The Death of My Youth

At the innocent and delicate age of ten, I became convinced of two things: I had cancer and I was going to die. I’m not sure if my fledgling medical knowledge came from something I saw on TV or from one of my mother’s women’s magazines, but I knew with absolute certainty that blood emerging from certain bodily orifices definitely meant cancer. Followed by inevitable death. I had other signs as well: fatigue, extreme pain, and stomach distension. This was so unfair! I was only ten and already it was all over for me!

I retreated to my room and fearfully contemplated my next move. I had to tell my parents, I knew, but such uncharted conversation came with many potentially frightening possibilities. Would they be terribly sad? Angry at me? Angry at a God I wasn’t even sure they believed in? Would I have to go to the hospital and receive horribly painful treatments? Would they be able to find someone who could cure me? No, I was certain I’d be dead in a few months, may even weeks.

I went into my mother’s sewing room, where she sat at her old Singer focused on the current seam. I presented her with the bloody evidence and informed her I was dying. Instead of tears or anger or shaking her fist at the heavens, she just sighed and led me into the kitchen, where my father stood at the stove. Now, my father is an incredibly hard worker, but not someone you’d typically find stirring a large pot on the stove. No, this ritual happened only once a year and only if luck was with him. 

What my dad was doing at the exact moment I announced my imminent death was boiling the flesh from a deer’s skull and antlers. If my dad shot a deer during hunting season that had mount-on-the-wall-worthy antlers, the boiling off of the meat was necessary for sanitary reasons. Rotting flesh would not be a welcoming smell while showing off your collection of deer antlers. Thankfully, I never had to experience rotting flesh, but the smell of boiling flesh? Well, let’s just say that if I never, ever smell it again, I’m good.

As the smell permeated the kitchen, the house, and my dying nostrils, my mother said, “Remember what we were talking about last week?” “Yes,” my father said, still stirring. “It happened,” my mom informed him. “Hmm,” I heard my dad say as he attempted to scrape a particularly stubborn piece of brain matter from the skull. “I guess I’ll have to talk to the gym teacher at school,” she said.

And with that, the conversation about my death seemed to be over. At this point, I was several miles beyond confused. Had they been expecting me to die? Did I have some horrible diagnosis they never told me about? And what the hell did the gym teacher have to do with it?

The next day my mother, who was our school’s library aide, came home with a little pink pamphlet for me to read. It turned out I had an affliction that would be with me for a very, very long time: I was menstruating.

Taking Aim at Weight

When I was about 13 years old, my dad taught me how to shoot a gun. He was an avid hunter and gun collector who even did his own reloading. It was what he poured his spare time into and where he found joy. As soon as he determined that I was old enough, my dad and I drove to the shooting range at the conservation club where he was a member and the lesson began.

After stapling the target to a piece of wood that backed up to a large mound of packed dirt, by father commenced my lesson on gun safety. Always keep the safety on until immediately before you are going to shoot. Never, ever point a gun—loaded or unloaded—at anyone or anything. Treat every gun like a loaded gun.

When he determined that I understood these and other crucial instructions, my dad finally handed me the gun. I could feel its power immediately. I gently raised it to my shoulder and tried to find the target, but my upper body strength was poor and the more I attempted to hold the gun steady, the more it swayed. My dad then instructed me to kneel down. With one knee on the ground and the other raised to use as a brace for my arm, I was able to hold the gun steady. This was much better.

When I felt comfortable with the gun butted up tightly against my right shoulder and had the target in sight, my dad told me to turn off the safety. Then he told me to breathe in, hold my breath, and gently squeeze the trigger. The .22 caliber rifle gave off a mild popping sound at the same time that I felt the barrel of the gun recoil into my right shoulder. I hit the target—nowhere near the bull’s-eye—but I hit it. I instantly wanted to do it again. And again. I loved the singular focus of shooting a gun; the challenge of one person, one bullet, and one target. The sheer concentration it took to coordinate the actions: eyes, breath, focus, squeeze.

I bring this up because this is precisely how I go about losing weight. I zero in on my target, inhale, focus, and squeeze the trigger which, in the case of shedding excess pounds, is taking the laser-like focus of shooting a gun and aiming at nothing but my target weight until I hit that bull’s-eye. I am not always successful. Sometimes my aim is off or I close my eyes and lose sight of the target. But when I am truly focused, I can maintain my aim by closing my eyes to temptation, breathing through the triggers of emotional eating, and focusing on that target weight. Then I gently squeeze the trigger and begin. At that point, like the bullet piercing the air toward the bulls-eye, I am unstoppable.

If I Can Do It...SHUT UP!!!

