is everything.
Three truths before my story:
1. I understand that it's not a big deal (except, of course, that it is).
2. I get the irony of the concern vs. the concerns of my clients I'm supposed to be addressing.
3. It's always been this way. And. It will always be this way.
I chose to go to grad school and pay out of state tuition.
I chose to leave my decent job with the county and my cushy (hmph!) supervisory position for the life of a student.
Choices, choices.
Choices I take very seriously.
And I'm a school dork.
Which has translated into an obsessive need to do all of my grad school work with the utmost care and attention to detail.
It's served me well.
I've had a 100% so far in the program. Right. That's not just a solid 'A' average, 4.0 gpa. That really is a 100%.
Until now.
Oh, how I knew it would hurt, the day I would lose my first point.
It was only one.
But such a vicious one.
I'm wounded.
And receiving no sympathy. Shoes said, "Yeah, well. Happens to all of us. That 99% must really hurt. Obviously, you're not so smart."
My dear girlfriend said, "Yeah. I'm not discussing that with you. You're just going to have to get over it."
So I get it. I get all of it. Especially the part where this is seriously bothering me, but I'm learning how to work with clients with serious, serious life issues that delve so much more deeply than a missing point.
I understand.
Truly.
But still. That's a hard point to let go.
{photo source}It occurs to me that one of my proudest moments of Shoes is when one of the comments on the local paper's online edition called him, due to one of his professional decisions, a "bleeding heart liberal." Of course, it was an uninformed comment, as the reader did not understand the exact specifics behind the case or the reasons why this particular decision was reached. (It was actually just plain good case practice.)
Shoes does not actually have a bleeding heart. (In the relationship, that's probably me, seeing that I'm the one who would like to house, clothe and feed every single person.) His heart is, however, almost ludicrously well balanced, justice minded and loving.
And I think, now, he gets this from his parents, a little. I didn't get to see Shoes' parents over Christmas, but the generous words they sent with Shoes for me were incredibly humbling.
What a tender point in a relationship to realize that you're falling in love with the family as well as the man.
I've been trying to write the Thank You cards for the past half hour, and I'm just stuck. I would like to say, "Thank you for modeling such incredible love and justice for your son, for encouraging him to love me, and for the unconditional support you've shown me in just the year your son and I have been dating."
And I feel like that's too much.
So I don't say what I want to say, and instead flounder for safe words that almost, but not really, get to the heart of the matter. I hope they understand that what those words are code for.
I. Randy
"Please excuse me," the elderly gentleman in the gray bowler hat said. We were standing at the top of the stairs leading to the basement of the student union. He had almost stepped into me. He was not using a cane, but he was gripping the handrail with both hands.
"No worries," I replied, smiling. "Are you
ok?"
"Fine, fine. Just fine. Graduate from here in 1973 with a degree in political science. Now I just like to come back, walk about. Check my mail down at University Station. Say. What do you make of this?" he wheezes as he pulls a letter out of his bag. "I'm a lifelong member of the NRA and now there's a House Bill threatening to take away our gun rights. What do you say? Taking away our gun rights. What does this paragraph mean right here? Don't mean to keep you long, but I just think it's terrible that they're going to give the school security guards guns -"
{editor's note - they're not really}"I mean, the psychological things you have to go through to shoot somebody. Don't want anybody getting shot here on campus. Hey, what do you make out of this paragraph here? I have guns at home, all right. Had 'em all my life."
Randy let me help him down the stairs as he told me about the NRA.
I have absolutely no idea what he was talking about. I know nothing about guns. I do know that the elderly should not try to navigate the stairs down to the student union.
II. Francisco
TarregaI read about the needs of the dying, about the necessity of dignity and compassion and to include them in conversations about their own death while the young man at the table across from me softly, softly practices the classical guitar in the crowded student union.
It occurs to me that perhaps I would like him to play at my own death. Would that make passing easier? Of course, I do not bring that up. I let him play.
III. Evidenced Based Practice
Holding therapy did not work, says my graduate research professor, not because there was evidenced that disproved it, but because people were just dying from it. "We will learn a good bunch in this class," he says. He is not from Peru, he tells us, and as a social worker I do not think I am supposed to admit this, but his non-Peruvian lilting accent is superb.
{photo source}
I'd really prefer not to think about it, thanks. {Which is nothing more than a horrific understatement. But we'll get to that.}
Term started today. Woke up excited, despite being knocked down flat by the flu for the past 48 hours. Tried to take a nap, even, and couldn't, I was just so geekily eager to get my notebooks in my schoolbag and get my super special OHSU bus pass out. Almost forgot ~ almost ~ to text Shoes and wish him good luck starting his own term (he teaches a class in his profession at the community college). Nope. Today was All About Me. It was almost better than Christmas. In theory.
This term I'm taking such fantastic, fascinating loveliness such as Social Research, Human Behavior in the Social Environment and End of Life / Palliative Care. Social Workers talk about these things, and of course, as the elderly population booms, more and more sw's will be needed to aid them in their respective transitioning.
Except.
