Old Friends

It's been a rough year.  And on this Thanksgiving Eve, I know that I have an awful lot to be thankful for, that's for damn sure.  Last April, I was in the midst of all sorts of chaos, but I had the amazing and wonderful fortune to have recently reconnected with some old friends.  I wrote this then and would like to publish it now.... thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to those wonderful women.  They know who they are...

We start out in the living room, or kitchen maybe.  Pots and pans strewn about, playing dress-up with a sibling or two, if we have any.  Eventually, we migrate to the playground or park.  Our parents say things like, go talk to that nice little girl over there, she can be your friend.  Eventually we take the lead.  Mom, can I go play with my friend?  Can my friend come over?  I want to have a birthday party and invite all my FRIENDS!

The teen years are difficult.  We love our friends.  We hate them.  They make us so mad!  They have an easier life than we do.  They sleep with our boyfriends.  They like someone else more.  They have better hair.  They have boyfriends who take them away from us.  They have a car!  We worry that they have an eating disorder.  We are embarrassed of our home life and don’t want our friends to see it.  We wish our parents were more like their parents.  

Eventually, off we all go, anxious to get on with our lives.  We have no idea what these lives will bring.  We don’t realize how hard it is going to be.  But on we go, leaving it all behind.  For some of us, that somewhere is a quick family and marriage.  Maybe dreams will wait until later.  Maybe dreams will change.  For others, that somewhere is anywhere but where we were.  Get out, start living!  The more the better.  Drama? Bring it!  We can handle anything.  Our parents are alcoholics!  Our siblings are a mess!!  We will do better.  Won’t we?

Once in a while, we get together, but less and less as the years go on.  We sometimes think of the old days together, but over time it is really just a fleeting memory here and there.  Yes, we get together for a class reunion once or twice.  But, nobody talks about the real stuff.  We are busy trying to be what we think we should be.  What we thought we WOULD be.  Maybe we don’t want to think so much about the past anymore.  We’re moving on!  Life changes, damn it!  

Babies are born.  Weddings are planned.  Degrees are obtained.  Job interviews are had.  On we go, hoping it’ll all work out just the way we’d wanted.

But it doesn’t, does it?

Marriages have ended.  Children have gotten sick.  Loved ones have died.  Hearts have been broken.  Jobs have been lost.  Dreams are uncertain.... We wanted to give up sometimes.  We gave up sometimes.  But in the end, we kept on keeping on.  We picked up the pieces when were weren’t sure we’d live another day.  We cleaned up vomit and urine and shit when we didn’t feel like it.  We smiled and said I love you, even when we weren’t sure if we did.  We got dressed and went to work, even when all we wanted to do was crawl right back in bed and have somebody hold us and say it would be OK.  There wasn’t always somebody to hold us, and it wasn’t always going to be OK.

So now, here we are.  Middle aged.  Middle aged!!!  We are strong.  We are beautiful.  We have sagging bodies.  Aches and pains that we never imagined we’d have at this point.  We worry.  Our mental health is fragile at times.  We have disappointed people and we’ve been disappointed.  We are more realistic.  We are confident enough to not give a shit about the little things as much anymore.  We’ve all spent so much of our lives trying to figure out who the hell we were supposed to be, or regretting not becoming who we thought we SHOULD have been.  

In so many ways, our lives are so much bigger.  And yet with each passing day, don’t they get just a little smaller?  The number of people we can really trust.  Smaller.  The number of things that REALLY matter.  Smaller.  

The older I get, the more time I spend in my head.  This is saying a lot for an extrovert like me.  Oh sure, at a party, I’m the loudest.  Big mouth, funny girl, jokes galore.  But truly, all I ever wanted was to feel safe.  To feel loved.  To have real friends and real people in my life who I could trust.

So I sit today, reconnecting with those ghosts from the past.  Those girls have become women.  They’ve been to hell and back, just like me.  They’ve succeeded, but they are still broken and they are not afraid to admit it.  I don’t have to be somebody else with them.  They will love me.  Years can pass.  They will still love me.  I can disappoint them.  Still, they love me.  I know that I can tell them my deepest, darkest secrets and sins and regrets and hopes and dreams and unrealistic expectations.  Still they will love me.

Today, my friends make me the luckiest woman I know.

