CRAZY: Building Character vs. Hurting and Hating It.

Me, Martha and Nathan . . . about as character-built as we will ever get.  Summer 2013, Utah.

This is from a Facebook post to Sam Graves, Susan's son.
Sam,
     A few months ago you wrote a long note to me about hurting.  Susan told you that I had bulging discs and arthritis in my back as well as 2 bulging discs in my neck.  Landing without the horse while jumping had offered me the chance to have doctors re-construct my right shoulder 3 times in the last 5 years.  I have lost the bone and the base of both thumbs to surgery and had knee surgery last year.  I do still hurt if I am not careful.  
     We painted the house last weekend and I pulled my right shoulder out of place while trying to tape off some ceiling edges on the porch--so now I do not use my right arm for a while and hope that I only stretched the ligaments rather than tearing them.
      I am in remarkably little pain--enough so that most days I do not calendar my activities depending upon how much I hurt in what joints.  All the credit for that goes to my pilates instructor, Bonnie.
She has worked with me for an hour, one-on-one, three mornings every week at 7am.  She listens to what is hurting and what makes it hurt . . . and then works around those places to strengthen the muscles that are available to move.  
      She knows how to build slowly and is patient with me when I am not moving so good.  
I am so sorry that you hurt.  I know that I have spent years locked away from, literally, everyone and everything because I was hurting physically or mentally.  Narcolepsy stole years--I slept for 22 hours a day.  Depression and mania stole even more--I curled into myself and didn't know anything but cold, silent, paralyzing black.  
     Grandpa Wagstaff used to tell your mom and me (and Aunt Martha, Uncle Rob and Nate) that doing things like mowing the lawn and doing the dishes would build character.  I tried the same line on my children and they all regularly assured me that they were happy with the character they already had.  
I don't think that pain is a growing kind of challenge.  It just is.  I do know, though, that there are people around you right now who have the experience, training and skill to help you build your body back up if you are willing to ferret them out (they are often hard to find because they are not in the places that you usually look) and work SLOWLY to just (at first) keep from getting worse and then, to get stronger so that, finally, your body can hold itself strong to keep it from letting the pain receptors rule your reactions and your life.
     This is sounding more and more like a testimony.  I guess it kind of is.
I love your mom.  She is an amazing woman with a giving, unconquerable heart.  Do good by her.


Not many people have ever asked for my advice on something I actually know much about.  School, I am OK with, unless it's history dates.  Planting and propagating and pruning plants--I have lots to tell about those things now.  How to raise children?  Mine are grow up . . . and so, of course, I know all about that . . .

Lauren gets married in two weeks.  I have no idea whatsoever about how to get a wedding planned and prepared without going crazy.

I am also, however, a certified professional when it comes to being crazy.

The Mid-Winter Blahs

It is the middle of February and I feel like crawling into a corner with a good book, Gueradilli Double hot chocolate, and a plate of plain, fresh cake donuts. I am impatient with the cat. She was out of food and so she "Meeee-ow!" at me over and over again. I finally caught on and filled up her bowl. Other times, though, she seems to be bugging me about nothing--she doesn't want to be petted, she doesn't want out, she doesn't want in, she does want to be petted BUT NOT touched. Since she is the most vocal of the pets, she kind of gets the most attention. The rabbits will thump and growl at unpleasant moments in their lives and the lizards are on a happy, but endless trip around and around and around their tank. Sara runs with her belly on the glass and her back against one of the rocks in her enclosure--then she instantly stops--belly flat to the glass and her eyes closed. A few moments later, I can hear her scrabbling around the tank again. I started to clean yesterday. A wild, unbridled furor of sweeping, dusting, vacuuming, throwing away, recycling, repositioning, redistributing and de-cluttering that lasted the whole of one day.

During that time, I got Brent's side of the bedroom clean--spotless actually. Then I had to use the bathroom and went into Nathan's bathroom and immediately closed down. A place that needed immediate and extensive scrubbing and rinsing--overpowered my fragile will to impose order upon my living quarters. My next energy burst will be spent in: algebra homework, organizing the table full of photography stuff that I can't bring myself to actually look at as I walk past, writing and doing the visuals for a "Using Music in the Classroom" demonstration that I will be giving to the Primary Presidents and staff that will be at the Stake Leadership Training meeting this coming Thursday. 20 minutes. I've got 20 hours worth of stuff here--some of it from my own two stints as Primary President (long, long ago)--it's just the winnowing and polishing and Xeroxing that need to be done.

I would also like to get my half of the bedroom cleaned. And maybe the corners of my bathroom and dressing room. Also I would like to be thinner and more athletic and not fall down as often and quit bruising every time the wind rubs against me. augh.

I have loved the cold weather. It is actually a huge relief to have the yard's growth stunted by the extreme freezes we've had in the last month. Apparently the sustained cold killed off all of the iguanas round about these parts. I am sorry for that--one less wildlife form to photograph in black and white.

I have been re-reading (along with two other books and an anthology of American literature) the Twilight series. So much of the prose is stilted and sentimental--but as Bella describes her feelings for Edward, I remember those same words that I have spoken and written to Brent. Both Bella and I bruise at the drop of a hat and fall off and over things on a regular basis. She is a weird combination of self-doubt and bravado and, most compelling of all, has come from the mind of a woman who has somehow experienced prolonged bouts of both mania and depression. It is like reading "An Unquiet Mind" all over again. And like re-reading my own 50 year narrative of letters, journal entries, talks and presentations. She has also, though, been loved by a man who is both Edward and Jacob--and who loved her with the ardor of those two characters combined--even amplified. While Brent is gone most of the time at work or Church callings, I return again and again to Twilight's descriptions of relationships defined by loyalty, friendship, passion and surprise.

Valentine's Day is coming. I have heard the radio ads and seen the stores draped in pink and red hearts. Again, I know that I will never have language sufficient to express to Brent all that he is--that my most prized possession on this earth is the eternal tie that surrounds and supports us. His promises are perfect. His loyalty complete. His vision, thankfully, somewhat rose-coloured when he looks at me. It is nice to know that forever he will love me and think that I am beautiful.

It has taken me 50 years, but I am finally beautiful. I am beginning to become the woman that he saw in me when he asked me to marry him.

Progress. wow.