When the Prince Comes

Sunday, I found myself sprinting down the street from church to home to get the diaper bag and the Primary bag we had neglected to bring. And I was mad. I'd told my daughter to set them by the door so we wouldn't forget them. I'd glanced at the area near the front door on my way out and hadn't seen them, so I'd thought my husband had taken them with him. I'd thought, "How gallant." It was fine with me for him to carry them both and not leave one for me to tote.

However. Once there, these bags were nowhere to be found.

Our daughter is verging on teenagerism, and I should have specified which door she should have put them by.

But I wasn't mad at her. I was mad at him.

"We'll have to go back for them," I said, by which I meant, "You, the MAN, should go back for them."

He didn't pick up on that. "You have time. . ." he started to say. It was 1.5 minutes to the hour. So I sprinted.

I was probably able to run home faster than he was. I was wearing flats, and running was no problem in my shoes. I am used to running. Flying down the street in my brown skirt and tan jacket, I didn't even break a sweat. I grabbed the bags, which were set by the kitchen door, heaved them up on my shoulder (the diaper bag was suspiciously heavy, considering we don't even have a child in diapers), and ran back up the street and the 17 steps to the church without any trouble at all.

And I did get there before the meeting started.

So, why was I mad?

Paul asked where they had been and we had a brief discussion in which I said I'd thought he'd picked them both up and he said he had not seen them, either. "Are you mad?" he asked.

"Yes," I admitted. Then, as the meeting started, I reassured him by saying, "Don't worry--I'm not any madder at you than I usually am."

I continued examining my assumptions and biases. Within two minutes, I had decided to go with feeling glad that my husband considers me an equal.

Why should he necessarily be the one to go back for the bags? Because he's the man? Yes, it might be the chivalrous thing to do, but was it the most practical? I did it just as well as he could have--maybe better. In his suit coat, he would have broken a sweat. He was doing that, anyway.

I wasn't dressed in a way that made it hard. I wasn't weak or sick or pregnant. I was closer to the door. There were lots of ways to look at it practically that suggested I was actually the better candidate at the moment. Or at least just as good.

It reminded me of when it dawned on me, years ago, that men are really just people. They might be a little big bigger and stronger, but they can still be tired after work. They can still have physical issues, or down days. They aren't born with every skill, or all-knowing. They don't necessarily like to take out the trash.

I was actually surprised when my sixteen-year-old son didn't automatically know how to just go out and get a summer job.

I guess I'd heard so many stories describing my dad's confidence in his ability to do many things that I had grown up thinking men were superhuman. Dad could fix anything. He was smart about handling people. He didn't have a college education, but he could pick up his briefcase and go cold-calling on businesses and acquire customers. He ran his own business--no one told him how to. Although, my mother did have suggestions, to which he listened.

And I'd heard a lot of fairy tales. You know how fairy tales go--all your problems are over the minute the prince appears on the scene. They don't tell you that the prince shows up with his own list of problems.

I tell my daughters they can do anything they want. I believe in equal pay for equal work. I insist on fairness and equality in my relationship, as far as that is possible--at least that we each contribute to our family the best we can. We are not exactly the most traditional couple. My job has always been the more important job, and he usually does the cooking.

Yet, I don't mind at all if he is the one to stick his hand down the disposal or kill the spider.

I guess we all need to tease out for ourselves how we want to view equality and men's roles versus women's roles. We should decide what we think should just be people's roles, or adult's roles.

I think it's tricky--we grow up with certain experiences and ideas that give us biases and beliefs. Do we examine those? We should at least explore and discover them, and turn them over in our minds to see what we really would choose to believe about them. We should stretch ourselves to grow beyond stereotypes and harmful, false beliefs that we may have swallowed whole.

I knew a woman from Eastern Europe who believed herself to be completely modern, yet was really locked into caretaking roles for family members of various generations that used up time she didn't have, and who firmly believed that if her husband ever saw her once without lipstick on, it would be the end of her marriage.

I had a sister who was known as a champion for feminism--she was bright and employed, empowered and convincing, yet was often found baking cookies and cared about being pretty. Personally, I find nothing contradictory in this, and I don't think she did, either. She thought things through and decided what she wanted to think and stuck to it.

And then there are the people who will say things you know they swallowed whole and never really thought through. Like the man who told me that he had to believe men over women because they "held the priesthood." He wasn't an evil man--just uneducated and unexposed to critical thinking skills.

What do we think? And why do we think it? After turning it over and looking at it from different angles, do we want to keep thinking it, or modify it? If we're going to stand by a thought we have, shouldn't we at least know why?

Naughty or Nice--It Won't Matter

So, a friend and I were having a discussion about which of us owed whom a doughnut. I think I won, but then I had to decline. Part of me was saying, "I like the chocolate cake kind," and the other part was saying, "Remember your jade dress that you want to wear next week?"

