The week that wasn't

So, there I was on Tuesday full of vim and vigor, energized, and in. the. zone.

Writing was coming easy. All I had to do was get through one last night of my weekly four-day gauntlet of running my son all over hither and yon and then I would have three full days to just write.

Three. Full. Days!

One last pickup from track practice. One last morning dropoff at school. And then I was free to go Full Metal Hemingway for 42.85% of a whole week!

Nothing could get in the way now!

And then I got a text from my son during track practice. He had hurt his leg, pulled himself out of practice. The trainer thought it might be a stress fracture.

On the way home, I ran him through what is now a fairly practiced Dad Triage where I ask a litany of questions about what hurts; where it is on the pain scale; what preceded it; how the pain came on; etc..

It was something maybe serious, maybe not. Either way, it wasn’t going to be resolved by morning drop-off.

Now, in theory, I didn’t need to be the one to run him somewhere to get it checked out. There isn’t anything special about driving him to a doctor which only I can do.

But there is an unsaid in our relationship. When shit goes wrong or can’t be left to possibly go wrong, I pick it up. It doesn’t matter whose “day it is” or where he is supposed to be that day. I pick it up. Every time. If someone needs to drop everything, I do it. It has always been that way.

So, there I was Wednesday morning at what was supposed to be the green flag for me to race off to write Very Excellent Things. Yet, there was no peeling out. Instead, there was me stuck in ‘park’ making phone calls looking for an open appointment.

This wasn’t my first rodeo. Oh, so many rodeos. If they gave you one of those little cards where they punch a hole after every visit, my son would be up to a free MRI by now. The kid really needs to stop rodeo’ing so hard.

I’m so practiced at navigating his injuries, I have it down to a science. The pacing of appointments. When to just get an X-ray at a clinic first… when to go straight to a doctor… when to go outside the practice to a top specialist… when to take a referral... and when to make the pro move of combining the first visit and X-ray because they are just going to lead to needing an MRI anyway and the quick first combo speeds things along by days.

My son’s latest injury called for exactly that fast-forward. I could feel it in my bones... none of which were possibly fractured.

Executing that fast-forwarding though? It ate up the entire day.

Took until 8 pm to have the radiologist’s report and pediatrician’s eval and reco all in hand.

On the bright side, there was no apparent stress fracture. But, ya know, ya can’t really be certain from an X-ray so… the reco was to see a specialist and get an MRI.

Like I said, not my first rodeo. Saw that coming from a corral away…

Meanwhile, my anxiously awaited three-day window was already down to two and at least one one of them was ticketed for another day of doctor wrangling.

Comforting self-talk began.

“You may have lost the first day but you still have the next and the next!! Fortune will assuredly smile on you now because to not do so would just be mean and petty. Plus the X-ray was negative, right, bro! This is like, one more day, tops, from being cleared up and then your son can play in the first game of the season this weekend and you can go be Steinbecky as shit tomorrow night and can then Faulkner the absolute fuck out of Friday.”

These were the things I told myself.

“One more scramble and this will be wrapped up in a tidy bow.”

This was a thing I told myself too.

In the meantime, there was the issue of my son having practice that evening and being fiercely opposed to missing it.

Now, here is where our story veers headlong into a Shakespearean drama caused solely by the protagonist’s own fatal flaws.

I could have just made my son skip practice and possibly the game. I could have just ruled him out.

He was vehemently opposed though and TBH, I didn’t blame him. He has worked long and hard to make this team and earn his spot in the lineup. He feels like he still has to prove himself and he just wanted to play. And I thought he deserved to if at all possible.

It is that last little bit that relates to my fatal flaw: “If at all possible”

When you’re motivated and resourceful and know you can get shit done quickly if you really want to, the aperture of what is “at all possible” opens way the hell up. Instead of decisions being simple binaries – like “can play” or “can’t play” - you instead see a variety of scenarios where it might conceivably be possible to play if a number of other things happen, conditions are met, and hurdles are cleared.

Knowing those scenarios and conditions and hurdles, the decision of whether to give him his best shot of playing comes down to “Am I willing to do the work?”

