Tenderly

After I wrote about the awkward sleepover situation I was thinking about the way I use my blog to process difficult interactions. If a person in my life makes me grumpy, odds are high that he or she will end up in these pages. This might leave you with the impression that I spend my life caroming from cranky to crabby and back again, but the reality is much happier. "I should write more happy blog posts," I thought to myself.

Last night was the first night of my fall running group. I was feeling a little uncomfortable about going after so much time on the couch this summer, but off I went anyway. It was, as is almost always the case, a ton of fun. We ran hills. (Well, this is Gladlyville. We ran a hill, repeatedly.) It was hard, in a good way. Everybody was welcoming. Nobody said, "Well, Jamie Gladly, I can see you've been hanging out on the couch all summer."

I didn't feel great afterward, and by the time I got home I was feeling decidedly icky-- dizzy and nauseated. I eased into the house and thought about sitting down on the steps by the back door, but instead I shuffled over to the couch and curled up there. I was okay as long as I lay still, but every movement brought a swell of nausea.

This doesn't sound like a happy post, right? Here's the happy part. 

Elwood came over and said, "Wow, you look beat. Can I get you anything?" "I'm going to be okay," I told him. "Just dizzy and nauseated."

Pete came over and said, "Mom, are you okay? Can I get you anything?" He patted me gently.

My 17yo came over separately and said, "Mom, are you okay? Do you need anything?"

Stella was playing outside, but when she came back in she checked on me right away: "Mom, are you okay? Do you need something?"

I told the kids that I thought I might just need some food, that I'd only eaten one meal that day and it had been a hard run. "That wasn't your best idea," said Pete, who fetched the tray they use for Mother's Day breakfast in bed and loaded it up. Pear, banana, Nuun, water-- all nice and digestible. "I brought you some [unintelligble] too," he said. He was aiming for "edamame," but wound up with something akin to "onomatopoeia." "I can get you some onomatopoeia if that would help!" exclaimed his older brother. "Bang! Drip! Crash! Splat! Cacophony! David Foster Wallace said cacophony is an example of onomatopoeia."

I ate the edamame appreciatively, and laughed at the onomatopoeia. I have been trying, you guys, to teach them what love looks like, and they have been paying attention. Love is feeding people. Love is trying to figure out what people need. Love is distracting people when they are suffering, making them laugh if you can. Meanwhile Elwood washed the dishes and set up the coffee for the next morning-- for him, love is service. 

Food didn't help; it seemed to be an attack of vertigo rather than low blood sugar. Elwood has used Epley's maneuvers on me successfully in past vertigo attacks, but they didn't do the trick last night. I went to bed, still wearing my sweaty running clothes because I was too nauseated to change into pajamas, and prayed for the best.

This morning I woke up free of nausea, feeling a little subdued but immensely grateful. I don't ever think (except in the wake of a vertigo episode) about what a gift it is to perceive my position in space easily: I am moving and that object is still; I am still and that object is moving. You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone, just like Joni Mitchell sang. So today I am attending to the many gifts I have been been given: a body that usually works pretty well here in its fifth decade, and a family full of people who love me more than I deserve.