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The ultimate equalizer. The flu doesn’t care who you are, where you live, or how many miles you ran last week. The flu certainly doesn’t care if you ate your vegetables or not as a kid.  And much to big pharma’s dismay, the flu doesn’t really care if you have had your flu shot.

I can remember vividly the last time I had the flu. I was about 15 or 16. I woke up so chilled and achey I was convinced I was dying. I called my doctors office and left a message for my doctor to call me back, certain she would have a remedy for this madness. Instead, I remember the nurse’s call back stating, “stay in bed, it sounds like you just have the flu.” “JUST THE FLU!!!” I thought to myself. “Are you crazy?! This has to at least resemble what death feels like and that should at least merit a “sounds like you have a BAD case of the flu” not just the flu.” I crawled back into bed and suffered alone as I am sure my cat misty, who wouldn’t have much to do with me on my best of days, was not going to comfort me covered in sweat and shivering.

Let’s take a trip back in time. Back in those days, you know, when this shit was acceptable… wait! Not just acceptable but considered attractive!  

Anyway, back in the year 2000 I didn’t have the internet on my cell phone. In fact, I probably didn’t have a cell phone because I repeatedly ran up the minutes and texted too much and my mom was a good parent and took that shit away when I did that. I didn’t have Facebook or myspace or any of the chat features that come with those.  No snapchat or instagram, just my bed, an angry cat lurking, and myself. I can remember laying in bed doing nothing but feeling achey and miserable. Sure I could have moved to the sofa and watched television but there was only crap and kid shows on during the day. You know what else I didn’t have? That horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach like I was missing out. Of course I knew that my friends at school were going on without me, but I was so lucky to not have to lay in bed alone and watch it play out on social media.

Even now, as I lay here sick, with my iPhone and laptop sustaining myself on equal doses of organic ginger ale and netflix, I feel this terrible feeling that I need to be accomplishing something. I can see people on Facebook are getting things done today. The news is all a twitter with people doing things. There is an isolating feeling that has come with the flu this time around. A left out, left behind, missing out, and I hate to say it but… worthless feeling.

So flu, yeah, you’re an asshole but I am reminded that it isn’t just the teens that I work with that are overloaded with technology. I am so grateful that I didn’t have social media when I was kid. I got on myspace when I was 19 and had a mostly formed adult brain.  I am reminded it isn’t just when we integrate technology into our lives, it is how we balance it that is important. Time out from every day life to fight off a sickness or rest up or even just having time to yourself should never equate feelings of being left out or worthlessness. Life is so much bigger than a few sick days and that these moments of quiet serve to refill my spirit and build character, two things that media has absolutely no interest in promoting.

 

Running down this muddy trail felt incredible. The sound of my feet on the loose volcanic soil, mud splashing, and exchanging hellos with friendly mountain bikers. My soul felt over joyed. The happiest I can ever recall. It radiated through me. I was reminded in a brief moment, that this joy I felt was only by way of a long struggle. Not in spite of the struggle… but because of the struggle.

It began long ago. The plot was set before I could see it. I became aware that something was shifting in my life the Sunday I returned home to find my kitchen engulfed in flames. The wake up call. The moment felt devastating… like I had truly lost it all. What I didn’t know was how many more times I would feel that way in the three enormous years to follow.

I felt that devastation again in Spain. Michael and I were having a tough time on the Camino de Santiago de Compostella. It started as witty banter that quickly turned into an argument. At it’s conclusion we both admitted we felt so lost. What was left of our possessions after the fire were now in a storage unit on another continent. Flirting between staying in Europe indefinitely or ending our trip early… we both felt so confused. I remember feeling so utterly terrified that I would lose him. That the stories in society are true. Couples go through hard times and it slowly tears away at the fabric of your marriage. After a good nights sleep and a long talk we began to put in the effort of reconstructing us. So much of our identities were tied to the lost belongings in the fire and the past military career. This was the time we needed to find our new way of being.

