Detour

find your thrill

Well, that was fun.  Five days and a bottle of Vicodin later and I feel almost human.  I think I may actually be able to work out tomorrow for the first time in several days.

When I can't exercise I get cranky.  Really, it's a mood enhancer for me.  Which is why I'm such an addict. I wrote here about how it started, my bodybuilding past.  

I did bodybuilding style workouts for 16 years, even when I was no longer a bodybuilder.  I think there are huge benefits to lifting weights.  After bodybuilding I ran (all distances from 5k to marathon), rode and raced bikes (road and mountain),  and did triathlons (up to olympic distance).  I threw myself into each sport with fervor and dedication.  I ran 70 mile weeks when I ran, rode 250 mile weeks when I was a cyclist and trained for 12-15 hours per week as a triathlete.  I don't understand moderate.  Sometimes I wish I was one of those people that can go for a meandering 10 mile bike ride along the bay on the weekend.  But unless there is some sort of way to compete with someone, or conquer a weight, distance or speed I haven't done before; I'm not too interested.

I've thought a lot about that, my competitiveness. And I think it's ok to be competitive. It's important to channel it to those places where it's appropriate.  I always have an outlet  in my life where I can compete in a healthy way.

The point is; I don't throw myself in halfway.  When I started running my first training run was a 5k and I immediately started running 6 miles a day with stadium stairs thrown in once a week.  When I bought my first road bike in college (days after I had finished a marathon and could no longer stomach even the sight of my running shoes), my first ride was 70 miles with a hill they called cardiac hill.

I'm still trying to make my point which is not that I'm a badass, but that I never got hurt.  Nope.  No knee problems or overuse injuries no matter what crazy shit I threw at my body.  Why?  I believe it is because I had such a strong foundation from lifting.  

A few years ago (during my triathlon phase) I stopped lifting. I had just burnt out on the bodybuilding style workout...lift a weight you can manage for 8-10 reps, rest repeat...on and on for each body part.  I was bored.  I was bored with the workouts and bored with the gym.  So I stopped.  I did yoga instead.

I started getting hurt.  Tendonitis in a knee that made cycling excruciating.  Then a torn hamstring that impaired my running for a year (including the several months that I employed my usual treatment: ignore it and hope it goes away).  It sucked.

So I started looking for a more interesting way to lift weights. I also was burning out on the hardcore endurance activity.  During my triathlon training I discovered my body responded pretty well to interval training and i started doing more of that than the traditional "go lots of miles at a steady pace."  Also, my own theories of weightlifting had evolved, I only wanted to do movements that gave me a lot of bang for my buck.  Think pull ups instead of bicep curls, the benefit of pull ups is you don't only work your arms but your entire back.

As I got older, I found that shorter workouts of extremely high intensity were what I wanted to do. By accident I found Crossfit.

I love Crossfit.  I love the intensity, I love the fact that there is skill work, I love the lifting, I love the competition.  Crossfit introduced me to Olympic Lifting.  So now I run, do crossfit and Olympic Lifting.  I usually only run up to a 5k distance, once a week I run sprints.  I am always going for intensity.  I love the community I have at my gym.  I am sure that if I ever get tired of it, there will be something new to get fanatical about.

Sometimes I run into people I haven't seen for years.  When they ask me what I'm up to and I tell them about my latest thing they say, "You're so disciplined."  Well no.  I am actually doing the things I love.  I loved getting close to nature on my long runs and bike rides, loved getting to places I wouldn't otherwise see.  I love seeing a new city by running through it; nothing can compare.  I love lifting a scary ass barbell above my head and encouraging my friends to do the same.  I love doing all of those things with my son.  

For me, this is just living.

imagine

I pull into the oral surgeon's parking lot behind the paramedics.

Shit.  This is not reassuring.

