I Remember Momma

Dementia is ugly. There are few things in this world I will say that I hate, but I hate dementia. It’s a thief. It robs you of your dignity. It robs you of your memory. It robs you of your time with your loved ones.

My mom had been dealing with it for years, with it progressively worsening. Even though my becoming a teacher was something that made her very happy, she had a hard time remembering it because it was so recent. “What is it that you do now?” “I’m a teacher, Momma.” “That’s RIGHT! What do you teach again?” “4th Grade.” “Don’t you have to teach every subject for that?” “Yes, Momma.” “Ugh. I couldn’t do that.” “I know, Momma. You tried it one year when I was little. You hated it because you had to teach math. ” We’d laugh. Like many an English teacher, she hated anything to do with numbers. So much so, that if I wanted to pass a note in class to a friend, I made up a coded message that looked like math problems so she’d never be able to figure it out. Sneaky, I know. But I was a teacher’s kid. We can be sneaky like that.

When Mom was diagnosed with leukemia a couple years ago, the dementia made it more brutal. My poor dad had to reexplain it to her periodically. “Where are we going?” “To your doctor’s appointment.” “Which doctor?” “The oncologist.” “Why are we going to an oncologist?” “You have leukemia.” Can you imagine? It’s hard enough finding out once, but again and again. And my dad having to tell her again and again. I just never brought it up as she never remembered she was sick. It was too recent a memory. Anything recent is the first to be lost.

But occasionally something more distant would fall through the sieve. Once I was talking to her on the phone and she couldn’t remember my name. She became so upset. “I KNOW YOUR NAME! I KNOW YOUR NAME!” “I know, Momma. It’s ok. Every parent forgets their kids’ names once in a while. I mix up my students’ names all the time. It’s ok.” “But I KNOW your name!” “I know, Momma.”

When the doctor told us she didn’t have long and we all needed to get up there, we made our way there as fast as we could. I was last to arrive. She was in a hospital bed they had set up in the downstairs family room, with a view to the backyard. My dad planted flowers just where she could see them. She loved watching the birds flying in and out of the trees.

I sat next to her bed and traced the “H” in veins on the back of her left hand. When I was a wee little girl I started tracing it, asking her when I’d get my “H” (since our last name started with “H” I assumed it was something our entire family would get). And this time, this one last time, I traced her “H” and her whole face lit up. “My ‘H’!” I started to cry. The gift of a memory. “Why are you crying?” She didn’t understand why we were all there. For the first time in 27 years we were all together at the same time. She didn’t understand that she was dying. “Have you seen any birds today?” I asked. It was enough. She moved on to talking about the birds.

Living thousands of miles from your family makes you very aware that you never know if the last time you see them may be the last time. I had, long ago, made sure I had said everything I needed to say to my parents. To let them know my favorite memories with them. To let them know all else was forgiven. To let them know I loved them.

The hospice chaplain came on the last day, the day she was no longer responsive, the day her heart was racing up to 200 beats per minute for hours on end. He reminded us of some of her favorite things and offered ways we could say goodbye. We each took a turn alone with her. I played, “My Jesus, I love thee” on my phone and watched her eyebrows raise up briefly. I told her it was ok for her to go and be with Jesus. It was ok to stop fighting, to be at peace. We would be ok. And we would all be with her soon. It would seem to her like only a minute had passed before we would all join her. It was ok.

After we were each done, we turned on Youtube and played all her favorite show tunes, the old school ones, her favorites. We all stayed near, a hand on her. Dying isn’t like the movies or tv. Hours more passed. My sister, a nurse, kept a close eye on her vitals. She warned us it was close. And then she was gone. It wasn’t dramatic. I was expecting dramatic. There was no final gasp. No dramatic final exhale. She just stopped. And she was gone.

And I realized that for me, the hardest part of the dementia was that she never got to say goodbye to us. We didn’t get meaningful final words from her that we could carry forever. She never understood that she was dying. She didn’t understand goodbye was coming. She fought so hard to stay. Her heart racing for so long. She didn’t want to go. She wanted to stay with us.

