Everything is Connected? Prove it!

I won’t be messing with you in this blog entry. I won’t lead you down a path and then admit that I am lying, or, as I prefer to say, using my imagination again. But, I could be lying about that. So let’s not hold our breath.

Actually, I really won’t mess you, spare that tiny little indiscretion that just took place, as the main goal of this blog entry is to allow you to decide, for yourself, whether or not you believe, in part or in whole, that everything is connected. And, while I cannot prove this to be an indisputable fact, I have witnessed strong evidence to support this assumption in my life. Daily I see connections and seeming coincidences, I believe are not mere chance events, which affirms that all things are interrelated and stem from one source.

This brings me to how I started my year off and how I knew it was going to be an amazing year at that. About two days after I got home (on Wednesday, January the 6th) from spending time with Jen and ringing in the New Year, I was in my living room (a shoe-box sized room where I keep my couch and television) and I had this all-consuming feeling of gratitude wash over me. I can’t say why I’d become instantly affected with such an amazing surge of grace and energy, as I was merely walking from my bedroom (a tissue-box sized room where I keep my bed and dresser) to my living room when this feeling rushed into me, but it was so intense that I decided to sit down and let the affect of this emotion finish with me.

Then, as I sat there in my computer-desk chair, a normal-sized computer-desk chair, I started to smile, and not like an oh-gosh-what-a-pretty-day-it-is-generic smile, but an all-aboard-whole-body-beaming smile. Next, I felt a calm permeate my being. It was as if my inner-knowing had come forth and I was devoid of all thoughts except one: Because all things are connected, I am part of the greater Oneness. Feeling this, knowing it, my smile grew even bigger. Then, a new thought had come. One I hadn’t felt in a long time. About 15 years to be exact.

I felt, deep down, that this would be the year that I was going to meet my someone—my last someone. The soul mate I would go home with (I’ve got a whole theory on soul mates I will share in a later blog). This feeling didn’t come because every year my poor mother, who is worried about me, says, “This is your year, honey. I just know it is.” (She’s probably also worried that I’m freaked at this point, being single and 40—which we’ve established, is not the case). Nor did I feel this because at the end of last year my father decided to ask me if my biological clock was ticking, which is weird, because neither of my parents have ever asked me about my personal life—let alone my yay-or-nay desire to have kids—until recently, and, frankly, I don’t want my father asking me questions about my uterus. And, though it would seem so, it’s also not because the psychic said this was the year I’d meet someone.

The feeling just showed up on its own path and was not introduced by any preceding thought having anything to do with anyone or anything else. I can promise you, that the only other time I had a feeling like this one was on the night I met Mr. Gold standard (which was, as stated, 15 years ago). I didn’t want to go out that night, because I had a nasty cold and felt like crap. But, I knew I was going to meet someone. Not just anyone, but someone special. So, I let Jen talk me into going out with her and a bunch of her friends I didn’t know. (I say talk me into because this crew was a little off and I don’t even think she knows any of those freaks any more.) By the time I left the house that evening I was sure that whatever I had felt, that I would meet someone, was not the truth at all but was, instead, only my desire manifesting itself as thought and, because of this, I’d be better off at home nursing my cold rather than following some intuition I wasn’t even sure I’d even felt.

And now, about a month after having had a thought like that again, there is that very careful part of my ego that thinks I’m an idiot for even putting it out there in such a public forum that I felt it again. My ego asks, “What if it doesn’t happen? What if a sinister soul reading this blog would sooner delight in my failure than success?” To that end, and to my ego, I would reply: The feeling was there. It was unmistakable. It will either manifest or it will not. I am blogging about all things spiritual in my life, and about all things being 40, and meeting the man who is meant for me this year would be one of those things and would be truly fabulous. Besides, I am sure we’re ALL sick of hearing me say I’d like to get laid. So… P.S. Ego, and sinister souls who delight in anyone’s failure, get stuffed!

Anyway, after the feeling that this was to be the year I’d make a soul connection left me, my thoughts went back to the connectivity of things and my smile grew as wide as it could possibly get. After that, I decided to go to Ross to buy a rain/winter coat.

What the hell does that have to do with anything? Well, the reason I was going to buy a coat was because I wanted to send my old coat to Jen’s house so that it would be there every winter when I came to visit. This way, I wouldn’t have to pack a coat each time. The reason I was going to buy a coat at Ross was because that’s where the gift certificate was issued from that one of my co-workers gave me as a Christmas gift. The reason I didn’t want to pack a rain coat ever again was because I was trying to lighten my load due to the fact that the airline I’d just flown this last time going to Jen’s charged me $20.00 to check my baggage (both ways). The reason I had to check my baggage was because after packing and unpacking too many times: bigger bag to smaller bag, then smaller bag back to bigger, then bigger back to smaller, then, finally, back to bigger (so I wouldn’t have to cram things for once) I, as evidenced by that tortuous smaller-bigger-bag-who-the-F’-cares journey I just took you on, settled on the bigger bag…which I never do.