The next time I would feel that devastation was only six short months later. Recently moved into a new house in the beautiful town of Bend, nothing was working out. Again that consumptive feeling of terror began to swallow me. The ramifications of my choices sat in front of me like a neon sign that read “IDIOT.” The private practice I had built was gone. The comfortable house in the town I grew up, gone. The reliable military pay was gone. The relationships I had built over 30 years were now a days drive away. I felt stuck in a position of constant questioning and second guessing.

Then, the mother load of devastation. We took what was left of our savings and packed up and moved across the country to Asheville. There I sat in a home that smelled like one would imagine an episode of Hoarders would smell. Dog shit and urine lining the walls of the dining room. The house we were promised was no longer a promise but a threat. Like graffiti or a letter one might receive in the mail with words like “die” or phrases like “you will die soon” spelled out in magazine clippings. The real devastation had begun. And I would be kept there in that devastation for 4 months.

I had a lot of time to reflect on all that I thought I had lost. All of the possessions, earnings, and merits that didn’t follow me to Asheville. Most of all I had a lot of time to reflect on the complete lack of familiarity in my life. With the exception of my beloved dog and husband, it felt as though I was trapped in Freaky Friday. Completely taken out of my life and placed in some other persons life. The beautiful thing that began to happen though, was for once the devastation began to shift. It was no longer this “oh shit!” moment but rather an unwritten chapter in my life. The shift was triggered by a podcast episode in which some one shared the “Utter dismantling” of their life. They described that feeling of terror I had been feeling and how it was like the Universe was so clearly corralling them in one direction.

So I began to write. Write physically in the form of journals like I used to when I was a teenager. And write my new life. One that would now include trail running, cycling, yoga, and meditation. I shifted from the hopeless place of focusing on all that I thought I had lost and replaced it with a new way of being in the world. One a little less dependent upon where I lived, what I owned, and how I earned money.

With all that being recalled you can imagine now why it is so hilarious that I ended up back in Bend. I had to go through a series of painful trials to become the person I dreamed I could be living in Bend. I had to move to Bend via Asheville, it was an integral part of the plan.

I can’t express enough how grateful I am for this journey. It has included a whole rainbow of emotion. Each one the deepest most extreme version of itself. The deepest depressed blues, the most exuberant happy yellows and everything in between. In a world where more and more people choose to medicate these feelings, I am so grateful to have felt each one. To let each one consume me, guide me, and inform me.

As I ran down the same muddy trail I ran just a few days before we left Bend last year, I became filled with joy. Joy to be awake and alive. Joy to have known loss. Joy to be in touch with the inevitable ebbs and flows of life. And most of all, joy to feel so deeply connected to my soul and who I was put on this earth to be. I physically felt this joy in my whole body as I ran down that familiar trail, so much stronger and so much more connected.

While cleaning this morning I found an old journal that I had taken to Liberia Africa in 2007. As I read this entry, I felt I was there all over again. Liberia will always be a part of me. As Rich Roll recently said, “Travel deepens our compassion for the world. Places remind you of people you have met a long the way that will always be a part of you.”

July 2007

I pealed myself from the sheets as I was startled awake by an earthshaking clap of thunder. As I awoke the sound of the wind and rain grew louder. Feeling the damp air swirling and rushing around the concrete building, I felt awake and alive. I pulled a chair up to the iron woven door on the second floor and watched. Monrovia was getting hammered with wind, rain, thunder, and lightening. I couldn’t help but realize how lucky I am to be sitting on the second floor of a building dry. I am certain hundreds, thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of people were riding out the storm like me but on the wet earth. Their homes hardly water proofed, floors of mud and sand. I watched the dark sky grow light and the rain resolve to a drizzle. Birds began to chirp and sing.  As the sky grew lighter, Monrovia came alive. Wells started pumping, children began their chores, and buckets of water were scooped from houses. Even though the effects of the down poor had to have been devastating at worst or a setback at least, the morning continued on the same. “Resilience. This is what resilience looks like…” I thought to myself.

