make me cry? I cry because I remember all too well my moments like this.

I remember my oldest son handed to me mere seconds after delivery. I remember that he was still covered in vernix, just like Angie’s daughter, and I held him to me and sobbed with joy and happiness. I took in his beautiful, delicate features and fell so deeply in love with him that I felt my heart swelling inside my chest and feared, for a moment, that there was something terribly wrong with my heart.

I looked upon my child, my goo-covered, 7 pound, 1 ounce miracle, and knew that everything I ever did from that moment forward would be for him. I knew that I would never go to sleep at night without first looking into his crib, and later his bed, for the reassuring rise and fall of his chest. I knew that I would never tire of feeling his soft, sweet breath on my neck as he fell asleep curled against my shoulder.

I knew when I held my child that I had never known how to love until he was cradled in my arms. I had never known what it was like to love so fiercely and protectively. I didn’t know until then that I would do anything to shield him from pain or hunger or sadness. At that moment, I knew that I would die to let him live, if ever the need arose. How could I have known, until I felt his slight weight against me, that I would snarl and snap at anyone who threatened him?

When his brother was born, I experienced all of the same feelings. But I also learned, when I heard his husky cry just after he slipped from my womb into the big world, that love is not a finite resource. I finally understood, as he quieted the moment he was hugged close to my skin, that love is not rationed out. I learned that love is a spring that one can drink from deeply and often because there is always more bubbling up to replenish the fountain.

That first look, that first touch, that first catching of my breath as I looked upon each of my babies– those were the most precious and tender moments of my life. And now, I find myself looking time and again at the photograph that captured the magic and beauty of the moment so perfectly for my beautiful best friend and her precious daughter.

And I realize that there was nothing wrong with my heart that day in the delivery room when I held my baby close to me for the first time. No, my heart was better than ever.

I was just having growing pains.

deserving

Driving home from the all-you-can-eat pizza buffet last night, my eldest son looked side-wise at me from the passenger seat and noticed that I was smiling, seemingly for no reason. “Why are you smiling so big?” Inquiring minds demanded a reason for his mother’s inexplicable happiness.

Busted for grinning without a license, I murmured, “No reason,” and hummed along with the radio, careful to avoid scrutiny for any inappropriate glee. Not that I am usually unwilling to share any happy thoughts with my children. It’s just that, at the time, I wanted more time to enjoy my reverie with minimal interruptions.

The culprit behind my smile was the memory of a phone call received earlier in the day from one of my oldest friends who’s expecting a baby. Her news was exciting–she’s showing all the signs of impending labor.

We squealed a little, spoke of epidurals (and how they should probably be administered in the 8th month just so nobody gets screwed out of her fair share of perineum-numbing nectar infused straight into the epidural space), and mistily recalled the births of my two sons and her daughter.

I reminisced, “Remember, Angie, when you called me moments after L was born and said, ‘I’ve got my baby girl!’ and burst into tears and I started crying too and we sat and sobbed in happiness on both ends of the phone?

“And remember how I called you right after I delivered Crash to tell you all about him and how the nurse kept trying to take my temperature and blood pressure but I was too busy talking to you?”

The thing is, those stories, sappy though they may be, are 100% true. Yes, I cried in happiness with her and yes, we spoke within moments of our children being born and even while the nurses and doctors were still working busily around us.

Also, I loaned her the crib both of my children slept in and it gave me great joy and fulfillment to know that our babies rested their heads upon the same mattress and that Angie and I leaned over the same bedrail to croon soothing lullabies to a restless infant.

Memories like those and so many others are what make me feel like my personal policy of never letting any of those I love grow too far from me has been worth it. Angie’s been my friend for nearly 20 years and there are many who seem surprised that we’ve remained so close for so long.

What they don’t realize is that it has been no easier for us to keep in touch than it is for anyone else. Sometimes it has been easy, like back when she had high speed internet and sat behind a desk all day and we could fire off e-mails to each other at the speed of light.

Other times, it has been more difficult. We’ve spent money we didn’t have to spend weekends together. We’ve organized long distance wedding and baby showers for each other when it would have been easier (and completely understood) to let someone who was in closer physical proximity deal with it. We’ve stopped to speak on the phone when we really should be running out the door for the next activity in our busy days.

But all along, even when it was most difficult, we held on to one another. I think the reason it worked for us is because we hold to each other– not selfishly, not out of a sense of despair or a feeling that we can’t live without each other–but because we are so determined that our friendship be our greatest gift to one another.

I know that I have so much love and generosity and gentleness and kindness to offer her and I would never, could never, deny her the honor of being loved so selflessly and so unconditionally.

And speaking from experience after years of having her loving friendship bestowed upon me, I think I can safely say she feels the same way.

It’s simple. I deserve her. And she deserves me.

And she deserves that epidural in the eighth month, too.