My House

My house.  My glass house.  I feel like I'm trapped in a glass house a lot of the time.  I'm left on the inside looking out.  The world passes by and I'm a spectator, my nose pressed to the glass, fingers trailing down the pane.  My body is a temple and that is one I'm trapped in as well.  They say you should worship your body like it's a temple...I feel like mine is a hated religion.  Mine is one that of a polarizing sect and the village has come pitchforks and baying crowd and set it on fire.  It's all so strange and unfamiliar.

As an athlete - my pain therapist is working with me to not use that term in the past tense - I struggle to get the fix I so desperately want.  I'm like a junkie trying to score a fix, needing that desperate bump before falling into some horrible jerky, shivering withdraw (or at least that's what I envision after many Netflix episodes of Breaking Bad and Intervention).  The only difference, I don't need or want drugs.  I want to feel a burn and a sting of a different sort.  I miss pushing my body to the limit, challenging myself, feeling the burn in my muscles, maxing out my lungs, pushing myself to the edge and seeing just how far I could take things.  How many reps could I do, how heavy could I lift, how far could I go, how long could I last - I loved the pure exhaustion, challenge and sport of it all.  The only problem is, there is none of that for me now.

My body is now my enemy is doesn't allow for me to work out the way I miss.  I have to be so careful with myself.  I have fallen down our steps if I'm too bold by not carefully holding onto the railing and thinking out each step.  My knee is wrecked from the latest crash down the steps, an aching, throbbing, creaky mess.  I can try to gently ride a recumbent bike or use the therapy pool - but nothing like the breathe-snatching, lung crushing, muscle burning workouts that I miss.  The tennis, golf, skating, hiking and all the other random activities that I never gave a second thought about, always assumed they would be hobbies that I would do into my old age.  Well, old age is a funny thing.   My body is that of an old, old woman.  My mind doesn't know that.  In my mind I'm still young.   I struggle to remember my age most of the time.  I don't know if it's because the one spinal cord surgery fell on my birthday and that sort of wiped that one out, or if I stopped caring.  Either way, in my mind I'm still a young woman.  I'm ready to fly and glide and I've got so much life left stretched out before me.  Then I stopped and remember what all has happened to me and I'm no longer so sure that is the case.  I mean, it was less than 3 1/2 years ago doctors were preparing my husband for the odds that I might not pull through, that I had been treated to the full extent of medical capabilities.  How much can you push and ask of one body?

I'm often left feeling like a race horse at the big event.  It's the Kentucky Derby - I'm all loaded up, in the starting gate and we're ready to go.  The crowd is rowdy, loud and cheering.  My muscles are quivering, the adrenaline is pumping and surging through my body, my heart is racing and my mind is already racing and mapping out all of the possibilities.  Then it happens - the race starts!  The only problem - the gates are thrown open and the horses all race out, except for me.  My gate simply won't raise.  I'm left in my stall- the gate pinning me in, my heart drowning me in hammering thuds, my muscles ready to explode -and yet there is nothing I can do.

The only problem with this scenario, it's not a nightmare, it's how I feel so much of the time.  It's how I feel about life.  I think that's not helping my panic attacks at all.  I've had a lot more of them lately.  I've had a much harder time calming down from them.  I feel like I just want to do anything to get that feeling out of my system - but I can't.  It's driving me crazy.  I feel like there's already so much that I have to fight and battle on a daily basis, this is just so much more to bear.  I need to find a way to cope with it.  Find a way to shake it out of my system.

When I was a coach I had some parents express to me that they couldn't understand how I could stand at the boards and remain so calm and relaxed while the students competed and tested.  The parents were always very keyed up and and nervous.  I always explained that if I appeared nervous that would only make my student nervous and it would be a giant snowball effect, therefore, even if I was nervous, I never showed it.  I always was calm, slight smile, totally Switzerland there.  I feel like that is my life.  I'm constantly showing others my coaching game face.  The "everything-is-fine, don't-worry-I've-got-this, smile" face.  I'm not going to show others the pain, the worry, the panic, the anguish, the fear.  No, I bury it, I shove it deep down.  I don't show others how badly I wish I could join in the normal every day things that people do.  Or how much I miss playing golf with my husband.  How badly I wish I could run and race across the fresh spring lawn with my daughter and hike with my dogs.  How much I wish I could just have an outlet or a hobby.