The staff greets me warmly.  They know me well, I've been coming here for the last two and a half years. I'm pretty sure I am singlehandedly responsible for fat bonuses and vacations to Greece. Today is the final surgery in a major oral reconstruction that will run me, when all is said and done, over $40K.  

...He places the gas mask over my nose.  It is not sitting firmly enough; I strain my neck. I push my head up further on the chair in an attempt to make the mask sit flush against my skin.  I don't want any air; only gas.  I breathe deeply though my nose...

I am a loser in the genetic tooth lottery.  I was born with a jaw that did not occlude well, soft teeth, a tendency to form tarter. Then there was bad dental care, avoidance of care, traumatic early experiences, a lack of (needed) orthodontia in my teens, years without insurance.  I entered my forties with lost and broken teeth. Though not visible in my smile, my dental condition was a source of a deep and abiding sense of shame. Every tooth I lost had also had a root canal. I needed more serious intervention.  l needed bone grafting, braces, root planing, extractions, implants, crowns. 

..."You might feel a sting here" My eyes are clenched against catching any glimpse at all of the needle I know he is wielding. In my imagination it is impossibly long and large. I flash back to some time in my past: I was high, the car was moving too fast and recklessly; I'd crawled into my head.  I'd thought of the beautifully written novel on my bedside at home. Surely I wasn't ready to leave a world with such beauty?  I couldn't speak to make him slow down; I could only escape further into my head, turning over a perfectly wrought sentence I'd read the night before. It had made me feel anchored to the world. I looked for an anchor now. The quiet conversation I'd had with my son the night before, him in the passenger seat beside me talking in a low voice, sitting perfectly still, devoid of his usual fidgeting...

I must have done evil with my teeth in a past life. Possibly I was a piranha or maybe a lion?

The final straw in my dental degradation was breaking a tooth during a marathon.  I had a good job and good insurance; no more excuses.  I went to a dentist who suggested that the quickest fix was a "partial."  This would be a piece of plastic with teeth on it that would go into a glass on my bedside at night.

Um, no.  Not yet.  I had just come to terms with the necessity of reading glasses in my life.  I was not ready for removable teeth.  

...I felt the needle puncture my cheek and willed myself to stay still, hands clenched under the drape.  It was not a sting or a pinch but a more robust and full bodied pain.  I couldn't think of the word for that.  We only have words to minimize pain. I thought of how inappropriate the word "discomfort" was. I took yoga breaths.  The epinephrine hit my system and I felt clenched, taught. I felt in danger of seizing or floating right off the chair.  I sent my mind back to the night before...

...the car was gliding through the inky blackness towards the eerie lights of the refinery.  The refinery always seemed oddly lifeless as if industry had eliminated the need for humans entirely. We were on the less traveled bridge; a long span that curves over the quiet side of the bay. At this time on a week night it is as silent as the Sierra after a snow storm.  We were coming home after a hard and rewarding weight lifting session; confronting our fears at the barbell.  Can I get this over my head? What if I fail? Lifting it anyway. The relaxation that follows a hard effort was already creeping into our bones; the satisfaction that follows facing down your fears was creeping into our heads, soothing anxiety.  I was relaxed and happy, enjoying his company, enjoying this time we spend together every week.  I was proud of his efforts in the gym; I do not want him to have to journey to hell to learn to take care of himself, like I did...

My dental staff and I (dentist, orthodontist, periodontist and oral surgeon) mapped out a treatment plan. It was to span almost three years and many thousand dollars; it required me to spend hours in the chair.  I would start with getting my gums and teeth healthy; then braces; then implants. Six of them.  

...I close my eyes and cannot help picturing myself laid out in the morgue.  My person hood has receded, as it must in death. I am only a mouth, held open wide by some device.  It feels huge and I am afraid my jaw will unhinge. I feel the surgeon hovering over me, a knee propped on the top of the chair, bent over his task like a demon.  Putting his back into it.  But when I open my eyes he is merely standing next to the chair, working at arms length...

