Before I got married, I had heard a great deal about how difficult it is to merge two very different people from different backgrounds into a harmonious team. I thought I was pretty ready for it; we discussed money, kids, where and how we'd spend our holidays, all the basic stuff, and I thought we had pretty well reached agreement.
Then, I got married, and I got used to living with another human and making joint decisions. I felt accomplished. I read (fairly obsessively) everything I could find on marriage, divorce, gender differences and the like, and I felt even more accomplished. I got this!
Of course, real life is messy, and you end up encountering things that you never imagined existed.
After we'd been married for years, had kids, bought a home, negotiated all kinds of marriage stuff together, we were having a familiar argument. It was one of those "you or me" situations - you know, "Either you have to do this or I have to." Those things are things like who'll deal with a misbehaving child, take out the trash, cook a meal, make reservations - a job that must be done by one of the two parents in the house. The same principle applies in situations like when you'll have sex, or where you'll go for the holidays - in general, one person will get their way, and one won't, because chances are, you'll never feel exactly the same about it.
(Before you split hairs, and say things like, "You could hire someone to do that for you," or tell me that one partner could seek out someone else to have sex with, let's establish that the parameters of what's acceptable or possible in our marriage have already been set, by us. There's no money for professional cooks, housekeepers, nannies etc., and adultery is bad.)
My husband said, in irritation, "It's not all about you, you know."
I just couldn't believe that he'd chosen an argument that I thought was guaranteed to make him look bad. "Every once in a blue moon, it should be about me. Choose any method of measurement that you want, and any time frame at all - hours in a day, days in a week or in a month, months in a year - and tell me how often we do things your way and how often we do them my way. I have completely given up on ever having anything that resembles 50/50, but every once in a while, in order to keep things from being ridiculously, unhealthily lopsided, it needs to be about me."
He stared at me astonished, as if this thought had never occurred to him. He's a bright guy, my husband, so I was in turn amazed that he apparently had never considered this.
It was obviously still bothering him two or three days later, because he said, apropos of nothing, "I don't know where you get this whole 50/50 thing."
I thought, "Really?" Again, he's a bright guy. How was this new information? I said, slowly and carefully, "Because there's two of us. That means that things should be divided roughly in half. 50% of the time we should do it your way, and 50% of the time we should do it my way." How was it possible that this was not completely obvious?
I don't advocate a complete tit-for-tat exact accounting of every dollar spent ("OK, you spent $10, so I get to spend $10"), or having each partner take out the trash an equal number of times. That sort of system is an unworkable exercise in insanity in my book. It makes complete sense to have one partner do some things more often than the other. I do 99% of the laundry in our house, 100% of the bill paying and gardening, and about 75% of the cooking. My husband does 100% of the auto repair and maintenance, as well as the computer and appliance repair and trouble shooting. (Trust me, you do not want to hand either of those jobs to me, ever.) But in some very important areas, there needs to be something resembling equality, or things head south in a handbasket very quickly. If only one partner can make decisions in the bedroom, for example, that's deeply unhealthy. And don't even get me started on the fury I feel when men refer to taking care of their own children as "babysitting." It's not babysitting when their mother looks after them; it's most assuredly not babysitting when their father looks after them.
This was not the way my husband saw the world. "His" way, he explained, had "nothing to do" with him, personally, or his opinions on any subject. It was just "the right way" to do things.
Holy cow. Major lightbulb over the head moment. This explained SO MUCH! Suddenly, virtually every argument we'd ever had made sense. Good gravy!
Why hadn't he explained to me that this was his world view, I wanted to know. He was puzzled as to why I had asked. It had not occurred to him that there was another way to view things. He hadn't explained for the same reason he'd never told me that socks go on before shoes. Wasn't this something that everyone knew?
I, on the other hand, had never considered this way of thinking. There are so many right ways to do things, and so few wrong ones. Any judgement of "wrong" should be saved for matters of grave importance and moral judgement, or simple physics. Even then, realize that others may not agree. I know people for whom the Biblical injunction "Thou shalt not kill" necessitates catching insects, spiders, mice, scorpions and anything else that might invade your home and releasing them back into the wild somewhere safe. It means eating no meat and wearing no leather. For me, it means "Thou shalt not commit murder;" in other words, never decide that your wishes and aims are more important than someone else's life. There are times, however, in which it is perfectly acceptable to kill for food, clothing, shelter or self defense - and self defense includes having intruders invade my home. I will squash a bug or shoot a burglar and feel fine about it. I think that people in both camps (and everywhere inbetween) need to back off and allow each other clear exercise of their own conscience.
I grew up hearing, "There's more than one way to skin a cat," and, "All roads lead to Rome," being told over and over that there was always more than one way to accomplish any goal. I also heard "Consider the source," meaning that you needed to take people's motivation and/or abilities into consideration when making a judgement on someone's actions or words. If they meant well, or were just dim, you had to cut them some slack. The idea that there was only one "right" way to do anything was not part of my daily reality.
I was now having flashbacks to instance after instance in which my husband and I had been on completely separate pages. When we first got married, for instance, how I ate and/or cooked my food could send him into a tailspin. I remembered him insisting, completely distraught, "You cannot go on eating your sandwiches that way!" What? It was my sandwich, and I liked it. When I would tell him that, he would huff and roll his eyes, or worse, tell me, "That's irrelevant." How could the way I liked my sandwiches be irrelevant to me? I wasn't making his sandwiches that way and asking him to eat them, I was just feeding myself. Does not compute!
(His beef with my sandwiches, in case you wondered, is that I put only butter and cheese on my grilled cheese. "They have no taste!")
Other times had made even less sense to me. For instance, I cannot stand it when he wakes me by grabbing my feet. The foot of our bed, of course, has always faced the door of our room, no matter where we've lived. It makes me insane when he wakes me by grabbing my feet. I wake up in a blind panic; I cannot imagine any legitimate reason for that behavior. I would rather have someone clamp a hand over my mouth than grab my feet (or ankles or calves). When I would tell him that, he'd say, "It doesn't bother me."
"Then I'll feel free to wake you that way. But I hate it, so please don't do it. Walk the few extra steps to the side of the bed."
This was usually met with some comment about my being "controlling." And, the next time he was in too much of a hurry to take three extra steps, he'd grab my feet. Every time, I got angrier, because I'd told him, very clearly, that I hated it. Every time, he'd be more surprised, because he had been clear that it didn't bother him. So, it's controlling to allow for individual likes and dislikes, but not controlling to insist that everyone has to be the same? Really? How can that be?
To me, it seemed obvious - I should treat him the way he wanted to be treated, and he should treat me the way I wanted to be treated. To him, it looked entirely different, but just as obvious; there was one right way to handle this, and we should both conform to that right way.
Other people suddenly made more sense, as well. I remembered going round and round with certain relatives about the planning of my wedding. They'd ask me something about our colors or flowers or some such, and I'd tell them what we'd chosen. I expected, "Oh, that'll be nice," or just "OK," but most of the time, I'd get, "Have you considered X?" When I would say yes, we'd considered it but decided against it, or no, we hadn't considered it because we didn't like X, I thought that the discussion was over. Instead, these individuals would bring the same things up, over and over, and I'd end up saying "no" over and over until tempers frayed. Then I'd get more of those comments about being "controlling" and "selfish."
"So, it's controlling of me to want to plan my own wedding, but it's not controlling of you to want to plan someone else's wedding?" I'd ask, and get no response that made any sense. Usually it was some variation of, "I just want to help," or, "I just want it to be nice." Please note, people: if you want to help, you ask what the bride wants, and then do that thing. You don't try to take over, especially if you say things that translate to, "It will be awful if we do it your way." Someone else's wedding is not about you and what you want.
Again, I was functioning under the assumption that every person needed to make and act on their own decisions, and other people were thinking that things had to be done "the right way," and if I was doing it "wrong," I needed corrected. I'd never really understood why people got frustrated when I didn't change my mind to mirror their opinions. I wasn't losing my mind because they hadn't ditched their opinions in favor of mine.
Mommy Wars - stay at home vs. employed elsewhere, breastfeeding vs. bottle feeding - and various other public battles made more sense now, too. Everyone thought there was only one right way, and it was their duty to enlighten others. Oh, my goodness. No wonder I didn't understand a great deal of common social interactions!
I now understood ridiculous, repetitive, circular conversations, as well. I've always made certain assumptions about conversation in general; I tend to assume that they're an exchange of information. You tell me how you feel, I tell you how I feel, and then we'll understand each other. I never understood, then, why conversations tended to go over the same ground again and again.
I'd say, for instance, "I like A." The other person would say, "I've always liked B better." The way I saw things, we now had enough information to understand each other's behavior and choices, and that was the point. I'd go on my merry way, wondering why the other person would belabor the point. "There are just so many advantages to B," they'd say. "B is just terrific. You really should try B."
"I have. I like A better," I'd say, wondering why we were going over this again. I would get totally baffled when they'd bring it up again and again. It also made no sense to me when they said, and they often did, "Most people prefer B." I could not understand the relevance. It was like injecting, "The capitol of California is Sacramento," into the conversation. It may be true, but I couldn't imagine what it had to do with anything. If they liked B, more power to them. I liked A. That's why there are choices. It turns out, though, that a great many people's idea of "right" is tied to consensus. Whatever the majority thinks becomes "right." Pointing out the majority opinion was their "subtle" way of trying to get me to see the error of my ways, and change my mind.
This is a bad idea on so many levels. One, I do not generally understand subtlety. It passes me right by. Two, the concepts of "right" and "wrong" are, for me, morality and religion based. Therefore, there really is no "wrong" way to serve food, or wear your clothes, or plan a vacation, or choose a paint color. This is why I have no interest in fashion. Don't tell me I'm wearing the "wrong" shoes or pants or colors or whatever. It's hardly possible for it to be "wrong." (My only clothing rules for my kids were that their clothes had to meet health and morality standards.) Also, in 5 or 10 or 20 years, everyone will have changed their minds about it. (Do you see anyone in MC Hammer pants and a mullet walking down the street any more?) Three, let's think about all of the things that have been accepted by a majority in the past (or present). Are all of them scientifically correct or morally acceptable? No. Therefore, pointing out to me what the majority thinks has very little effect.
This could be why these same people viewed me as "stubborn," "self centered," and, yet again, "controlling." (I'll cop to "stubborn." ;D) I still have a hard time understanding how these terms are applicable to someone who figured that everyone should go their own way, and not applicable to someone who was trying to badger others into changing their minds.
Sometimes, someone will accuse me of promoting chaos, or of being too wishy washy to take a stand. I think they're missing the point. While I may have a high tolerance for chaos, as a religious person I'm usually accused of being too rigid, with too many rules. I do, in fact, have very firm ideas about what is morally right and wrong, and I believe that one day, each of us will stand before God to account for our actions. The thing is, I am not God, and neither is anyone else on Earth, so we don't account to each other. Since we don't have to justify our actions to each other in big stuff, stuff of moral significance, how could it possibly be that we need to stand in judgement over each other for petty things, like our food and clothing choices?
