That Was “One of the Hardest Weeks of My Life”

"I think it’s my only coping mechanism for pain", I say

Welcome to a new week Word Nerds!

I’ll be honest: I just had what felt like “one of the hardest weeks of my life”.

It was NOT (by a long shot)… But it still felt like a doozy.

Next week, I’ll share one of those pieces that breaks down a lot of what happened in one week, so I can ‘splain it all to you? And kvetch a little?

But it involved only being a couple weeks out of from my last spine surgery, the same week I start commuting about 3 hours [in total] to a choreography job - which is a good thing! But also meant… jumping up and down right after surgery for hours at a time? Worth it, but imagine the level of pain my brain was in trying to get to, from, and everything between + My partner got sick and had to sleep in the other room, so I had to take care of him while secretly feeling like I was a long shot away from what I needed to be doing to “take care of me” (just in a recovery sense) + and I was planning the funeral of my mentor.

That was THE most “worth it” thing I could do with my time, of course!

I’m not trying to complain about that ever… But it still was all compounding at the same time, with no gradual adjustment or anything of the sort. Just right into the deep end, you know?

I had so little ability left to go around.

I was failing at my column and needing to do re-writes I wasn’t expecting.

I was failing in terms of body needs, and food needs, and…

Did I mention the heat in my car is broken, so those commutes are might chilly? We can only use portable heaters in our house, so I spend the whole time I’m at home resenting the ice packs my back needs to heal while shivering from room to room = It’s been a lot!

Can anyone out there relate?

I had to basically ignore my Inbox and most of my texts just in order to survive the week, knowing that then I’d try to catch up. There just wasn’t enough time to go around.

And even then, I was staying up until 2 to help my teen with a project she was struggling with for school (for example), or dealing with X, and Y, and Z, and all the complain’y alphabet fill-in letters you can imagine between: I just wasn’t keeping up. Or feeling okay at trying to keep up. It just felt like fail after fail, and then being reminded by others of the ways I’m failing them.

So this is a quick update and apology to start the week, for starters…

And an apology in advance IF this week’s pieces are far from perfect?

Even amid all of that stuff above, I was really determined to do my best to still keep my Substack promise, not miss a column, and uphold the other mini freelance jobs I need. (And I need jobs, so there is no option when I say these things. This is a gift; You are a gift to me! A gift I need- in all the bold-italics on earth!)

My point?

I’ll share a solid update soon.

And for now, I hope this ramble one suffices and that you hang in with me.

I really, really, really appreciate you being a Word Nerd here, and caring about freelance writers amid ups and downs and beyond.

And I’ll share about the funeral soon super fast too! Not because I “own” that grief or because it’s my story to share by any means, but just because she was a force in my life in SO many more ways than even the people closest to me know… And thus, she would have done the same for me had the shoes been reversed without a moment’s hesitation.

She and I traveled together for multiple out of state conferences. (Most people don’t even know that we were travel buddies)

We had special meetings when I was needing support (most don’t know that), and she came to our local “getting married” party and anything I asked her to attend in every single giving way, and we worked together for some time on the nonprofit she helped me get involved in many, many moons ago. (I was Executive Director for a brief time.) We even met the governor of our state together!

But it wasn’t the time we spent together that mattered - since, once I moved away, we were only occasionally texting: It was the impact that just one person can have on so many lives! That needs to be put in permanent ink.

And talked about more for all the people who drift into the night, or we lose touch with?

If someone asks for your help to honor someone who spent their life honoring you (among boundless others she guided)… Wouldn’t you say “yes”?

Anyways… I’ll share more about that soon too, since our humanity is the most important piece about any of these pieces of writing!

Thanks for your patience, in general.

I am really recovering a lot slower from this last surgery than I thought too (?)…

Though sort of sadistically hoping that no one would know so from the outside, because I’m somehow managing to do all the “mandatory” things (even if “the best of my ability” is kind of a let down right now), and I hope to be able to savor those “mandatory”things more soon since I LOVE writing here, and I love you, and I love choreographing and working with students, and ….

Life is complicated sometimes.

If anything, I’d love to know what feels “complicated” about your life this week?

Even if I take forever to respond, I read EVERY word and I always feel so less alone when we share about whatever it is we need to share about.

So, yeah….

What feels “complicated” about your life this week?

“Holy sh*t. I get to have a thought all alone by myself and write that thought down all alone by myself……”

I said this out loud, to myself, while gleefully prepping to write these words messily in my Notes app.

The moment I said this, I looked up and saw the expectant (adorable) face of my child, who still wanted me in some (perfect) way.

It was funny enough to write down… even if completely bland and ordinary and useless to you at the same potential time.

The song “Hamburg Song” by Keane had just been playing in the car, inspiring the want to write as I was half-car choreographing - like being possessed from the upper body only. Sort of sign language. Definitely too contemporary. Moving my arms and limbs like a young Billy Joel with an invisible automobile piano.

The playlist was called “Byegone Lobby” [intentionally misspelled for the show], because I put together elaborate dance theatre soundtracks for the 14 or so narrative shows I’ve created and deeply know down to the very last character and note… but since that’s not what I’m doing with my life’s work right now (though I am working, AND working my way back to that forever), I tend to avoid these scores because they cause a score of sadness and sore feeling.

Despite this, I have the lobby music articulated too (to set the emotion for a waiting audience), and sometimes… those playlists are less rife with raw emotion and grief whenst played then the show stories themselves. And so, I play them now and again. And was playing one on the day I tried to write this, because Daniel Norgren has that effect on anyone with a flickering soul.

But even though I was overflowing with byegone handogrophy and mourning verbiage - and wanted to write the losses down… I felt a ton of bygones not being gone whenever needing to write something down.

If I disappear into “Jamie Land” - needing to seek the calm of my mind and expel words and gestures that cast a spell of quietude on my psyche in anyway- I feel guilty for leaving my loved ones behind. For blocking others out, to lock myself back IN to life in any way psychologically.

Sometimes I think I tune out because I’m a Deaf person and being expected to be visually connected to the world at all times is EXHAUSTING?

Sometimes I think it’s my only coping mechanism for pain?

Mostly, I think it’s a pathology I will never be able to pause. The day I stop daydreaming dances, and making music the metronome of my marrow, or feeling haunted by words of which I want time to mold to Jo-Amy-Meg-Beth-isms as quickly as I can… is the day I die.

The world doesn’t let us escape the world very often.

It makes us feel selfish for doing so, however briefly. But, if you’re like me, you need small moments to regroup in order to participate within the group. It doesn’t matter how much pain you’re in or when…

We all deserve more time to document what it feels like to be here on this earth while we are here than we are given.

My Substack is where I am able to express myself creatively, share on all sorts of topics (not exclusively sickness) and it helps me to archive this “ongoing legacy” that I HOPE is the continual memoir project I’ve started.

Here, anyone who needs or wants a scholarship gets one… because kind friends help support the writing there, even if it’s just $5.

I write (now) every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday (barring emergency… and sometimes, even then).

And on Wednesdays, you can check out my column on CF News Today each week!

Hopefully you enjoy some new words cooked up just for you today?

Thanks for hanging in with me, and hanging on together