And maybe that…that was her way of saying goodbye to us. To let us know she didn’t want to leave us.

It’s been over 6 months now, and I still catch myself wanting to call her and ask her about how she handled stuff in her classroom. How she dealt with this or that as a teacher. I miss her voice and her smile. And I know I’ll always miss her. Every day that my heart continues to beat, I’ll remember my momma.

I Didn’t See It Coming

It’s been awhile. Again.

Covid was hard on everyone. I think in many ways it has changed a generation. Now that things are trying to find a normal again, we can see the lasting effects.

One of the biggest ones is the shift in work focus. Many, many people have walked away from toxic work environments.

While Covid was a time where many were locked down, working from home or losing their jobs, still others were forced to work ridiculous long hours and instead of being met with thanks and appreciation, they were cut down by angry customers at every turn, and manipulated by bosses to work longer, without breaks, and without adequate compensation.

Times like these bring out the best, or the worst, in people. And many employers found themselves shocked by the number of people who chose to walk away, rather than continue to be treated like robots or chattel.

I came to the end of the rope myself. I was working at home at a job that was crazy hard, and becoming harder by the day. And while my immediate supervisor and manager were sympathetic, it was clear that those higher up were more focused on more and more and more, and didn’t care what it was doing to their employees.

Then after receiving some bad news, I just couldn’t do it anymore. That news shifted my value for my job. My friend told me I looked like I’d been hit by a car by the end of every work day. And I was done. I began applying around for other jobs. For the first time in my life, with the blessing of the friends from whom I rent a room, I quit my job without having another one lined up.

Eventually, it all worked out. And while that “eventually”felt like an eternity to someone who is chronically conscientious, I ended up with the job I feel like I was meant to have. Like I should have been doing it all along. A total career change at the age of 50. I was now a teacher.

I NEVER wanted to be a teacher. I mean, sure, I pretended/played at being a teacher as a child. I made up curriculum and taught my sisters and my friends and gave them tests and graded them. But my mom was a teacher. I saw the hours of work she put in. We all had to get up so early to be at the school in time for the morning meetings or for her to prep for the day. Then there were the after school meetings that were less frequent, but left my sisters and I roaming campus trying to stay out of trouble until it was time to go. There were the times we had to find a trusted friend to give us a ride home (trusted meaning ok’d by my parents to know where our house was as being a teacher targeted us for being TP’d in the middle of the night…and guess who was the one who got woken up at 4:30am to clean it up if it happened and my dad saw it on his way to work. Yup, me).

When my mom did get home, she’d sit in her recliner and put her feet up. We’d get her a tumbler full of ice and diet cole and she’d start grading papers. This would last well past dinner and after we’d gone to bed.

And that didn’t include the extra obligations she carried with directing the school play, building the sets for them, rehearsals lasting into the night.

Then I found out at the school where she worked, as a head teacher with decades of experience, she still didn’t get paid as much as a first year male teacher. And when the school ran short of funds, it was the female teachers who went without pay for up to 3 months. Being a teacher was hard work, thankless work. And I wanted nothing to do with that. I wanted a dependable job with dependable hours and dependable pay.

Fast forward to 2 years ago and I became a teacher. And I love it. It’s without question the best job I’ve ever had. And I’m entering it at a time when teachers are leaving the profession in droves. Covid wreaked its havoc on teachers in its own unique way.

First there was the lockdown year where many were forced to try to teach their students entirely online. A friend of mine who teaches kindergarten posted a video of her trying to do this with a rather rambunctious student, and God bless her because I would have lost it. Her patience alone should have earned her a raise. And this was one student.

Other teachers were forced into hybrid schooling. They had video cameras set up to watch them as they taught a handful of students in class and the rest via video. Teaching with an in-class student constantly interrupting is hard enough, but when the computer is constantly dinging that someone raised their hand…it makes it nearly impossible. Yet these teachers soldiered on. They got through it.