There are so many right ways to do anything, and so few wrong ones. Give everybody a break.
After so many years, my husband and I have figured each other out, to a large extent. We will still occasionally look at each other and think, or say, "Huh?" That's because we're human. Still, we do pretty well, I think.
And now I'm going to exercise come of that controlling personality to tell you what I think you should do. You should make your own choices without needing a majority rule to tell you that you're right. You should let everyone else make their choices.
After all, there's more than one way to skin a cat.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Saturday, July 13, 2013
Illness, Part 8: Meds
I made a prediction to my family: "Watch. I'll go in (to the doctor) and say, 'I feel great,' and they'll say, 'Your blood levels look terrible!'" Sometimes, I like to make predictions that I'm positive are a sure thing, so that my loved ones will be impressed by my prognosticating prowess.
Almost a year ago, my thyroid was removed. It was enlarged and covered in cysts, and my life has been better without it. My biggest problem since then has been the attempts to regulate my medication. Without a thyroid, I'll be on medication for the rest of my life to do the job the gland used to do.
The problem is that mine did its job badly - hence its removal. OK, that's not the whole problem. My body chemistry has never been quite right. I've never had regular periods. I've had diagnosed hormonal issues since I was in my mid-20s, over 20 years ago. I was having trouble getting pregnant, and the OB-GYN ran an MRI and found pinpoint tumors in my pituitary gland. That's worse than it sounds, despite the fact that it means brain tumors. One, they were tiny, very tiny. Two, my last MRI, taken a few months ago, came back clear. We have no idea if that means that they shrunk, that they were never there or that the new scans weren't read properly. The doctor who originally diagnosed the tumors has long since retired, and the original scans have been lost, so they are not available for comparison. Sigh. (At least my blood work shows that my body no longer secretes breastfeeding hormones, years after I stopped breastfeeding. That was one of the originally documented "Huh?" moments.)
Over those 20+ years, I've also had blood tests designed to tell me about my thyroid function over and over, because I've always had symptoms of thyroid issues. Every time, the doctors looked at the results and said, "Your thyroid is fine" - until it had to be removed. (Yeah, dozens of symptoms, persistent over decades, or a blood test - which one are you gonna believe?)
Since then, my endocrinologist and I have discovered that I am something of a paradox. I feel better with a chemical composition that usually makes people feel worse. "I've read about people like you," the endocrinologist said to me, "but I've never actually met one before." So far, we haven't tried to figure out why this is; her office is still trying to wrap its collective head around the fact that it is.
Normally, the higher the concentration of thyroid produced hormones in the blood, the better a person feels. They have more energy, more mental clarity, they lose weight. When the concentration is too low, they are exhausted, mentally foggy, sluggish and gain weight. Doctors have been trying to increase my dosage since weeks after the surgery. Every time, I feel awful. I sleep for 14, 16, even 18 hours a day, but it takes hours to fall asleep. I'm grouchy, have no energy or focus, and get sick easily. Drop the dose, and I sleep normally - I fall asleep quickly, and I wake up 8 to 9 hours later (without an alarm). I have energy. I don't need naps. I rarely get sick. I feel better than I did before the surgery. I like feeling this way.
The problem is that how I feel does not match how the medical literature says I "should" feel.
The medication prescribed for me after the surgery was apparently one of the most common. We had never managed to get me back to the way I felt in the weeks immediately following the surgery, when I felt great but was "supposed" to feel my worst. It was workable but annoying - especially since any time I said, "I'm tired" or "I'm always exhausted" the response was, "We'll raise your levels." NO! That's what caused this feeling!
Then, the manufacturer discontinued that medication. This, it turns out, was actually a good thing. I had to scramble to get in to see the endocrinologist, because I found out that the medication was unavailable when I had a single day's worth left. Silly me. Anyway, I had to see the doctor, because, heaven knows, they can't prescribe medication for a known, documented, unchanged condition without having you sit right in front of them. (I was originally told that I'd also need a blood test first, but they dropped that condition when it turned out that the lab could not get results in time.)
"Well, if you felt good on (the last medicine), I'd just prescribe one that's almost identical. Since you're not happy, though, let's try something new," she said. She prescribed a different medication "that functions totally differently inside your body. For some people, they feel better almost immediately." It's made from the dehydrated thyroid glands of pigs, and was the go-to medication for decades before humanity decided that Better Living Through Chemistry was the Answer to Everything, and naturally derived medicines were for the uneducated and superstitious. Many people who don't respond well to synthetic thyroid hormones do well on this medication. (I frequently refer to them as "my pig pills.")
She told me that I might feel better "almost immediately," so I woke up the next day pretty much thinking, "Show me what you've got." I didn't feel better - or worse - immediately, but after a week or two I did. I like these pills much better. I feel much better. My sleep habits resemble a normal human's - something that has not been the case for most of my life.
I'm supposed to take one pill first thing in the morning, and I never forget. I'm supposed to take one midway through my waking day, "to give you an extra shot of energy to make it through the day," and I frequently forget that dose. For one thing, it does not give me "a shot of energy." I don't really notice the difference at all. I usually forget until close to bedtime, and I'm not supposed to take it too late in the day, lest it cause insomnia. So, if I forget, I just take the next morning's dose. After all, I feel great. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
When I went in for my first checkup after starting the new regimen, I'd been on these pills for about 8 weeks. I saw the physician's assistant (PA) instead of my doctor, which is fine. She's very sweet and competent, despite the fact that she spends most of our time together typing into her computer. I don't blame this on her, but on the current medical culture's need to obsessively document EVERYTHING. This time, she asked how I was doing, how I liked the new meds, and was all smiles with my answers - which boiled down to, "I feel great" - until she called up my labs, done three days previously.
She actually gasped. "I would expect you to be barely functional, like a zombie, with numbers like this! It looks like you're not even in treatment!" The more she stared at the screen, the more agitated she became. "I can't let you walk around with numbers like this!" Then, "Maybe it's lab error. We have to seriously consider lab error with numbers like this." Then, the dreaded sentence: "I'm going to have to increase your dose." UGH!
"I frequently forget to take my second pill. Can we hold off at least until I manage to get the hang of taking both doses?"
"How frequently?"
"More than half the time." This, frankly, was giving me more credit than I deserved - for the first two weeks, I hardly missed any second doses, but for the last month, I think I've remembered a whopping three times.
"The doctor's going to wonder why I let you walk out of here with numbers like this." Then, grasping at straws, "It takes a while for the medication to build up in your blood stream. Maybe it's just not showing up on the tests yet." Yeah, sure, whatever lets me flee the office without a new prescription.
"I get really tired of hearing that my numbers look great when I'm miserable," I told her. This is not new ground we're covering here.
"Of course, of course. You want to be treated like an individual."
See, that's the entire problem. Modern society makes no distinction between individuals. Last time I said almost the exact same thing, "I hate hearing that we have to keep my numbers at a level that makes me miserable," to my endocrinologist, the smile froze on her face and she said, tightly, "I can be held liable if it's determined that I've failed to provide you with a proper standard of care." I have intellectually understood that insurance companies and fear of lawsuits weigh more heavily than health issues and patients themselves in the health care system, but now I find myself smack in the middle of the morass and angry about it.
See, let's first talk about the terms "normal" and "average." "Normal" means "the majority of people fall into this category." ("Most" or "majority," of course, is anything over half.) "Average" is a mathematical term. It means either that you have taken all the available information, added it together and then divided it by the number of individuals it represents, or that it is the exact middle, with half above and half below. Scientists, mathematicians and average people will tell you that nothing is ever 100%. Just because a piece of information represents "most" people, it will never represent all people. Yet, insurance companies and other entities insist that everyone must fall into that middle area. They see no legitimate reason that anyone should ever be above or below that mark. It seems so clearly obvious that some people will fall above that mark, and some will fall below, but they don't see it that way. Everyone must be kept in that middle range, because, by golly, other people need to be there.
This is why, even though I had persistent symptoms of thyroid issues, I was told for decades that I "must" be fine, because the blood tests showed that my hormone levels were in that "normal" or "average" zone. It is also why, even after it was determined that my thyroid was diseased, the health care community feels compelled to return my body to the same body chemistry that existed when I was suffering from disease. It's "normal."
I am thankful that my endocrinologist is at least willing to listen to me. She hears and understands what I have to say. I'm lucky, though, that I fall below "normal." She's willing to let my numbers run low because, "It's far more dangerous to run too high than too low." What if my body's ideal was higher than "normal?"
Still, I feel that I have to fight. My doctor has to straddle the line between keeping me happy and explaining her actions to the insurance company; the company can refuse to pay for any treatment that is not considered "normal." Plus, she has to worry that, one day, I or a family member might sue her because I was not kept in that "normal" range.
I mean, if normal levels were not good for me, it seems obvious that something other than normal would be ideal. And why should anyone but me or my doctor make these choices? Why is it any business of my insurance company? I fear having to fight these battles again in the future, because I'll be on medication for the rest of my life, and my doctor will eventually retire.
So, I left with instructions to "Set an alarm! Don't forget that second dose!" Two out of three days I've remembered. That's progress.
Almost a year ago, my thyroid was removed. It was enlarged and covered in cysts, and my life has been better without it. My biggest problem since then has been the attempts to regulate my medication. Without a thyroid, I'll be on medication for the rest of my life to do the job the gland used to do.
The problem is that mine did its job badly - hence its removal. OK, that's not the whole problem. My body chemistry has never been quite right. I've never had regular periods. I've had diagnosed hormonal issues since I was in my mid-20s, over 20 years ago. I was having trouble getting pregnant, and the OB-GYN ran an MRI and found pinpoint tumors in my pituitary gland. That's worse than it sounds, despite the fact that it means brain tumors. One, they were tiny, very tiny. Two, my last MRI, taken a few months ago, came back clear. We have no idea if that means that they shrunk, that they were never there or that the new scans weren't read properly. The doctor who originally diagnosed the tumors has long since retired, and the original scans have been lost, so they are not available for comparison. Sigh. (At least my blood work shows that my body no longer secretes breastfeeding hormones, years after I stopped breastfeeding. That was one of the originally documented "Huh?" moments.)
Over those 20+ years, I've also had blood tests designed to tell me about my thyroid function over and over, because I've always had symptoms of thyroid issues. Every time, the doctors looked at the results and said, "Your thyroid is fine" - until it had to be removed. (Yeah, dozens of symptoms, persistent over decades, or a blood test - which one are you gonna believe?)
Since then, my endocrinologist and I have discovered that I am something of a paradox. I feel better with a chemical composition that usually makes people feel worse. "I've read about people like you," the endocrinologist said to me, "but I've never actually met one before." So far, we haven't tried to figure out why this is; her office is still trying to wrap its collective head around the fact that it is.
