The Light through the Darkness

Kelsey Nicole, 5/28/86 - 6/20/09

I'm done being sad about the Penguins.  The rest of you can carry on with it if you want to.  I want nothing more to do with the incessant whining of the fan base about everything from who got fired to how it got announced that he got fired (seriously, that debate happened:  who the hell cares?!).  I'm choosing to move on. Summer is here - we kind of hope anyway - and there's a lot to do.  Summer movies, yard work, art festivals, more yard work, walks along the rivers, gardening, the job, running errands and pulling weeds.  You get the picture.  Life is hectic.  Life does not allow for a whole lot of time to reflect, and I've decided I'm spending too much of it concentrating on championships that aren't going to happen and mean-spirited neighbors who don't like dogs.

What I'd rather concentrate and reflect on is the amazing outpouring of support my daughter and I received recently when we signed ourselves up for what will be only the second NEDA Walk in Pittsburgh, the day after the fifth anniversary of losing my oldest daughter after her nine year battle with her eating disorder.  When we saw the date, we both got chills.  There has to be more than coincidence going on there, even to a cynical person such as myself.  So, I wasted no time in signing myself up, which automatically sets up a donation page.  I posted about it online and within minutes, a long time and dear friend had made a donation.  Within just a couple of hours, more people had joined her and my goal was met.  Since then donations have kept coming in, some from people I know are stretching their wallets to find the money.  Friends of mine, sure, but friends of my daughter from before the disease took hold who have remembered her for who she was, not the disease, which twisted her psyche and made her hard to love much of the time.  Friends of my younger daughter have donated, who is recovered from her own eating disorder, even though they are mostly young people trying to get established in life, so finding some extra dollars for a donation like that can be a challenge.  Others have picked up the link and shared it.  In summary, I am overwhelmed at the love and support we received.  It's more than the money, and I think a lot of the people who donated know that.  Now we have a purpose.  Now we have a reason to power through what will be a horribly tough anniversary.  And we'll remember my lost daughter in a positive way on that day.

Why is this walk important?  Because, simply put, this disease is a killer.  A destroyer maybe not of worlds, but of bright and promising futures.  It's hard to get a number on how many people (men suffer from ED too) just in the United States suffer from the disease, and the estimates vary wildly.  The reason for that is it's under-reported.  Particularly in men.  So I can't tell you if it's truly 8 million or 10 or even more than that.  But one thing every site and expert will agree on, it carries the highest mortality rate or any mental illness.  The NEDA website states, "For females between fifteen to twenty-four years who suffer from anorexia nervosa, the mortality rate associated with the illness is twelve times higher than the death rate of all other causes…”  That's an under-reported statistic too, sadly, since many people like my daughter will have causes other than ED as the primary cause of death, but, as I once wrote, something else may have pushed her over the cliff, but we all know what it was the drove her to it.

And, in Pittsburgh, ED lives in the shadows.  It's there.  I've known people from here who have battled it.  But they've gone elsewhere to do it.  There is a budding support system, but for a major metropolitan area, it's woefully lacking.  I noticed, as I think I told you, that when we went to Harrisburg to advocate for legislation to educate parents about the disease, we were the only two representatives from the western half of the state.  I have a theory about the tough steel town demeanor of the people here not allowing them to admit to the fact that a disease like ED, often misunderstood as to its origins, exists here.  But it does.  In both sexes.  So this is an important walk because it brings some attention to a true serial killer.  And because I love this town, I want to fight for it to be better.  And because I love my daughter, I want to honor her by fighting in her name.

I love all of you so much who have understood that donated to help make that happen.

If anyone else wants to, this is my donation page.

If you're in the area and want to join the walk, find out more on the Pittsburgh NEDA Walk Facebook page or visit the NEDA website.