When I was younger I loved to sleep with my window cracked most of the year. I loved to hear the different animals stir, to know that the wild was near. But every now and then I would get jolted awake by the ominous cry of the coyote. Their yips, barks, and howls felt so haunting and imposing. I would lie awake wondering what kind of critter had just met their demise. I’d picture these savage beasts covered in innocent blood celebrating death.

Now that I am older, I hear the coyotes cry and celebration much differently. Living here in Central Oregon I have learned that our government’s “Wildlife Services” uses horse meat laced with 1080, a left over bio-chemical weapon designed during WWII, to poison large batches of coyotes. I have learned that if a coyote even shows its self near a rancher’s cattle, the county will offer a bounty for its head. I’ve learned that these creatures are not savage beasts who take multiple mates and lack attachment for sport. Instead, they have had to adapt to taking several mates because whole lines of their family are killed at a time. In fact, the image of the cunning evil creature has been created by humans. We have poisoned them for years. But to our dismay, their intelligence and ability to create community has lead them to persevere.

When I hear the coyotes yip, bark, and howl, I no longer feel haunted. Instead I feel reassured that nature continues despite humanity’s cruel attempts to control it. I hear the cry of a dog, not unlike the dog sleeping next to me in my bed, celebrating that it’s pups will live to see another day.

Four years ago (January 25th to be exact) Michael officially became a Retired Military Officer. A huge transition in our life, the depths of which I am just now beginning to see.

It occurred to me in yoga this morning, that we have reached a strange point in our relationship. Our relationship has now been equal parts in the military and out of the military. No longer could I look back at the past and see this looming ARMY dictator over our decisions. And no longer could we claim we are still figuring out how to be after the military. Instead, somehow, we had fumbled through the transition. And here we are, despite the wild ride and extreme detours, right where we had hoped and dreamed to be.

I feel so incredibly grateful. And at the same time, it signifies yet another time to let go. To let go of the struggle narrative that has plagued us. It is no longer a struggle to figure out how to be a couple post-Army. It is no longer a struggle to imagine life without that steady paycheck and the passage of time marked by hierarchical moves up a well defined ladder. And to let go of the rules, roles, and expectations that came with that career both individually and as a couple.

Instead it is a time to be grateful for finding our way. I am grateful for the discipline that the military instilled in us. Grateful for the strength to stand by our values. Grateful for the ability to continually remind ourselves, “we have had much harder days. Remember that time in the Army…” And most of all, grateful that at every turn we were surrounded by the right person or people to guide us through.

Individually, professionally, and as a couple, we have found new ways to be, new ways to contribute, and along with that, a new way of life.  And with all of that, I feel permission to start to dream again of our next adventure. To let go of this “Transition” chapter and fully embrace our new way of life. I have felt so stifled in my blogging and writing for the past two months and I think it’s because I’ve been trying to dream our next adventure from a past self. Whether it was my single self or the transitioning from the Army-insecure-hope we make it self, neither of them were present. I feel ready to dream again from who I am today, in this present moment.

What past experience or part of yourself still dictates your present? What role do you still try to fill even though it no longer fits who you are today?

I am reminded that those are important questions to continually ask ourselves in order to live the authentic life we were designed to live.

Happy Friday 🙂

 

Dear 2015,

You have been the toughest year of my entire of my life… and yet, I kicked your ass! You tried to knock me down, to bury me deep in a mess, and all it did was make me prove to you and myself that I was capable of climbing out. You took my partner and I down dark and dangerous paths, often leaving us flirting with hopelessness and lack of direction but we came out the other side stronger than before. Worst of all, 2015, you took away all that I held familiar and forced me to really look at what makes me who I am. With little material possessions, no ability to work as a therapist, and hardly a penny to my name to change anything, all I could do was run. So I pulled out very old running shoes that still stink from the house fire two years ago and I ran.