The reason I was going to Ross that day, instead of the next day, was because I didn’t want to have to run a thousand errands the next day so, while I also went back and forth a bazillion times on this decision, I finally figured I’d knock out at least one of those errands thereby saving myself the monotonous affliction of doing all these day chores—these I’ve-done-this-shit (get gas, get groceris, etc.) a thousand times and I’m over it—that I was begrudging getting done all-in-one-day in the first place. Finally, the reason why I was going to Ross that instance, instead of an hour later, which is what I had previously planned, was because I got so sick of doing all the housework I’d been doing all day, that I was also totally OVER, that I’d thrown in the towel. The dishes, getting something to eat, and putting away all my laundry, they’d have to wait. I just wanted to get the damn errand over with so I could come home and relax for the rest of the day.

If you are still wondering what the hell does all of that have to do with anything? I will tell you. About four minutes after I walked out of my back kitchen door a friend, my neighbor, had a Xanax/alcohol withdrawal seizure in front of me.

You do the math. How many things led up to me walking out of my door at that time? And, what made me stop to talk to her for a minute before I got on my way, especially when I was in a mad hurry to go and get back home? That, I cannot answer.

But, I can say that if the chain of events that had led up to me walking out of my door at that moment had not transpired, and if my neighbor had not decided to go outside, just two minutes prior to get some fresh air rather than stay inside, she might have been alone when she had this seizure.

You may not have a mind that works like mine, where you relish in any opportunity that allows you to see a chain of events leading up to a singular event, but from my account of just such a chain, you must see, at least, why it is that I do not believe in coincidence but rather in connectivity and/or in divinity. It was, in my humble opinion, divine planning that had me there at that moment.

It sucked being there. I said I wouldn’t lie to you this time, and I won’t, so I will say that it beyond sucked being the lone seizure witness-er/helper-outer. It was one of the most traumatic events of my life.

Imagine that you and a friend are just talking normally. She’s asking you how your New Years was. You’re asking her how she’s been. She’s also trying to read a text from another friend during this blasé exchange and can’t quite make it out, which, in hind site, was the beginning of her seizure (she’d complained that she was seeing spots). You think she’s just hungry and light headed, because she never friggen eats, and you take her phone away from her to try to decipher WTF the text says. (It’s almost painful watching this poor too-hungry soul, or so you think, remain confused.)

Then, she says she sees a weird light and starts to follow it with her eyes. Her body then follows her eyes, leaning forward towards this light, but you still think it is lightheadedness and remind her, again, that she needs to eat something. Later you learn that this sensation of seeing “the light” is known as the Aura, the Pre-ictal phase of a seizure, a brief period just before the actual seizure where it’s not unusual for a person to experience certain sensations, a common one among them being a visual perception of light. But since you don’t know Jack about seizures, you now adamantly remind her that she needs to eat something and then you go back to trying to decipher the text message for her.

As you are turned away from her, to hold her cell phone into the light and make out the text (because while you look pretty good/young for 40 yrs old, your sight sucks a bit), and just as you start to make out said message in its entirety, you hear the plastic Adirondack chair she is sitting in behind you start to scoot, making a skipping-plastic sound against the pavement. You also hear something banging against the wall. When you turn around to see what the commotion is you see that the thing banging against the wall is her head.

My first instinct? I thought she was joking, doing one of those things where she was physically acting out, in overly-dramatic fashion, how badly she felt because when I’d asked her earlier how she was, she’d said, “Shitty. I haven’t been feeling very good lately.” True, she’s not prone to the comical dramatics that my innate nerd-ness enjoys.

But, what’s also true is that she rarely feels good. She’ll tell you that herself. So, I thought nothing of it when she said she felt shitty. She always feels shitty. She’s also recently had her gall bladder out. She smokes a bus load of pot and smokes almost as much in the way of cigarettes. She stays up late and sleeps all day (her circadian rhythm—her internal biological clock/sleep-wake cycle—is way off). She doesn’t eat right when she finally does eat. She drinks. A lot. She, to put it succinctly, lives up to the large tattoo inked across her chest just under her collar bone, which says: Live fast. Die pretty, and she, which she would also tell you herself is true, pretty much wears her fast-paced lifestyle as a badge of honor. She has said to me, on more than one occasion—in a cavalier fashion, “I don’t want to live to be really old. I’m fine with dying young. I never thought I’d make it past 30, anyway.”

The point is: it took a good 5-10 seconds for my brain to kick in and realize that something was terribly wrong and that perhaps she was having a seizure. 5-10 seconds is a long time when it precedes such an event.