I am always willing to do the work. Always. I will never not be.

Listen, I entirely get that I am at the extreme end of the spectrum. I know that parents don’t always jump through every conceivable hoop just because they theoretically could. I know parents have lots of things to juggle and balance and not everything can be the top priority. And I know that’s perfectly reasonable.

And I fully know that maybe sometimes I should give myself permission to do less. But it’s like that old story about the scorpion and the frog. It is just my nature. I can’t unmake it my nature.

So, I fretted, deliberated, considered risks and rewards, and got advice… and then decided on a path I could live with which would got him to practice under certain conditions:

1.      We’d first get a consult from a great running place on shin splints; foot support; compression gear; and pre- and post-workout care

2.      He’d practice at less than 100% effort; test how his leg felt; and then pull himself out if the pain was significant or worsened

I had trepidations. I told him that. However, as the parent of a 15-year old, I’m mindful of the fact that my main job now is to prepare him to make good, sound, rational decisions for himself rather than me making them for him as if he can’t.

At some point, you have to trust your kids even when you know it would be way less stressful to simply step in and eliminate the risk.

Laid out the above to my son. He agreed to the terms. I had faith. Can’t say I wasn’t uneasy.

(I know this little injury wasn’t some huge deal. It wasn’t a critical decision about matters of life or death. He’d ultimately be fine either way… but it was one of the more difficult decisions I’ve had to make re: his injuries. Usually, I am decidedly on one side or the other. This time, I was torn. Could have benched him myself but felt like he had earned the trust to be allowed a chance to give it a go.)

So, he was cleared for practice under conditions – but those conditions meant I would have to run around all over hell and creation Thursday.

Hustled around to get an appointment with an orthopedist. Done.

Ran him to a running store to get fitted for better running shoes and arch supports and compression socks and a compression sleeve in case the issue proved to be shin splints. Done.

Ran to the dentist, the bank, and to the mechanic. Done, done, and done.

All I had left to do was pick up his soccer uniform in another town. Now, mind you, attempting to get that cursed apparel had already been a two-month clusterfuck requiring three store visits and ten phone calls to try to resolve. But the uniform was waiting for me now! They had left me a message and everything! All I had to do was pick it up!

And then I got to the location I had ordered from only to discover they had inexplicably shipped it to a different store.

So, then I ran off to that one - seven towns away - only to discover that what they had for me was a ‘unifo’ not a ‘uniform’. There were pieces missing.

By the time I dropped off my son for practice that day, I had spent eight hours running 100 miles of errands and all I had really accomplished was getting him set up to cautiously test out how he felt at practice that night.

Got home, ate something, fell asleep at 9:00 fully dressed with the lights on.

Woke up at midnight to a series of texts from my son saying his leg hadn’t felt better at practice, so he sat himself down.

Arrrrrghhhhhhhhhhh.

And with that, my three-day window was down to one. And there was already an orthopedist appointment on the calendar which would eat up half of it.

“Don’t worry, Mike! Friday will assuredly go smoothly, and you will definitely be able to squeeze in some writing time in the a.m. and then some more in the evening! Tomorrow, you’ll go from fits to Fitzgerald!”

This was a thing I told myself.

And then Friday came around and I got up and raced off to get coffee… and opened my wallet to discover my ATM card was gone. Spent two hours trying to get a temp replacement. Left the bank emptyhanded and with nothing to show for most of the morning.

By that point, I was entirely past my patience for the week’s endless bullshit.

Still, I had the last appointment to deal with… so, I collected my son and raced him off to the orthopedist’s office.

A forty-minute drive later, we reached the sprawling medical complex in which the aforementioned orthopedist works. Park; find the right building; find the floor; and step out into a massive waiting room for a slew of different departments and specialties.

By now, it’s almost 2:45 pm on a Friday. Which is also the last day of the work week. After which is the weekend. If we didn’t get seen then, we’d be out of luck until the following week.

Fortunately, we had an appointment which is a thing that is very sacred and official and must, of course, be honored as if it were a contract.

An appointment. Very binding. Like a contract.