Normally, the higher the concentration of thyroid produced hormones in the blood, the better a person feels. They have more energy, more mental clarity, they lose weight. When the concentration is too low, they are exhausted, mentally foggy, sluggish and gain weight. Doctors have been trying to increase my dosage since weeks after the surgery. Every time, I feel awful. I sleep for 14, 16, even 18 hours a day, but it takes hours to fall asleep. I'm grouchy, have no energy or focus, and get sick easily. Drop the dose, and I sleep normally - I fall asleep quickly, and I wake up 8 to 9 hours later (without an alarm). I have energy. I don't need naps. I rarely get sick. I feel better than I did before the surgery. I like feeling this way.
The problem is that how I feel does not match how the medical literature says I "should" feel.
The medication prescribed for me after the surgery was apparently one of the most common. We had never managed to get me back to the way I felt in the weeks immediately following the surgery, when I felt great but was "supposed" to feel my worst. It was workable but annoying - especially since any time I said, "I'm tired" or "I'm always exhausted" the response was, "We'll raise your levels." NO! That's what caused this feeling!
Then, the manufacturer discontinued that medication. This, it turns out, was actually a good thing. I had to scramble to get in to see the endocrinologist, because I found out that the medication was unavailable when I had a single day's worth left. Silly me. Anyway, I had to see the doctor, because, heaven knows, they can't prescribe medication for a known, documented, unchanged condition without having you sit right in front of them. (I was originally told that I'd also need a blood test first, but they dropped that condition when it turned out that the lab could not get results in time.)
"Well, if you felt good on (the last medicine), I'd just prescribe one that's almost identical. Since you're not happy, though, let's try something new," she said. She prescribed a different medication "that functions totally differently inside your body. For some people, they feel better almost immediately." It's made from the dehydrated thyroid glands of pigs, and was the go-to medication for decades before humanity decided that Better Living Through Chemistry was the Answer to Everything, and naturally derived medicines were for the uneducated and superstitious. Many people who don't respond well to synthetic thyroid hormones do well on this medication. (I frequently refer to them as "my pig pills.")
She told me that I might feel better "almost immediately," so I woke up the next day pretty much thinking, "Show me what you've got." I didn't feel better - or worse - immediately, but after a week or two I did. I like these pills much better. I feel much better. My sleep habits resemble a normal human's - something that has not been the case for most of my life.
I'm supposed to take one pill first thing in the morning, and I never forget. I'm supposed to take one midway through my waking day, "to give you an extra shot of energy to make it through the day," and I frequently forget that dose. For one thing, it does not give me "a shot of energy." I don't really notice the difference at all. I usually forget until close to bedtime, and I'm not supposed to take it too late in the day, lest it cause insomnia. So, if I forget, I just take the next morning's dose. After all, I feel great. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
When I went in for my first checkup after starting the new regimen, I'd been on these pills for about 8 weeks. I saw the physician's assistant (PA) instead of my doctor, which is fine. She's very sweet and competent, despite the fact that she spends most of our time together typing into her computer. I don't blame this on her, but on the current medical culture's need to obsessively document EVERYTHING. This time, she asked how I was doing, how I liked the new meds, and was all smiles with my answers - which boiled down to, "I feel great" - until she called up my labs, done three days previously.
She actually gasped. "I would expect you to be barely functional, like a zombie, with numbers like this! It looks like you're not even in treatment!" The more she stared at the screen, the more agitated she became. "I can't let you walk around with numbers like this!" Then, "Maybe it's lab error. We have to seriously consider lab error with numbers like this." Then, the dreaded sentence: "I'm going to have to increase your dose." UGH!
"I frequently forget to take my second pill. Can we hold off at least until I manage to get the hang of taking both doses?"
"How frequently?"
"More than half the time." This, frankly, was giving me more credit than I deserved - for the first two weeks, I hardly missed any second doses, but for the last month, I think I've remembered a whopping three times.
"The doctor's going to wonder why I let you walk out of here with numbers like this." Then, grasping at straws, "It takes a while for the medication to build up in your blood stream. Maybe it's just not showing up on the tests yet." Yeah, sure, whatever lets me flee the office without a new prescription.
"I get really tired of hearing that my numbers look great when I'm miserable," I told her. This is not new ground we're covering here.
"Of course, of course. You want to be treated like an individual."
See, that's the entire problem. Modern society makes no distinction between individuals. Last time I said almost the exact same thing, "I hate hearing that we have to keep my numbers at a level that makes me miserable," to my endocrinologist, the smile froze on her face and she said, tightly, "I can be held liable if it's determined that I've failed to provide you with a proper standard of care." I have intellectually understood that insurance companies and fear of lawsuits weigh more heavily than health issues and patients themselves in the health care system, but now I find myself smack in the middle of the morass and angry about it.
See, let's first talk about the terms "normal" and "average." "Normal" means "the majority of people fall into this category." ("Most" or "majority," of course, is anything over half.) "Average" is a mathematical term. It means either that you have taken all the available information, added it together and then divided it by the number of individuals it represents, or that it is the exact middle, with half above and half below. Scientists, mathematicians and average people will tell you that nothing is ever 100%. Just because a piece of information represents "most" people, it will never represent all people. Yet, insurance companies and other entities insist that everyone must fall into that middle area. They see no legitimate reason that anyone should ever be above or below that mark. It seems so clearly obvious that some people will fall above that mark, and some will fall below, but they don't see it that way. Everyone must be kept in that middle range, because, by golly, other people need to be there.
This is why, even though I had persistent symptoms of thyroid issues, I was told for decades that I "must" be fine, because the blood tests showed that my hormone levels were in that "normal" or "average" zone. It is also why, even after it was determined that my thyroid was diseased, the health care community feels compelled to return my body to the same body chemistry that existed when I was suffering from disease. It's "normal."
I am thankful that my endocrinologist is at least willing to listen to me. She hears and understands what I have to say. I'm lucky, though, that I fall below "normal." She's willing to let my numbers run low because, "It's far more dangerous to run too high than too low." What if my body's ideal was higher than "normal?"
Still, I feel that I have to fight. My doctor has to straddle the line between keeping me happy and explaining her actions to the insurance company; the company can refuse to pay for any treatment that is not considered "normal." Plus, she has to worry that, one day, I or a family member might sue her because I was not kept in that "normal" range.
I mean, if normal levels were not good for me, it seems obvious that something other than normal would be ideal. And why should anyone but me or my doctor make these choices? Why is it any business of my insurance company? I fear having to fight these battles again in the future, because I'll be on medication for the rest of my life, and my doctor will eventually retire.
So, I left with instructions to "Set an alarm! Don't forget that second dose!" Two out of three days I've remembered. That's progress.
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Travel Reviews
I am not a hotel snob. I can't bring myself to be any kind of snob, really.
I love to travel, but all I really want out of a hotel is that it be clean, comfortable, quiet and safe. I don't really plan to spend much time at the hotel. My kids have frequently complained that they don't get to spend enough time in hotel pools.
Sometimes, we'll book a stay at a resort, intending to do more than just sleep and shower there. Our favorite was on the Big Island of Hawaii.
Recently we went to Paris, my husband, my youngest 2 children and me. Three of the four of us had never been there before; my son was there two years ago. Paris, of course, is one of those iconic cities that almost everyone wants to see.
As usual, I just wanted clean and comfortable. Unlike my usual routine, I read the reviews on the booking site ahead of time. I knew nothing about Paris, and I wanted to be sure of things like how close it was to the train station; we planned on arriving and leaving by train.
"I think this hotel caters to college backpackers," I told my husband. It was in an older building with few amenities, inexpensive, and the room I booked had 4 single beds. (Unlike the frame of reference in the US, here "older" equated to "about two centuries," nearly as I could tell.) The reviews said that the rooms were small. "If you have a lot of luggage, plan on stacking it in the tub." We were fine with all of this, because we'd be in Paris. It was supposed to be within walking distance of the Louvre - bonus!
When we arrived, tired and dragging our huge American suitcases, they may have looked at our family and decided to put us in a different room, because they gave us a room with 2 queen beds. There were no lifts; we went up three flights of these stairs. (At least we didn't have to traverse the 6 flights to the top.)
Here's the room itself:
It was small, but not as small as I'd expected. The bathroom was larger than I expected, too. The walls were thick stone, so it was comfortable even without air conditioning. With the windows closed, it was also quiet. The only noise that seeped through were TV sounds from the flatscreen on the opposite side of one wall. The beds were some of the most comfortable we slept on during the entire week in Europe. The bedding was thick cotton, hand quilted, and reminded me of something you'd find on a visit to a grandparent's house. And we were in Paris!
It was half a block from the metro station, a few minutes' walk to the train station, close to numerous restaurants. Here's a few of the places we walked to that first day:
Paris!
After we came home, we left our own review. It said basically what I said above - comfortable, clean, great location, few amenities. Then I read the other reviews.
About half said almost the same things I did. The others were deeply scathing. "Never stay here!" "I'm writing on every travel sight (sic) I can find to avoid this place!" "Awful!" Honestly, I think most of those were the traveler's fault. One whined, "I didn't even realize I'd booked a one star property until I arrived." Really, Traveler? It's clearly posted on the website. Even if it wasn't, you thought that a place without a pool, a fitness center, conference rooms or any other modern amenities was a five star?
One woman said, "Overweight people would have a hard time in these rooms." I'm very large, my husband and daughter aren't small, and we were fine. We didn't have to stack our luggage in the tub, either. Another said, "I literally could not turn around." People really need to understand what "literally" means. It is not physically possible to be in a room large enough to hold a bed and be "literally" unable to turn around. Nobody would be ballroom dancing in these rooms, our two beds were each against a wall, but let's not exaggerate here.
One said, "I don't even think the photos on the website were real." Wow. After looking through them, I can say that not only do I not think that they're faked, they're very accurate. I saw the single room across the hall from us, our room, the lobby, the lounge - they all look just like the web photos. The main photo on the site looks almost identical to this one that I took.
I'd be happy to do it from a comfortable, clean one star hotel.
I love to travel, but all I really want out of a hotel is that it be clean, comfortable, quiet and safe. I don't really plan to spend much time at the hotel. My kids have frequently complained that they don't get to spend enough time in hotel pools.
Sometimes, we'll book a stay at a resort, intending to do more than just sleep and shower there. Our favorite was on the Big Island of Hawaii.
I rarely read guest reviews of properties, because I've discovered that most people hold opinions that are very different from mine. We loved this property. It's one of the few places we've ever stayed where we didn't leave the hotel for an entire day. Our favorite spot was the lagoon, where we snorkeled almost daily. After we came home, I read some reviews, and was glad that I hadn't read them, and perhaps passed on this resort, based on them, before we left.
Many were just scathing. "Awful. I'd never stay here again. Avoid at all costs." Really?
The most common complaint was, "It took 20 minutes to go between the parking lot and our room." Clearly, repeatedly, in the description available, it says that the resort is 62 acres, with several swimming pools, a golf course, the lagoon, restaurants and more. Did anyone imagine that 62 acres meant that you'd be within 5 minutes of your room at all times? Even walking was quick, maybe 25 minutes from property end to end, and there were both a train and gleaming teak and brass boats that would take guests between buildings. Yet, over and over came the complaint about how far apart things were.