The Aftermath

I love my Pens

For a number of years I wrote another blog that evolved into walking my readers through the journey grief takes you on.  I wrapped it up and flopped over here to try and start a new chapter in my life.  Of course, I'm still me at the core, so some of those same themes have come with over with me.  And one of the things I wrote about a lot was using sports as a "tool" to cope with loss.  I cautioned readers about doing that too fully, but I didn't always follow my own advice.  I never have.  Long ago, before even all the personal drama began, I was a co-dependent fan.  Sometimes that was funny, sometimes it was perhaps a little heartbreaking, mostly it was probably just pathetic.  I'm the woman who had to excuse herself and go into the laundry room after the Steelers lost to the Patriots in the championship game in early 2002 so I could cry.  And I didn't just cry a little.  I sobbed.  My heart ached not just because I wanted it for myself, but because I wanted it so badly for all the players.  I wanted Coach Cowher to go back to the Super Bowl and win it this time.  I wanted it because I hate the Patriots and their smug, model-handsome quarterback and evil, cheating coach (although, I've confess that none of us knew he cheated back then).  I feel like every hurt "my" team suffers cuts me as well.  I've got some major boundary issues.  But, what I know now is that I am far from alone.  And moving here has put a big point on that fact.

So along come the Penguins and it's just one more sports franchise I blur the lines with.  Don't get me wrong and don't go calling the police to tell them I'm a stalker - I've got enough issues over the barking dog thing.  I don't look for players when I'm out.  If I happen to see one - we did bump into a few young Steelers one morning at Deluca's last fall - I try not to harass them or hold them up.  They're human beings with things to do and places to go; I don't need to get in the way of that.  They give me what I want and ask of them when they suit up and take the field or the ice.  But I do "care" for them and feel protective of them because what it is they give me is a lot of joy.  An escape from all the worldly cares I have for a few hours.  They give me a feeling that I belong to a larger community than just little ol' me:  I am a member of the Steelers Nation, for example.  I feel they've earned my loyalty in return.

But in sports, as in life, a little rain will fall.  And there will be moments that are tough and cause us to share in disappointments. This week is such a time.  Literally and figuratively.  The Penguins are out of the playoffs in a shocking series loss to the Rangers when they had them on the ropes at one point leading 3 games to 1.  Therefore, you can imagine there is some fan grumbling.  If you're from outside the area what you likely can't imagine is the level and acidity of the grumbling.  It's like every single Penguin, Sidney Crosby included, personally stabbed everyone's beloved grandmother in the heart with a screwdriver and is getting away with it.  For me, the venom in the remarks people are making just adds to my own personal disappointment.  I tried turning on the radio after Boston also lost in their game 7 thinking that might mitigate things:  I lasted three minutes before I had to turn it off again.  The talk I did hear was centered on whether the Pens should hire Mike Babcock to replace Dan Bylsma.  Seriously?  I could live with that choice, no doubt, but think about what you're saying:  he barely got his team into the playoffs and they were ousted in the last round.  Why do you suddenly think he's the savior of the franchise?  Even if you can answer that, what makes you think he's stupid enough to even take this job?  I wouldn't.  Because the expectations here are just unreal, and if you don't deliver, the fan base will turn on you like the Hulk losing control.

I've written elsewhere about the Pittsburgh psyche when it comes to sports.  There was a huge loss of identity and prestige when the steel industry fell.  Men who had worked hard all their lives to provide for their families were suddenly brought down low by unemployment with no other skills or even jobs available to turn to.  So, the Steelers rise in the 70's gave them back some pride and a reason to smile.  We became the City of Champions, not the dirty, failed city along three rivers.  But we've never let that identity go.  People haven't seemed to separate what happens on the field with what happens to them.  It's an amazing electricity when the teams are winning as a result.  But when they lose...  Let's just say, I would leave town for a few days myself if I could just to get away from it, I hope every single member of the Penguins organization has packed some bags and hit the road.

