It was a Friday night and it was May in a double education household. I had back surgery that February to address foot drop and back and nerve pain resulting from chronic problems that began when I was pregnant with my second son. He is now four. After surgery, I woke up with a wicked gut infection that had been popping up for years. I knew I recognized the feeling, but I had never successfully been matched with a diagnosis. After a lot of consuming my calories through a straw because my insides hurt when I ate, I tested positive for small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) at the end of April which is an infection in the small intestine caused when too many of the wrong things start farting inside you. I was on my second round of specialized antibiotics. I felt a little better than I had been feeling, but still like hot garbage. I was hurting, and I had been hurting for a long time.
I had just attended some doctors appointments that I was dreading and they had gone well. I spent extra time considering what my ultimate goal was for each appointment, felt better able to advocate for myself and knew that I had been successful because I left with the outcomes I had outlined. I was still feeling exhausted by the burden of that heavy cognitive task and pissed off that I was still felt like I was carrying the flag of my health independent of my doctors’ concerns. My head was swirling about what had been happening and what might happen next. I had started therapy during my illness and had been encouraged to write.
I’ve always been a writer, but I haven’t written much lately. I haven’t had the time to devote to something that wasn’t useful. If I wasn’t grocery shopping or writing psychoeducational reports, I was wasting my time. There had to be a work product. I had laundry to do! There was not time for this weird cerebral part of me. This is the part of me that drives my bus most of the time, but this is not the part of me that most people meet. My favorite humor comes from describing something real exactly right. But real things don’t usually float to the surface of everyday conversation. It’s not appropriate to smash your heart up against people who aren’t expecting it and it’s a scary thing to do when you aren’t sure how it will be received. I was letting that thought keep most of what I was feeling beneath my awareness so I wasn’t bothering other people with it. I respected that they had their own things to do. I saw how busy my friends were. I respected their laundry and I was overwhelmed by my own.
I hammered out a four page heart dump in about half an hour. It was a frenetic collection of thoughts related to guilt, health, burnout, identity and boundaries. I was talking about finding myself and filtering out the noise that caring deeply about the people around me can create. I was talking about learning to check with myself. I was saying something to myself that I was just starting to understand. This was the night I decided I should probably start a blog.
My friend Tracy sent a group text the next day. She doesn’t check Facebook that often. It said, “Let’s leave the kids at home and go do something fun.” She told me later she read my post and told her husband she had to go check on me because I said “nebulous” on the internet. It was a lot of big words and big feelings. She was right. It seemed weirdly out of character. And that was my problem. Tracy is a good friend. My kids have given her kids the pukes while she pinch hit daycare for me. She sent me a sympathy note once when my basement flooded and we had to move our worm farm to our dining room and this fact in particular was sending me over the edge. We very quietly leave each other little presents at work when things are tough. But she didn’t know much about this wordy, nerdy, bleeding part of me.
I told her I would check, but I didn’t think we had plans. I told her I needed to put on deodorant, and possibly some pants. I offered to drive to her because I didn’t want her to have to take me home. I was also worried about being stuck somewhere if I was tired and overwhelmed. I was sweaty. I had no idea what my kids were going to have for dinner. She told me she was getting in her van to come get me. It is hard to say no to Tracy. It’s usually not in your interest to. My husband ordered pizza, I hopped in the shower, changed my outfit twice and put on some “no makeup” makeup.”
Tracy pulled up with her van. Tracy has a van because she has four kids. Her oldest is in first grade. Her youngest is one. She loves people big and hard and she shows up for them. She is gentle, but she is joyful. She is stubborn and she is committed to everything she thinks is important. When I tell her about the things that make me anxious, she shrugs at me. “Or you could just not worry about it.” She often doesn’t. If Tracy is your speech therapist, you are about the become pulled into a ping pong game of communication driven by fun, but you are going to work. She brought ice cream for my kids and we traded it for a quick exit.
She pointed her car at Ashley’s house. Ashley is one of the first people I called when I found myself stuck on a preschool toilet at the end of the work day a few days before my back surgery. I knew she would probably still be in the building because Ashley gets her shit done, and I knew she would pick me up by my sweaty armpits and we could still be friends later.
Ashley’s love comes out of her eyeballs. She sees hurt everywhere and it hurts her. If she is your speech therapist, she will kick all the asses she sees in the space between you and your goals.
Ashley came out of her house asking questions. “Tracy!” She hissed with one or both of her diametrically opposed daughters hovering in the doorway behind her, bewildered, “What did you do? Are we burying a body?” She was still going to get in the van.
“Nope, just help me move some car seats!” Tracy was moving hoards of plastic toys around in her cargo space. Every traveling therapist who ever dropped a bucket of work dinosaurs all over the grocery store parking lot knows what her car looks like.
“Okay,” Ashley started hauling the seats out of the back row and tossing them out. “But where are we going?”
“I don’t know, let’s go get Karen. Text Karen and tell her we’re coming.” I texted her. I was uncomfortable sitting in the front seat and watching them work, but I also knew they didn’t need my half broken ass to move boosters around. I was glad for something productive to do. Karen checked on my identity first because I hadn’t reached out to her in a while and I don’t have a local area code on my cell phone because I’ve had the same number since the 8th grade. Who is this? But yes, let’s go. She was in.