Now, I’d seen two seizures happen in front of me before. Once, when I was about 19 yrs old and working as a waitress one of the guys, from a party-of-four, I was waiting on up and had, what I assumed to be, an epileptic seizure in the middle of giving me his order. Yeah. “I’ll have a side of fries with that, and...” WTF?!

Since no one who was sitting with him decided to do anything about his body contorting about, except for to get out of the booth so that they could watch, from afar, him continue to stiffly writhe about, I yelled, at the top of my lungs, “Call 911!”

Then, I told his friends to get the hell out of the way as I guided his seizing body out of the booth so that I could get him clear of everything he was banging against. Before I knew it, his seizure was over and the paramedics where there to extricate him from my lap and from my care and to takeover. Whew. He was to be fine.

Another time, I witnessed a co-worker go into a diabetic seizure. This time it was my friend Fae, who I worked with at the time, who called 911 and guided our diabetic co-worker out of her office chair and on to the floor and who also turned our co-worker’s head sideways so that she wouldn’t choke on her seizure foam. Whew. She was to fine, too.

But this time, being alone, not having a restaurant full of people or an office full of co-workers, it was different. Whatever calm I used to pride myself in having, during storms such as this, was no where in sight. Fortunately my reserve switched to auto-pilot and took mostly over. It was that auto-pilot part of me which knelt down on my knees to face my friend and neighbor and take her head into one of my hands, pulling her forward, in an attempt to cradle her against my chest and my shoulder to keep the back of her head from banging against the wall behind her. I was also trying to tilt her slightly to the side, angling her, to keep her from choking on her seizure foam. (Sadly, she actually ended up with a bruise on her forehead from my doing this. The force with which I was required to use in an attempt to draw her forward was so great, because she was convulsing so hard and therefore stiffening away from me, that my strength was barely a match to her rigidity and left a contusion on her head during my effort.)

It was also that auto-pilot part of me who began to use my other hand to dial 911 on her cell phone, which I was still holding—thank goodness! I can’t imagine what I would have done if I had not had her phone in my hand. I was too petrified to leave her alone, thinking that even a second of her on her own would be the death of her. Turns out, dialing 911, those three little numbers, is not so easy when the part of you that is afraid that your friend is going to die in front of you, and that no one will be there to help you, becomes the prevailing part of you now in control.

I dialed 912. Shit! Then I dialed 911 and pushed the green send button. Shit, that was not the green make-the-call-send button; that was the red-stop-the-call button. Just dial 911! Damn it! Push green! Did I get it?!

When the 911 operator came onto the line and told me to calm down, interrupting me in the middle of trying to give him my address so that an ambulance could get the hell on its way, I was livid. Really, asshole? Is this how it’s going to be? I thought. I’m calm!!! Now take my friggen address down you muther #^@&*! so someone can come help me before she dies. I can't be alone.

In hind sight, the 911 operator was probably right. I was not calm.

The fear of being alone during this formidable circumstance was not the only emotion I experienced. I ran the gamut of wondering if she was going to die in front of me, wondering if what I was witnessing was, indeed, a seizure, or if it was a stroke, or something else entirely. How would I know? I’m not a doctor. (I’m an artist/writer.) I moved on to wondering if she would fully recover. Would she have brain damage? Would she be able to use her entire body again or was I witnessing the event that would paralyze her in some way?

Why would I think differently? What she’d had was a full grand mal seizure complete with muscle rigidity and spasms, major jerking, a loss of consciousness, and then, when it was finally over, which felt like hours of my life had gone by, it was followed by her entire body slumping into a motionless limpness. Then, slowly, but eventually, she became conscious. That’s when the lethargy and confusion ensued.

Watching her coming to, it was like something out of an alien movie. Her muscles were contracted and her entire body was contorted. Her head rolled around on her shoulders while she unsuccessfully attempted to hoist it straight and keep control of it. Her eyes, reappearing from being rolled back into her eye lids, tried to find something to focus on that made sense. No part of her was conscious enough to reason what had happened to her but the recognition that something awful had happened enveloped her with a visible fear.

Watching it all was intense. Seeing her trying to navigate her own body and mind, both of which were not responding to her desire to come back to full consciousness, that is when I was sure she had brain damage. That’s also when I thought she might have paralysis. Her limbs still weren’t responding to her efforts to use them. It was as if her skin and bones had become an inanimate object, much like a puppet, and her inner will had become the puppeteer, only the puppet proved too heavy and too unruly to be animated by the master.

By that time, the paramedics had shown up, and it was no longer necessary for me to remain on the phone with the 911 operator who had been unsuccessfully trying to calm me down by narrating what behaviors I could expect to see my friend exhibit next. His narration, while it did help me to understand what was happening, mostly served to bring the shock of it all more present.