But I sit here and look at the cup (pun somewhat intended) and see it half full.  I seem to be the only one.  I see a team that's made it to the playoffs eight years running.  I see a team that's won its division two years in a row, made it to the eastern finals last year and is a three time Stanley Cup winner overall.  I see great and talented players who we're lucky to get to come see in person 40+ times a year in a beautiful facility.  I am so proud to be a Penguins fan.  I'm just not terribly proud of the rest of my fellow fans right now.

I admit it, I cried like a baby after the game.  My husband asked me to call him, knowing I was here alone and that I would take it hard.  I couldn't. I didn't want to talk even if I thought I could.  I knew it meant that it'll be at least one more year before I can get that cup year back that I lost in 2009.  It's one more May and June that I won't have Penguins playoff hockey to distract me through rough reminders of all the others things I've lost in my life.  But, I was right when I cautioned all of us here a few weeks ago:  our days march on much as they would if the series had gone another way.  Our daily routines are much the same one way or the other. Now we just have more time to go see Godzilla.  Trying to be so loud and so angry that people are fired as a result doesn't change much, now does it?  It just keeps us all from moving on past it.  And don't think it means there's an automatic Stanley Cup in the immediate future, even though I do think the Penguins organization will have no choice but to bow to public pressure.  Again, I keep saying it, look at all the coaches the Capitals have had and how many championships?  Be really careful what you wish for, people.

But anyway, the moral to the story is:  thank you Pittsburgh for teaching me some perspective.  I have learned that there is no value in wringing my hands over something I don't control.  The team lost.  I'm disappointed.  But, you know what, I'm choosing to count my blessings and move on.  The rest of you should do the same.

I don't about the rest of you, but I'll be back next year to see more puck drops

May Day!

From better, younger days

I've had my ups and downs since I've become single.  Or separated.  Or whatever-the-hell-this-is.  I've had days where it's been sort of peaceful.  That whole complete control of the remote control kind of thing.  There have been other days when it's been a nightmare of epic proportions.  Like the days when I was so sick a few weeks ago that I thought I'd rather die than feel that badly for another moment, but I had dogs and cats and work all to contend with.  My daughter did a great job to help when she could, but she couldn't be here the whole time.  The times on my own when I couldn't walk the dogs - heck, I could barely muster the strength to feed them - that I got to thinking that this whole thing was going to beat me.  Then came May.  Trying to decide on a roofing contractor, a lawn mower that won't start, the whole dog barking complaint situation.  Well, let's just say, it's not getting any better.  And it's just a rough month on principal.  For all of us.  It's Mother's Day for one thing:  that not-so-lovely reminder that I'm half the mother I used to be.  Then it's my daughter's birthday at the end of the month.  The daughter who isn't here to help her sister with me when I'm sick because she's sitting on a corner shelf in a black and gold metal container.  Not trying to be maudlin.  That's just the fact of it.  So, anyway, in case you were wondering, the only party going on at my house is a pity party.  It's not any better in my husband's neck of the woods, so I've avoided calling him to tell him that his failure to change his driver's license cost me $2,000 because I have to pay state income taxes on him.  (Apparently you can live in another state for a long period of time without being an actual resident of it by the simple act of being too lazy to go down to the DMV - wish I'd known that when I moved her and I could have dodged that stupid  EIT tax for a while.)  Another burden to bear alone for now so I can try to let him deal with his own issues.  Life is tossing some interesting challenges my way at the moment.  I'm worried I'm not up to them, and I'm wondering how all the women I know who are single, some by choice, some by circumstance, do it.  And they seem pretty happy -well, some of them at least - about it.  And all of them seem to handle it better than I am at the moment.

I keep thinking back to a conversation I had some years ago with someone at work who was going through a rough patch in her marriage.  I remember telling her in such earnestness that I felt that marriage had outlived its original purpose.  The practical reason for the convention, which had served our ancestors well during times when life was a manual struggle that took two people working constantly to try and manage, is long gone.  Women can earn their own living, go where they want, do what they want and hire contractors to help do what they can't.  None of us, male or female, I argued, needed another person to make them or allow them to be a whole person.  I was arguing my point because I wasn't fond of her husband and was passively urging her to leave him.  But more than that really was the fact that I believed what I was saying.  Now I think back on that and wonder if I was right.  Not that I'm sure that I'm wrong either.  I'm admittedly confused.

