She Gets It

Melissa shared a Facebook photo within the last couple of days about chronic pain which touched me right where I live and breathe. The whole digital media process has moved so far beyond me that it's not even funny. Honestly, I couldn't tell you what goes into making one of those modern bumper stickers that go around these days. I understand long form writing whether its investigative journalism, serious fiction, pop fiction or anything else. I think in blocks of 100 pages that my body will not permit me to translate into text because it hurts to stay in any one posture for too long.

That said, I understand that others have a skill for brevity that I lack. I call it a skill and not a talent because I believe you're born with talent that you can turn into skill through mindblowingly hard work. When I'm brief, I feel that my thoughts came out incomplete; in truncated form so that I find myself looking for the ubiquitous {more} button. Melissa and I have our individual tastes in what we choose to pass on. For her, it's usually animal rescue related and the picture of the cat tells most of the story. For me, it's political most of the time. If my political allies want a message passed on, I give it a quick read to make sure my allies haven't changed their minds and it isn't a joke before passing it on.

On the inside, I'm grumbling because too many people are going to think the slogan is the whole story. I'll pass your message along because I support you and know you stand for more than you can fit on a bumper sticker. At the same time, I resent the medium. I got into blogging and online journalling before that because of my limitations not because I'm in love with the format. Eventually, both formats won me over the same way weekly television can win me over. Each entry, post or episode is a small bite but the artists involved go on for a bigger meal.

Well, Melissa found one of those bumper stickers about chronic pain that actually meant something in and of itself. I forget the exact wording but that's no surprise. Brain damage anyone? Putting something to memory has always been a physically painful process for me unless it happened through a lot of repetition over time. Apparently, the memes of child abuse happened like that because they hurt and something said or done to me always flashes up to impair me at a given moment. (You never had any problem remembering songs on the radio but you can't remember math.) A lot of science went into pop music to make it easy to remember. It wasn't until high school when I had a math teacher who kept at it until she could find a way to teach me. Now, I still remember my Algebra and I'm pretty good at it.

Anyway, I'm writing this in a stream of consciousness format in an attempt to postpone the worst of the pain. Melissa shared this sticker about chronic pain that describe it reasonably well in a few sentences. I felt this bright shining moment of intimacy over something posted where the world's entire population could read it. After that, she bought me a couple bottles of incredibly good beer. I was going to say (for a domestic label) but Sam Adams hardly qualifies as a mass market label. They take something that is almost as good as the very best beer made in tiny batches the same way for the last several hundred years and have managed to gain mass market penetration with this very good product. Well, these three bottles (two remain unopened at the moment of writing this) are a step above that.

So, Melissa knows how I feel on a daily basis and she understands my taste in beer which I hope will continue to develop for another 20 years or more. She gets me like no one else does. She gets the odd synthesis of my very eclectic musical tastes and the brand loyalty that keeps me listening to the same rock station that never plays any of the other stuff I love. She understands that I love her no matter how little energy my daily struggles leave for me to show her how much I do love her.

So, let's get back to what this bumper sticker showed that she understands. Chronic pain is a phrase that is far too short for what it can represent. Have you ever come back from a day of skiing - I'm talking to my 40+ crowd now - with absolutely no stretching or preparation ahead of time? Maybe you took a couple of real bone rattling falls where you forgot to go limp so you got all the impact. When you got home, that's exactly when your body decided to give in to a bad case of the flu. There you are with strained muscles that ache like mad with the flu, you get hot and cold flashes going from one extreme to the other, your kids spend the day demanding your attention and then someone calls you with an emergency that absolutely must be taken care of first thing only you were traveling when you were supposed to get the message. Can you imagine a day like that?

Substitute cats for the kids and make them extremely understanding except when hungry and you have what I would have to call a typical day. I hurt like that every day and the world has refused to be respectful and stop turning to let me catch up. I've lost a huge amount of potential in what should have been the most productive and rewarding times of my life.

Would you like to guess what my most common emotion is? It isn't guilt or sorrow. I feel a sense of joy so deep and pervasive that I forget to mention it in the crisis of the day. For as long as I remember, my number one desire in life was that partner who understood me intimately. Melissa is that ideal partner. Because of her, I have someone to help me bear all the troubles in life. She is there to remind me that I am not a terrible person and a burden on my family. My family of choice - my New York family - takes pleasure in my pleasure. I always knew it was right for me to take pleasure in the success and/or happiness of others but Melissa showed me that it applies to me as well.

In my past, I had to guard my joy. If I showed too much joy, it was taken from me. Camping trips, a necessity in advancing in the Boy Scouts, were held hostage to my grades. I was not permitted to quit the Scouts in response though the advancement that they pushed so hard was impossible without camping since I had to demonstrate the outdoor skills that had to be learned and mastered while camping. Eventually, I entered high school which gave my parents an excuse to make better decisions since time was running out for the old Eagle Scout check on the list. I got my camping trips back and they saved face.

Melissa bought me that beer and I'm going to drink some tonight. I'm waiting because I want to have the greatly reduced pain and easy lauughter when she can share it with me. I look forward to hearing about her evening. There may be drama afoot but it doesn't affect her directly. I'm happy that she loves her job and that her bosses value her contributions. I get joy when she talks about people I don't know. They matter to her so they matter to me.

Thanks to Melissa, I know pride as well. I hope I stop short of hubris but it is good to feel something other than shame. I am so familiar with my shortcomings that we try to avoid them. Instead, I get to be proud of stuff that matters to me. I'm allowed to take pride in my writing, my choice of spouse and, most importantly for someone like me in chronic pain, I am allowed to take pride in my endurance. I keep telling friends who are enduring their own troubles to put one foot in front of the other and take a step. When they're ready, that first step will lead to another. Why not take a little pride in accepting my own advice well?

Melissa gets this stuff or, when she doesn't, she wants to get it. Why? It's because she loves me...and we're back to the joy.