Then, a year and a half later, most schools were back to full time, in-class room teaching. That was my first year teaching full-time. The teachers at my school said it was the hardest to date. We now had a group of students who hadn’t experienced in-class school for a year and a half. Most of their parents had let them do whatever they wanted. Many parents (and yes, the teachers could tell) had been helping, if not flat out doing, the student’s work for them. Allowing them to cheat on assignments and tests; and yet were SHOCKED when their kid was now struggling with passing classes. These kids hadn’t been socialized and many had become used to their parents doing everything for them. So if you taught 4th grade, you were effectively getting 2nd graders and trying to catch them up to a 4th grade level before the end of the year. (And when teachers are scored by how well their students do on state testing…this is a major issue).

Thanks to Covid parents got used to taking trips during the school year whenever they wanted, and they continue to pull their kids out for weeks at a time, in the middle of the school year, and expect that we either provide them with all the work in advance, or catch their kid up with personal tutoring by us when they return. Hours and hours of extra work. And some schools required their teachers to do whatever the parents asked.

Then there’s the massive increase in disrespect for teachers by students and by parents. You can’t teach someone respect in the classroom when it is thwarted the moment they get home. And having parents volunteer to help is at an all time low, not just coming in to the school to assist, but even providing basic supplies their own student needs.

But we got through, and I loved it. Even the hard stuff.

And then Uvalde happened. I remember when Columbine happened. I worked for the company that insured their teachers’ medical plan. I remember vividly that day and talking with some of them over the phones and talking them through their mental health benefits and helping them get whatever they needed. But this was different. I was a teacher now. And those kids were the same age as my kids. And one of those little girls looked exactly like one of my former students.

My fellow teachers and I messaged each other in shock. I tried not to overwatch the news, but the images were everywhere.

And then time went by and we were back to school with my next class and I had to look a room full of 9 year olds in the eye while we were doing lock down drills and tell them I would keep them safe when I know that if someone walks into that school with an assault rifle there’s precious little I can do. But I would do it. I’d die to protect every last one of them.

I didn’t see it coming. It wasn’t a job I’d ever thought I’d want, much less love. And I’m doing it at a time my retired mother says she’s never be able to teach with the things the way they are now.

But maybe this is my, “for such a time as this.”

Why This Time Can Be Hard For Both Introverts and Extroverts

There’s a lot of joking going on right now about how being on lockdown/quarantine is what introverts were made for.

And we all know that most extroverts are struggling with not being able to go out and about.

The thing is, this is a hard time for everyone. We are all being bombarded with statistics and images and people accusing and doubting and behaving in less than humanitarian ways.

Whether you are an introvert or an extrovert, this time is hard.

If you are an extrovert who lives alone, you may find yourself falling into depression.

If you are an introvert who lives alone, you may be craving meaningful connection.

If you are an extrovert living with others you may be torn between connecting with those you are with and wanting to get out of the house.

If you are an introvert living with others you may suddenly have no way of getting alone time and your battery feels entirely drained.

Here are some tips for what you can do:

*Take an inventory of your thoughts. What are you struggling with the most? What emotional steam needs to be let off? Do you need to release anger, sadness, frustration?

*Now that you see what you’re feeling and what needs venting, what is the most effective and safe way of accomplishing that for you? Angry? Try throwing empty soda cans at the back wall as hard as you can (or fill them with water for a little extra weight and fun). Sad? Listen to that song or watch that movie that always makes you cry. Allow yourself to process that feeling. Don’t try to bury it.

*Recognize you are the one who is most capable of making you happy.

You know yourself best. What do you have around you that lifts your spirits? Put up art work. Watch a movie that makes you laugh every time. Listen to a song that never fails to make you dance.

