He texted me from airport gates and streets named “Taylor” in faraway cities. “Taylor Street” in San Francisco lingers in my mind, as if I’ve been there before, as if I existed then, there, with him. The “Wish You Were Here” postcards never came.

Innocent objects in my apartment bear unwarranted significance. The plant I bought one Saturday night when he was in Asia. The photo of snow swirling from my apartment window on a December day when he was in California. The stacks of books that disappeared and the new ones that replaced them, each one a mark of time passing, events missed, two lives mismatched like my middle school outfits. My life passed in the photos I texted him, exhibits of the ordinary.

I highly recommend painting the solar system when you’re in need of perspective.

The “Wish You Were Here” postcards never came.

He told me stories, showed me entire photo albums. I existed only when it was convenient, close; I wished I were there. I wanted to exist when it was tough, when we were far apart.

He was transient, and I was, too, I suppose, trapped in a cycle of doctor’s appointments and blood tests and what ifs. “Meaningful” and “forever” are too often synonymous, as if the relationships that last are more important, more pivotal than the ultimately noncommittal.

For a long time I rejected the notion that it had been worthwhile, focusing instead on the texts that grew farther apart, the goodbyes we simply forgot to exchange at that last happy hour. Yet he was exactly what I needed when I needed it. I needed to be committed to my health, to the half-marathon I was training for, to the LSAT. Continue reading →

It’s Monday, so here’s a peaceful lookout at the Des Moines Art Center.

I wrote in doctor’s waiting rooms, in the winding hallways of Mercy Medical Center, in the infusion room, in my hospital bed between naps. I wanted to capture everything, my feelings, my pain, the sight of forbidden Hy-Vee cake on my mother’s birthday. My writing this year has been aggressively present, work that exists and thrives in the moment it first existed, doesn’t dare to extend too far beyond the physical and tangible.

Transcending the physical experience scared me, as if recognizing the reflective might be too much, another needle prick. I’ve been feeling better, perfectly well, even, for a few weeks.

I hid my writerly mind in LSAT logic games and reasoning timed tests, productively procrastinating the reflection my free time would inevitably offer.

As a life writer, reflection is my wheelhouse; I look back and ruminate constantly, writing and re-writing about the same experiences over and over, convinced there is another nugget of significance forever waiting to be unearthed. Yet this year I found survival in the now. I wrote about cinnamon bun cravings and my breakup with beer and throwing a gluten-free fit when bread-loving Oprah popped up on my TV. Continue reading →

Thanks to my coworkers for the positive LSAT vibes!

Tiny poke, quick poke, little poke. The words and needle pricks add up after a while. I didn’t feel the needle on Wednesday as the nurse and I chatted about our mutual experience learning Arabic. It was a bizarrely normal moment; me rambling about Turkey and Arabic and calligraphy and writing right to left — with the needle in my arm.

In my fledgling days of life writing, I wrote exclusively about major, sweeping stories and lessons, the kind that fit nicely into a calculated essay. The past six months upended my still-lingering compulsion to write about the momentous, distilling reflection and learning into single moments — tiny, quick and little, like every needle puncture.

As I tally up answers and scores and sections for the LSAT (which is, terrifyingly, tomorrow), I can’t help but feel unsettlingly, briefly calm. I often cite the randomness of life as one of its chief merits, but here, it is beautifully analogous, each answer adding up to a test, a score, a new goal and path.  Continue reading →

Attack. It was a word I heard often throughout my prep tennis career. “Attack the net.” “Attack the serve.” “Attack the baseline.” You know the drill.

“Attack” was always something I controlled and carried out, something orchestrated, calculated and decided by minute adjustments in grip, swing and step. I knew how, when and where to attack. Attacking meant winning.

One time I held up the sun, so I guess my problems aren’t so big after all.

“Attack” means something different in the autoimmune world, I’ve learned this year.

Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease. My body attacks itself, without my permission, attacking until I ended up in the emergency room, pumped full of blood and fluids and powerlessness.

That’s the thing about autoimmunity. I am no longer the attacker; I am the one being attacked, by my own body, my own cells, my own biology. The roles reversed in unnerving, invisible clarity.

