Defining Moments in Life

Defining Moments in Life

(By the way...that's canned spinach.)

I have been woefully absent from blogging for a time. Frankly I was trying to think about what new direction to take. Although I find my continuing recovery fascinating, I am sure others do not find it so.

“Really?” I imagine them saying. “She’s alive, isn’t she?”

Well, yes, that’s true. Although I will concede that a continuing, long- term recovery is not nearly as fascinating as a near-death experience. But you try it. It requires intense focus to stay in your warrior mode. You do get burned out and bored with it all. You want, more than anything, to return to “normal” whatever that was…however dysfunctional or tedious.

By the way, it occurs to me that all of us are in long-term recovery. Quitting smoking, dieting, dealing with depression or even tedious relatives. It’s the same thing.

I did have a bit of a moment over Mother’s Day. My sodium dropped to a dangerous level because of the meds leaching the sodium off. And so I was gradually feeling worse and worse, tired and dispirited. Finally, I was thrown into the hospital for some IV sodium.

I covered my panic beautifully. I dropped into my charming, amusing act without missing an opportunity to be winsomely funny. I won them all over…encouraging the staff to think I was this delightful person who just needed her fluid levels checked.

Inside, I was a mess. I do NOT recommend an overnight hospitalization after your last experience was traumatic. It would be something like taking a person with PTSD back just to “visit” the war zone. Not to minimize the person with PTSD, which I immediately acknowledge is worse. But work with me here.

So, I was simply bat-shit crazy. Had flashbacks to the hospital in Dallas. I knew my cheerfulness was all an act, a feeble attempt to push the darkness back. The good news was that the fresh sodium left me feeling great. The bad news was that I was crazier than usual.

And, if you want to feel really drunk without any alcohol, may I recommend letting your sodium get super low then get on a pump with saline solution. You are positively giddy.

And so now that I am somewhat returned, I’ve been thinking about a new series of blog posts and have decided on “Defining Moments in Life”…those moments big and small that you cannot forget. Frankly, I’m not so interested in the big moments. I am more interested in the small ones.

Here’s one.

My family of origin ate vegetables. Not to an enthusiastic level, but still. Potatoes, always, and in all forms. One other one…corn, peas, and green beans (canned). Sliced tomatoes in the summer. Salads with iceberg lettuce with the occasional carrot, covered with Wish Bone Italian dressing.

Then there were some odd ones. My mother and sister loved radish sandwiches. Radishes sliced thin, on buttered white bread. Inexplicable. They salted cantaloupe, which I hated until I figured out that no-salt cantaloupe is delicious. The only fresh peppers were green, which I still cannot stand. Red, yellow, orange…great.

Then there was the dreaded canned spinach. I have no idea why this shit was ever invented. This is genuinely disgusting, Popeye notwithstanding. Mother would serve this up, with dribbles of vinegar.

As a kid I remember thinking…”What the hell IS this?” (Please bear in mind that one of my first words was “nang” which they finally figured out was “DAMN”.)

Canned spinach with vinegar is inedible. One memorable evening I was determined I would NOT eat this. My mother, a formidable woman, was equally determined that I WOULD. Argument ensued. As I remember it, the argument was of epic proportions that ended with me in tears, eating the spinach. Then I promptly went to the bathroom and threw it up. My father stopped the nonsense and I was never required to eat spinach again.

And so, why is this a defining moment?

First, I learned that eating (or doing) something you REALLY don’t want to do will make you sick.

Second, I learned that bearing down hard on little children is an awful thing to do.

And this is why this is a defining moment. It informed my parenting style forever. I simply could not pressure my children like that. For good or bad. And sometimes I wimped out when I SHOULD have been tougher. Sometimes I didn’t demand they do something they should have done because I just didn’t have the starch to enforce an edict. For example, eating vegetables. So sue me. At least they eat them now.  

I am lucky my children didn’t know about the spinach. They would probably have taken even more advantage of my lack of backbone on this topic. As it was, aside from largely ignoring vegetables, they were generally did what they needed to do, although they often cheated on brushing their teeth. I should have been a more vigilant cop on that.

But they have turned out well. They are both unusually creative and smart. Somewhat eccentric. I always blame their father for that, but my friends and family laugh at me. I think it is my fault. And my mother’s. She’s the one who made me eat the damn spinach.