*Recognize your safe people

Not everyone can or should be trusted with how you are feeling; but most of us have one or two people we know we can tell anything and we’ll be safe. If you are struggling, reach out to them. Let them know so they can help. No, they may not be able to rush over to you right now, but you can text or facetime or talk on the phone. Make regular check ins so you have regular contact with people who care about you.

*Watch your focus

Like I said, we are all being bombarded with news and social media that is difficult. So if you are struggling with negative thoughts and emotions right now, don’t feed the negative. Focus on the positive. Avoid the news and social media (or at least limit yourself to 5 mins per day). Fill your mind with friends, family, art/music/movies that brings you to and keeps you in a positive space.

*Refocus on what you can do for others

Yes, we may be limited in connecting right now, but there are still ways you can help others. A friend walks her child around the neighborhood to waive through the windows at the elderly who are shut-in. Others have a set time daily that their neighbors all go outside to talk to each other from their driveways. Others do window checks, where those who are shut in can leave notes in their windows if they need something and they will do a no-contact drop off for them. Call someone else you know who is alone or older or has compromised health and let them know you are thinking of them. Focus on what you CAN do, not what you CAN’T.

*Be patient

Be patient with your children, they are going nuts too. You can help them learn to recognize what their thoughts are telling them, what emotions need venting, and vent them in a safe way. Everyone in your house may have a different way they need to vent, and that’s ok. Let them. We aren’t all wired the same. In fact, it may be fun to join together to all practice each other’s venting methods!

And be patient with yourself. We are all adjusting. It takes time.

Hang in there.

Me too

Because I didn’t do anything wrong…

I was in my 20s, about to finish up my college degree. I was working at an all-female pharmacy, the only one in the state at the time. We all worked together well. No egos. No tempers. We were a great team.

Then he came.

No one minded that we suddenly had a male pharmacist working with us. That wasn’t it. It was what he did that was the problem.

I’d lean forward to grab a sticker for the prescription bottle, and his arm would suddenly jut out so that my chest would be rubbing against his arm. The first time I thought it was an accident. Pharmacies are confined workspaces with a lot of people moving fast. But it kept happening.

Then it got worse. He’d come up behind me, cage me in with both his arms grabbing the counter, pinning me against the pharmacy counter as his front rubbed hard up against my backside. There was no one else there. I was dazed. I felt sick, about to vomit. But no one else had seen it.

Should I tell someone?

I went home and told some friends what was happening and how sick it made me feel and how I couldn’t stand to be near him. Every red flag was raised. Every alarm bell was blaring in my brain. Shouldn’t I warn the other gals? Shouldn’t he be stopped?

I was told I was being too sensitive and it was such a tight workspace and I definitely shouldn’t say anything since if I was wrong, it would be slander. But I knew I couldn’t keep working with him. I transferred to a different store.

Three weeks later, that pharmacist transferred to my new store. My complete lack of a poker face betrayed me. One of the male pharmacists at the new store saw me react and took me aside, asking me what was wrong. I told him I was going to have to quit. I couldn’t work with him. He was why I left my last store. He asked me what had happened. I shook my head. I couldn’t say it. Would he think I was overreacting too?

He asked me if I’d mind just working with him. He would request from his boss that he only work with me as his tech. Now this guy wasn’t completely innocent in his motives—he loved to watch the game from a stool in the corner, and he loved working with me because I was fast and able to take care of everything apart from his legal requirement to confirm the right pill was in the bottle, so he would get the maximum time to watch the game. But I didn’t care. It got me away from the other guy. I agreed. I worked only with him from then on, and everything was fine.

Two weeks later we got the word that the head pharmacy tech (also female) had lodged a formal sexual harassment complaint against the newly transferred pharmacist.

I felt vindicated. I felt sick that I hadn’t warned anyone. I never talked about it. I felt ashamed. I felt there was something wrong with me that men like that were attracted to me.

It isn’t ok. I refuse to own shame when I did nothing wrong. Me too.