This social worker is absolutely, without a doubt, 100% petrified of that part of life. Big, bad "D" word. And rarely admits it. In fact, I was driving to the Vineyard Town over Thanksgiving and almost had a panic attack thinking about it. I wanted to badly to pull over the car and get out to get some fresh air, but I'm not sure I could have even have pulled that off. (And all because Olive Kitteredge, in my book on tape, said to her husband, "We've changed." Got me thinking about my age, what I still want to do, and what it will be like to Rage against the dying of the light.)
And then. All of a sudden, felt like Olive Kitteredge herself was sitting on my chest.
This class? Not so much about helping others before first assessing out own beliefs about death. Incredibly appropriate. Also, incredibly not ready to start writing my own advanced directives (which is a big part of our grade).
This, of course, made all the more complex by the fact that I do have spiritual beliefs that do call for an afterlife. The backstory to that, however, is that I've always just hoped against hope that heaven really does exist. I've always been terrified it doesn't. Believe in God? Check. Believe that God is good? Check. Believe in heaven? Whimpering crickets in the corner.
Olive, stay off me during the term, ok? I have enough to deal with without you plunking your bossy self down on me.
I always thought they were. Just recently, the newscaster on the treacherous snow scene (which would currently be anywhere in Portland or the surrounding area) puzzled and frowning at the mysterious white substance in his hand, said, "It's doing something out here now. It's not snow anymore. I don't know what it is."
I hope he's not the meteorologist.
It also made national news. Well. The hours (plural) it takes to get 20 miles right now made the news. The sleet / freezing rain mystery was curiously absent. I will try to forget the screeching sounds of "Willamette" Valley in the newscaster's mouth. Will (as in the name) - a (as in at)- met (as in mets - the team). Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.
Portlanders are decidedly horrible at driving in the snow and I cannot even begin to want to apologize for thinking so. You follow too closely. You move too quickly. You start too forcefully. These are completely in your control, even when one takes into account the sudden onset of the snow and the inevitability of being caught without traction devices.
On the way back from the airport, which should have been a 20 minute drive, I was stuck on the freeway for an hour and a half. Never before has snow felt like the apocalypse. Emergency vehicles were forced to weave their way through stopped freeway traffic (impossible to move over to the right or the left shoulder). Buses and semis jackknifed (bus riders choosing to get off and travel on foot).
And. I was almost out of gas and my high mileage, hanging-in-there car started to overheat for idling so long. Nothing like being stopped in gridlock traffic, nowhere near a freeway exit watching the needle creep to the highest end of the red zone. Additionally, the fact that I had to go to the bathroom - desperately - was frosting on the fluffy white snow cake.
Not that long ago snow was something lovely, even if it, and the ice, did last for 3 months. I remember towns that plowed and sanded. I remember sledding and fearlessly leaving the house for whatever reason I wished.
Nope. Housebound now.
I made them. For four hours I mixed, rolled, cut, frosted the snowmen, the trees, the bells, the ... candy canes. And then I got tired of making them and 20 cookies later, threw away the rest of the dough.
Yes, I DO think dough grows on trees. Or it multiplies in the bowl, pulling a holy Loaves and Fishes act.
Shoes was very grateful for his cookies of deliciousness. Genuinely so. He picked one up and looked at it, scrutinized it carefully and said, "You made me a Christmas Ghost?" (It was obviously a snowman, however. Obviously). But that's ok. Shoes got in the Christmas spirit himself and decorated for Christmas:
A Christmas Totem Pole. It was bequeathed to him by his late great aunt as part of his inheritance. We mean no disrespect to the totem pole. It is just that he did not at all want to buy a Christmas Tree for just him (remember, we now live 4 hours apart). That's creepy, he says.
I told him the truth:
This no Christmas Tree thing lasts as long as we're not in the same town. And for Heaven's sake, quit calling my snowmen ghosts.
not quite a postscript: what you must know about Shoes is that from the moment I stepped foot in the vineyard town to the moment I left, I was taken care of, pampered and loved. He is a keeper, despite his penchant for making fun of my cooking.
Sugar Cookies in special shapes and I have a Bad Relationship. The Angel and The Gingerbread Man are especially problematic, with their heads and wings that just fall off. I swear. They just
fall off. Whatever. Coincidentally, the Bell and the Stocking, which obviously don't have wings or legs or arms or heads, also break.
Roll the dough to 1/8" thick? Really?
Then how do I keep them from sticking to the counter (and sure, I floured the surface before I rolled them out)?
Cheryl and I tried to indulge in traditional cooking making this Christmas. It failed miserably. {Turns out I'm also an imbecile at decorating them.}
Shoes called during our cookie making mission and while we were dripping frosting onto the cookies, past the point of them looking at all presentable, past the point of caring, Shoes drops this:
"Sugar cookies? Really? Did you know I was a big fan?"
O, come on. Seriously? Sugar cookies in Christmas shapes? This fantastic man who asks for almost nothing and is mindful of every little detail of our relationship is asking for sugar cookies for Christmas? How can I say no?
How can I say yes? Those little trolls disguised as candy canes. It's just not right.
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