If I hear one more weight-loss company ad, newly svelte celebrity making the talk show circuit, or any other humanoid within earshot of me utter the ridiculous phrase, “If I can do it, you can do it!” I swear I’ll scream, yell, throw a tantrum, have a hissy fit, or maybe even do something more drastic. Perhaps even violent—like rip the skinny wench’s picture out of the magazine ad and, I don’t know, maybe black out her teeth before placing her in the shredder. I cannot stand that phrase; I simply can’t bear it. What does it really mean? If some other person, be it a celebrity or a random person posing for a weight-loss ad, lost a bunch of weight, why does that mean I can do it? What does that person have in common with me? Are our lives identical? Does she have the same unquenchable sweet tooth I have? Does she hate to exercise as much as I do? Does she have the same aversion to vegetables that leaves me staring at kale in disbelief that people actually eat this stuff? Do we share any traits at all that would lead anyone to believe that she and I can succeed in the same way on the same weight loss plan? I mean, it’s just a stupid thought.

I suppose that, originally, the statement was intended to make the speaker appear humble. Like, if even a pathetic loser like me, the rich celebrity, can manage to dump these pounds then all of you schleps out there within the sound of my voice can most certainly make it happen. But to me, it comes off sounding smug. Kind of like I did it and if you can’t, then you really must be a moron. And a pathetic loser.

Beyond lifestyle and personality, I also think the statement is ridiculous because of any one person’s particular skill set. Just because Dr. Oz can perform heart surgery doesn’t mean I can. My brother Pete can treat patients; he's been doing it for more than 30 years. But I can’t, not because I don’t have the training but because I never would have made it through the training. I don’t understand the fundamentals of medicine because my mind simply doesn’t work that way. I don't get math or science. My brother can’t write a sonnet. Should I tell him, “If I can do it, you can do it?” And really, should he even try? Would anyone appreciate his diagnostic and healing skills any more if he wrote all of his charts in iambic pentameter?

Imagine Einstein saying, “This relativity thing? No big deal! If I can do it, you can do it!” Or how about a successful athlete or an amazing singer or a talented artist? Should all of us be able to do what they do? I think not.

What seeing others who have lost tremendous amounts of weight does do, I think, is speak to the possibility. Maybe what they mean to say is, “If I can do it, then it really is possible.” I see all the commercials and hear the testimonials of people losing 50, 75, or 100 pounds and, after screaming at them to stop using that idiotic phrase, I am left with this: the possibility that one can change one’s weight. It can happen, it does happen, and perhaps I, too, can make it happen. After I stop screaming. 

What Took Me So Long?

The sharp-eyed and careful observer of this blog might at this point be forming a serious question in his or her mind: why did it take me a year and a half between the time I set up this blog and wrote a welcome paragraph to the time I wrote an actual post? To which I can only answer: wow, you really are observant and, well, I have a little problem that afflicts many writers. It is something that I am not proud of but which haunts me on a daily basis.  It is relentless, it's mean to me, and it is a four-letter word: FEAR. Outside of teachers, professors, extremely close friends, and my husband, I have rarely shared my work with anyone. I am afraid of criticism. I am afraid of praise. I am afraid of someone finding an errant comma. I am afraid of someone telling me I have absolutely no business thinking for one moment that I have any writing ability whatsoever. I am just simply afraid. And yet, after one of my many writing workshops, I got brave one day and thought of a name for my blog, created it, and gave it a go. Then fear came back, roared its ugly roar, and I ran screaming from my computer. 

A year and a half later, something interesting happened. Allow me to back up a bit. I am a huge fan of Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love and several other wonderful books.  What I first admired about her was, of course, her talent with the written word. Her skill and obvious talent with crafting her stories, both fiction and non-fiction, is evident in everything she writes. When I became one of her Facebook followers and also saw several interviews with her, I realized she was someone I could emulate and admire not only as a fellow writer (of course, she's just the tiniest bit more successful than I am, but hey, there's still time, right?) but as a role model for how one overcomes the internal hurdles inherent in being a writer.

In October 2013, I had the great privilege of meeting Liz (since she signed my book from "Liz" I now feel I have the right to call her that) at an event in Connecticut. I also had my picture taken with her (my sister-in-law was with me), so I now have a permanent record of my meeting. During the event she spoke in detail about all the things that can get in a writer's way: lack of time, not feeling the writing is good enough, and fear of rejection. She was so generous and thoughtful with her answers, so encouraging of unpublished writers, so unyielding in her message that if writing is what you really want, you have to do whatever you can to make it happen. It was truly an evening I will never forget. 

