on this & that

Today, I did something I was very proud of.

A bit of back-story. I’ve been running 3-4 days a week, every damn week since March 1st. I’d planned to start exercising more pre-corona, but didn’t think it would become as important to me as it has. The last time I ran this regularly, I was 29 years old and training for my marathon, and that training lasted about 20 weeks. After I finished that 26 mile run, I was DONE. Honestly, I did one short “let’s see if I can squeeze an ounce joy from this activity anymore!” run after my marathon, and then nothing else. No running at all. There’s a solid 3 year gap between recorded runs on my Nike app – I WAS OVER IT.

But it’s become a bit of a port in the storm for me. Something I look forward to. Something I take pride in. Something I strive to improve each time I’m out there, even if the improvement is simply “I ran when I didn’t want to.” Instead of finding ways to minimize my accomplishments, I’m finding ways to claim them. Not as fast as I’d like to be? Big deal, I tried. Not increasing my distance the way I once could? Whatever, your resting heart rate is lower than it’s ever been!!!

Then today, I did this.

Here’s the thing. It’s not the longest run I’ve done since I started running again – I’ve managed to complete a 10 mile run, but that was only because I bribed myself with a Blizzard. It’s the same 4 mile loop I run pretty much every time I go out.

But I haven’t run 4 miles that fast since 2013. NOT SINCE I WAS A 29 YEAR OLD.

And here’s the thing – I set an explicit goal for myself today: “complete that first mile in under 9 minutes.” I keep chipping away at it, and keep missing my mark. 9’20.” 9″11.” 9.08.” Miles 2 and 3 have been faster, and mile 4 is usually my best as it’s all downhill. But mile #1 is uphill, I’m settling into my pace, and no matter how hard I’ve tried, I haven’t been able to break the 9 minute mark.

Today, I did it in 8 minutes and 38 seconds.

Here’s where the perception vs reality thing comes in. I was VERRRRRY tempted to put a lil post on facebook celebrating my accomplishment. I’m proud of it!! I never get to see people to yammer about this nonsense in person!! I WANTED THE VALIDATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But I thought of all the reasons why social media drives me NUTS, and it’s honestly stuff like that.

Don’t get me wrong. People deserve to share the things we’re proud of, absolutely!! We deserve accolades when we accomplish things we’ve been working hard towards!!! We appreciate the validation when friends congratulate us on a job well done!!! I don’t take issue with that. But in this case, it would have felt insincere.

Let me tell you why:

4.5 years ago, I gave birth to my first son. He was – in his labor and delivery – much like he has been in his life thus far: content to stay very close to his mama, and hesitant to venture off without testing the waters first. That is to say: HE DIDN’T WANT TO COME OUT.

Long birth story short, I labored for days and eventually the kid was pulled out of my pelvis with forceps.

Any idea what that does to a woman’s body? As the obstetrician who salad tonged my kid from the birth canal said “honey, your pelvic floor will never be the same.” She was right.

“Okay,” you might be thinking. “But what does any of that have to do with your running?… Or ANYTHING? Why are you sharing this???”

One of the reasons why I quit running was directly related to my physiologically traumatic delivery. When you’ve had gigantic spoons inserted into your very angry lady bits in order to extract a human, THINGS CHANGE. Things like the ability to hold your pee in when you sneeze. Or cough. Or laugh. OR RUN.

I was super demoralized by this development, and it stopped me from even trying to run for about 4 years. I mean, think about it. You just want to go out for some exercise, but even with the TINIEST amount of pee in your bladder, you realize there’s a high likelihood it’s gonna make it’s way out: you’d probably opt to just stay in and avoid PEEING YOUR DAMN PANTS.

Over the last year or so, it’s gotten a little bit better. But every single time I run down a steep hill – where the impact is much harder coming down on your feet – it happens again. The friggin’ pee just longs to be liberated from my bladder, and my weak ass pelvic floor muscles are powerless to inhibit the liberation. It’s still enough of a concern that I think it’s stopped me from really going for it with the speed and endurance I’ve become capable of over the last 9 months of running.

So today, I said “ya know what? Screw it. I’m charging down these hills as fast as I can, consequences be damned!” And what happened??? I BLEW MY GOAL OUT OF THE WATER. (and I peed my pants a little.)