And this is where it gets almost comical in a sort of “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles with me as the beleaguered Steve Martin who has had just about enough of everyone’s shit” kinda way.

I walk up to the check-in desk and the two people sitting at it.

Person 1: Who are you here to see?

Me: Dr. Smith. We have a 2:50.

Person 2: Dr. Smith? She left.

Me: I’m sorry… what?

Person 1: She left. She had to leave.

Me: I’m sorry… what?

Person 2: You should have gotten a phone call.

Me: I did not. (Which I thought was fairly conclusively evidenced by the fact that I was standing there in front of them.)

Person 1: Yeah, she left. So, she isn’t here.

[Wow, thanks for that, Helpful Person. I would have never been able to connect the dots between someone leaving and them not being there on my own.]

By now, my Sick of This Shit Meter was smackity-smack-smacking against the glass way over on the high end of the range like a meat thermometer that had been stuck directly into the sun.

So, I say… politely but as a statement not a question “Someone else from the practice will have to see us.”

Person 2: There isn’t anyone to see you.

Me: That won’t do. It’s Friday afternoon. We aren’t leaving without being seen.

Person 1: There isn’t—

Me: That won’t do. Call the practice manager. A doctor no-shows for an injury consult on a Friday afternoon? Is that a joke?

Person 2: Unfort—

Me: THAT. WON’T. DO. We’re here now. We aren’t getting blown off for the weekend. Get someone.

Then Person 1 shrugged and then got up and walked off through automatic double-doors that swung open from the middle in a very hospital-y kind of way. Clearly there were hospital-like things back there… and hospital-like people. I had no idea if Person 1 was truly going to find one of them or was instead going to talk shit about me and then produce a person prepped to make the sizable mistake of being the very last in line for the week to fuck with me.

A few minutes passed. And then a few more.

And then Person 2 called us back over to the desk.

Ready for this one…

I am still shaking my head about this one.

Person 2 says “Actually, Dr. Smith is here. She’ll be out in a minute.”

Dr. Smith. Is. Here.

She’ll. Be. Out. In. A. Minute.

That entire back-and-forth complete with multiple “That won’t do’s”?

Yeah, they were wrong. She hadn’t left. She was there the whole time.

At that point, my soul just became cauterized to the world’s unceasing fuckery and across my body spread an existential numbness indifferent to joy or pain.

And in that new state, I just stared at Person 2 blankly for a minute, shook my head, and walked away.

Had I not refused to leave, we would have missed our appointment.

So, off we go through those double-doors that swing open from the middle in a very hospitaly kind of way. And behind them WERE hospital-like things and hospital-like people. One of them came in and gathered basic info… and then Dr. Smith came in and she was very nice and communicative and did an exam and consulted the x-rays from two days prior and then explained her evaluation well and gave us the bottom-line.

And that bottom-line just sucked.

My son did not have a stress fracture but likely had some bone weakening which could lead to a stress fracture if not allowed to heal which would take weeks or upwards of a month and might possibly require wearing a boot. And knowing how serious the damage was would require an MRI.

The best case was two weeks… which meant he was definitely out for this weekend’s game and the big tournament the following weekend that was to be his first big one requiring travel and a hotel and a couple nights away.

And there went all of the wind right out of both of our sails.

His hopes. My three days of trying to somehow make them possible. Whooosh…

For him, it was a kick in the pants after working towards something all winter. For me, it was the dejection of having dropped everything and then raced at full effort only to have the wind die after the last buoy leaving you dead in the water.

Damn you, rain.

After all that:

1)      My son doesn’t have a stress fracture but that may be a distinction without a difference. The recovery may be just as long or longer. Hurt right before the first game. Man, that stinks.

2)      My 72 hours to hunker down and write were instead a wall-to-wall shitshow with nothing to show for it.

The only one of those two that really matters is the first. My angst is just that. I’ll be fine.

Truth be told though, the evaporation of something I had been looking forward to just sucked... and not because those three days were going to be life-changing or the most important in even my month.