One guest complained that the whole place "smelled like a sewer." Um, no, sir, it smelled like the tropics. It smelled wet, because it is wet. The ocean does not smell like a chlorinated pool. Wet, loamy soil does not smell like my home in the desert. Fish ponds will smell like fish live there. There's a country song about a student trip with the lyrics, "We all started yelling when we smelled the beach." I was glad that it was written by someone actually familiar with the ocean. Anyone who expects the real thing to smell like fabric softener called "Ocean Breeze" will be disappointed. The real thing smells wet, a bit fishy, and faintly of decaying plant matter.
We want to go back some day, and take the rest of our family.
At Disneyland, a favorite destination, we like to be within walking distance of the parks. We have stayed on Disney property, at the Grand Californian, and it was great. The room was comfortable, convenient, and had bunk beds for my kids. Why don't more hotels have bunk beds? How often do you want to put two couples in a room together? (Don't answer that.) My travel has usually been with between 2 and 5 kids. Kids do not want to share a bed. Parents do not want to listen to arguments about hogging space and taking the covers. Yet, Disney is one of a very few companies I've ever known to put bunk beds (including ones with a trundle!) in their rooms.
Still, the Grand Californian is much more expensive than other choices. We usually choose places that are in an entirely different cost bracket.
We once stayed at a property that my husband and I loved, and our oldest daughter hated. It was an older place, probably built in the 1950s, and it looked like it. The pool was tiny, and the breakfast was prepackaged pastries. We didn't care; the room was great. We had a mini suite with a king sized bed in one room (important when you and your spouse are both large people, and your spouse can't stand to be touched in his sleep), a second bedroom with 2 queen sized beds, and a full kitchen, with a full sized refrigerator, a stove, a microwave and a dining room table. It would have been especially ideal if we'd been planning an extended stay. We had 5 of us in our room, and my oldest daughter and her husband in another room.
What did this daughter hate the most? The towels. "They're rags! The cleaning rags at my house are nicer than these!" This is true, about her cleaning rags. She is a towel snob. At the age of 13, she was furious with me because I would not replace the one year old beach towel that she'd used exactly twice. ("It's old! It's worn out!") The hotel towels were showing signs of age, sure, but I wouldn't even have remembered them if she hadn't come unglued. (I think she's too picky. She thinks I'm not picky enough. Yes, we love each other and choose to travel together, at least once a year.) She insists that if we ever stay there again, she will bring her own towels. OK.
(The next time she stayed at a hotel, she phoned me. "It was great! Everything was brand new, and the towels were so fluffy!")
Recently we went to Paris, my husband, my youngest 2 children and me. Three of the four of us had never been there before; my son was there two years ago. Paris, of course, is one of those iconic cities that almost everyone wants to see.
As usual, I just wanted clean and comfortable. Unlike my usual routine, I read the reviews on the booking site ahead of time. I knew nothing about Paris, and I wanted to be sure of things like how close it was to the train station; we planned on arriving and leaving by train.
"I think this hotel caters to college backpackers," I told my husband. It was in an older building with few amenities, inexpensive, and the room I booked had 4 single beds. (Unlike the frame of reference in the US, here "older" equated to "about two centuries," nearly as I could tell.) The reviews said that the rooms were small. "If you have a lot of luggage, plan on stacking it in the tub." We were fine with all of this, because we'd be in Paris. It was supposed to be within walking distance of the Louvre - bonus!
When we arrived, tired and dragging our huge American suitcases, they may have looked at our family and decided to put us in a different room, because they gave us a room with 2 queen beds. There were no lifts; we went up three flights of these stairs. (At least we didn't have to traverse the 6 flights to the top.)
Here's the room itself:
It was small, but not as small as I'd expected. The bathroom was larger than I expected, too. The walls were thick stone, so it was comfortable even without air conditioning. With the windows closed, it was also quiet. The only noise that seeped through were TV sounds from the flatscreen on the opposite side of one wall. The beds were some of the most comfortable we slept on during the entire week in Europe. The bedding was thick cotton, hand quilted, and reminded me of something you'd find on a visit to a grandparent's house. And we were in Paris!
It was half a block from the metro station, a few minutes' walk to the train station, close to numerous restaurants. Here's a few of the places we walked to that first day:
Paris!
After we came home, we left our own review. It said basically what I said above - comfortable, clean, great location, few amenities. Then I read the other reviews.
About half said almost the same things I did. The others were deeply scathing. "Never stay here!" "I'm writing on every travel sight (sic) I can find to avoid this place!" "Awful!" Honestly, I think most of those were the traveler's fault. One whined, "I didn't even realize I'd booked a one star property until I arrived." Really, Traveler? It's clearly posted on the website. Even if it wasn't, you thought that a place without a pool, a fitness center, conference rooms or any other modern amenities was a five star?
One woman said, "Overweight people would have a hard time in these rooms." I'm very large, my husband and daughter aren't small, and we were fine. We didn't have to stack our luggage in the tub, either. Another said, "I literally could not turn around." People really need to understand what "literally" means. It is not physically possible to be in a room large enough to hold a bed and be "literally" unable to turn around. Nobody would be ballroom dancing in these rooms, our two beds were each against a wall, but let's not exaggerate here.
One said, "I don't even think the photos on the website were real." Wow. After looking through them, I can say that not only do I not think that they're faked, they're very accurate. I saw the single room across the hall from us, our room, the lobby, the lounge - they all look just like the web photos. The main photo on the site looks almost identical to this one that I took.
I think I'll continue to stick with my usual behavior - I don't ask for, or give, advice very often, because what I think and what others think may or may not bear any resemblance to each other.
Did I mention that I got to see Paris?
The second morning, we walked down the street to a little bakery for breakfast. While we were deciding, someone walked in and said, "Bonjour. Un baguette, sil vous plait." It was delightful - we were having An Authentic French Experience! I'd be happy to do it again.
I'd be happy to do it from a comfortable, clean one star hotel.
Monday, July 1, 2013
A Little Help From My Friends
The mother of one of my son's friends came over recently to tell me that she was afraid that some of the kids my son's been friends with for years were doing drugs. "I'm so sorry to drop this in your lap," she said. She gave me reasons for this fear, and named some names. She also expressed that, in her opinion, it would be a mistake to let my son spend time around these kids any more. "I'm just afraid that they'll drag him down. He's avoided all this mess."
It's a legitimate concern. Kids do drugs. They drink. They have unprotected sex with people they barely know, or like, well enough to speak to. Awful things happen. I don't mean to minimize the dangers or possibilities. Also, my son is a bright, ambitious, sober 18 year old, about to head off to a university hundreds of miles away. Now is not the time to derail.
Still, I am not really worried. I have not laid down any ultimatums.
Please, do not feel the need to "enlighten" me with horror stories. Please do not tell me that every parent thinks, "It won't happen to my kid." I know these things. I do. I don't feel that my child, or his friends, are angelic or perfect. I also do not feel that substance abuse is a rite of passage, and nothing to be alarmed about (or worse, necessary).
To understand how I feel, you have to understand me. To understand me, we have to go back, more than 30 years. We have to go back to high school.
In junior high (for me, 6th - 8th grade, fall 1977 - spring 1980) I knew a few kids who drank, and a few who did drugs. Most of my close friends were pretty sober, but I did know people who engaged in various risky or improper behaviors.
I once mentioned to my husband, in passing, that I'd learned to carry my purse from a successful purse snatcher and pickpocket. "WHAT?" he responded. He found this fact bizarre and astonishing, and in need of an explanation.
I explained that my friend W had made a pretty tidy sum stealing purses and wallets. He'd shown me how to carry my stuff to minimize the chances that someone would take mine. He was a pretty good teacher. The only time someone's ever taken my bag, I walked out of a restaurant and left it there.
I started high school in the fall of 1980, and graduated in the spring of 1984.
Drugs were not hard to find. Alcohol was even easier. I mean, it was high school.
I spent most of my time in the theater department. I was also on the debate team, the yearbook staff and the newspaper staff. My friends ranged from total outcasts to the pretty and popular. I see no reason to dislike people unless they make it abundantly clear that they dislike me. Even then, I usually wish them well - just from a distance.
I have never had a thing for bad boys. I also did not swoon over jocks. My friends would obsess over how cute #42's butt was, or how mysterious the brooding James Dean wannabe in leather was, and it would just bore me. I tended to get crushes on the quirky, nerdy guys. Guys who can carry on an intelligent and funny conversation did it for me (and still do). As a freshman, I had no interest in the blue eyed, blond football player named Nick who sat next to me in science, but I was fascinated by the guy named John who sat in front of me and was in ROTC (the HEIGHT of uncool at my high school). He had painted his car to look like a tank, complete with turret on the roof. He was also witty.
Honestly, though, both my male and female friends saw me as some kind of third gender. I didn't date in high school.
I did hang around with a very large, very tightly knit group of kids. It felt like a family then, and it still feels like a family now.
A significant percentage of these kids did drugs and/or drank to excess. Not all, but enough to be over the 51% required to call it the majority. Some kids also dealt drugs, including one of my best friends. (He thought that no one would notice that he was buying himself sports cars with cash, while working at McDonald's.) Some went way beyond "sexually active" and into "promiscuous." One had his own still. (His "brew" was locally famous, and reputed to be high proof.)
This behavior was never what attracted me to any of them. I tended to view it with a middle aged attitude, hovering between fear and exasperation. I kept waiting for all of them to grow out of it.
On the other hand, they kept expecting me to grow up and get with the program and act like everybody else. They were fine with me as I was, though. They had no investment in making me change.
Even when I started driving a van, and took on the role of designated driver (before there was even a term for it), and was therefore fairly often at parties with very intoxicated people, I felt no pressure to drink or do drugs. None. Zero. I not only have never been intoxicated, I have never tasted a beer, or a joint, or many other substances. I take no credit and expect no admiration, because it took no effort at all. I'm not the only one who made it through school - or life - this way, either. I can introduce you to a number of us. It's not superhuman. It's fairly ordinary.
Almost no one offered alcohol or drugs to me, and those who did were satisfied with a simple, "No thanks." Let me tell you, nothing promotes sobriety more than being the only sober one in a room. Intoxicated people have no idea how ridiculous they look and sound.
Others occasionally refused for me, with much more vehemence than I would have used. Once, someone offered me hallucinogenic mushrooms, and I said the customary, "No, thanks." Their response was a simple, "OK," and I thought that would be the end of it. Another friend leapt in.
"Don't EVER offer her anything like that again! EVER!"
The first friend was shocked. They thought they were being courteous, offering to share. They started to justify - "They're all natural. They're organic. The Native Americans have used them in their religious rituals for centuries..."
"I don't care! NEVER offer Sharon something like that!"
"It's OK," I said.
"No! It's not! It's against your religion!"
"I can say 'no' on my own."
"You shouldn't have to!"