Now I wonder if marriage persists into the 21st century because we somehow know in our heart of hearts that it's not so much about the physical labor any longer, but the emotional tolls that are better shared by two than born by one.  That and the fact that with the cost of living, it takes two incomes to keep a roof over one's head.  One that doesn't leak or grow moss anyway.

There is a lot of brain damage that comes with marriage.  It's hard.  But is it better than the alternative?  Is the very fact that there is someone to share the blame with when you make a bad choice of contractors worth fighting over how many hours of hockey at night is going to be on the main television versus how many hours of endless droning on MSNBC?  What is the worth of having someone there to hold you when you make the fateful decision that one of your loyal dogs shouldn't suffer any more?  Does it outweigh the ability to say, "Screw it, I'm going to that Sunday night playoff game!" and not have someone there to guilt you out of it.

I'm not sure about any of it.  That's life I guess.  Do any of us really have the answers to most things?  I don't actually think so.  We sort of lumber on day by day and figure it all out as we go.  All I know for sure is I have such a respect, like never before, for all the single people I know.  You have earned that coveted singular possession of the remote control.  Use it wisely.

 

Dear Neighbor

Is this a face only a mother could love?  Apparently it comes with a voice that's not so lovable...

To My Anonymous Neighbor,

Whoever you may be, you are a coward.  I can't really say it any kinder than that.  So let me just tell you what your cowardice has cost me so far.  First of all, I had a policeman come to my door unexpectedly a few days ago.  Do you know the last time a uniformed official came to my door unexpectedly?  It was in the mountains of West Virginia in the early morning hours of June 21, 2009 to bring me the news that my daughter was dead.  So, chew on that for a moment and imagine what that moment was like for me.  You ass.

Notwithstanding the deep trauma he unleashed in me, he couldn't have been nicer, this bearer of bad news that I am being cited for being a public nuisance.  Or rather, I am being cited because my dog is the nuisance.  He proceeds to tell me, just as gently and politely as he could, that there was an "anonymous" complaint the night before about my dog barking.  He came over and indeed my collie Ripley was outside and she barked at him.  Of COURSE she did.  A strange man walks into my back yard and that's sort of what I expect my dog to do.  Apparently the whole time he was there, which he states was about 15 minutes (and isn't that irony for you:  I have no doubt she would not have been barking for 15 minutes straight had he not been baiting her by lurking around my house - hope you had fun listening to that).  I confess, I never heard her or him; I was watching the Pens game in the basement.  But, I've got to tell you, having a police officer come up to my door before the sun sets was traumatic enough, had I seen him lurking in my back yard, well, that would have been far worse.

But, here's the thing, I work from home, and I am home at night (unless I'm at a game, in which case Ripley is in).  She's not out for extended periods of time and not out but very rarely after 11 PM, so the fact that, as he tells it, police have been called about her several times really flummoxes me.  He admits that they've never been able to verify the complaint before that night when, it seems to me, she was entrapped.  I also could not get times and dates for those earlier complaints.  So, I'm left wondering when she's problematic and why.  Is it just because you're a hyper sensitive anti-dog individual who flinches every time she yips at all?  Or are you a day sleeper maybe and she's keeping you awake now that I was trying to let her have some freedom after a long, harsh winter?  She sleeps with me every night, so I know it's not because she's out in the middle of the night.  I know, I know:  all dogs owners think their dogs are angels and they never are bothered by their sounds, smells and behaviors, but I truly am not far from mine much of the time at all.  So therefore, here I sit, not really knowing what about her behavior troubles you to the point you'd like to see me hauled into court (because that's what is happening) like a common criminal and have to try and fight a $675.00 fine.  And I still won't know when I do go to court because you won't be there because you won't go on record as to who you are, and that is allowable by the township where I live apparently.