Confessions of a Bookworm, Part 3

During my college years the university library was my haven. I’d find a quiet study-desk at which to work, or a 1960s era armchair in which to sit and read. I’d even go through the stacks of phone books from around the world and run my fingers down the lists of strange and beautiful names that I was clueless how to pronounce, imagining what kind of story I’d write using such names and whether they’d be a heroine/hero, a sidekick, or a villain.

Bookstores were my secondary haven. If I had a little money, a few dollars I’d saved up, I’d venture in, peruse the shelves, and finding something interesting I’d plop myself down on the floor and begin reading it. If I had been sufficiently drawn in before someone tried to kick me out, I’d buy the book.

The Moonstone was the first gilded-edge book I’d bought. It was a prize found on an almost out-of-reach top shelf of a used bookstore near my university. I walked out of there like I had found a lost Rembrandt.

The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins

Authors became my heroes. I admired their minds, their imaginations, their creativity for thinking of something I couldn’t have begun to imagine. I wanted to understand where it came from. I researched writers to find out about their backgrounds and how they connected to the stories that they wrote.

I have books that are friends. Books that I buy a dozen copies of (over time) because I loan them out and never get them back. Books that are my go-to gift to a friend who is engaged, or a friend who loves understanding personalities or relationships, or a friend who loves anything that I have a book about.

I love to read at night, after work, in the dark, before bed. I have one of those little book lights that I clip to the back of my book and then I snuggle against my pillow and slip away to somewhere else. I love to stop at a point where I can sleepily turn off the book light, lay the book aside and close my eyes to dream of what I’ve just read.

Sometimes, when I dream about finally finding my husband, I imagine us taking turns reading to each other in front of a fire on a cold evening in winter. I worry that he may not be enjoying the book and he’s doing it just to placate me, but when I begin to close the book at the end of the chapter, he grabs it from me and continues to read aloud. No, it’s not a deal-breaker, but it is a dream.

And in the end, when I’m weak and fading away and confined to my bed, I hope that I have at least one friend who knows all of this about me, and who will come and sit by my bed and read to me Psalms or Jane Eyre or Les Miserables or any of the books on my shelves. That is my hope.

Confessions of a Bookworm, Part 2

As children, other kids got trinkets and toys in their Easter baskets. I got Heidi or The Secret Garden or The Little Princess. I would grab my basket, run to my room, and read my book whilst nibbling on a chocolate bunny’s ear.

The summer reading program at the library never lasted long enough for me. The goal was to read 100 books over the summer. Most kids petered out after a dozen. I made it through all 100 in a couple weeks. If there was a new librarian who questioned my integrity when I handed in my list of completed reads, one of the long-term librarians who recognized me would step over and set her straight. I was known.

My 5th grade teachers would read to us after we came in from lunch. I would lay my head on my desk to cool down as I heard David and the Phoenix and Where the Red Fern Grows (my heart still breaks), and Choose Your Own Adventures. They would only read us one chapter at a time. Sometimes even our teachers found it so agonizing to stop that they would grant us one more chapter! We’d beg and plead for more but no, two was always the limit. (A friend just reminded me of this happy memory. I miss the days of being read to).

Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

At some point books transitioned from simple stories with a life lesson to escapes from reality. There were worlds between the covers that would transport me elsewhere. There were characters that would make me laugh and make me weep. There were villains that made my heart beat so fast that my adrenaline coursed and I tore a bit of the page as I quickly turned it to see what happened next.

By 6th grade my teacher tried to fail me on a book report, telling my mother I had obviously plagiarized it because someone my age couldn’t possibly have the vocabulary that I had used. My mother defended me furiously. “Ask her. Go ahead. Ask her! Ask her what it means!”

I must have had the only mother in the world who got mad that I was reading too much instead of being outside playing. I ate up mysteries. I could read a Three Investigators novel in 3 hours.

The Three Investigators: The Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot, by Robert Arthur, Jr.

(Both my parents are avid readers. It’s my dad from whom I get my speed-reading ability.)