They were protective, especially when they, themselves, were sober.
Still, it wasn't always pretty. I have been vomited on. I have cleaned up someone else's car - a Cadillac - in the middle of the night before the owner's children could return it home. I have sat next to a bed, making sure the sleeper's head hung slightly over the side. One of my dad's stories from his career at the fire department was about a coworker who fell asleep intoxicated and drowned in his own vomit; I was terrified that I would lose someone that I loved. Long before I became a parent, I had no qualms about dealing with the bodily fluids and functions of others.
Long after high school, I worried that someone would overdose, or die in a DUI crash, or be arrested for trafficking.
I never questioned whether they loved me. I felt very loved. I can't imagine that they ever questioned whether or not I loved them. My kids grew up calling many of these people "Aunt" and "Uncle." Most others, they know on a first name basis. I do not understand people who must be surrounded by others who agree with them, and behave in similar ways. Even at the age at which people tend to be the most judgmental and exclusionary, adolescence, we all held it together, loving people who were very, very different from ourselves.
At the time, many people (mostly adults) assured me that it was temporary. We'd never even see each other after high school, except for maybe at school reunions, they said. See the preceding paragraph; some of us are now grandparents, and we still love each other. We are still a part of each other's lives. My kids have "cousins" who are totally unrelated to them. We - the theater department of our high school - hold our own reunions, encompassing about 8 graduation years, because attending school reunions means that we're limited to seeing those from a single graduation year.
My mother always knew who was doing what (and with whom). She knew who took 1/2 an inch at a time from all the liquor bottles in the cabinet, combined and drank it in a concoction called "death." She knew who owned the still. She knew how my friend bought his sports cars. She knew who raided their parents' stash, and whose parents let them (and others) drink at home. I told her, the other kids told her - nobody hid things from my mom. She loved them anyway. This is not because my mother was enabling and trying to be cool. She would have preferred it if they were all sober and virginal. There were clear, iron clad rules. There would be none of this at her house or on her property, whether she was home or not. (No one ever violated this rule.) She would prefer it if it didn't happen in front of her kid, but she left that up to me. She would not give anyone money or bail anyone out. If you screwed up, it was on you. If you followed her rules, you were always welcome in her home. And I mean always - two kids once showed up at 11:30 at night to ask for a fudgesicle. She let them sleep at our house, and had no trouble letting me spend time at their houses.
And they all loved her. Until the end of her life, many of them called her Mom.
One of my siblings once argued with my mom that she was showing favoritism. "You hate my friends! You love Sharon's friends, and they do way worse stuff than mine do!" (This is debatable, but Mom didn't bother.) Her response was immediate and succinct.
"That's because Sharon has never felt compelled to act like her friends."
I thought about that statement when the mother came to me with her concerns about my son's friends.
I know that my son is not me, and that his friends are not my friends. I also know what kind of people they are.
My son is very secure in his beliefs and behaviors. He is bright, personable, friendly and not easily swayed. He doesn't drink, he doesn't use drugs, and I don't see him starting, even if someone makes it available. He is secure being the only "different" one, he is OK with being teased. He can walk away when he needs to. He does not cave in to pressure in order to fit in. If he was a different type of personality, things might be different.
The friends in question are great kids. I'm not going to swear that they've never done something stupid, because they're human, they're kids, and their brains aren't done forming yet. Plus, not everyone believes in lifelong teetotaling. Still, I cannot conceive of them as being so far gone that they're a danger to my kid.
I thought about my mother's reaction to my friends. I thought about how my life would be immeasurably emptier without them in it. I thought about the people my son has added to our family - because they are family. They are not disposable.
Three of my kids are adults, and one is a teen, so we can have conversations that may have been iffy when they were younger.
"Can you imagine," I asked, "how all of our lives would be different if Grandma had insisted that I couldn't be around Aunt B any more?" Their Aunt B spent years intoxicated on a daily basis, in a household where adults could be absent for weeks at a time. My kids know this, and they know how much their grandma loved Aunt B. "Can you even imagine Aunt B being a bad influence?" Their shocked looks said that they could not.
I had a conversation with the kids in question, and their moms. They knew what had been said. I did not ask what they may or may not have done. I did not threaten, or lecture. I said, "Do we have to have a conversation about what I consider to be acceptable behavior?"
They laughed. "No, Mom." They know.
I said to my son, "Even if other people lose their minds, I expect you not to lose yours."
"I know, Mom."
I asked the other parents, "Are you worried?"
"Not at all."
"OK, then. We're all clear."
In 30 years, maybe they'll have similar conversations with their kids, and be able to think of how their honorary aunts and uncles did not ruin their parents' lives. I hope so.
It's a legitimate concern. Kids do drugs. They drink. They have unprotected sex with people they barely know, or like, well enough to speak to. Awful things happen. I don't mean to minimize the dangers or possibilities. Also, my son is a bright, ambitious, sober 18 year old, about to head off to a university hundreds of miles away. Now is not the time to derail.
Still, I am not really worried. I have not laid down any ultimatums.
Please, do not feel the need to "enlighten" me with horror stories. Please do not tell me that every parent thinks, "It won't happen to my kid." I know these things. I do. I don't feel that my child, or his friends, are angelic or perfect. I also do not feel that substance abuse is a rite of passage, and nothing to be alarmed about (or worse, necessary).
To understand how I feel, you have to understand me. To understand me, we have to go back, more than 30 years. We have to go back to high school.
In junior high (for me, 6th - 8th grade, fall 1977 - spring 1980) I knew a few kids who drank, and a few who did drugs. Most of my close friends were pretty sober, but I did know people who engaged in various risky or improper behaviors.
I once mentioned to my husband, in passing, that I'd learned to carry my purse from a successful purse snatcher and pickpocket. "WHAT?" he responded. He found this fact bizarre and astonishing, and in need of an explanation.
I explained that my friend W had made a pretty tidy sum stealing purses and wallets. He'd shown me how to carry my stuff to minimize the chances that someone would take mine. He was a pretty good teacher. The only time someone's ever taken my bag, I walked out of a restaurant and left it there.
I started high school in the fall of 1980, and graduated in the spring of 1984.
Drugs were not hard to find. Alcohol was even easier. I mean, it was high school.
I spent most of my time in the theater department. I was also on the debate team, the yearbook staff and the newspaper staff. My friends ranged from total outcasts to the pretty and popular. I see no reason to dislike people unless they make it abundantly clear that they dislike me. Even then, I usually wish them well - just from a distance.
I have never had a thing for bad boys. I also did not swoon over jocks. My friends would obsess over how cute #42's butt was, or how mysterious the brooding James Dean wannabe in leather was, and it would just bore me. I tended to get crushes on the quirky, nerdy guys. Guys who can carry on an intelligent and funny conversation did it for me (and still do). As a freshman, I had no interest in the blue eyed, blond football player named Nick who sat next to me in science, but I was fascinated by the guy named John who sat in front of me and was in ROTC (the HEIGHT of uncool at my high school). He had painted his car to look like a tank, complete with turret on the roof. He was also witty.
Honestly, though, both my male and female friends saw me as some kind of third gender. I didn't date in high school.
I did hang around with a very large, very tightly knit group of kids. It felt like a family then, and it still feels like a family now.
A significant percentage of these kids did drugs and/or drank to excess. Not all, but enough to be over the 51% required to call it the majority. Some kids also dealt drugs, including one of my best friends. (He thought that no one would notice that he was buying himself sports cars with cash, while working at McDonald's.) Some went way beyond "sexually active" and into "promiscuous." One had his own still. (His "brew" was locally famous, and reputed to be high proof.)
This behavior was never what attracted me to any of them. I tended to view it with a middle aged attitude, hovering between fear and exasperation. I kept waiting for all of them to grow out of it.
On the other hand, they kept expecting me to grow up and get with the program and act like everybody else. They were fine with me as I was, though. They had no investment in making me change.
Even when I started driving a van, and took on the role of designated driver (before there was even a term for it), and was therefore fairly often at parties with very intoxicated people, I felt no pressure to drink or do drugs. None. Zero. I not only have never been intoxicated, I have never tasted a beer, or a joint, or many other substances. I take no credit and expect no admiration, because it took no effort at all. I'm not the only one who made it through school - or life - this way, either. I can introduce you to a number of us. It's not superhuman. It's fairly ordinary.
Almost no one offered alcohol or drugs to me, and those who did were satisfied with a simple, "No thanks." Let me tell you, nothing promotes sobriety more than being the only sober one in a room. Intoxicated people have no idea how ridiculous they look and sound.
Others occasionally refused for me, with much more vehemence than I would have used. Once, someone offered me hallucinogenic mushrooms, and I said the customary, "No, thanks." Their response was a simple, "OK," and I thought that would be the end of it. Another friend leapt in.
"Don't EVER offer her anything like that again! EVER!"
The first friend was shocked. They thought they were being courteous, offering to share. They started to justify - "They're all natural. They're organic. The Native Americans have used them in their religious rituals for centuries..."
"I don't care! NEVER offer Sharon something like that!"
"It's OK," I said.
"No! It's not! It's against your religion!"
"I can say 'no' on my own."
"You shouldn't have to!"
They were protective, especially when they, themselves, were sober.
Still, it wasn't always pretty. I have been vomited on. I have cleaned up someone else's car - a Cadillac - in the middle of the night before the owner's children could return it home. I have sat next to a bed, making sure the sleeper's head hung slightly over the side. One of my dad's stories from his career at the fire department was about a coworker who fell asleep intoxicated and drowned in his own vomit; I was terrified that I would lose someone that I loved. Long before I became a parent, I had no qualms about dealing with the bodily fluids and functions of others.
Long after high school, I worried that someone would overdose, or die in a DUI crash, or be arrested for trafficking.
I never questioned whether they loved me. I felt very loved. I can't imagine that they ever questioned whether or not I loved them. My kids grew up calling many of these people "Aunt" and "Uncle." Most others, they know on a first name basis. I do not understand people who must be surrounded by others who agree with them, and behave in similar ways. Even at the age at which people tend to be the most judgmental and exclusionary, adolescence, we all held it together, loving people who were very, very different from ourselves.
At the time, many people (mostly adults) assured me that it was temporary. We'd never even see each other after high school, except for maybe at school reunions, they said. See the preceding paragraph; some of us are now grandparents, and we still love each other. We are still a part of each other's lives. My kids have "cousins" who are totally unrelated to them. We - the theater department of our high school - hold our own reunions, encompassing about 8 graduation years, because attending school reunions means that we're limited to seeing those from a single graduation year.
My mother always knew who was doing what (and with whom). She knew who took 1/2 an inch at a time from all the liquor bottles in the cabinet, combined and drank it in a concoction called "death." She knew who owned the still. She knew how my friend bought his sports cars. She knew who raided their parents' stash, and whose parents let them (and others) drink at home. I told her, the other kids told her - nobody hid things from my mom. She loved them anyway. This is not because my mother was enabling and trying to be cool. She would have preferred it if they were all sober and virginal. There were clear, iron clad rules. There would be none of this at her house or on her property, whether she was home or not. (No one ever violated this rule.) She would prefer it if it didn't happen in front of her kid, but she left that up to me. She would not give anyone money or bail anyone out. If you screwed up, it was on you. If you followed her rules, you were always welcome in her home. And I mean always - two kids once showed up at 11:30 at night to ask for a fudgesicle. She let them sleep at our house, and had no trouble letting me spend time at their houses.