I would like to resolve the issue, not for your sake at this point and under these circumstances, but because I love my dog and don't want her to be at risk in any way.  I've been told I could risk losing her if the complaints keep coming.  I can tell you, whoever you are, that won't happen.

Had you come to me, I get that it would have been uncomfortable.  Not that I would have been mad at you under those circumstances, but I would have been embarrassed that you felt like you had to.  But, then I would have known what about her behavior upsets you, and I could have taken steps to fix it right away.  I could have baked you cookies, or brought over a bottle of wine as small recompense and followed-up to make sure she was doing better.  We could have opened up a dialog so I would know if she and I relapsed.  But, as it stands I ask you to consider that all you've done here is make me ashamed, embarrassed and extremely angry.  I look at everyone with suspicion now and wonder if that's the one who is so callous as to not face me.  I am uncomfortable and unhappy in my own home.  I don't let any of the dogs out without escorting them and they're confined indoors now except for brief little breaks, even though it's finally spring and I would like them to be able to enjoy the outdoors.  That's not fair to them, but the alternative of having to fight to even keep them isn't a risk worth taking.

I have made a sincere effort to be a good neighbor.  I shovel the walks and drives for the two widows next to me and take their newspapers to their doors when the weather's bad.  Even when I had the flu.  I try to clean up after the dogs, I try not to let them do their business on the lawns where I know people don't want them (I admit, that's not always been successful), I let people ask me what's wrong with my Penguins and laugh like it's not a painful question.  But my guess is, being only a flawed human with hurt feelings, I'll think twice before exerting myself to do any of that, and that's just sad.  I can also tell you, I'm not likely to turn the other cheek when the guy across the street decides to work on his motorcycle at 2 in the morning, or the couple next door have a drunken party that extends past midnight when I've got to get up at 6 the next morning.  Ideally, I would like to be gone from this neighborhood before any of that happens again, but I looked into that, I reacted that strongly to all of this, and economically I think we're stuck together for a couple more years, sort of like the original plan was.  Of course, then it was about getting me a kitchen larger than a postage stamp.  Now it'll be about putting my neighbors in my rear view mirror.  Again, which is sad, because it's not them collectively.  And before all this, my little family and I liked it here.  No, it's you.  Whoever "you" happens to be.

I would like to work past the anger, not for your sake, but because it's just a rot that does nothing but eat away at me.  So, I'll work on not hating you for my own sake.  I'll keep Ripley under lock and key for hers.  But, the fact remains, you are a coward, and I felt you should know what the price of that is.

Sincerely,

Your Neighbor

Because It's the Cup

I'm tired of talking about weighty subjects.  Primarily, I'm just tired.  It's taking most of my energy just to breathe, for one thing.  Whatever is wrong with me being still wrong with me, now with the addition of a rather alarming rash that has so far spared my face, but that's about it, which I assume is a side effect of one of the medications I'm taking.  But, what can one do?  Persevere, that's what.  But I'd love a break from the kinds of issues that I've been pondering lately and just relax, but there's something looming in the way.  Something that is causing me to lose sleep and become anxious.  Something that makes me want to crawl in a hole and hide for the next eight weeks.  It's the NHL playoffs.

Most hockey fans live for this time of the year.  But not me.  Truth be told, I hate the playoffs.  There's just way too much pressure in this town and on this team.  I have my own reasons why I desperately want the Pens to win - over and above just wanting them to do well and vicariously inflate my ego when they do because I can say I'm so wonderfully smart to have chosen such a winning team.  Those haven't changed since I wrote about them last year.  But, it's more than that.  It's this obscene level of expectation that we have around here and how nasty it can become when the team doesn't live up to the level the fans expect.

