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.

What To Do

1.  brush the 3 rabbits, 2 cats and dog
2.  clean the bathrooms
3.  vacuum for dust bunnies
4.  read scriptures
5.  physical therapy
6.  check email
7.  check calendar for coming appointments
8.  work on school with Nate
9.  work with photos
10. eat
11. water plants
12. remember to take meds
13. finish cleaning out clothes closet
14. prep foot care for Brent
15. sweep porch
16. play with Brent, the kids, the pets
17. love Brent
18. pray
19. sleep
20. study for my classes
21. remember to smile
22. remember to sit up straight
23. remember who I am
24. look around me
25. prep house to paint
26. look for kitchen table with drop leaves
27. do laundry
28. clean up
29. cook dinner
30. love Brent better

The Good Old Days

Vicories for today: first bloom from a cutting of my favorite flowering bush that died last winter AND a blossom from one of the potted camilla trees I started from cuttings two years ago.

It is strange to see myself now as I think others must see me. I see someone who ends to hunch over when I sit at the computer and the grey in my hair is artificially covered. I don't like loud music and I drive slower than most when it is raining really hard. I don't like being around noisy children and when I want to be alone, I have no problem letting others know.

I remember being cheerful and smart and flexible and energetic and thin--with smooth skin.

Of course, like "the good old days" that never were good or all that old, just as soon as I start to write about how I used to be, I remember dozens of things that have also been true of me during my life: pregnant and swollen and grumpy, stick thin without the ability to digest food and also in such a depressed state that I stayed in my bedroom (a huge place with 20-foot tall ceilings, a library, our computer desks and TV) for three months, just a year or so ago I was 30 pounds heavier than I am today, sick to my stomach with the flu, flat in bed with my right leg above my head so that a clot wouldn't block the blood to my foot or to my leg, sleeping by sitting sraight in an old recliner for two months after the first reconstruction of my right shoulder, left hand immobilized in a cast, in labour with Megan, in labour with Lauren, in labour with Nathan, in the hospital on continuous IV antibiotics to take down the infection in the left side of my face, walking across Ricks College campus in -20 degree weather, singing aloud as I walked home from a flubbed audition for a performing group that was visiting BYU, waiting in the airport after having missed two flights, driving--lost and frantic--around the back approach to the airport just an hour after dad had called and told me that mom was dieing, sitting in the back corner of the clothes closet sucking my thumb, hearing my children call Brent and telling him that I was curled up on the floor of the kitchen and couldn't stop crying, laying in the hospital in Ohio with food poisoning and infection raging in the skin of my right arm and side and face, missing Brent so badly when he has had to be away for work or church or with his family somewhere else, sitting on the floor by Megan's crib and patting her back while we both cried because we both had the stomach flu and I was too sick to pick her up, having to work on Thanksgiving Day at a grocery store in Texas while I was pregnant with Nathan because we needed the money, walking to teach an evening class at Drake and eating a peanutbutter sandwich and meeting one of my students who had just come from a really nice restaurant, listening to Meg call a classmate and asking if she could come to play and hearing her say "OK, well how about tomorrow? OK, well how about Saturday. OK. OK, good bye then," hanging up the phone from talking to Lauren and knowing that she was sick with mono and that she didn't want me to come and take care of her or bring her home to get better, sitting in a planning meeting with the administrators and counselors and teachers at Nathan's school and then beginning to yell very determinedly that THEY didn't know what my son needed THEY had not even known him or spoken to him more than an hour THEY were to teach math and history and english and NOT independence to a child who had been promised protection and help from school administrators and counselors and teachers and then abandoned after leaving the counselor a note on her door that said: I am having a VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY BAD DAY please come get me to talk.

No, on second thought, I am healthy, my children are all safe and well, Brent will be home soon from work, I get to go and spend a week with both of my sisters next week--there is money in savings, Brent has a good job, I am thin and tan and stable on my meds.

The internet is up, the thunderstorm that is over now has watered the yard, the lights are still on, all three cars work well, Nate has already taken the garbage out for collection tomorrow morning.

I have wrinkles underneath my eyes and on the back of my hands.

There has been no time better than right now. Today is the "good old days."