And it changed my life. You taught me how little I need to survive. Just some vegetables, fruit, rice, dried beans, my husband and my dog. For seven months, I didn’t have kitchen cabinets, a kitchen sink, or flooring, but it didn’t stop us. We persevered and made the best with what we had each day.

So thank you for being such a jerk 2015 and trying your hardest to shake me to the core. It worked. And I am a much stronger, more determined version of myself going into 2016.

Also known as: noony, noons, The Noons, nooner, muffin, abbey, ab-uh-gale, monkey, sweet girl, turkey, giblet, peanut, peanut head, cookie, cookie B, and pumpkin

You came to me wounded and weak. Rejected by your birth mother, the runt of an accidental litter. Though your eyes were not yet fully opened, I could feel your soul, your fiery spirit, the fighter within. You were a wild puppy, biting everything in sight, seeking the full experience of life, testing your limits and those around you. Never fussy, never noisy, and rarely an accident. Your spirit longed to be outdoors among the grass and the dirt.

I wish I had taken you to more foreign and adventurous places but my heart longed to keep you safe. It took me too long to fully trust you. Your wild spirit reflected mine in a way that I was not yet comfortable with. I never wanted to tame your wild heart or own you. And over the past few years, I have come to realize you only need a few rules and commands to keep you safe, the rest I can trust you with.

You have taught me that we are all spiritual beings trapped in physical bodies and the limitations those physical bodies can try to place on us. You taught me that fear and control are illusions that cloud our true spiritual nature and keep us from living our potentials. Most of all you have taught me that all living beings are created equal, just as many great spiritual leaders have taught in the past. You opened my eyes to the walking contradiction I once was caring for you while eating your fellow animal. It is absurd to let one animal sleep next to you in your bed while participating in the suffering of other animals. We are all love. We are all spiritual beings seeking our potential in this short time we have on earth.

It is getting difficult watching your body age while your spirit stays so young. With each step I do my best to adapt and make you comfortable. It is even more difficult accepting that a being so wise wouldn’t live longer than me. But when I see you chase down other dogs at the dog park or push dogs twice your size with your patented double paw ninja shove,  I am reminded that age is just a number, what really matters is how you feel. I remain grateful for each day and each adventure we get to share together.

Thank you, Abbeygale.

It is time for me to take action. I have had a project idea for a long time now.

Michael has developed food allergies since his time in Iraq and I have grown tired of continually trying to adapt. I have a feeling that there are other Veterans that may be experiencing the same symptomology and may need support. If the story I am about to tell sounds like you or a Veteran you know, please contact me at veteranallergies@use.startmail.com.

*2016: UPDATE – Michael has been seeing a Naturopathic Doctor who completed a comprehensive blood test to find all his allergies. Unfortunately this test uncovered more allergies including, gluten, soy, teff, oats, quinoa, and sorghum. However, now Michael is healthier than ever. He is back to running, creating music, and better than I have ever seen him. We are so grateful for Naturopathic medicine. Now if Michael encounters an allergen his reaction is so much less severe. Our theory along with the diagnosis from the Naturopathic doctor is that the extreme amount of vaccines that Michael received caused Leak Gut Syndrome prompting his immune system to start fighting foods. I still hope to connect with other veterans and help them find proper care.*

It began shortly after Michael returned from Iraq. He began experience itchy lips and tongue after eating apples or peaches. So he stopped eating them. Months later when I would pack a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to go hiking, he would spend the whole trip miserably sick to his stomach. It wasn’t debilitating, but rather a nagging acidic feeling. The worst reaction was one day we picked up a bag of fresh Rainier cherries to take with us hiking in the Olympic National Forest. Michael and I happily flew down the highway, deep into the woods snacking on cherries. Michael said he started to feel like he was having a reaction and by the time I pulled over and looked at him his eye was nearly swollen shut. It was the most terrifying feeling. I was so scared he was going into anaphylactic shock. And as a military wife, this feeling is compounded. Here is the man I love who has survived war, looking like he may die from a damn food allergy. It was infuriating.