I get it to a degree.  We've got the greatest player on ice right now, backed up by the rest of the team that's loaded with talent.  We should dominate.  Or that's the prevailing thought anyway.  But, my point of view is that if it was so easy to win a professional sports championship, then everyone would have multiples of them.  It's not.  It's a lot of things combined:  talent, coaching, the opposing team, how healthy the team is, how tired they are (notably in an Olympic year), and a little bit of luck.  Hockey is a streaky sport.  We all know that.  You get hot in the playoffs and sometimes it's you raising the cup when no one else expected it.  Ask the Kings.  Sometimes your luck runs out and you fizzle when you're expected to go deep.  Ask the President's Trophy Capitals from the 2009/2010 season.  But I know the potential is there for the Penguins every year, and I've been as guilty as anybody in expecting too much.  I turned to my husband at one point during the season two years ago and actually said out loud, "You might as well hand us the Cup right now."  He just looked at me.  I assume his thought at the time was along the lines of, "Oh, if I had a nickel for every time I've thought that about the Cowboys and the playoffs since 1995."  Then the Flyers happened and we were out in six ugly games in the first round.

Then Boston happened last year.  It was heartbreaking, true, but you'd have thought the team lost to a bunch of 80-year old widows, not a highly elite hockey club, who actually are the odds on favorite to win the Cup this year.  I was painfully disappointed, I'm not going to deny it.  Many, however, were just plain mad.  They wanted heads to roll.  They didn't.  So, this year the verbal and written vitriol started early.  The Pens have been up and down since the Olympic break and every rough outing - heck, every rough period - brought out the boo birds.  Fire Blysma.  Trade Fleury.  This is the worst Penguins team ever (and even I know that's so far from the truth as to be patently absurd).  And so on.  I think the only player I didn't see attached to a negative Tweet is Sidney Crosby, and that's probably just because anyone inclined to write one knows the rest of us would hunt them down and force them to take it back.

It's the maternal instinct in me, I'm sure, but I hate all of that negativity with a passion.  It's hurtful on an oddly personal level.  I like my team.  They've given me so much joy that I feel protective of them.  More to the point:  I don't want them to be so psyched out on the pressure of the expectations that their heads do a number on them that the opposing team cannot.  I want them focused.  I want them relaxed.  I want them ready.  And I want us to support them.  But as it is I'm as nervous as a cat in a dog pound.  My nails are all chewed down to nothing.  My muscles are tense.  I am no in way looking forward to this.  And that's not the way it's supposed to be.  It's supposed a time of celebration and excitement.

So, here's what I want all of us to do:  I want us to realize this is our city, this is our team.  Come what may.  If the Penguins lose, on the morning after, we will still get up like we always do.  The sun will rise like it always does.  Our day will go on.  Our families will love us; we will love them. Or not.  As the case may be for some of us.  We will have joys, we will have sorrows.  Our lives will proceed.  As scheduled.  This will not end us.  So, let's relax, all of us, and let's go out there and support our team.

 Because it's the Cup, dammit!

Day Trippin'

http://cfbarchitects.com/

Finally.  I could log out for the weekend.  Wow, what a long week.  I remember the days twenty years ago when Friday night meant being in the office until midnight at the earliest, but now, at 7:30 PM, I felt sort of worn down like a stubby pencil ready for the trash.  I don't know if it's the age or the mileage, or if it's just because I don't want to do the 80-plus hour weeks anymore so my mind won't let me go there anymore, even if my body could.  Those long hours cost me too much all those years ago and I'm done paying.  But this week's been a little more arduous than most, so that final logout seemed like an especially long time coming.  For one thing, I'm battling sinusitis and something with a complicated name that I was too busy coughing to catch that is essentially like asthma, but not asthma.  Whatever it's called, it scared me enough to cause me to go to the doctor for the first time in 14 years, and that took a lot.  And that's all on top of the whirlwind trip my daughter and I took to Harrisburg that stirred up old memories all for a cause that I'm not sure we did much to help win.  But, we did it and we were the only two from the whole entire western part of the state who did, so bully for us.  But, now, come Friday night, there wasn't much left in my tank, so I could do one of two things:  sit here and tell you about it or fold the laundry I washed a week ago.  Guess what I opted for?