They Don't Want Us To Fly

It’s early morning.  We should have left the night before, but Hannah had a concert we didn’t want to miss, we didn’t plan well and it turns out it’s a lot harder to get a flight anywhere than it used to be.  And last time we flew, it wasn’t exactly a planned trip (see Dark Days post..)

I’m out of it, as I always am in the morning.  We didn’t make coffee, figuring we’d save time/cleanup and grab some at the airport.  We’ll have plenty of time, since Gerd made the decision about when we’d leave (I would be running late if left to my own devices).  We got a great tip about Park-N-Fly and we drive in, noting how friendly the guy is at the gate for 4am (Gerd thinks this is nice and of course he’s right, but I’m secretly annoyed at early morning cheer of this type).

The sign in the Park-N-Ride van tells us that our courteous driver is Ron B.  Ron is definitely courteous, except that he is searching, searching, searching for someone in the parking ramp that never does appear, causing him to circle the van endless times around the ramp and we nearly throw up on the floor.  But, at last, we’re on the way to the terminal and coffee awaits.

We have a discussion about checking our bags and because we don’t want to be ‘that couple’ on the plane (we are so naively altruistic, we will discover later), decide to check them.  Boom, $50.  OK, no big deal we say (even though we’re both mentally beginning to add up the costs of this so-very-close-to-Christmas “getaway”).

Now it’s time for security.  I want you to know that I DO make an attempt to mentally prepare myself for this experience, in the hopes that I will not have to go off on a tirade later about the injustice of taking off our shoes and hats when the pepper spray I had last time passed through in my purse, unnoticed.  I try. I really, really TRY to get my head into a cooperative place.  First step, get past the “guard” so we can queue up and proceed to scanning.  The patch on his shirt says, “Integrity, Team Spirit, Innovation”.  Here is what these stand for:

Integrity:  We will do everything we can to strip you of your own integrity before you actually board the plane.

Team Spirit:  We will work together as a “team” to humiliate and anger you, all the while feeling the protection of our “team”, knowing that if you fly off the handle or make inappropriate jokes or comments, other “team” members will simply escort you away, and we’ll never have to see you again or care about why you missed your flight.

Innovation:  We will continue to find new and improved ways to create a slow, problematic experience for you.  In addition, just when you think you’ve been embarrassed and violated more than you surely ever want to be again, we’ll take it to the next level.  

Which they did.

I was distracted and bogged down with the details of separating items in bins, taking off my boots and my hat (if it’s convenient ma’am, the guard says - well, no, as a matter of fact, it is NOT convenient for me to remove my hat, but you aren’t actually going to give me that option are you?).  There are so many rules about the bins.  Who comes up with this shit?? Gerd is talking about a sign that says where to put the computers and I haven’t had any coffee and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, why are they directing me to this space-age looking body scanner?  They tell me to raise my arms above my head - what the fuck did I do, anyway?  Am I a criminal now?  Well, I might as well be, because I have made the HUGE mistake of wearing a shirt with sequins and beads to the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport.  

They bring me out of the scanner and down a short carpet and tell me to put my feet on the “foot” pictures printed onto the carpet.  I’m not really appreciating how far apart my legs are when they are in the foot pictures - I’m getting the feeling I’m about to be frisked.  The young, awkward guard, who never meant to have a career this exceedingly depressing, says to me:  Unfortunately, ma’am, you did not clear the scan.  There are a few concerning areas in your abdominal area (What?  Is it cancer? How much time do I have?) and we need to rescan you.  A lady by the Star Trek scanner looks at him, rolls her eyes, and says she can try again but she is sure it isn’t going to change “the results” (Yep, I definitely only have six months left to live).  Arms up, hold still ma’am, this won’t hurt a bit, do you have an updated will, where do you want to go on your final vacation, sorry you couldn’t see your kids graduate from High School, and back down the carpet to the foot pictures.  Here is the guard again with his apologies about how I didn’t pass the scan.  Now, they are calling for a female guard to take me into a private room for a body search.  I just knew I was going to get frisked.  I look over at Gerd, who is calmly collecting all his belongings from the conveyer belt and probably harboring a swiss army knife and lighter and who knows what else but he sure didn’t wear a shirt with sequins, did he?

Now, I’m pissed.  I don’t appreciate being treated like this, and I want to say so, but I’m afraid they won’t let me get on the plane.  I’ve seen the made-for-TV-movies.  You don’t act out in the airport.