After this incident and almost a year of these symptoms, he went to see a doctor. The doctor immediately diagnosed him with acid reflux. At the time Michael was working a very stressful position in the Army and we thought that the diagnosis, while it didn’t explain the scariest reaction, kind of made sense. A few more months later Thanksgiving 2010, Michael was snacking on carrots while my mom and I were cooking and suddenly his right eye began to swell again and he began coughing. We quickly got him some benadryl, our only defense, and the swelling and symptoms began to recede after several hours. We were so perplexed. When would these reactions end? And what exactly is he allergic to?

Finally, after Michael got out of the military he saw a doctor that explained that he may have Oral Allergy Syndrome. It seemed to make sense. In this syndrome, the protein compounds that you are allergic to mimic the proteins in some foods. So, since Michael was supposedly allergic to birch (though they never tested for this), he was also allergic to kiwi, apples, pears, peaches, plums, coriander, fennel, parsley, celery, cherries, carrots, hazelnuts, and almonds. The doctor informed Michael that he was probably now allergic to a couple different types pollen, but that testing for all of these individual allergies is prohibitively expensive, so his recommendation was to make a list of things that caused a reaction and just avoid them.  As insurance, he provided Michael with two Epi-pens and a benadryl prescription.  When asked how a 36 year old adult male in good health could become allergic to all nuts and all of these vegetables over a period of a few months he shrugged his shoulders and said that it is a mystery.

We have been working with and adapting to this diagnosis for a few years now. And by carefully reading every package label before we bring it into our home, we have been able to avoid most serious reactions. However, there have been some secondary effects that have called me to take action.

Yesterday at Whole Foods here in Bend was the final straw. We had hopped from Whole Foods to Whole Foods across the country knowing that we can find plant based and fully labeled food options there. But yesterday, the day before Veteran’s Day, I was reminded of the importance to educate the public. Michael got a breakfast burrito at Whole Foods and not mentioned on the label was that the cook had added carrots to this batch. Michael’s eye swelled up and since it was 9 in the morning, he spent the whole day in a benadryl haze.

I am furious at this point. I have watched my husband be laughed at by waiters, “Oh sure you are allergic to carrots, I am allergic to taxes” or worse yet, his allergies be ignored by people in the food industry that just don’t get it. The part that I cannot ignore is that I have watched all of this develop since the day he returned home from Iraq. This was not some organically developed event. I strongly believe that he may have been exposed to something while in the Army.

And this is where you can help! I am trying to get in touch with other soldiers and get the word out about this. I am sure there are other Veterans with a misdiagnosis or they may not be sure what is going on.

So instead of buying a $5 green light bulb, I am taking action to bring awareness to some of the lingering effects our Veterans cope with everyday.

I am still unsure it if was a bad thing or a great thing that I didn’t really blog as we traveled across the country this time. I guess it is evidence that we were in the moment and enjoying our time together. However, I still want to share some of the sights along the way.

Memphis Tennessee Drum Shop:

Route 66 Blue Whale: Catoosa, Oklahoma

Portrait of a Hipster: Oklahoma City

Fort Sill Oklahoma and the Wichita Mountains:

You know you are in Oklahoma when the first amenity listed is the storm shelter….

Santa Fe, New Mexico:

More to come as time permits 🙂

Leaving the house   

The rig   
Tis the season 

  
Sunrise in Nashville Tennessee   
For the past week we kept saying “we will research and plan our route tomorrow.” Only it seems tomorrow never came. Even as we leave Nashville we are still uncertain where our next stop will be. But it will probably be in the state of Oklahoma 🙂 

I LOVE driving across the country! And so does Abbey