It was exactly like those cartoons with a devil (devil's food?) on one shoulder and an angel (in a jade dress?) on the other.

Which morphed our discussion into the nature of being naughty or nice. I teased that I thought I was basically a naughty person forced into a saintly mold. He said I wore that mold well, which I really had to think about.

He also pointed out that I probably had not been forced into anything.

So then I had to take all of this on and be accountable for it--the naughty, the nice, the mold, my niche in the whole eternal struggle--but, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on which shoulder you're on), not the doughnut.

I began to think, "Maybe someday, I'll be in the Celestial Kingdom, and completely happy, and then I won't want to be naughty anymore." My next thought was that my first thought was probably backward. Probably, I have to not want to be naughty anymore, then I can achieve total happiness. And then, we'd see about the Celestial Kingdom much later.

It makes one wonder.

And, while we're wondering about being in the Celestial Kingdom, I have to wonder if we'll be resurrected with armpit hair on our "perfect" forms? Because, well, that just doesn't seem like perfect form to me.

I worry about it.

If resurrected, "perfect," bodies have not one hair lost from their heads, does that apply to other parts, too? And if resurrected bodies cannot ever be ill or hurt, does that mean they will be unable to be tweezed, waxed, or shaved? I mean, what would indestructible armpit hair be like? I have never been able to stand the normal kind. Is titanium armpit hair that I cannot get rid of in all eternity something I can look forward to?

And, what about all the moles and whatevers that we've made sure to get rid of? Will they reappear, too? Maybe things like moles are considered imperfections and will thus not be resurrected with us. Maybe Cindy Crawford will wake up in the Resurrection and go, "Dang!"

Who's to say what things will be considered "blemishes" needing to be healed or made perfect, and which will simply be restored according to the DNA blueprint we were created with? (Okay, God.)

And what about the people who, through great expense and effort, have straightened their teeth? Will the Resurrection honor what we consider to be the "perfect smile," or will it honor the way the DNA blueprint thought the teeth should grow in as "perfect form"?

I'm very much looking forward to my middle son having the natural lenses and perfect vision he was meant to have, to seeing my mom with white, lovely arms unscarred by fire. But who knows what we might get stuck with? It's not like we can avoid our eventual fate by being naughty--the Resurrection is apparently for all.

My brother thinks maybe it would be nice to choose these things for one's spouse's resurrection. I'm just hoping for a tiny say in my own.

The Day I Got Old

I had a birthday recently, but that is not the Day I Got Old.

It reminded me of it, though.

The Day I Got Old was a little over a year ago. It had started out as a normal Thursday--out of bed around 4:00, heading to the gym with a suitcase and two carryons to tide me over until my long day as a state employee in Utah ended.

A normal day except that I was a little bit stupid in the morning. Which worried me later, when I had to wonder if I was having a stroke. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

It was the first day that fall cool enough to wear my jacket to the gym, which threw everything off. Instead of making sure I had four things--gym membership card, keys, baggie with a Clorox wipe, and locker lock--in my hands before locking my car, I assumed I had it all in my pockets and accidentally locked my keys in my car. I took my glasses--which I do not need at the gym--in with me instead.

I had been sick earlier in the week with a sinus infection and had missed a workout, and I was trying to make up those 900 calories a little at a time. So, instead of burning 900 calories on the elliptical machine, I burned 1000. This should not have been a big deal, because I had done that intense of a workout many times before. I had been on antibiotics for a couple of days already.

However, after I showered and had discovered I did not have my keys, had called a coworker to pick me up and was on my way home to borrow my sleeping husband's--after my pulse and respiration had calmed down, that is, I realized that my vision was not normal.

Around the outside of my vision was a flashing border continuously going around in a rectangle like some kind of marquee. And, the middle of my vision was pixilated. When I finally got to work and was talking with a woman, if I looked right at her, parts of her face were missing, like jigsaw puzzle pieces. I didn't want to believe that, so I looked at her straight on a few times to see. . .and it was really true.

But I felt fine. I felt strong. I wasn't numb anywhere or weak on one side or anything like that. I wanted to believe I was fine.

After talking with a couple of people about it, including a woman who had had some small strokes, my husband, and the university stroke center, I went to my supervisor, who was copying papers for a meeting.

"I need to go to the ER," I blurted. "Can you drive me?"

"Sure," she said. "Just let me finish copying this."

I went to the bathroom, called my husband, packed my lunch back up, and went to my supervisor, who was still at the copier. "You know what?" I said, less than graciously, "I need to leave right now, so I'll just drive myself."

"Okay," she said. I couldn't believe it. But that's what she said. (She later apologized.) And I had to take accountability that I had not been as straightforward as I should have been, so I got in my car and drove--pixilated vision and all--to the stroke center.

