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This post feels particularly topical. The tug of war between, am I being difficult, too sensitive, or is this something I absolutely need to speak up about; is a cycle I am only starting to break in my late 30's.

I’ll give some significant examples in no particular order. Not for sympathy, but for gravity and reflection in hopes that we all give a little more attention and compassion to people when they are suffering even if we don’t understand it.

Example 1. I paid attention to the first warning sign my rib might be broken, I heard it crack but didn’t feel any pain for hours after- just a tiny bruise on my back. I went ahead and made my way to the doctor, x-ray was clear, was told it was a sprain.

So I ignored the second crack I heard, but did decide to rest for a whole week. First day back, my class mate and I heard a large pop on my other side, but there wasn't any pain. I went on to choking out my instructor, literally seconds later, still no pain. But as the day wore on it began to ache. Convinced I dislocated something, because it was a pop and not a crack, you see- I went to the Chiropractor. A bone doctor would know, he is a bone doctor after all! Gave him the whole run down. He proceeded to adjust me anyways, and it was excruciating (most likely giving me those other smaller fractures) but I am not a doctor. So, I kept powering through the pain. It hurt when I breathed too deep, coughed, or sneezed. I even drank so much one night I was hungover and puking that morning was ridiculously painful. But I kept just dealing with it. Went to yoga and did a twist that tweaked something just when I was starting to feel better, but this time, I said screw it, took my muscle relaxers and ibuprofen and went to class- had just followed up from the first visit the day before, still was told it was most likely muscle sprains even though they ran no testing. Ignored the pain again, chalked it up to not being quite healed, and me apparently being a giant baby.

The next time I heard my third crack- I tried to play it cool, slowly left the mat, to quietly sob in the shower, but drove straight to the hospital. They tried not to examine me again, this time I demanded that they look closer. I wasn't making this up, I was in pain!! They had me integrated by an officer, asked me if I was being abused. I should have screamed. Instead, I politely assured them I wasn't and to please look closer. Finally, CT scan later, 4 moderate fractures/broken ribs and 8 smaller fractures along my left rib cage that had begun to heal. three on my left side and 1 on my right side. I ignored what my body was telling me and second guessed my pain tolerance (which has always been high) but told myself I had gone to the dr they knew what they were talking about, not me. Still I should have made more of fuss and probably could have prevented the injury being as bad as it is. It still only hurts a little when I’m sneezing or coughing. Hard to believe how bad it is when I feel fine most of the time besides some dull persistent aches.

Other times in life, I’ve ignored my gut when it’s come to people or situations where I felt afraid, unsafe, told myself I was being too sensitive. To let certain things go- and it turned into much worse experience.

Example 3. My daughter, she would laugh about how she wasn’t going to make it pass her twenties. She would say it would be her nana that found her. After so many cries of wolf, we became numb to it. We would scold her, tell her it wasn’t funny. We always told her we loved her, but I don’t think we really understood what she was saying. I was taught to dismiss my own pain, and so as it goes, many times I dismissed hers. After so many times in the hospital or accidentally overdosing, instead of being concerned- we became angry. Didn’t she she know she was robbing everyone of their peace and serenity, didn't she understand how expensive these hospital bills were? How could she be so selfish... how could we be so insensitive. Now, she is gone, and everyone keeps saying we never thought this would happen... She was my daughter, and I thought it. It would wake me up at night, like apart of me knew it was coming. She had been telling us the whole time, and we stopped listening. We thought she was just going through a phase. She in her second year of collage and loving it. She seemed like she was finally coming into some emotional maturity. She was finally comfortable with herself, a young woman.

Her nana did find her after all, passed away in her room. An accidental fentanyl overdose. She was 20 years old. I wonder a lot about what would have happened if we would have listened more deeply, hugged her a little tighter. If I spent more time trying to understand her than lecturing her, if she’d still be here. I’d give anything to have her still mad at me and alive than not here.

There are so many moments when I’ve whistled passed the graveyard and it’s worked in my favor, but when it hasn’t worked out, none have hurt as much as losing her.

I really liked this post, Andrew. Lots to reflect upon today.

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This is incredibly powerful stuff, Kaiha. Thank you for sharing. I'm glad the piece has given you an intellectual mirror of sorts!

That's certainly one of my personal goals: to be able to think through important moments of my life, and, not so much to relive them, but instead to learn lessons that might apply in the future. I want this place to be a helpful place for reflective thought, first and foremost.

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I saw Screamin’ Jay Hawkins at Wong’s West in 1984. To say that man had a booming voice would be a vast understatement.

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Good lord. I was building Transformers from paper and picking my nose in '84. Would LOVE to travel through time to see Jay pay live!

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His career had been revived that year thanks to a movie called Stranger Than Paradise, by Jim Jarmusch.

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1. Screamin' Jay! 🙂

2. I learned of the Challenger disaster from my 6th period, freshman year geography teacher.

3. I don't say anything after someone's sneezes. My middle school social studies teacher told us that it started during the time of the Salem Witch Trials and they thought the sneeze was expelling an evil spirit from your body. I thought that was goofy. My parents didn't instruct us to say or do anything. It seems like some people are offended if you don't bless them. *shrug*

4. I wish that I could WPTG more.

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I heard something along those lines, and immediately concluded that "bless you" was dumb. I drew a similar conclusion about the Pledge of Allegiance - kids were forced to stand. Forced to... PLEDGE allegiance? Even when I was a kid, I knew that wasn't a thing.

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I have struggled with this to some extent and it’s only now in the second half of life that I can contemplate whistling at all!

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Better late than never, right? It took me decades to discover a lot of things about the world, but I'm glad they're with me now.

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I like ‘all in good time’ even better!

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I’ve never heard this saying before! I love it though. Definitely will be using it from now on.

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Love your essay Andrew. I personally spent years WPTG during my addictive years of drinking and drugging. I knew deep down that one wrong step could land me in prison or the grave. I’ve recovered from that now.

I feel like our entire country is whistling past the graveyard right now as it relates to our porous borders.

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Dee, I'm 100% certain I did this too, and I bet I'm doing it in other ways. It will probably continue to manifest, and getting outside of ourselves from time to time (and being receptive to others) is really the only way to make this clear, I think. I'm so glad this resonated with you!

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Screamin' Jay was a real character- funny and scary at the same time.

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Nov 13, 2023
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That's up there with "soup nazi" or "festivus for the rest of us."

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Nov 13, 2023
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I used to be able to do this, tit-for-tat, but I stopped watching TV altogether from about 1997 until 2010ish (not the worst time to take a break, in retrospect). TV is SO good now!

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