...My boy is talking about "The Little Prince."  I have not read the book since I was a child.  I remember how much I liked the elephant in the snake and how, even then, I knew I there was a point and I was missing it.  He says "The allegory is, well, to me, that the people he meets on the planets he visits represent man's sins or flaws."  I stay silent, hoping he'll go on.  "There is the man who thinks he is king of everything." He pauses. "Hubris."  I say.  "Exactly, and the guy who lights the lamp over and over; workaholism.  And there is the alcoholic..." He need not explain, we have a deep mutual understanding of this human flaw...

Today, the doctor is placing the final three implants.  In four months, they will get crowns and I will be done.  I will again have a fully functional mouth.  The braces and regular care has done wonders for my smile.  I am no longer self conscious.  I am also no longer afraid of the dental chair.

...the surgeon is screwing in the titanium screws.  I feel my jawbone expand as he tightens down. I think, for the thousandth time since this all started, about how dentistry is such a rudimentary science; the tools it uses mimic those in my toolbox at home.  He is screwing in the second one on the bottom, I feel more than I should, he is anchoring the screw below where the anesthesia went. I get a preview of how it will feel when the drugs wear off...

...The boy continues, "The Prince leads this simple life on his own planet, taking care of a rose.  He is happier doing that than are any of those other people he meets, on other planets. I think it's about the difference between childhood and adulthood.  How you lose something, imagination, when you become an adult..."

The assistant asks me how I'm feeling. 

"A bit woozy."  She looks at me.

 "Queasy?"  

"No.  Woozy."

"Do you want some apple juice?"  What?  Is it spiked with methaphetamine?

"No, thanks." I have been in the chair for over 2 hours.  I am desperate to leave this place.

"Ok, well I'll give you a minute and then you can..." She launches into a explanation for the third time on how I can start with over the counter meds for pain, how I must take the antibiotics every 8 hours, etc. etc. etc.  I want her to shut up so I can go home and take my vicodin immediately. 

I want to curl up with my dogs and my son and pretend that time is not passing.

someone saved my life

I grew up fat.  

Actually, not really.  But I grew up not skinny in an era when Twiggy was an icon.   I had a lavender vinyl Twiggy lunch box.  Thin was in.

I remember evaluating the shape of my arms in Kindergarten and understanding that they were too thick and shapeless to be acceptable.  I had pale skin, freckles, thunder thighs and a big butt. Kids were mean.  I remember every single nasty comment I ever heard from the thin brown girls. I felt unacceptable.

I was born in 1961, so my formative years passed in a world that hadn't yet enacted Title IX. There were no girls' soccer leagues.  Our mothers didn't exercise.  There wasn't women's college or pro basketball. We had gymnasts, figure skaters and Billy Jean King.  But even those sports were not for every girl.  The only girls I knew who participated in those sports had Olympic dreams.   

Our health classes focused on menstruation and VD (venereal disease).  That's what we called STD's before HIV took sexually transmitted diseases beyond the venereal. We didn't talk about nutrition, lifestyle related diseases, the relationship between stress and exercise.  Our parents still smoked and had cocktails every night.  In my house we had  "hors d'oeuvres"  before dinner. Potato chips and clam dip.  

In my family, intelligence and creativity was revered.  The subject of athletic prowess just didn't come up. Every four years we watched the Olympics and we understood that those people, that level of discipline and aggression, lived a world apart from normal people.

I woke up one morning when I was twenty three choking on the certainty that I was going to die. Too soon.  I don't know where it came from but lying there with the four walls of my bedroom closing in on me, I couldn't see a future.  Any future.   My self loathing had grown so much there wasn't room for anything else inside of me.  The drugs and alcohol were no longer working.  I had no education, no skills, and no future.  My life was beyond chaotic and I felt insane.

And I was fat.  We can argue about how fat I was, but it was the thing that I hated the most about myself. I'm ashamed to admit this.  I was not depressed abut the state of my mental and physical health, which was abysmal, but rather about how I looked.