This is what I mean. Perception vs reality. I could post my 8’52” average and explain that I broke a new personal best that I’ve been chipping away at for months, but it would lack the honest side of humanity that I think social media minimizes. I suppose I’m sharing this because I see a lot of stuff on “the medias” that makes me feel less-than. I see mothers who manage to do clever, creative, educational things with their kids everyday when I’m barely able to get both the boys in shoes to go play in the yard. I see people’s beautiful homes and become terrified to post a picture of my kids, lest someone judge us for living in a state of toddler-induced squalor, toys and mail and crayons and sippy cups on every effing surface in our home. I see people somehow making the best of this insane pandemic time and wonder if I’m short-changing my family by honestly just scraping by.

But then I remember: sometimes when I run, I pee my pants a little. Maybe other people do to, but it’s not the image we want to present to “the world” (UNDERSTANDABLY). So I guess this dumb post is for anyone out there who looks around and thinks “gaaahhhh, how is everyone doing so much in a time that’s SO HARD???” It’s okay if you’re struggling. It’s okay if your living room is a disaster. It’s okay if you’re not providing the most enriching educational experience for your kiddos right now. It’s okay if you cried about how wack Thanksgiving was this year, and how hard it is to miss your friends and family. It’s okay if you’re uncertain about what happens next. It’s okay to pee your pants a little – just keep running.

Last month was the longest year in the world, wasn’t it??

I mean, think back. During the first week of March, Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the presidential primary. That was a month ago. A time when I was absorbed by little besides presidential politics, the carbohydrate content of my gummy vitamins (high!) and the prospect of my parents watching the boys so Dave and I could go out to dinner for my birthday.

It happened really quickly, didn’t it? I mean, we still went out for that birthday dinner, and that was March 6th or 7th or something. Granted, the table of dudes next to us spend their whole meal speculating about whether or not there’d been a coronavirus outbreak at the skilled nursing facility across the street from the restaurant, and our Lyft driver endorsed a dramatic slowdown in activity, but still… restaurants were open. Going out to dinner (and hitching a ride in a stranger’s personal vehicle to get there) still felt like a safe thing to do.

Just a few days after that, I stopped in to the Alki starbucks with the boys before our walk. Cuz kids still need cake pops, right?? It looked like this:

I mean, given that the first case of coronavirus in Washington state was back in January, it now seems really obvious that this upheaval to our daily routines was grossly delayed. But we were also getting these absolutely ignorant, misguided, ultimately LETHAL statements from the president at that exact same time. That “it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away” (March 10th). That “there’s nothing we could have done better” than close borders to a handful of countries with higher numbers of confirmed cases (March 13th). Just waiting, not taking action, issuing these statements that completely misrepresent the reality of the situation. It’s almost this same day that the doors to a lot more rooms in our hospital start to look like this:

So clearly, things change quickly. I’m not entirely sure that I have a point to this post. Not really anything specific I’m trying to relay, besides the fact that life can go from “playing outside!” to “no one can sit down in the coffee shop!” to “DON’T BREATHE THE AIR IN THE ROOM YOU’RE ABOUT TO ENTER, MMMKAY?” quite speedily. (Not as speedily as it should have, but… well… don’t get me started on the electoral college.)

I do have to wrap this up with a shout-out to our ICU nurses though. As a preface, I have never worked in critical care. I’ve never had any desire to work in critical care. I like having a place to send my patients when they tank, and simply don’t long to be the end of the line as far as acuity goes. That being said, I spent a shift last week as a “runner” (a gopher for meds and supplies and things that no one can leave a room to get once they’re in full PAPR regalia) in the ICU that’s taking the critically ill covid-19 patients, and OH BOY. Those nurses and doctors are getting hit HARD. I’ve never seen a floor completely full of vented/proned patients like that. They are taking care of the sickest of the sick, and doing all they can under some incredibly brutal circumstances. I left that day feeling full of gratitude for the amazing work they’re doing. While we’re all doing our part to keep the population healthy, they’re bearing the brunt of a mass of critical patients with a lot of grit and compassion, and I’m more grateful than I’ve ever been for all those badasses. I don’t have the balls for that environment, but thank God they do.