“I’m tired” cruelly colors everyday conversation, and this year has revealed its pervasiveness. At the height of my illness, I almost felt hurt when friends said, “I’m tired” in response to, “How are you?” when I was powerless in explaining my own exhaustion. I couldn’t control my energy levels with rest, and I couldn’t even control the English language enough to express it. Continue reading →

My lovely, accommodating friends hosted a gluten-free taco girls’ night.

For once I am fearful of too much time, the kind measured not in minutes, but by the rhythm of an IV. Drip, breathe, drip, breathe, drip, breathe. The kind of rhythm that reminds me I’m not well, not entirely, not yet.

Tomorrow I start two-hour IV iron treatments for the next six weeks. The needles don’t scare me anymore; the time still does. Time to meditate and ruminate and reflect and worry. The kind of time punctuated by piercing silence, the realization that aloneness has its own sound, one that podcasts and Netflix can’t ultimately drown out.  Continue reading →

Mere moments after I nearly threw a GF muffin at bread-loving Oprah, I made peace with gluten over beer, naturally.

I cried over bread. And the box of granola bars. The cereal, too. Ugly cried. Kim K. cried.

The pile of gluten-rich food kept growing atop my counter. A sacrificial loaf. After a good cry and a donation to my local food pantry, I drove to Hy-Vee and bought some fancy rice flour.

I’d like to think we are all, “I. Love. Bread.” Oprah Winfrey sometimes, only now my favorite recipes — and my body — require more care. After months of doctor’s appointments and blood tests, I was recently diagnosed with celiac disease. No more normal bread and beer.  Continue reading →

My sister sent me a kickass T. rex card, and it makes a perfect LSAT bookmark.

It’s a magical, mystical world, almost. There are soda fountains with sodas named things like “Luck” and “Mist.” There are closets full of dresses in every fabric you could imagine. There are disc jockeys who flip between ballads and club hits with ease.

It feels pretty make-believe most of the time, but there are rules, myriad rules, that strip the magic from this world. The gauze dress can’t be next to the silk dress (who the hell owns a gauze dress anyway?). “Mist” and “Luck” can’t be first or fourth at the soda fountain. And the DJ has to play three consecutive ballads before he can bust out some dance tunes (no one turns up at the club to three back-to-back slow jams, really).  Continue reading →

Enough: I’ve heard the word often this year. It has become a state of being, one I’ve yet to fully embody, physically and emotionally — “Enoughness.” Uppercase, of course.

Do you have enough iron supplements? You don’t have enough iron in your system. Did your last doctor say your hemoglobin isn’t high enough, too?

With ample idle time in waiting rooms at doctor’s offices in 2016, I’ve had time — dangerous time — to ruminate on physical and emotional “Enoughness.” “Fill in the bubble next to all conditions that apply.” Here, “Enoughness” is quantified with each blackened bubble.

Playing keep-away with enoughness is one of my egregious habits; it’s easier, more comfortable, to ignore my own inherent completeness. Blackened bubbles extend into the real world. I become the score sheet, each mark the latest deficiency.  Continue reading →

Basking in my reign as flower girl.

Shirley Temples are a sentimental drink for me. I apparently downed eight of them as the flower girl at my Uncle Pat’s wedding in 1998. Feeling the power of my flower-girl status (and the sugar, let’s be real here), I twirled at the reception in my off-white dress, my 5-year-old frame nearly engulfed by tulle and chiffon.  Continue reading →

Frequent doctor’s visits call for comfort food. For me, that means lentil soup and falafel at Open Sesame in the East Village. I also love the lanterns.

I slipped on my Des Moines Half Marathon pullover, the one made from that fancy ever-dry fabric, rather than the “Newton Superfan” cotton T-shirt I often wear, long faded from Cardinal red to a confused pink color. I laced up my new running shoes, their neon colors still blinding from the box. Then I ran and ran and ran, probably too fast, probably too far at this stage in my training; I got a little power hungry.

The pace, the distance, the, “I’m a serious runner,” outfit — if I embodied power, embodied strength, it would somehow emerge. I was so close.  Continue reading →