I'd made attempts to "get in shape" before.  By now it was the early eighties and even normal people jogged and did par course calisthenics, the seventies brought us that.  I tried to jog for the first time  when I was about 18.  I drove down to the junior high school (3 blocks away) and tried to run around the hockey field.  I went around once (probably 1/10 of a mile) and I thought I was going to DIE.   I had to lie down in the muddy grass and concentrate on not losing my lunch. Of course I had asthma and I smoked, but I really couldn't imagine how anyone actually could do that sport.  I developed a respect bordering on awe for joggers.  I went home and had a beer.

I didn't try it again until I was 21 or so.  That time, I actually bought some expensive running shoes, blue New Balances.  I thought I looked pretty cool in them.  I put on some sweats and left the house early in the morning. I made it about half a block, then I walked a bit.  When I was coming back down my street, some young guys drove by and one of them yelled out the window "You ain't gonna get all that off just walking."  I slunk home and stashed the shoes in the back of my closet.  

When I found myself at the bottom of a pit that morning two years later I had NO idea what to do to change my life. There was so much wrong. I had didn't know how to live a good life or where to start.  I was so bereft of self love that I had no idea how to treat other people.  I didn't know how to reach out or who to reach out to. I felt completely alone in the world.  I didn't know how to achieve goals or even understand the need to set them.  I was 23 and I had been abusing drugs and alcohol for ten years.

But I knew what I hated the most on that day was how I looked.  I was invisible.  I felt people's eyes slide over me when I went out. I wasn't someone they wanted to know.  My entire life felt like junior high.  I was unacceptable.

There was this kernel of pride and arrogance inside me.  I knew I was smart. I'd read a bunch of classic novels, all of Shakespeare's plays.  I was good with words.  I had good taste.  But people looked at me and saw something else. Lazy. Slovenly.  I was really pissed about it.  But I was also miserable, so tired of having men want to date my friends and never me.  So tired of the unrequited love that seemed to be my lot in life.  I understood even then that those things were more about my perception of myself than they were about the shape of my body or my uneducated status.  I just didn't know how to fix it.

I looked myself in the mirror and decided I had to do SOMETHING.  I had to stop hating myself. I either had to accept myself as I was or I had to change.  I didn't know what I could change. The mountain of problems in my life seemed insurmountable.  I thought about working on accepting my size, but I didn't feel strong enough to eradicate the years and years of messages that taught me it wasn't ok to be fat.  And physically, I felt like shit.

I decided that maybe, just maybe, if I got a little bit healthier physically, it would be like picking up a corner of my crazy life.  Maybe I could just do that one thing.

There was this aerobics studio up the street from me. The shades were always closed so you couldn't see inside from the street.  I only ever saw women going in there.  It seemed like a place to start.  I dug out those still new running shoes and pulled on my big over-sized 50% polyester bright green sweat pants, took a deep breath, and walked up the street.

It was a midday class, I think there were only about 10 women in the class. The woman who taught the class was a lithe beauty named Andrea.  I will never forget her. She was kind and welcoming.  I searched her eyes for judgment when I shook her hand and I couldn't find any. She started the music and gave cues. The class went right and I went left. I didn't know what a grapevine or the charleston step was.  I was all over the place.

But, Oh! Was it fun.  The music was groovin and I felt like I was out dancing.  The hour went by in a flash.  I felt amazing.  I walked home with my head held high.  I was full of hope for a different life.  

And it was the beginning of a different life.  I was 23 and it was the first time I had taken care of myself in any way.  I was still a child, an unformed person in so many ways.  I hadn't had the ordinary experiences of a passage into adulthood, I hadn't gone off to college or traveled the world.  I hadn't had a lot of guidance in "how to live."  That day, I knew something big had happened.  I didn't realize until years later that I had taken my first real step towards growing up.