Oh, and for the record? People are sending some delicious sweets to the hospital these days. It’s as true in April as it was in March: pandemics remain a horrible time to abstain from simple carbohydrates. #ineveratethepretzels

I picked one hell of a month to give up simple carbs.

Let’s be honest: my 16 month-old is napping, and I guiltlessly acquiesced to my 3-year-olds request for “screen!,” because these pockets of time to sit, type, and shoot – even THINK – are rare. And, given that online interactions are quickly becoming the predominant interactions we’re having with each other, I’ve gotta seize these moments to be “social.”*

We know why. If you’re reading this, it means you’re alive. Now. Amidst the first global pandemic in 100 years. We’re being told to stay home. Restaurants are closed (although a lot of them still offer takeout and delivery, and I wholeheartedly recommend you patronize them NOW). Retail establishments are closed. Schools are closed. Almost everyone is working from home. Families with young children are being recommended to steer clear of grandparents and older extended family. Canadians have been banned. In essence: WE BE ISOLATED.

But back to the carbohydrates. Earlier in the year, I decided I was going to finally kick my ass into gear with ditching the baby weight, and go (criiiinge) keto for a bit in hopes of reducing some of the poundage that creeps back up on a new mom after she’s stopped nursing. I picked March 1st as my start date. I’m nothing if not goal-oriented, so with my starting line firmly set, and my groceries disgustingly void of the staples that make life worth living (bread!! pasta!! any form of cheesy cracker!! JUNIOR MINTS!!!!), I committed to my weight loss goals.

And then?

CORONAPOCALYPSE.

(I know, I know. It was brewing before March 1st. Just let the narrative ride.)

If you’re reading this, you probably know me. You know I’m an RN in a busy hospital, and you’ve likely heard me bitch about long hours, working holidays, a recent strike that still hasn’t lead to a contract agreement, and the occasional assault perpetrated by a delirious geriatric. But what you may not know is the way this global pandemic has intrinsically altered the expectations of this job. Maybe it’s that we’ve been spoiled in urban hospitals in the US, and are only just now seeing it, but MAN. It’s all different now. We no longer have the “personal protective equipment (PPE)” needed to safely care for our patients. There aren’t enough ICU beds in the city to accommodate the wave of critically ill patients we’re caring for. There aren’t enough tests available in the US to simply TEST OUR HEALTHCARE WORKERS, and what’s most insane about that is that we KNOW asymptomatic people can shed this virus to more vulnerable souls, so our unpreparedness is creating an environment where hospital staff will inevitably infect their co-workers AND susceptible patients.

That’s grim.

What I’m saying is: this is ABSOLUTELY a time to stress-eat.

My vision for this blog is to keep rambling about the realities of this insane time we’re hurtling through together. We each bring a unique life experience to this era, and we can all speak to this weirdly historic moment from our own points of view. I bring the perspective of a nurse, a wife, a mother, a daughter, a “millennial,” a progressive, an aspiring educator, a musician, a girl who KNOWS if she and her sister had had easy internet access in their teens, they could have been the Coen brothers, a voter, a white woman living in a liberal bubble, and a soul who has not touched a simple carbohydrate in 18 days. I’ll be writing a lot more about my experiences with coronavirus from inside the hospital, but also writing a bit about those components of my personality that influence how I view this unprecedented moment in human history.

Now. Who needs a pretzel?

*Michelle Wolf very brilliantly observed that “a blog is a conversation no one wanted to have with you.” That was true before covid-19, and it’ll be true after. Unfortunately, we’re not allowed to get together at restaurants and drink too much wine, which completely eliminates the possibility that I’ll drunkenly cut you off mid-sentence to get in some marginally valid point about something MAYBE related to whatever you were saying, thus limiting our exchanges to this. The blog. The conversation you didn’t want to have with me. 🙂

It’s been over two years since I tried writing with any consistency, and I’m not sure how much time two kids and a full time job will allow me now, but let’s give it a try. Because there’s a lot to talk about. Nursing strikes. Presidential elections. Kids. Books. The final season of Schitt’s Creek. You know. All the things people really hold their breaths to hear this gals opinions on.

But I’m going to try anyway. Because it feels slightly more productive than scrolling through contentious twitter spats…