And they all loved her. Until the end of her life, many of them called her Mom.
One of my siblings once argued with my mom that she was showing favoritism. "You hate my friends! You love Sharon's friends, and they do way worse stuff than mine do!" (This is debatable, but Mom didn't bother.) Her response was immediate and succinct.
"That's because Sharon has never felt compelled to act like her friends."
I thought about that statement when the mother came to me with her concerns about my son's friends.
I know that my son is not me, and that his friends are not my friends. I also know what kind of people they are.
My son is very secure in his beliefs and behaviors. He is bright, personable, friendly and not easily swayed. He doesn't drink, he doesn't use drugs, and I don't see him starting, even if someone makes it available. He is secure being the only "different" one, he is OK with being teased. He can walk away when he needs to. He does not cave in to pressure in order to fit in. If he was a different type of personality, things might be different.
The friends in question are great kids. I'm not going to swear that they've never done something stupid, because they're human, they're kids, and their brains aren't done forming yet. Plus, not everyone believes in lifelong teetotaling. Still, I cannot conceive of them as being so far gone that they're a danger to my kid.
I thought about my mother's reaction to my friends. I thought about how my life would be immeasurably emptier without them in it. I thought about the people my son has added to our family - because they are family. They are not disposable.
Three of my kids are adults, and one is a teen, so we can have conversations that may have been iffy when they were younger.
"Can you imagine," I asked, "how all of our lives would be different if Grandma had insisted that I couldn't be around Aunt B any more?" Their Aunt B spent years intoxicated on a daily basis, in a household where adults could be absent for weeks at a time. My kids know this, and they know how much their grandma loved Aunt B. "Can you even imagine Aunt B being a bad influence?" Their shocked looks said that they could not.
I had a conversation with the kids in question, and their moms. They knew what had been said. I did not ask what they may or may not have done. I did not threaten, or lecture. I said, "Do we have to have a conversation about what I consider to be acceptable behavior?"
They laughed. "No, Mom." They know.
I said to my son, "Even if other people lose their minds, I expect you not to lose yours."
"I know, Mom."
I asked the other parents, "Are you worried?"
"Not at all."
"OK, then. We're all clear."
In 30 years, maybe they'll have similar conversations with their kids, and be able to think of how their honorary aunts and uncles did not ruin their parents' lives. I hope so.
Friday, June 21, 2013
Don't Tell My Oldest
If you are my firstborn child, do not read this. DO NOT. I warned you. I am not responsible if you ignore me.
So, I've been cleaning my house (which, at worst, is like picking up after a tornado, and at its best is like a treasure hunt.) I have also been packing up some of my mom's stuff at her house, and working in her yard. Mostly, working in her yard, because I love it more, and I have internal conversations with my mom - "Don't these stones look great here? I'm glad I moved them."
So, yesterday, I was pretty filthy. My arms are scratched, my legs are scratched, and I had an allergic rash, because I'd been crawling under trees and shrubs to which I am allergic. I had also packed up so many books that my car was full, even the middle passenger seats.
Off we went to the used bookstore, to sell some of Mom's books. My mother, like every bright and sane individual, owned more books than any other possession. There are books on shelves, in closets, in the kitchen cupboards, on the floors, on the desks and dressers, and my husband has forbidden me to hoard them. (I intend to stay married to him anyway.)
No, I did not change or shower first.
I was standing in the aisles of the bookstore browsing (I only bought 2 books, thank you) when my daughter looked at me and frowned, then squinted. "Come here."
"Do I have twigs in my hair?" I asked.
"No. It's... a dead spider. Why do you have a dead spider in your hair?" This question is unanswerable.
She picked it out and dropped it on the ground.
Both of us went on about our business. Somewhere in the Great Beyond, I'm sure that my mother giggled.
My firstborn probably got an inexplicable chill, even hundreds of miles away in the hot Phoenix air. If she asks, I'll give her the old line about, "Someone must have walked over your grave." She'll like that explanation better than the one with the spider.
So, I've been cleaning my house (which, at worst, is like picking up after a tornado, and at its best is like a treasure hunt.) I have also been packing up some of my mom's stuff at her house, and working in her yard. Mostly, working in her yard, because I love it more, and I have internal conversations with my mom - "Don't these stones look great here? I'm glad I moved them."
So, yesterday, I was pretty filthy. My arms are scratched, my legs are scratched, and I had an allergic rash, because I'd been crawling under trees and shrubs to which I am allergic. I had also packed up so many books that my car was full, even the middle passenger seats.
Off we went to the used bookstore, to sell some of Mom's books. My mother, like every bright and sane individual, owned more books than any other possession. There are books on shelves, in closets, in the kitchen cupboards, on the floors, on the desks and dressers, and my husband has forbidden me to hoard them. (I intend to stay married to him anyway.)
No, I did not change or shower first.
I was standing in the aisles of the bookstore browsing (I only bought 2 books, thank you) when my daughter looked at me and frowned, then squinted. "Come here."
"Do I have twigs in my hair?" I asked.
"No. It's... a dead spider. Why do you have a dead spider in your hair?" This question is unanswerable.
She picked it out and dropped it on the ground.
Both of us went on about our business. Somewhere in the Great Beyond, I'm sure that my mother giggled.
My firstborn probably got an inexplicable chill, even hundreds of miles away in the hot Phoenix air. If she asks, I'll give her the old line about, "Someone must have walked over your grave." She'll like that explanation better than the one with the spider.
Saturday, June 8, 2013
We Have Nothing to Fear But Fear Itself
"This is the bravest thing I have ever done," I said to my son. He looked at me skeptically, to see if I was being sarcastic or ironic or blatantly exaggerated; I was, after all, standing on a cruise ship. I was not joking; I meant it.
I like the explanation that Will Smith's character delivers in the movie "After Earth" about fear. "Do not misunderstand me. Danger is very real, but fear is a choice." Bravery, we know, is not the absence of fear, but the ability to work through it or past it.
Everyone likes to believe that their own fears are reasonable, and everyone else's fears are silly. I will readily admit this in myself. My fear is water - specifically, being trapped underwater and drowning. Dark water, deep water and submerged manmade objects intensify these fears. I feel the same way about this as the explanation of fear of heights from the TV show "The Big Bang Theory" - "Fear of heights is irrational and silly. Fear of falling, however, is prudent and evolutionary." Water can kill you.
I am not afraid of spiders, snakes or germs. I realize that under some circumstances, these things can kill you, but most times, they do not. If you put a person inside a sealed box of venomous snakes or spiders, it would be possible to avoid being bitten for an extended period of time. If you are still and don't startle them, chances are that they'll leave you alone. Even if you are bitten, chances are that you won't die. Germs don't care how calm you are, but a reasonably healthy person can fight off most germs automatically, without even knowing they're there. That's the entire job of the immune system. If you put a person in a sealed box full of water, on the other hand, they will die. Not "might" or "could," not "under the right circumstances," not "if you thrash or frighten it," but "WILL, " within a matter of minutes. They will die.
I try to be sympathetic and nonjudgmental when dealing with others and their fears. Still, I sometimes find myself being impatient when the fear is not life and death. For instance, I know that the fear of public speaking usually ranks higher than the fear of death for most people, but I cannot imagine why. I don't understand fear of rodents, or fear of insects. I know someone whose biggest fear is public humiliation; that barely makes my radar. I mean, everyone will face public humiliation many times in their lives. I certainly have, and I'm not dead yet. Sometimes, I'll watch someone struggling to avoid situations they think might be embarrassing, and I'll find myself barking, "Will it be fatal?" I mean, if the answer is "No," how bad can it be? One of the first things I tell my theater or speech students is, "Don't be afraid to look silly. You'll look worse trying to avoid it than you will doing anything else."
I manage to keep my fear reasonably in check. I swim, I go on boats, I once went in an actual submarine with viewing windows. Go, me.
On the other hand, darkness outdoors has never frightened me, ever, even filled with animal howls and bats. It's soothing, it's gorgeous. Indoor darkness, though, can be entirely unnerving, because it looks too close to being in a sunken ship. Not rational, but hey, there it is. So, although I recognize that my fear manifests itself in exaggerated ways - for instance, being unable to look at certain photos or film footage - I find it to be a perfectly reasonable fear.
My son wanted to go on a cruise for his high school graduation. We're only 4 hours drive from the Pacific, and he wanted to go on an Alaskan cruise. We chose one from Disney; we love anything Disney.
Then my husband found a transatlantic Disney cruise - 14 days for less money than the 7 day Alaskan cruise. Plus, we'd get to see Europe. Sounds like an easy choice, right?
And it was an easy choice, for the rest of my family. For me, not so much.
Ten of the fourteen days would be spent entirely at sea. Not just any sea, not my calm, placid Pacific, but THE NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN. That just sounded like days of seasickness followed by death, hours away from any help.
Before I do anything, I have to ask, "What could potentially go wrong? Could I live with that?" If the answer is "Yes," I do it. If it's "No," well, I don't. Any time I leave my house, I am aware that I could be hit by a car, contract a disease, be robbed - all sorts of stuff could happen. Things could happen in my house. I know the risk is there, and I accept it.
Don't try to tell me that that's the "wrong" way to look at things. I don't tell you how to live your life. You know how everyone always says, "Live each day like it's your last. Some day, it will be"? It's true. The last time I saw my dad, my mom, friends and relatives who have passed away, it was an ordinary day. Tomorrow, anyone I know might be gone. Tomorrow, I might be gone. The only guarantee is that I'm here now. None of us will leave here alive. Live like you were dying, my friend.
Death and I made our peace years ago. When he comes for me, I will greet him as an old friend.
I have, of course, put in requests with the Almighty. I would rather be shot to death in a burning building than have my death have anything to do with water. I have also requested that I not die in a flaming ball of shrapnel falling from 30,000 feet. The Good Lord is not obligated to honor these requests, but it doesn't hurt to ask.
(My husband, on the other hand, has to be almost positive that nothing bad could possibly happen, or he is paralyzed. If he considers what might go wrong, he will be unable to make any choice at all. He is therefore, from my perspective, frequently caught off guard and left floundering. "This shouldn't have happened!" he'll say. "How could this possibly have happened?" He has no plan of action at the ready, because he never considered the possibility that he would need it. I have contingency plans for my contingency plans.)
So, in order to sail off into the Atlantic Ocean for days on end, I had to say to myself, "Am I OK with four of my seven family members, including me, drowning at sea on this trip?" Answering "yes" to that is a difficult thing to achieve.