Soon thereafter, Liz posted a question of the day on her Facebook page regarding talent.  To paraphrase, she stated that we are all given talent, but different kinds in different amounts. Some get a lot, some get a little, but we all get something. It's how we spend it that really matters. It was a beautifully written, thought-provoking post, as all of Liz's Facebook posts are, but I had never responded to one, not ever. She actively encourages conversation among her Facebook community, but, as always, fear had stopped me from chiming in with a comment. This time was different. It was a line she wrote about the worst thing one can do with talent that clinched it for me. Again, I will paraphrase. She wrote that the absolute worst thing one can do with talent is bury it in a jar in a garden and hoard it forever. This line, this one line, did it. So I responded in the comment section.  This is what I said:

"I am the one safely tucked away in the garden, buried deep under layers of self-doubt, mounds of excuses, and giant boulders of fear. For fifty years I have lived below the surface of life, coming up for air only briefly when some other-worldly force temporarily pushed away what was holding me down, such as when a college professor singled out my writing or when a weekend writing workshop published a story of mine online. One would think this would encourage me to come up for air more often. One might imagine that I would, at the very least, show my work to more than the only four people I currently trust to read what I write. I want to be a published writer--more than anything--but this talent is a weight (symbolically, much like the weight on my body) that I cannot seem to shed. But I am certainly growing tired of being buried. It has become too dark and too frightening. I need to tunnel my way out."

I wrote it, I hit enter, and I tried to forget about it. My words out in cyberspace where everyone, including my favorite writer, could read them. Yikes. But then something incredible happened. I got my first fan! A gentleman, whom I could only identify as being from Toronto, sent the most lovely, positive response to my post that I could have hoped for.  He said I write beautifully, that I need tunnel my way out, and that he can already see my name on a book cover. Is he a crazy person in need of help who says this to everyone? Perhaps. But I didn't care. I had my very first bonafide fan.

Why You Should Read This Blog...or Should You?

So here you are reading my blog. Awesome. Some of you may be here because you are my family, friends, Facebook buddies, coworkers, or someone whose arm I have twisted to the point of pain to get you to read my blog. Others may have stumbled, tripped, and fallen upon this page on their way to somewhere infinitely more exciting on the web (in that case, I can only welcome you anyway and I hope you didn't hurt yourself on the way here). Even for those of you who know me, however, you may be wondering why I've started a blog and what on earth I am going to write about. The answers are simple: a) because it is my dream, and b) everything.

Allow me to explain in sequence. I have been writing since well before I knew what writing was. Before I could spell or knew how to hold a writing implement, I would hold one of my dad's pens and make horizontal lines of scribbles across my drawing paper in different lengths and make believe I was writing. I loved the feel of the pen gliding across the paper as I imagined the stories I was putting onto paper. It was just gibberish, of course, but to me it was the beginning of a lifelong love of the written word.

That love stayed with me as I made the trek through high school and college, taking all of those other pesky courses like math, science, and history, just so I could get back to writing my poems and stories. All I wanted was to get my degree, get out into the world, and get paid to write. That was it. Of course life never happens as one plans and I ended up taking a very circuitous route to doing so. And, when I finally did end up with that dream job of actually earning a paycheck to write, I was miserable. Desperately unhappy, completely unfulfilled, and making my dear husband nuts, I finally quit. Several more roads less taken and I ended up where I am now, working in a school for special needs students. While it doesn't involve writing, I love it and it provides me with that most precious of luxuries for a writer: time. My school breaks and summers are spent, of course, writing.  

What I will write about in this blog is basically what I said earlier: everything. Or at least everything lurking in my mind that dares to show itself. I have taken numerous writing workshops in the past several years and have been working on a memoir that revolves around some challenges I have faced (let's be honest here--I am still facing them) that I believe others could possibly relate to: first, I lost a lot of weight, then I developed chronic neck pain, and now I have to learn to live with balancing weight and pain (something I struggle with on a daily basis). It's kind of like Eat, Pray, Love, although mine would be something along the lines of Hungry, Ouch, Now What? That being said, I will post random pieces of my memoir on this blog, just to kind of test them out. I welcome and encourage comments to see if what I'm writing resonates with others. I will also write about other things going on in my life, but not in a what-Heidi-had-for-breakfast sort of way. I tend to be quirky and try to be funny, but I also like to think deeply about things. Think of those posts as Super Soul Heidi (with apologies to Oprah!). And, since I do love poetry, write poetry, and am obsessed with several poets (both living and dead), I will occasionally post a poem. Just for fun.

So that's the back story of my blog. I want to write and I would love to have others read my words. If you like what you read, please feel free to share this blog with everyone you know.  If you don't, we can just nod knowingly to each other whenever we pass and no feelings, hard, soft, or otherwise, will be harbored by me. I ask only that you come back and read a different post; perhaps that will spark another, more positive reaction in you. 

With that, I invite you to come back often and share in my journey. Until then, be well and happy.

Onward,
HR

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog!  For two years now I've been thinking about creating a space where I can share my thoughts, feelings, musings, and maybe even some poetry now and then. I hope you will be able to relate to the many aspects of my life I will share with you here.  

Stop back often and enjoy Ritzel's Writes!