The female guard and her bitch sidekick (who nods, but doesn’t talk) swing us by a station of some sort, where she puts on gloves and tells me she is ‘testing’ them, to show that they are all clear.  I have no idea what she’s even talking about.  Gerd is now off to the side chatting with another guard.  We walk by them and I do the “raise the roof” gesture, because what else are you going to do to break the anxiety and humiliation of the moment.  The guard asks if I just raised the roof and laughs and I think for a minute she’s ok.  Into the private room we go.  I’m informed that she will be checking my entire body and yes, that INCLUDES areas that are private and sensitive.  There are places on my body I don’t even want my husband to touch - are you kidding me right now????  Do I have any areas that may be painful if touched she wants to know?  There are opportunities for jokes here, of course, but I sure better not say them.  The questions are coming so fast, I hardly even know how I’ve answered, but I do remember her saying that when she touches my private areas, she’ll use the back of her hand.  Wow, really?  Thanks for that.

She proceeds with the frisking, and let me tell you, other than the female doctors & nurses who delivered my babies, I sure didn’t think I’d ever be this TOUCHED in these places by another woman (not that there’s anything wrong with that...).  I’m feeling completely discombobulated and she and bitch sidekick test the gloves again.  I ask what she’s looking for on the gloves and she says chemicals.  She then proceeds to explain that all this security has been ramped up because of the recent “Underwear Bomber” incident in Amsterdam.  I have no idea what she’s talking about, so she elaborates... She says there was a guy who got on a flight and had a bomb in his underwear.  He attempted to light it, it burned his crotch and pants, and he was then taken down and beaten by the other passengers.  I feign interest in this story (when really all I want to do is GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE) and she says - no lie!  Look it up!  OK, now we’re what?  Friends?

Here’s the deal.  I DID look up that story.  It’s from 2009.  And frankly, I fail to see how the story justifies the ridiculous, unnecessary humiliation I felt on this day at the airport.  I am a relatively well-adjusted adult woman, who has never been the victim of physical or sexual abuse and it took ME a while to get over this experience.  What might it be like for someone else?  An abuse victim?  A mentally challenged person?  Or, as my victim advocate friend pointed out, what about KIDS?  We teach them that they shouldn’t let anyone touch their private areas.  Oh, except for those STRANGERS at the airport, let THEM touch your privates!!  Bullshit, that’s what this is.  And if all these security measures are keeping us safe, how come people keep getting killed and crotch-burned with plastic explosives and terrorists are still hard at work terrorizing.  Sorry, but we’re getting a lot of things all wrong and we don’t seem to be getting much right, if you ask me.

After this, and the subsequent tirade I went into, that I never wanted to have to go into, and Gerd sure didn’t feel the need to have me go into, we made it to the gate.  Oh, you bet there wasn’t time for coffee after that security delay, doing nothing to improve the sour mood, that’s for damn sure.  We got into the line to board, and just as we were about to get onto the actual plane, a flight attendant came out and stated that it was time to start checking bags people, because they were about out of room in the overhead compartments.  I look behind us at an endless line of people with bags the same size as the very bags we just checked at the customer service desk. I ask the flight attendant if they will have to pay and she says no, it’s free.  Are you kidding me, I say????  We paid $50 to check our bags and all these people get to check for free, after the entire boarding process has been delayed while people attempt to cram their too-large bags into the plane????  Seriously??????  And she says yes, and “you didn’t hear this from me, but always check your bag at the gate”.  I wanted to like this woman, because she was kind of edgy and had a cool New York accent, but I hated her at that moment.  HATED HER!!!!!

Of course we were in the VERY last row of the plane (on this AND the connecting flight), where the seats don’t even recline and there is just a wee bit (shit ton) of engine noise. Thanks, Priceline.

They don’t want us to fly.

Of course Gerd’s LOOOONG leg (the other one was folded up into who knows where) was extended out into the aisle, where they had to ask him to remove it because it was in the way of the beverage cart. I guess he should have what, checked it?  Put it in the overhead compartment?

They don’t want us to fly.

Because if they did, on the return trip home, they would have let us try to carry on our bags (even though we knew they were probably too big for the little connecting flight aircraft we were boarding), so we could check them at the gate FOR FREE.  Nope.  Another $50.  

They don’t want us to fly.