The summer before my freshman year in high school, my mother handed me a stack of 3×5 cards, a dictionary, and Wuthering Heights, with the instructions to read the book, write any words I didn’t know on a 3×5 card, and then look up and write out the definition next to it. If anything would have killed my love for reading, this would have—yet it prevailed!

Confessions of a Bookworm, Part 1

I have always loved books, loved reading, loved being read to. I can’t remember a time of my life when there weren’t books there, nearby, calling me to them.

When I was born my grandfather gave me a book. In it, the little mouse had the same name as the nickname my family had given me. There’s something special that happens in the mind of a child when they feel connected to a character in a book. Even today, I will pull out that book and feel connected to the grandfather I barely knew.

I Am A Mouse by Ole Risom and J. P. Miller

My mom said I learned to read at 18 months of age. As crazy as that sounds, you first need to realize that I was the first-born of an English teacher. There was no way I would not be a reader.

When Mom realized I was reading the canned food labels as I sat on the kitchen counter, she told people I was reading. They immediately dismissed it as my recognizing the pictures of the foods. To address those naysayers, my mother had a test. Having 100% faith in my reading skills Mom removed the labels from all the canned goods in the house and wrote the names of the foods on them with a black pen. Yes, I could still read them.

Soon afterward, I wanted my own books. My mom was concerned about me tearing up her books so she collected a bunch of old magazines and stacked them up for me next to her bookshelves. Those were my books. Much to her surprise, instead of shredding them, I would sit contentedly and carefully turn each page.

By kindergarten I made such quick work of their little library that the teacher had to ask my mom to supply me with books from the local library to bring for reading time, as I had already read their selection so many times I was bored.

Books meant the undivided attention of my parents after my sisters were asleep. I would grab a book, tuck myself under the arm of my mom or dad, and lived for making them smile because I knew how to read all the words.

Memoirs of a Mall Walker- Part 2

When your iTunes playlist seems to sync with your life…

I arrive at the mall not long after sunrise. The mall has just opened.

Lap 1:

The mall is eerily empty. Much of my first lap around the mall is alone. Sometimes I’m lucky if I see one other person. The lights are in various stages of on/off, but mostly off. The stores are empty. The few lights that are on cast long shadows against the reflective glass of the storefronts and I turn my head frequently to make sure no one is behind me. It takes time for my nerves to settle.

The mall is silent except for the obnoxiously loud mall music that blares near the largest anchor stores. The music overpowers the sound from my earbuds. As I move from the blare, there is a quiet pause between the songs on my playlist. I hear my shoes squeaking against the mall floor tiles. They are embarrassingly loud. I must have stepped in something sticky or they mopped the floors with dirty water. Eventually the next song begins and I focus on matching my stride with the beat. I’m walkin’ on sunshine…woah! I’m walkin’ on sunshine…

Lap 2:

People are beginning to join me. This second time around brings more light. An anchor store and a couple smaller shops have their lights on. Employees are moving inside to unload and stock new items. I dodge a dead bug on the floor that I missed on the first lap, but will not miss again. There is light and movement within Chompies. A wonderful smell wafts through the air as fresh bagels are being made. This is why I don’t bring any money with me. I know they have gluten free items. It would defeat the walking if I stopped for a bagel when I was done. I know that there is pain but you hold on for one more day and you break free from the chains…

Lap 3:

The lights are now on in more than a half dozen stores. There is movement inside. They are as curious about me as I am about them; but they go back to their work and I continue my walk. Sticky shoes. Sticky, sticky shoes. The mall cop on his segway whizzes past, holding his head high, refusing eye contact as he tows a child’s fire engine/stroller back to its rightful place. He is proud. This feels beneath him. Curse that movie for making a joke of him. R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me…