Each time that he was right, each time that she fell in line with what he told me I would witness next, such as her becoming confused once she began to regain consciousness and how she would not recognize me or where she was at first, it freaked me out. I kept wondering if what he was describing was normal, like she's going to be alright normal, or if it was the kind of normal that precedes someone walking with a limp for the rest of their life because the part of their brain that controls one half of their body got burned up and died in the seizure and one of their arms and one of their legs no longer works. It will now need to be dragged along every where they go.

Eventually, she came to enough for the paramedics to ask her simple questions about herself: How old are you? Where are you? What’s your name? Questions she could not answer. Yup… brain damage, I thought.

She never gained full consciousness in front of me. While the eight paramedics/fireman who showed up scattered around her and began to put her onto the stretcher to go to the ER, she just kept looking at me through her blurred expression and wide, confused eyes. As they wheeled her off, further and further, she kept her gaze fixed upon me. She seemed to be asking me, the only recognizable part of her world, “What’s happening to me?” Later she did confirm that my face was the only thing that made sense to her at that point.

What was especially hard for me was that I didn't get to go in and see her in the ER room, not being family. So it wasn't until six or so hours later, when she came home from the ER, that I was able to see her and was able to ascertain that she wasn't brain dead or didn't have any permanent physical paralysis. Even so, I didn’t sleep that night, or for many nights to come. Visions of her seizure, being the visual/artist-ish person that I am, plagued me. (I can still see her seizing to this day. I now get PTS disorder. I never want to go to war. I can’t even handle a seizure.)

Let me remind you that it is an entirely different experience seeing someone that you care for and love having a seizure. The restaurant epileptic-seizure dude, oh…I made amends with that experience not long after it happened. It was the same with the co-worker. But when you are the only one there with the person seizing and you are not even sure it is a seizure, and when that person is someone you love, it feels more alone than I think I have ever felt in my entire life.

But, I feel blessed that I was there, for her and for me. First for her because she was mortified that she’d put someone through what I’d gone through. I assured her that of all people, it was probably supposed to be me. I’d continue to gently remind her that this might have been her wakeup call, but I would never judge her while doing so. I get why she does drugs and drinks. I get why she, and why any of us, need to do anything to check out for a bit/for a while. There is no one among us that has not eaten something fattening to eat themselves numb, and there is also no one, who is "us" or someone who we know, who has not attempted to drink, smoke, movie-watch, relationship-divert, or drug their way different from how they are feeling…which hurts.

Then, for me, this has now become one of those things in life where, if you have your eyes open, you see that there is a divine order to things. I was there. I was there because of so many reasons. I was off from work because it was a furlough day. Then there was the whole bigger-smaller-bag thing, and the bag charge thing. There was the coat situation and the timing of the errand, and… Need I go on?

If this particular account of what I was a part of, and we’ve established that my life is not a movie (or, I’d be getting laid by now) does not point out the divine connection to things, at least in some little way, I am not sure what more I can say except that I am sorry. I am sorry for anyone who does not feel connected to the Oneness of things.

I, on the other hand, post digesting the trauma of the situation, felt blessed and more connected than I ever had before. To walk out of my door, still feeling the grace of the gratitude I’d just experienced for recognizing that I am connected to the whole, and to be presented with an indisputable example of that connective energy, her seizure and me to help, well, it’s an overwhelmingly beautiful gift.

Yes.

This is going to be a blessed year.

It may also be an intense year, as it started out with a pretty big bang, but I am up for it. I’m going to keep my eyes open wide. I am going to open my heart even wider. And, I am going to remain as vertical as I can. The past, the future, the worry and fear that both plague one with and keep one trapped within anything but the Now, well, they, too, can stuff it right along with my ego. If I can do one thing this year...I hope that it is to banish, once and for all, whatever tie my ego has bound itself to that is incapable of living completely in the Now and without unnecessary fear.

I am here Now, baby! It’s beautiful.

By the way, totally unrelated, but I found it amusing, I offered someone else an apple today. He wasn’t homeless. He was a co-worker. But, he didn’t want an apple either. He said that he was a meat and potatoes man.

I think I need to quit being an apple pusher. After all, I eat almost an apple a day but it hasn’t kept the doctor away and my genetic blood pressure still sucks. I even have a cardio stress test on Monday. I’m kinda nervous about it, but at least I’ll find out if I can run again without having a weird episode like the one I had just before Christmas last year where I got so light headed and nauseous, which has never happened to me, even though I have been running on and off since the 2nd grade, that I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to drive myself home. :>(

Sorry, bad note to leave my blog on, but it just feels weird to have a doc appt. where I need to show up in sweats and run to a point just before something bad might happen. So, connect to me and hope that my veins don't suck and I can run again.

Regardless, keep being fabulous! I will... even if my blood pressure sux.