But first I have to set the stage for the Legislative Action Day by taking you all the way back to the previous Tuesday.  There was so much stuff floating in the air during the day that I actually had a moment when I thought it was snowing.  It wasn't, it was actually a rather pleasant spring day, hovering in the 50's.  So it was cool and a little crisp when Marissa and I went to our first baseball game of the season and sat out in the coolish air breathing in whatever that was floating around for the next five hours.  By Wednesday, I was struggling a bit to breathe.  By Thursday, I wondered if I was getting sick.  By Friday, I had stopped wondering.  By Saturday, I wondered just how sick I was, and by Sunday, when we had tickets again, I was really hurting.   Come Monday, every ounce of me hurt, I was cold, tired, achy, and exhausted constantly because I couldn't really get my breath.  Ever.  Walking up my stairs had become an arduous experience.

The game plan was I would get up Tuesday morning at 5:00 AM, get ready for the trip to Harrisburg, pick Marissa up at 6:30 when she got off work and we'd take off from there.  I slept straight through the alarm until the regular 6:00 AM alarm.  Yikes!!  I had a half hour to shower, do my hair, make-up, take care of the dogs, cats and pull all my stuff together.  All while running a fever and not able to breathe.  Believe it or not, I did it in 35 minutes.  All of that.  But it's a good thing I didn't see a photo of myself until the next day or I would  have had a meltdown of some kind.  I did NOT look good.  So, there I was, advocating for the most important thing I can think to advocate for and looking like I could barely dress myself.  It's no wonder we weren't swaying our audiences like I thought we might.  But, anyway, we had a tight window to get to our first meeting, which was with my local representative, Hal English, so running late at all was not a good thing, and we're women so there's no way we were going to make a 3 and a half hour drive without a rest stop.  We had to have two.  Therefore, by the time we pulled up to the massive capitol complex, it was pretty much time for our first meeting.  I threw the car in a space on the street, fed the meter, and we hustled up the very long, long walk to the very long stairs to the front of the building, all the while my lungs refusing to cooperate and let in air.  I can't even imagine what poor Marissa must have felt like, after finishing up an eight hour overnight shift all on her feet and now hustling along with me on no sleep at all.  What a pair we must have looked as we burst into that mad, bustling building, which is really a gilded city within a city.  But we were there.  Which is more than I can say for Representative English, who was late to the meeting.  And the other team members who were supposed to be with us who never showed up at all. In fairness, he was caught at another event, where he had a photo op, I'm sure, and he gave us a fair amount of time to make our case, even though we could tell we weren't convincing him about the importance of the legislation we were there to pitch.  And what was that, you ask?

We had put ourselves through all of that for HB1959 and SB 1248, concurrent bills pertaining to the dissemination of materials to Pennsylvania parents annually from the school districts about eating disorders.  The bills also allow for guidelines to be developed for screenings and staff education.  That's a harder row to hoe in a state like this one, but they are optional, so they should not be large roadblocks to passage of something both so simple and inexpensive, yet so important.  Yet, as we went through the day, meeting with various staffers of various legislators from various parts of the state, it was easy to see that not everyone sees it with quite the same clarity as we seem to.  We touched some people, that was clear.  Others were barely polite, merely taking the meeting because we are voters and it's part of the gig.  In the meantime, the massive building was literally alive with all manner of other groups, lobbyists, school kids, staff and politicians.  It's a crazy quilt of humanity all vying for attention under the silent watchful eyes of beautiful art and statutes.  I can imagine it's hard to filter all that out to focus on the things that are truly important to your voters, when sometimes they don't even know what that it themselves.