Karen retired quietly this year and announced it after the fact. Karen loves Halloween and creepy things and isn’t afraid of what’s messy. Karen is not here for your shit. Karen was my child’s therapist when he needed feeding intervention. Her laugh is one of my favorites. I can always tell when Karen is in the therapy rooms because she is throwing a party for the child in front of her. Karen threw a gender reveal party the following week for her third child, who is a trans man and a musical talent that has taken him to a prestigious residential high school for the arts. My kids had an awesome time at this party.
But my friend Karen needed her own party. It became clear that this was Tracy’s plan. All you people need a party right now. Get out of your heads, dummies, get into my van! Here is your party! She would never call us dummies, but our refusal to play when we were so obviously craving it was exasperating her. It was the nicest kick in the ass I’ve ever had.
Tracy started driving. “Hey, Karen lives over here, right?” I knew that she did, but Ashley picked up on something faster than me.
“Tracy! Do you not know where Karen lives?” Ashley gives excellent eyebrow. Tracy shrugged and kept driving. Ashley whipped out her phone to check the address on the event details for Karen’s son the following week. We pulled into the vicinity and Ashley began to read it out loud.
“Wait!” Tracy held up her hand. Ashley waited. “Which house do you think it is? Let’s guess!” I peered down the road and worried we would drive by it on our pursuit of the most Karen house on the block.
“Probably that one.” Ashley picked the house with the truck in the driveway and nice flowers out front. Ashley was right. Karen’s son was in the window. We giggled on her front walk and called for her to come out. Karen put on her lipstick and explained that she had been in the garden all day. She was laughing, but she was doing what we had all done. I am not ready! Do you see what I’m wearing?
“I told them I had to get ready fast because my friends were coming to get me. The kid is not sure what is happening. He wasn’t sure if you were the right friends, he said you looked like high schoolers. I made them something to eat, so they’re good.” Her kid is in high school, but we were all worried about the dinner vacuum our abrupt absence would leave.
A text from my friend Christa came through while Karen was getting settled. Christa has a one year old son and had finished enough of the evening bedtime routine to sneak out. Tracy was planning to put that baby to bed herself if it had taken much longer. Christa has been chafing under the routine and solitude imposed by early parenting. She needs to play. My friend Christa is loyal and consistent. She knows what she thinks, but she might revise her opinion if she loves you and you do something with which she disagrees. If she is your school psychologist she will pour over your data and consider every angle she can think of to be sure your evaluation is done to professional standards and serves your interest.
I went in for Christa by myself because she is my sister. Her husband and baby met me in the living room. That kid. He’s the best. These party time people made a party time baby. I love watching him light up when you turn your attention to him. Christa emerged from the back of the house. My crazy eyes only half surprised her because she is very good at picking up a vibe and she had been watching the texts come through as the van filled up.
“I’m not sure what is going on and I didn’t know when you were coming, so I just started getting ready.” She didn’t feel ready yet. Her husband felt our energy and it made him sad. He wanted a van too. The need for taking turns playing when they are a couple who plays together so magically has been hard for them. But he loves Christa and he sent her on her way.
We tried to find some more friends. We sat in one friend’s driveway, but she wasn’t home. A few friends had really good excuses and putting them in the van would have caused problems for their families. We already knew for sure that some people were busy. We had some friends who we wanted to invite but weren’t sure how it would be received. We couldn’t lose our momentum. Also, we felt like drinking.
We decided to head to our tiny downtown strip. We may or may not have had a beer in the parking lot. Tracy had packed the bud light lime from the back of her fridge. Also she brought goldfish. Karen’s picture of the hodgepodge cooler is one of my favorites from the night. Our first choice bar wasn’t open. Even as we started walking, we weren’t sure where we would land.
We picked a bar by noticing it wasn’t too busy. We sat down at a big long table and we ate and we drank and we laughed. I didn’t look at my phone. We shared all the food and we picked out beers for each other. We were a weird tribe who had never been assembled all in one place alone before, but we were having a hell of a party.
There have been a few other nights in my life like this. These are the mythology type of nights people make movies about. Ask my college friends about Classy/Trashy night. These nights happen when everyone agrees they are happening. They are all in experiences.
My friend Tracy used her superpower when she put us in her van. She saw needs, she met them in the kindest way she could and she maximized the fun. There was a magic in her van that I didn’t know I needed. It was the feeling of doing my own hard thing near someone I liked who was doing their own, different hard thing. That was the missing piece of my blog. That is when I was reminded of my old complaint about the laundry.
I am feeling the urge to turn everything into a laundry metaphor. The submission tab for this page is definitely going to be the laundry chute unless someone has a better idea. There will be enough laundry similes without my forcing it. I don’t think I know what to do about Tracy’s van. I need it here, but there’s nothing analogous. Tracy’s van is Tracy’s van. It’s in the parking lot, and I will come and put you in it, but it’s not a threat. It’s a party. It’s happening right now and I want you to come. I know you’re not ready. I’m not ready either. Just get in the van!