Because if they did, they wouldn’t have changed our departure gate during the 4-hour layover in Atlanta.  By the time we noticed, ran through one giant gate, took the tram, and ran through another giant gate, it was too late.  We were told the plane was already gone (technically, it was still 20 minutes before take-off).  The guy goes on the intercom saying maybe we (along with the many other people who also missed the flight and are out of breath after recent panicked dashing through the terminal) can catch another one.  Oh sure, Delta, we’ve been down this road with you before and we KNOW you’re going to try and charge us.  So we went to customer service, where they chastised us for being at the airport for this many hours and still missing our flight.  Please, people.  We can only take so much shaming in one week!  So they finally give us new tickets, tell us to be to the gate at least 45 minutes early (at this point, the flight is scheduled to leave in LESS than 45 minutes, by the way).  And of course, the tickets they gave us require yet another gate change/dashing/tram ride/dashing.

They don’t want us to fly.

Remember when we were little?  Remember meeting the pilot and getting your “wings” pin?  Remember free meals?  Sure, they were bad, but they were free!  You never knew what you were going to get!  It was all part of the experience.  Sure, they sexually discriminated when hiring what were then called “stewardesses” and only hired them if they were skinny and pretty, but remember how much FUN it all was? 

What happened?

It’s like they don’t want us to fly anymore.  

But we will.  We will fly, because like childbirth, the hellish experiences we endure to travel to other parts of the country or world fade in our memories over time.  We swear we’ll never do it again, never put up with this kind of pain, but we will.  The excruciating memories will become fond, and we’ll tell our stories with a chuckle, as we plan our next vacation...

Dark Days

It's that time of year.  Time to turn back the clocks and figure out which relatives we can tolerate spending our time with this holiday season.  Time to scrutinize the finances and decide if we can take a trip, any trip at all will do, to get us out of the godforsaken climate when the temperatures plummet to places we don't like to think about during the off-season.  Time to reflect back on events from the year as we craft the annual holiday card.  Time to wish we had lost the 10 pounds during the summer so we could be eating and drinking and hibernating all we want right now instead of dieting and suiting up to go out running in a cold autumn morning.


This year has been a tough one, for a variety of reasons.  And as I reflect, I find it very difficult, yet seemingly necessary, to go back to the darkest of dark days in March.  One minute you're playing Scrabble with your husband, having a glass of wine and chatting about the cabin getaway you are leaving for the very next morning.  The next minute, you're text messaging your ex-husband in Florida, who has just taken your daughter to the emergency room with a yet-to-be-determined diagnosis.  Most of you know the rest.  Emily nearly died.  I wrote, as I helplessly sat in the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport (along with all the excited spring break travelers...) waiting for the plane to take us to Emily.  At that point, we were told she had a brain tumor.  It wasn't a tumor, it was a blood clot, swelling rapidly and threatening her life.  But at the moment I wrote this journal, that's what we knew.


March 16, 2011 in the wee hours of the morning....

He is talking, talking talking.  Situation. Family emergency.  We don’t really know what is happening.  Reserving plane tickets.  It echoes, echoes.  I can’t be living this life.  I”m trapped in a box, unable to help, unable to comfort, unable to ask questions.

Emily is sick.  Bloody nose leads to headache leads to throwing up and more headache leads to mixing up words and not making sense.  ER visit leads to urine and blood tests leads to elevated white cell count but no fever leads to cat scan leads to a brain tumor.  

Brain tumor.

Brain tumor.

My baby is thousands of miles from me, flying in a helicopter to a hospital where they will help determine the type of tumor she has and how to treat it.  I am in the living room,  in my bedroom, on the toilet, in her bed, clutching her clothes.  They smell like her perfume.  There is her colorful bear, on the floor.  She has had him since she was a baby and I need to bring him to her.

Where is Gina?  Is she all right?  

They are worried about me.  I don’t want to be touched.  They comfort me, rub my shoulders, talk about how much it sucks. I don't want to be touched.

Mike and Becca are coming here to drive us to the airport.

Who fucking cares?  Everyone needs to do something to feel better.  I am still in the box.  Pacing.  I am a hamster spinning on a wheel, going nowhere.  My phone doesn’t ring enough.  I am addicted to information.  Non-updates will do.  I don’t care if you have answers to the questions, just let me ask them.  

I close my eyes.  How can I send Emily my love.  Can she feel it??  I can almost feel her.  I want her.  Where is she????

At last, she is medicated enough to talk, the headache isn’t so bad now.  She is cheerful.  You don’t have to come, mom!  I have had quite a night!  I sure have a story to tell my family about my vacation!  She has no fucking idea what is going on.  I am holding onto this moment for dear life.  She is Emily.  Just plain her.  She didn’t like the smell of the helicopter.  Of course she didn’t!  The people are nice, but she really missed her dad.  