Another man, a man with a prosthetic leg, is slowly making his way around the mall. Most days he is alone. He struggles. He pauses frequently to adjust the attached limb. Sometimes he stands and stares at the rest of us walking. I said, “Good morning,” to him once and he looked away. He grunted at someone else who tried to speak to him. But this morning, as I approached him, I noticed he was walking with someone. A lady someone. As I moved to the left to pass I smiled and said, “Good morning!” to them both. This time he turned his face to me and smiled. It was lit up with joy. He wasn’t walking alone. He was walking lighter and stronger. I wondered if this was his wife (I’d seen her walking many times before, but always alone) or if she had just decided to walk with him for awhile. Lean on me, when you’re not strong, and I’ll be your friend…

Lap 4:

There are many people circling the inside of the mall now. Some window-shop more than walk. Some walk refusing to notice those around them. Some find the balance of acknowledging and walking. I wish I could tell someone they should be proud of me. I haven’t walked into a wall. I haven’t tripped over my own feet. I haven’t turned my ankle. I’m doing this! But I settle for a quick, “Hi” from the T-Rex ladies as they bob past me all fresh and free. My ankle ligaments begin to feel like they are turning to stone. I want to slow a bit but the song refuses to let me. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger…stand a little taller…

I straighten my shoulders and press on.

Memoirs of a Mall Walker- Part 1

I didn’t set out to become a mall walker. It was the furthest thing on my mind. I wanted to be outside. I wanted to see trees and sky as I walked, so initially I walked a golf course. In Phoenix in the summer, it can be 95 degrees shortly after sunrise, so I began my walks at sunrise. There were trees. There was sky. There were lots of people walking their dogs!!! I love dogs. Life was good. Hot and sweaty, but good.

I only got lost the one time I deviated from the golf course, so I didn’t do that again. I walked out a mile and 1/2, and then back along the same route. I said, “Good morning!” to the same friendly folks every morning, and loved on the same friendly dogs. I listened to audiobooks and my workout playlist. But there were a few problems.

First, the golf course had sprinklers that were turning off just as I arrived. The combination of water and heat made for a rather hot and humid walk.

Second, there was no bathroom.

Third, I had two nasty bouts of shin splints.

Now the third problem was my own fault. I was trying to do too much too soon. In my ignorance, I thought I should just be pushing through the pain. No pain, no gain, right? The runners/walkers on my virtual race support group Facebook page quickly corrected me. I was told to halve my workout, wear better shoes/inserts, and wear compression socks. I was given an article by a physician about compartment syndrome and how it can happen in your shin muscles when you overdo (I thought that was something that only happened to people with severe breaks/crushing injuries. Who knew?). It advised to stop doing whatever exercise caused the shin splints until the pain was entirely gone, and then when you are ready to try again to reduce how much you had been doing.

I rested up a few days. Then the impending monsoon storms pushed me to find another place that wouldn’t subject me to the elements when I walked. The mall seemed the perfect fit. It opens at 6 am so that’s plenty of time for me to drive there, get my 3 miles in, and get home and shower before work. It was air-conditioned and had an open restroom.

It’s a bit of a drive, but my focus was more on eliminating any excuses for walking.

Walking in air conditioning is lovely. Regretfully, it doesn’t eliminate me from sweating like a… do pigs actually sweat? I’ve never seen one sweat. Who came up with that phrase?

I have learned why mall walkers “walk the edges” of the mall, dipping down toward each mall anchor store and back up to the main path again. If you walk the edges, one loop is almost exactly .75 of a mile. Four laps = 3 miles. Perfect. I was now an edge-walking mall-walker.

In the time I’ve been walking the mall, I’ve come to recognize certain types of people that frequent the pre-store hours of the facility.

First, there are the T-Rex-armed speed-walking ladies. They breeze by everyone with their elbows tucked in and their hands up in front of them, bobbing as they walk. They float past even the most focused of walkers, tossing a brief but friendly, “Good morning,” as they leave you behind.

Next are the short-route walkers. These people are focused on fast and would rather walk more laps than cave-in to walking the edges of the malls. When the edge-walkers dip to the right toward an anchor store to maximize their steps, the short-routers keep going straight, undeterred by anything but the fast track.