People tried to be helpful, but they didn't "get" it. They'd say things like, "Just stay indoors. Don't look at the water." I knew they meant well, but I wanted to say, "Oh, yeah - then I'll totally forget that it exists." I'm not a toddler. I know that things exist outside of my sight. Plus, if the ship sinks, being trapped indoors is far more terrifying than being on deck. During the emergency drill, they don't tell you, "Run into an interior space and you'll be fine." No, they teach you to go out on deck to the lifeboats. Being indoors does not mean being safe - in fact, it usually means the opposite.
"It's a cruise! It'll be fun!" they said. I know that; it doesn't help.
Think of it this way - what is your very worst fear? Your "Dear God, PLEASE don't let it be" fear, the one that will wake you up in a cold sweat. I'll use my daughter's as an example; hers is needles.
She avoids medical care until it's critical, and even then the worst part of any procedure is the needle. When she had surgery, they kept trying to talk to her about the procedure itself, how safe it was, how comfortable she would be, how necessary this was. She didn't care about any of that. She only cared that the anesthesia would be administered by IV, and that thought made her frantic and combative.
So, let's think about medical needles - how often will you need one? Vaccinations, surgery, blood tests, dental anesthesia - let's say a few minutes a year on average, for 30 to 60 seconds at a time. Most people will be exposed to them less than that. I had surgery this year, and enough blood drawn that my veins are scarring from it, and all told (including the surgery itself) it probably added up to 4 or 5 hours, over 365 days.
Now, imagine being stuck by needles every minute of every day for two solid weeks. That's 168 consecutive hours, or 10,080 consecutive minutes.
If you're afraid of public speaking, imagine being onstage with a microphone for 10,080 solid minutes.
That's the equivalent of what I was facing.
And I did it.
Yes. I did it, with a smile. And I had fun!
There were a few distressing moments, like walking out onto a lower deck at 10:30 at night during a storm, looking out at waves that seemed 10 to 12 feet high in the rain and blackness and saying, "If we have to get into the lifeboats tonight, I will die of a heart attack before I'm ever off the ship. I just thought you should know."
Yes, indeed, I had fun. Here's me, my husband and our host:
I warned people: I will now be insufferable. I am congratulating myself. I am very proud.
I don't expect people to congratulate me. In fact, I expect eyerolling: "Yes, yes, you handled a luxury experience. You. Are. Incredible. I am in awe." Still, I am feeling pretty bulletproof.
One of my kids noticed that I wasn't stressed at all while facing something that usually ties me in mental knots. I just smiled and said, "Fourteen days at sea."
Bring. It. On. I can handle anything. I am Chuck freaking Norris.
I like the explanation that Will Smith's character delivers in the movie "After Earth" about fear. "Do not misunderstand me. Danger is very real, but fear is a choice." Bravery, we know, is not the absence of fear, but the ability to work through it or past it.
Everyone likes to believe that their own fears are reasonable, and everyone else's fears are silly. I will readily admit this in myself. My fear is water - specifically, being trapped underwater and drowning. Dark water, deep water and submerged manmade objects intensify these fears. I feel the same way about this as the explanation of fear of heights from the TV show "The Big Bang Theory" - "Fear of heights is irrational and silly. Fear of falling, however, is prudent and evolutionary." Water can kill you.
I am not afraid of spiders, snakes or germs. I realize that under some circumstances, these things can kill you, but most times, they do not. If you put a person inside a sealed box of venomous snakes or spiders, it would be possible to avoid being bitten for an extended period of time. If you are still and don't startle them, chances are that they'll leave you alone. Even if you are bitten, chances are that you won't die. Germs don't care how calm you are, but a reasonably healthy person can fight off most germs automatically, without even knowing they're there. That's the entire job of the immune system. If you put a person in a sealed box full of water, on the other hand, they will die. Not "might" or "could," not "under the right circumstances," not "if you thrash or frighten it," but "WILL, " within a matter of minutes. They will die.
I try to be sympathetic and nonjudgmental when dealing with others and their fears. Still, I sometimes find myself being impatient when the fear is not life and death. For instance, I know that the fear of public speaking usually ranks higher than the fear of death for most people, but I cannot imagine why. I don't understand fear of rodents, or fear of insects. I know someone whose biggest fear is public humiliation; that barely makes my radar. I mean, everyone will face public humiliation many times in their lives. I certainly have, and I'm not dead yet. Sometimes, I'll watch someone struggling to avoid situations they think might be embarrassing, and I'll find myself barking, "Will it be fatal?" I mean, if the answer is "No," how bad can it be? One of the first things I tell my theater or speech students is, "Don't be afraid to look silly. You'll look worse trying to avoid it than you will doing anything else."
I manage to keep my fear reasonably in check. I swim, I go on boats, I once went in an actual submarine with viewing windows. Go, me.
On the other hand, darkness outdoors has never frightened me, ever, even filled with animal howls and bats. It's soothing, it's gorgeous. Indoor darkness, though, can be entirely unnerving, because it looks too close to being in a sunken ship. Not rational, but hey, there it is. So, although I recognize that my fear manifests itself in exaggerated ways - for instance, being unable to look at certain photos or film footage - I find it to be a perfectly reasonable fear.
My son wanted to go on a cruise for his high school graduation. We're only 4 hours drive from the Pacific, and he wanted to go on an Alaskan cruise. We chose one from Disney; we love anything Disney.
Then my husband found a transatlantic Disney cruise - 14 days for less money than the 7 day Alaskan cruise. Plus, we'd get to see Europe. Sounds like an easy choice, right?
And it was an easy choice, for the rest of my family. For me, not so much.
Ten of the fourteen days would be spent entirely at sea. Not just any sea, not my calm, placid Pacific, but THE NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN. That just sounded like days of seasickness followed by death, hours away from any help.
Before I do anything, I have to ask, "What could potentially go wrong? Could I live with that?" If the answer is "Yes," I do it. If it's "No," well, I don't. Any time I leave my house, I am aware that I could be hit by a car, contract a disease, be robbed - all sorts of stuff could happen. Things could happen in my house. I know the risk is there, and I accept it.
Don't try to tell me that that's the "wrong" way to look at things. I don't tell you how to live your life. You know how everyone always says, "Live each day like it's your last. Some day, it will be"? It's true. The last time I saw my dad, my mom, friends and relatives who have passed away, it was an ordinary day. Tomorrow, anyone I know might be gone. Tomorrow, I might be gone. The only guarantee is that I'm here now. None of us will leave here alive. Live like you were dying, my friend.
Death and I made our peace years ago. When he comes for me, I will greet him as an old friend.
I have, of course, put in requests with the Almighty. I would rather be shot to death in a burning building than have my death have anything to do with water. I have also requested that I not die in a flaming ball of shrapnel falling from 30,000 feet. The Good Lord is not obligated to honor these requests, but it doesn't hurt to ask.
(My husband, on the other hand, has to be almost positive that nothing bad could possibly happen, or he is paralyzed. If he considers what might go wrong, he will be unable to make any choice at all. He is therefore, from my perspective, frequently caught off guard and left floundering. "This shouldn't have happened!" he'll say. "How could this possibly have happened?" He has no plan of action at the ready, because he never considered the possibility that he would need it. I have contingency plans for my contingency plans.)
So, in order to sail off into the Atlantic Ocean for days on end, I had to say to myself, "Am I OK with four of my seven family members, including me, drowning at sea on this trip?" Answering "yes" to that is a difficult thing to achieve.
People tried to be helpful, but they didn't "get" it. They'd say things like, "Just stay indoors. Don't look at the water." I knew they meant well, but I wanted to say, "Oh, yeah - then I'll totally forget that it exists." I'm not a toddler. I know that things exist outside of my sight. Plus, if the ship sinks, being trapped indoors is far more terrifying than being on deck. During the emergency drill, they don't tell you, "Run into an interior space and you'll be fine." No, they teach you to go out on deck to the lifeboats. Being indoors does not mean being safe - in fact, it usually means the opposite.
"It's a cruise! It'll be fun!" they said. I know that; it doesn't help.
Think of it this way - what is your very worst fear? Your "Dear God, PLEASE don't let it be" fear, the one that will wake you up in a cold sweat. I'll use my daughter's as an example; hers is needles.
She avoids medical care until it's critical, and even then the worst part of any procedure is the needle. When she had surgery, they kept trying to talk to her about the procedure itself, how safe it was, how comfortable she would be, how necessary this was. She didn't care about any of that. She only cared that the anesthesia would be administered by IV, and that thought made her frantic and combative.
So, let's think about medical needles - how often will you need one? Vaccinations, surgery, blood tests, dental anesthesia - let's say a few minutes a year on average, for 30 to 60 seconds at a time. Most people will be exposed to them less than that. I had surgery this year, and enough blood drawn that my veins are scarring from it, and all told (including the surgery itself) it probably added up to 4 or 5 hours, over 365 days.
Now, imagine being stuck by needles every minute of every day for two solid weeks. That's 168 consecutive hours, or 10,080 consecutive minutes.
If you're afraid of public speaking, imagine being onstage with a microphone for 10,080 solid minutes.
That's the equivalent of what I was facing.
And I did it.
Yes. I did it, with a smile. And I had fun!
There were a few distressing moments, like walking out onto a lower deck at 10:30 at night during a storm, looking out at waves that seemed 10 to 12 feet high in the rain and blackness and saying, "If we have to get into the lifeboats tonight, I will die of a heart attack before I'm ever off the ship. I just thought you should know."
Yes, indeed, I had fun. Here's me, my husband and our host:
I warned people: I will now be insufferable. I am congratulating myself. I am very proud.
I don't expect people to congratulate me. In fact, I expect eyerolling: "Yes, yes, you handled a luxury experience. You. Are. Incredible. I am in awe." Still, I am feeling pretty bulletproof.
One of my kids noticed that I wasn't stressed at all while facing something that usually ties me in mental knots. I just smiled and said, "Fourteen days at sea."
Bring. It. On. I can handle anything. I am Chuck freaking Norris.
Monday, May 13, 2013
More Misunderstandings
"It's women like you who make it very difficult for the rest of us," the woman said, fixing me with a hard glare. I had just explained that I do not care if my husband, my kids or even, if need be, my friends, get things out of my purse. My husband especially has my permission to get anything he needs out of it, including cash. I just need a note or a heads-up so I know it's gone before I try to spend it. He can rifle it looking for receipts or pens or whatever he needs.
Just so we're clear, this isn't one sided. I have similar permission to go through his lunch pail, the "man purse" he carries on vacation, his wallet or his pants pocket. He usually goes to bed hours before I do, so I occasionally take cash from his pants pocket while he sleeps, and leave a note: "Hey, I took $X."
Her husband had gotten something simple like gum out of her purse, the woman had told me, in a tone of horror that made it clear that I was expected to gasp, put my hand to my mouth and exclaim, "NO!" She told me, "It's more of an invasion of privacy than a gynecological exam."
I tried to be suitably sympathetic, but I just don't "get it."
I don't understand most gift giving presumptions, either.