It’s just that I am so entirely burned out on a very, very, very long repeated pattern of telling myself “…if I can just get through this, it will get easier…” only to get through it and then get hit with something else that pulls me aaaaaaaaaall the way back to the start of another “…if I can just…”.

Over the last ten years, getting through each “this” took months or even years… and, every single time, just when I was supposed to get to exhale, some new “this” swept in which would itself take months or years to get past.

It was just a few days. I was just really looking forward to it though more than I have looked forward to whatever time I had to write other weeks. Don’t ask me why. I just was. I had momentum. I was making progress at clawing away from the stressful abyss I wrote about in Notes from Midair. I had some wind at my back… and then like a million other times, it immediately turned back into my face and then died leaving me with nothing to show for all that running into the wind.

I am just exhausted from that repeated phenomenon. I just am.

Wait, what is that colory thing in the sky?

So, we both left the orthopedist’s office dejected… and as is always the case, my focus was really on my son’s disappointment. Talked with him about how the layoff wouldn’t set him back and he’d get back on the field and be back to where he left off in no time... and how it would all work itself out. It will. That isn’t great consolation when you’re fresh off bad news with an element of uncertainty though.

Dropped him off wishing I could have done more to make him feel better. And then drove home sulking about how my window had now closed too.

With nothing to do but look ahead, I texted him to ask how he felt about maybe going away for a few days. Maybe take his mind off soccer. He sent back a quick text saying he was up for that.

And then I remembered that this upcoming week, he is off from school. It’s spring break. I hadn’t thought about that because he had been scheduled to have a game, three practices, and then a tournament. We had already long ruled out being able to go anywhere. Even for a couple nights.

Now, though… even if for lousy reasons, his entire spring break week had just opened up.

So, in the last few hours of what was supposed to be my blessed three-day window, I got on the computer and started looking around and doing research and coming up with possibilities. It’s so last minute, flights to most destinations are too expensive. And even when they aren’t, the hotels are.

There were only a couple places where neither the flights nor the hotels were inflated by the short notice.

Ran them by my son and then we picked one: New Orleans

I have to nail down the details but the bottomline is that in a couple days, we’re getting on an airplane and going away for a few days together. It will be the first real vacation we’ve had since almost two years ago.

It will be only the second time he and I have gotten on an airplane together.

It will be the first time, we were doing so to go on vacation.

All of those times I spent telling myself “If I can just get through this, it will get easier”… the light at the other end of the tunnel – the thing I held onto as what was waiting up ahead in better times – was taking a real vacation with my son with a flight and a stay and different weather.

There was a reason why that was the little stone I kept in my pocket and polished smooth by rubbing my thumb across it as an act of faith.

Childhoods are like strings of Christmas lights. A long wire that stretches over weeks, months, and years dotted periodically by bright pops of colors. The things you remember. The things that stand out. Your everyday, normal life is the wire. You remember it in a vague, general way. The events though… the things that were big or novel or exciting… those you remember as a bright bulb that stands out on the strand.

I gave up everything I had to make that long wire solid and strong and stable. I couldn’t afford the trips that I knew he would remember as bright flashes. But he had them without me. He went to Spain to visit his grandmother and went away with his other parent. I consoled myself with the fact that my job, as I saw it, was to ensure he had a complete childhood even if that meant I had to focus on the wire and give up being in the scenes light up by colorful bulbs.

That hurt though. Not gonna lie. I never gave much of a shit about anything I had to give up. I never cared about what I had to do without. I cared about this.

I cared about the missed opportunities… I cared about the relegation to being the vague Christmas spirit throughout his childhood while not getting to be there for the things most brightly remembered.

Now, we get to add a bulb to the line.

Cheap flights. A hotel. Shorts and shortsleeves while its still cold at home. Crawfish and jazz and beignets. Mother’s and Acme and Cochon. Stella’s and the Pink Slipper for breakfasts.

My son wishes he was playing. I do too.

Since he can’t, we’re going away.

And I think that will be just what the doctor ordered. For both of us.

All of those times I thought “If I can just get through this…”

Well, I did. I got through it. And I got through the next thing and the thing after that.

And all of those times I thought “…things will get better.”

Well, maybe they have.