Then we have the Grunts. These are the gentlemen in their mid-70s or so who walk with their eyes focused 12-inches in front of the tips of their shoes. They keep their heads down and plow past anyone who gets in their way. When they reach the ends of the mall, they stomp up one side of the not-yet-moving escalator and back down the other side of it in a fast loop before continuing with their walk. They walk like they are on a forced march with the enemy closing in. If you try to say good morning to them, you will not be acknowledged with anything more than a grunt.

I’m happy to report I am no longer the slowest walker there. I now fall in the mid-range walkers. Most of us are women, walking alone, listening on our headphones to whatever encourages us to keep moving. We smile and, “Good morning!” back when greeted, but for the most part, we are lost in our thoughts and our tunes or our audiobook.

There is a single couple that walks against the crowd. Everyone else follows the traditional keep-to-the-right and walk counter-clockwise route. This sweet couple keeps to the left and walks into the faces of everyone else. They have beautiful smiles as if to say it’s more important that we see each other than that we are all going the same way. Inevitably, I turn a blind corner and nearly walk into them. The wife and I giggle and the husband laughs, and we all keep moving in opposite directions.

The last group is the slow walkers, among whom there is an odd subset. There are a certain number of gentlemen who come and walk alone, but they dress as if they are going straight to work afterward. They often have a briefcase or a coffee in one hand. I can’t quite figure them out.

There are some heart-wrenching walkers. There are adult children (30s-40s) talking painfully slow walks with their parents who are clearly recovering from some illness/surgery. The parent often looks grieved and humiliated. Growing older stinks.

There are other walkers that are clearly struggling to walk with every step. Some with some sort of palsy or muscular challenges that make them fight for balance and control. One gentleman with a prosthesis from his knee down walks every day. Progress is slow, and I’m guessing painful, but he does it. He motivates me to silence my own excuses and keep moving.

We are a motley crew. But I’m starting to feel I belong there.

Choose Beauty

Months ago I caught my thumb. At first it looked like only a scratch diagonally across the nail; but then the scratch turned aqua-blue, and then a purplish-black spread out from it. For a few days it was excruciating as the nail separated, except in a few spots, from the nail bed. I got used to the pain. The colors continued to change but a black line remained across it.

It was two months before I realized that what I thought was a dried scab under my nail was actually a piece of wood that had been shoved under my nail back when I injured it. It pulled out easily, and the pain decreased immediately. In a few days, the colors of my nail faded into yellows and the base of the nail seemed to be growing out in a fringing arch.

A few days ago I caught my nail, or rather knocked it squarely on the leading edge. The top, dead nail separated almost completely, except for the left edge which remained firmly and painfully attached. I wrapped it up and wondered if I’d be able to keep it like that until the top detached, but the pain told me I needed to do something. So I waited to get up my courage (and for the nausea of the idea to pass) and as quickly as possible trimmed the top nail back to where only the attached edge was left. The pain is much better now. It’s wrapped back up to prevent the remaining bit from snagging and I’m mentally preparing myself for the fact that at some point, if that bit refuses to grow out as the nail beneath it grows, I may have to grab some pliers and pull it out. The nausea of that idea has not yet passed and for now, since it’s not painful, I’m willing to put up with the band-aids.

How the nail looks is another story. The new under-nail is, well, ugly. The bottom half at least looks mostly normal, but instead of being smooth it is ridged and dull. The top part is crumbly and does not yet extend to the top edge of my thumb. I wonder if it ever will.

There are a lot of painful things in life we don’t ask for, yet we are forced to deal with them. They are ugly, sometimes excruciating, sometimes nauseating; but they are ours to deal with. We can choose to hide them and pretend like they aren’t there, or we can pluck up our courage to do something about them.

This nail may always be ugly, always stick out from the rest as damaged; but I still have a choice. I can leave it, or I can do something to make it better, something to replace the ugly with beauty.

We all have this choice, daily, to deal with the ugly. Choose beauty.