On a message board for mothers, I recently read a very angry letter about a gift from a child's dad. Dad had been out of the picture for years and had recently resumed contact. Daughter was 5; he hadn't seen her since she was 2. For her birthday (or maybe it was Christmas), he bought her a sweater. Mom was outraged. "A SWEATER! Nothing for 3 years, then a sweater! I'm so angry I'm thinking of telling him he can't come over when he calls next!"
I'm aware that, since this involves custody issues and hard feelings, it's probably not about the actual sweater. It's probably about unpaid child support and court hearings. Still, the reaction seemed over the top.
I wrote back: "Men are notoriously bad at figuring out gift giving issues, especially when the gift is for a female." That "female" thing isn't exclusive, though. My father in law once gave his 15 year old son a Daniel Boone style fake coonskin cap. It would have been a great gift for a kid half that age. We have photos of my son delightedly wearing his through Frontierland at Disney World when he was 7. For a 15 year old, though, it was worse than no gift.
I offered my opinion that Sweater Dad was probably patting himself on the back. He was probably thinking, "It's practical, it's in her favorite color, she'll wear it every day." Unless told, I said, he would be unaware that anyone would look at that gift and think, "What is wrong with him?"
The mom who wrote the question didn't take issue with my answer, but others did. One woman wrote back that I (names are available on the site, and yes, she called me by name) was " a b***h." "Just because your husband is a loser doesn't mean that the rest of us have to put up with that s**t," she said.
Wow. I thought we were talking about a little girl's sweater.
I polled my friends. "Am I wrong about this?" Most responses were like this one, from a friend since high school - "If my wife didn't buy them, no one would get gifts from me."
It's not the first time I've felt that a stranger was unnecessarily penalizing my husband in matters unrelated to him.
Years ago, while reading a book chronicling the crimes of a serial killer, I noticed that the author seemed to be betraying a bit of bias. The killer's wife, unaware of what her husband did away from home, thought that he was "perfect." She waxed eloquent about how thoughtful and gentle he was.
The author felt it necessary to note, in some detail, though, that he was not the kind of husband who brought flowers home or surprised his wife with jewelry. "If he wanted to get me a gift, we went shopping for it together," the wife said. That made total sense to her. It makes total sense to me - that way, he won't buy the wrong size, brand, color or item.
The author said, in a veiled way, that the woman should have known that something was not right with her husband if he never sent flowers or brought home an unexpected gift. Surely, the (female) author thought, this was a sign that he was insensitive in general and devalued women in particular.
I think that's a huge leap.
In almost 30 years, my husband has sent me flowers twice. This is because I have been very clear on the subject - I don't much care for flower arrangements (or corsages). If he wants to buy me flowers, it should be the kind that I can plant in my garden. Then, they last for years. They're also cheaper.
I'm also not a big fan of jewelry. Almost always, the only thing I wear is my wedding ring. I have made it perfectly, abundantly clear that, if my husband wants to spend a lot of money on me, there had better be plane tickets involved. I do not want a shiny bit of something when I could be on a beach, or a boat, or climbing a pyramid, or seeing a waterfall. I want to go places.
I would almost always value experiences over things. For my birthday and my anniversary, I want taken out on a date.
Friends have tried to explain to me why I'm wrong. "Dates last for a few hours. Vacations last for a week or two. Jewelry lasts forever! You can hand it down to your children."
My kids are out of luck. I own costume jewelry; they're welcome to it. My mom left one piece of "real" jewelry, her wedding ring. (She has three daughters, seven granddaughters, a granddaughter in law and a great granddaughter.)
Another friend tried to explain that, "Jewelry is an investment! It will only go up in value." Uh huh. I know people who've lost jobs and homes lately, and tried to sell their jewelry to come up with a bit of much needed cash. They're usually offered far less than what they paid. That, again, makes sense to me. I can't eat a jewel, wear it, use it to keep warm, live in it - if times are hard, its value is next to nothing. I can't even trade it for much in the case of societal collapse, because no one else can do any of those things with it, either. An apple tree - now that's a commodity with value.
Last Christmas, a friend said, "My wife asked for a vacuum. I got her a sapphire ring instead." As far as I know, his wife was thrilled and he was trying very hard to be considerate. Still, if I asked my husband for a vacuum and he bought me a sapphire ring, I'd be furious. I'd say things like, "Do you ever LISTEN to me? Did you just meet me yesterday?"
For graduations and weddings, my kids know that they will get a trip. They've been to Hawaii, Florida, Mexico and Australia. I suppose we could have given them stuff, or cash, but when we celebrate we go places, we do things. We make memories. Life is all about experiences and memories.
My husband values surprise; I do not. He will not make wish lists or give hints, because he doesn't want to know what he's getting. I truly do not value surprise all that much.
At least we listen to what the other wants. Many, many times, my husband and I misunderstand each other, but not about gifts.
It's hard for me to talk to other people, though. I'm not going to be overwrought about a sweater. I will not be impressed by a diamond tennis bracelet. (Why are they "tennis" bracelets, anyway? Does anyone play tennis while wearing them?) When people ask what I got for my anniversary and I say, "Dinner out," I won't understand why they say, "And?"
And for crying out loud, I'm not going to suspect that my husband's a serial killer because he doesn't send flowers.
Just so we're clear, this isn't one sided. I have similar permission to go through his lunch pail, the "man purse" he carries on vacation, his wallet or his pants pocket. He usually goes to bed hours before I do, so I occasionally take cash from his pants pocket while he sleeps, and leave a note: "Hey, I took $X."
Her husband had gotten something simple like gum out of her purse, the woman had told me, in a tone of horror that made it clear that I was expected to gasp, put my hand to my mouth and exclaim, "NO!" She told me, "It's more of an invasion of privacy than a gynecological exam."
I tried to be suitably sympathetic, but I just don't "get it."
I don't understand most gift giving presumptions, either.
On a message board for mothers, I recently read a very angry letter about a gift from a child's dad. Dad had been out of the picture for years and had recently resumed contact. Daughter was 5; he hadn't seen her since she was 2. For her birthday (or maybe it was Christmas), he bought her a sweater. Mom was outraged. "A SWEATER! Nothing for 3 years, then a sweater! I'm so angry I'm thinking of telling him he can't come over when he calls next!"
I'm aware that, since this involves custody issues and hard feelings, it's probably not about the actual sweater. It's probably about unpaid child support and court hearings. Still, the reaction seemed over the top.
I wrote back: "Men are notoriously bad at figuring out gift giving issues, especially when the gift is for a female." That "female" thing isn't exclusive, though. My father in law once gave his 15 year old son a Daniel Boone style fake coonskin cap. It would have been a great gift for a kid half that age. We have photos of my son delightedly wearing his through Frontierland at Disney World when he was 7. For a 15 year old, though, it was worse than no gift.
I offered my opinion that Sweater Dad was probably patting himself on the back. He was probably thinking, "It's practical, it's in her favorite color, she'll wear it every day." Unless told, I said, he would be unaware that anyone would look at that gift and think, "What is wrong with him?"
The mom who wrote the question didn't take issue with my answer, but others did. One woman wrote back that I (names are available on the site, and yes, she called me by name) was " a b***h." "Just because your husband is a loser doesn't mean that the rest of us have to put up with that s**t," she said.
Wow. I thought we were talking about a little girl's sweater.
I polled my friends. "Am I wrong about this?" Most responses were like this one, from a friend since high school - "If my wife didn't buy them, no one would get gifts from me."
It's not the first time I've felt that a stranger was unnecessarily penalizing my husband in matters unrelated to him.
Years ago, while reading a book chronicling the crimes of a serial killer, I noticed that the author seemed to be betraying a bit of bias. The killer's wife, unaware of what her husband did away from home, thought that he was "perfect." She waxed eloquent about how thoughtful and gentle he was.
The author felt it necessary to note, in some detail, though, that he was not the kind of husband who brought flowers home or surprised his wife with jewelry. "If he wanted to get me a gift, we went shopping for it together," the wife said. That made total sense to her. It makes total sense to me - that way, he won't buy the wrong size, brand, color or item.
The author said, in a veiled way, that the woman should have known that something was not right with her husband if he never sent flowers or brought home an unexpected gift. Surely, the (female) author thought, this was a sign that he was insensitive in general and devalued women in particular.
I think that's a huge leap.
In almost 30 years, my husband has sent me flowers twice. This is because I have been very clear on the subject - I don't much care for flower arrangements (or corsages). If he wants to buy me flowers, it should be the kind that I can plant in my garden. Then, they last for years. They're also cheaper.
I'm also not a big fan of jewelry. Almost always, the only thing I wear is my wedding ring. I have made it perfectly, abundantly clear that, if my husband wants to spend a lot of money on me, there had better be plane tickets involved. I do not want a shiny bit of something when I could be on a beach, or a boat, or climbing a pyramid, or seeing a waterfall. I want to go places.
I would almost always value experiences over things. For my birthday and my anniversary, I want taken out on a date.
Friends have tried to explain to me why I'm wrong. "Dates last for a few hours. Vacations last for a week or two. Jewelry lasts forever! You can hand it down to your children."
My kids are out of luck. I own costume jewelry; they're welcome to it. My mom left one piece of "real" jewelry, her wedding ring. (She has three daughters, seven granddaughters, a granddaughter in law and a great granddaughter.)
Another friend tried to explain that, "Jewelry is an investment! It will only go up in value." Uh huh. I know people who've lost jobs and homes lately, and tried to sell their jewelry to come up with a bit of much needed cash. They're usually offered far less than what they paid. That, again, makes sense to me. I can't eat a jewel, wear it, use it to keep warm, live in it - if times are hard, its value is next to nothing. I can't even trade it for much in the case of societal collapse, because no one else can do any of those things with it, either. An apple tree - now that's a commodity with value.
Last Christmas, a friend said, "My wife asked for a vacuum. I got her a sapphire ring instead." As far as I know, his wife was thrilled and he was trying very hard to be considerate. Still, if I asked my husband for a vacuum and he bought me a sapphire ring, I'd be furious. I'd say things like, "Do you ever LISTEN to me? Did you just meet me yesterday?"
For graduations and weddings, my kids know that they will get a trip. They've been to Hawaii, Florida, Mexico and Australia. I suppose we could have given them stuff, or cash, but when we celebrate we go places, we do things. We make memories. Life is all about experiences and memories.
My husband values surprise; I do not. He will not make wish lists or give hints, because he doesn't want to know what he's getting. I truly do not value surprise all that much.
At least we listen to what the other wants. Many, many times, my husband and I misunderstand each other, but not about gifts.
It's hard for me to talk to other people, though. I'm not going to be overwrought about a sweater. I will not be impressed by a diamond tennis bracelet. (Why are they "tennis" bracelets, anyway? Does anyone play tennis while wearing them?) When people ask what I got for my anniversary and I say, "Dinner out," I won't understand why they say, "And?"
And for crying out loud, I'm not going to suspect that my husband's a serial killer because he doesn't send flowers.
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