And I also get why it's hard to make your voice heard above the din:  it's hard to get there.  The only way to drive it is on the tollway.  Forty-five dollars in tolls, thank you very much.  I looked at the train, but the times weren't right.  If I go there again, that's the way to do it, I've decided though.  But flying is out.  I looked at a little hopper and the cheapest flight I found was literally $875.00, and would have taken three times longer than driving.  Free access to our government is not free it would seem.

If I can do all of that as sick as I was and Marissa could do all of that as tired as she was, it should tell you it's important, so take a moment to write your local representative and tell them to please add their support.  Contact me if you need to know why.  Or just consider what we lost that made us willing to take such a hard road to try and see it through.

Living with Our Ghosts (or how Pittsburgh Saved Me)

I declared myself "cured" (for lack of a better word) not long ago and decided to make a break from the long established blog I had been writing about the journey of grief recovery and began this one to try and finally take myself in a new direction.  But, it didn't take long before some of the same old issues tugged on my heart strings, so after considering for a day or two, I figured I might as well get them out there and discuss them because trying to focus on the beginning of baseball season or hockey playoffs just seemed sort of hollow in comparison.  And that's all fine.  No one's life is sunshine and butterflies all the time (particularly right now - there has been slim to none in the way of sunshine in the area for days).  For me, a couple of events collided to create my current state of mind, which really is not helped by the dreary and rainy spring weather.  First, I tripped across an old blog post I wrote on the day I buried my mother, on April Fool's Day exactly four years ago.  And, second, I'm trying to do some homework on eating disorders so we can travel over to Harrisburg early next week in support of legislation pertaining to educational material for the disease.  It's brought back all the early years for us when I was fighting with my kids' school as first one, then the other of them became ill.

I remember so well when I wrote the blog post a few hours after burying my mom.  I was sitting in the lobby of our hotel, curled up in a overstuffed chair next to the large picture window with a cup of coffee from the quaint little coffee shop adjacent to the lobby while my daughter slept upstairs.  My relatives had invited us to have dinner with them, but Marissa begged off.  We were just both so tired, I think.  This was the first quiet moment we'd had in ten years.  Finally, no elderly mother with Alzheimer's and a myriad of other issues to care for.  No older sister struggling with an eating disorder and raging at the world because it wouldn't set her free because she had died just a few months before.  She had finally finding a way to get the disease to let her go.  Marissa had fought her own demons, and would have a few more battles to face before she was done, but she was recovering from her own eating disorder and cross addictions.  We were battle weary.  There really was no other way to describe it.

Fast forward four years and our lives are very different.  My daughter is a college graduate, sober and recovered from her eating disorder.  We volunteer for OFA, we go to hockey games and have a baseball ticket package.  We go to Steelers games when we can, but watch the rest from our sports cave in my little post war cottage less than 10 miles from the stadium.  There is the zoo, and the symphony, the ballet, theater and museums.  There are arts fairs and quaint little shops along the Strip.  There is so much to do and see here, that it was just too hard to continue to stay curled up in a chair next to a window and watching the world go by.  We've learned, in short, to live again.   Our problem these days is that there is more to do than there is time (and sometimes money).  Many of my friends were dubious when we chose to move, warning me that we couldn't run from our problems.  That is true.  I can tell you that all the ghosts that live within our memories just move along with you, but Pittsburgh (despite our radon mitigation device downstairs) was like a breath of fresh air.  I am just so grateful to be here that, for once, good words fail me.

The thing I've been thinking about over the last few days, as a result of all this soul searching, is that we never forget the ones we lost, but it serves no one and nothing to stop living as a result.  Kelsey never got to see Pittsburgh, but I've often thought she would have loved it here.  Rather than feeling a crushing guilt over that, I can only try and carry her in my heart wherever I go and whatever I do.  And we can try to honor her memory by risking the stirring up of old memories  in support of a first small step in eating disorder awareness in the state.  My first small step toward trying to pay back what we've been given.  More to come.