We are in line at the airport.  Shoes off. Computers in a bin.  Keys out.  Liquids under 3 oz.  I am worried about the pepper spray in my purse, and I am not worried.  You wanna go, people?  Let’s fucking go!  I didn’t remember to leave my fucking pepper spray behind as I prepared to go to my daughter, just diagnosed with a brain tumor.  Still, I like to follow the rules.  I hate to be called out for being stupid and forgetting these American rules that are here to keep us all safe.

I walk through the body scanner arch and the guy let’s me know that I look absolutely exhausted.  Thanks fuckwad.  Long night running on my hamster wheel trying to imagine my life without my daughter.  Not everyone here is off to Spring Break Daytona Beach.

We gather our belongings.  The one time I am actually carrying something that could debilitate several people on the plane, including the pilot, I walk free and clear.  I briefly recall that my dad couldn’t pass the “identifying objects” test when he applied to be airport security and wonder if he would have caught my pepper spray.

We move toward the gate.  Endless moving walkway.  All the stores are closed.  Too early even for coffee.  We walk on and on.  Out of the hamster wheel.  Toward Florida.  I see a woman walking with a strange gait.  I wonder, did she have a brain tumor when she was 14?  Did it render her unable to carry herself properly.  OK, that I will take.  That is a problem we can deal with.  Did she lose her legs to a terrible farm accident, chained to a life with prosthesis and never getting to kick her own legs in the swimming pool?  Why does one person get one problem and another person get something else entirely.  Why do some people seem to get all the problems, others none and some of us are pretty fucking lucky.  But not all the time, really.

I can’t help but think about the stages of grief.  Oh, I don’t really remember them.  Something about disbelief, it can’t really be true.  Isn’t that first?  I am definitely there.  Then, bargaining.  Is that a stage of grief or just something about bargaining with God?  I can’t remember that either.  All these things seemed really important, yet so “somebody else’s life” just yesterday.  Either way, I am ready to bargain.  I would love to trade places with Emily, for example.  Why can’t I have the tumor instead?  Or, how about we take a bunch of other problems in exchange for this one.  I don’t know - financial loss, house fires, I would even take another fucking divorce.  Just not this.  Please not this.  But, you don’t get to pick, do you?

They are gathering around me.  Coffee in hand (the shop must have opened).  Smiling faces, are we going to Disneyland?  Restless toddlers in strollers.  Oh, honey, let’s get you a snack.  Should I go let them know that they’d better fucking enjoy these moments, because one day they might be running on a hamster wheel, thousands of miles from that sweet little cherub, while he is mixing up his words and riding with strangers in a helicopter over St. Petersburg.  

What is that next stage of grief?  There must be something before acceptance.  I know that I had a feeling on that people mover.  I wanted to freeze the moment.  Because at that moment, Emily didn’t know what is going on, and we just had a normal conversation.  At that moment, she isn’t in surgery, she isn’t mixing up words, her head doesn’t hurt so bad.  At that moment, we don’t know if this is cancer, if she will have surgery, if she will ever walk and talk again, if she will live.  Freeze the moment, or fast forward this endless fucking night.  I can’t decide.  It must be one of the stages of grief.

I just asked my husband if he thinks they’ll serve booze on the plane.  He asked if I was planning on having a drink, and I said I thought a cocktail to wash down some Dramamine might just be the thing.  He asked if that was safe.  Safe?  Nothing is safe anymore.

They keep chiming on the loudspeaker about how the threat level is orange.  The threat level has been orange for years.  What does this mean?  Green we’re good.  Red we’re fucked.  But orange?  Orange is like a perpetual state of “maybe”.  And isn’t that really just it.  One day, we’re all bowling.  Or eating pasta and talking about our day.  One day we are planning on going camping and sorting the socks in the clean laundry basket.  But it can all just change in an instant.

So, there it is.  And you already know that it ended better than this.  Certainly better than we imagined at the time. She lived.  She made an amazing recovery.

Post op and crabby!!

Drugged up and on the beach, like every other spring breaker, right?

Gina and Emily at a wedding in October 

Take somebody you care about and wrap your arms around them.  Tell them how much you love them and hold the moment and hold it tight, dammit.  Because that moment could change in an instant.