From the outside, I'm fine.  I'm ok.  From the inside, I'm a town that's been ravaged by a tornado.   I'm swirling, tumbling through space.

Welcome to my house
Play that music too loud
Show me what you do now
We don't have to go out
Welcome to my house

My House - Flo Rida

Gone Gone Gone

What do we really leave behind?  I've poured myself into so many projects, so many people, so many things...what has that left behind?  Is there any piece of the old me still floating is space out there?  Is there any pre-RSD Sara out in the world still floating and dancing in the wind like the fluff of a dandelion?   My students that I spent hours and hours with, the colleagues and coaches that I worked with.  The friends and faces that use to know me - is there any part of me that still exists out there?

I wonder these things sometimes, not in a narcissistic way.  Well, maybe it's a bit narcissistic.  I mainly wonder if any of the spirit that was me still is remembered, still exists in this world.  It's weird, I always think of myself as someone that died.  There is the me pre-RSD and the me post-RSD.  That has resulted in two totally different people.  I wish that wasn't the case.  I miss the girl that I use to be.  I miss the carefree girl that I was.  I miss the confident person I was.  I miss the self-assured, I can tackle the world, I can handle anything the world can throw at me girl I was.  I don't know how to explain it to people.  It's really like the girl, the woman that I was - she was murdered.  It was a nasty thing, and she was thrown in a shallow grave in a hasty manner and maybe some day that Sara will get the proper burial that she deserves, but in the meantime, I miss her.  I wish she could find peace.  I hope her soul can rest.  In the meantime, I'm left in the void.  There is an enormous void in my soul, my heart, my mind - I'm not me.  I'm some lesser version of the old me.  Some photocopy that lost the ink, some half-assed, bad imitation of the me that I was.

So I'm left wondering, I spent hours with people pouring my time and energy and spirit into their life.  Did any of that last?  Did any of that stick?   Did any of that matter?  Do any of them even remember me?  Not that it should matter at all....I just can't help but wonder.  I remember every single student of mine.  I remember the students I had to leave behind.  The ones that got left behind in a hurry when I was hospitalized with problems that had many questions and not a lot of answers...finally RSD flagged and came up - but at the time, I was just a mess.  My life spun out of control.  I was an exhausted mess.  My body was beginning it's breakdown and it made no sense to me yet.  It still makes no sense to me - but at least I know to expect it.   I still feel guilty for leaving them behind.  For not having answers for them.  For being too sick and scared to be able to explain to them why I had to go.  I miss them.  I miss coaching.  I miss my old life.  I love my life now - well, I love my family that I've been blessed with.  But this RSD thing...I could do with out it.  I'd make a deal with the devil to rid myself of it most days.

So, once my old self is gone....is it just gone?  Is the old me just dust?  Is there any part of me still hidden deep down , crushed and buried in the rubble of the RSD landscape that can be dug out?  Are there parts of me that can be salvaged?  I work with my pain psychologist and I still haven't been able to feel worthy of feeling happiness.  I've been type-A my entire life.  A perfectionist, a performer, a pleaser and someone that completes the task.  I have been failing - failing at forcing my body to rid itself of the RSD.  I can't make it override the RSD misfires, I can't make myself ignore the pain, I can't make this go away and it drives me nuts.  I feel like a failure because I can't make it go away.  There must be some part of me still buried in the wreckage that is left.  I should be forgiven if I feel joy or a fleeting smile and relief with my kids for a moment or two.  I struggle with feeling like I'm not worthy of any happiness.  None.  What do you do with that?  How do you move forward with that sort of burden?  Well, that first thing is you talk about it.  I'm at least doing that.

I hope I can uncover some part of the old me.  I miss her.  I don't know how to feel differently at this point.  I'm lost and sad and feeling like I don't belong here any longer.  I'm simply a cork bobbing along the ocean...no one is going to notice that.  I'm hoping to change how I feel, not a huge amount right away, but at least chip away at it little by little.  Maybe soon enough my feelings of self loathing, self doubt and hatred will be gone, gone, gone.

You're my back bone
You're my cornerstone
You're my crutch when my legs stop moving
You're my head start
You're my rugged  heart
You're the pulse that I've always needed

Gone Gone, Gone  Philip Philips