I didn't know how or when I had gotten hurt, but I was worried about the three-hour window for most successfully treating strokes, as it was well over two hours since I had stopped working out. The traffic up to the university is unbelievable in the mornings. I tried to avoid it by getting into the left lane, planning to turn left and go along a less busy street the rest of the way. Only, when I finally crawled to that intersection, there was a no left-turn sign.

Everything in front of me was stopped for blocks ahead. I didn't have that kind of time left. I decided it was a good thing I had pixilated vision and couldn't see everything in front of me (like signs) and made the turn. The traffic was still slow, but not as bad. I passed up another hospital's ER, which was a tough decision, but I wanted to get to the place that had the best reputation for dealing with strokes.

Finally, finally, with just minutes left (I thought), I pulled up to the ER, left my car keys in the hands of a valet, and went in. I told the person at the counter that I had been experiencing stroke-like symptoms. He had me squeeze his hands. "You didn't have a stroke," he told me.

I told him about my vision--only the funny thing was that that symptom had almost completely disappeared, so I started to doubt myself again. I felt fine, and now had no symptoms. If I hadn't had a stroke, what on earth was I doing there, about to hand over a huge ER copayment?

"Well, I'm an EMT, and I can tell you you did not have a stroke," he said.

My tears started falling onto the counter. That was not what I needed to hear in order to stay. I didn't know what to do. He told me that if I had a problem with my vision, that should definitely get checked. "But not at an ER," I said, feeling stupid.

"I'm just trying to comfort you," he said.

"It's not working."

My symptom was gone. I nervously munched some almonds. I was taken back into a private part of the ER. My husband and youngest child came in.

Another person asked me to squeeze her hands, touch my nose, push against her hands with my feet, look at the light, raise my arms, lower my arms. I complied, knowing none of this would tell her anything. A nurse came in and asked me to squeeze her hands, touch my nose, push against her hands with my feet, look at the light, raise my arms, lower my arms, balance on one foot. A doctor came in and asked me to squeeze her hands, touch my nose, push against her hands with my feet, look at the light, raise my arms, lower my arms, balance on one foot, walk a line on the floor. I complied, knowing it wouldn't tell her anything, and feeling more stupid each time.

A nurse came in to hook me up to an IV. I asked why. I wavered. I really wondered what I was doing there. My symptoms had been gone for hours. I was fine. I didn't want to pay the copayment if there was nothing wrong with me. My husband gently--maybe too gently--suggested I might as well go along with it and try to find out why my vision had been pixilated.

I complied, then took a break to have a hacking cough fit.

The day waned on. I did Sudoku puzzles and wondered what I was doing there.

A neurologist came in and asked me to squeeze her hands, touch my nose, push against her hands with my feet, look at the light, raise my arms, lower my arms, balance on one foot, walk a line on the floor. I complied. A second neurologist came in and asked me to squeeze her hands, touch my nose, push against her hands with my feet, look at the light, raise my arms, lower my arms, balance on one foot, walk a line on the floor. I complied.

She mentioned to the first neurologist that one of my pupils was not the same size as another one. Then, I had a CT scan, and the IV came in handy instead of just being a nuisance.

My husband had left. He had taken the baby to a neighbor's and had gone to pick up the other kids from school.

A completely new doctor walked in and said, "You have a dissection in your carotid artery. We're admitting you and putting you on a Heparin drip. You're at risk for a stroke." I felt my world shift beneath me. As I scrambled to regain my psychological footing, he continued. "No working out for at least a month (by which he really meant 14.5 weeks). You'll be on blood thinners. You're not going home tonight." Then, the clincher. "We'll refer you to a pulmonologist--you are not allowed to cough like that ever again."

That is what I mean by the Day I Got Old. I had a problem that was a real, serious problem. Not just sinus infections, or acne, a cavity, or thinning hair. Something that could kill me, or alter my life so badly I could wish it had killed me. Something I would have to watch out for, take precautions about. FOR. EV. ER.

So, feeling as strong as I ever had, I spent twenty-four hours in the hospital. I underwent an MRI, then several more CT scans. I learned how to give myself shots in the stomach, paying $250 for that privilege alone. I met with a pulmonologist, then a new ENT. I accrued a team of neurologists, participated in a genetic study, endured almost-daily finger pricks. Eleven pounds from my weight goal, I had to put it on a shelf. I went to the gym every day and just walked, which I found took more discipline to my regular workouts. I felt the pounds pack on around my hips as the holidays came and went. And--forget the ER copayment--I had to make arrangements to pay off a hospital bill. And I felt old for the first time.

But I fought my way back through those extra pounds and got even closer to my goal. I can run farther and lift more than I could before. I'm here, and I'm looking forward to getting older and older and older.