How to be OK when you’re not
“There is no substitute for the nowness of now.” So begins Sam Anderson’s New York Times review of Michael Kupperman’s graphic novel “All the Answers.” I have no idea what the book is about. The review is short and cryptic. It doesn’t matter. It’s Sam’s sentence I’m interested in anyway.
I have not had great trauma in my life. What I have had is terrible, awful, really bad days. Days that felt like I was wrapped in a cellophane straitjacket of pain, forced to live out my hours in a kind of Groundhog Day loop whereby I felt unrelentingly awful, followed by feeling unrelentingly awful, followed by feeling — you get the idea.
A year ago almost to the week, my dog Theo lost his right eye. He scratched it (we think) rooting around under some trees in his yard, and then bumped it on a chair, which effectively burst the cornea. We rushed him to the vet, and after several hours during which we did not breathe, he was returned to us with stitches where his beautiful brown eye had been. He had to wear a cone for several weeks, which didn’t stop him from barreling through the house, snagging his neck on every piece of furniture and the other dog. He couldn’t go in and out of the doggie door with it, so we had to be alert to when he needed to potty, which, because he was (unbeknownst to us) developing Cushing disease, was every 15 minutes.
It was a sad and trying time for Theo and my husband and me. There were moments when I felt I would explode with worry (his other eye was scratched as well, and there was the possibility he would lose it, too). I survived by co-opting an Alcoholics Anonymous maxim and putting my own twist on it: Instead of taking one day at a time, I taught myself to take things one minute at a time. It was a skill I’d learned years earlier when I was the mom of two dogs who systematically tried to kill one another anytime our backs were turned.
Taking things one minute at a time meant being aware of those isolated moments when the dogs were not fighting and being thankful for the calm. In Theo’s case, it meant being aware of those moments when he was resting comfortably and being thankful for those. I learned to deeply and fully inhabit individual moments as if they were monthlong vacations. It was self-soothing. More than that, it was lifesaving. There really is no substitute for the nowness of now, I realized, especially when you learn to appreciate those minuscule, pain-free moments that lie between the unrelentingly awful and the unrelentingly awful.
So back to Theo. Three weeks ago, almost exactly a year to the date he lost his right eye, he scratched his left eye again. Things unfolded, Groundhog Day-like, as they had a year ago: We raced to the vet. We feared the worst. We awaited the call that would deliver the verdict. This time, however, while I waited, I breathed. Every minute that a terrible diagnosis was not imparted to me about Theo’s eye was a minute something terrible was not happening. When the call came that it was just a minor abrasion, we rejoiced. And although for the next two weeks we were attached to Theo by a short, supervisory leash and could not so much as potty ourselves without taking him with us, with every second he was OK, I too was OK.
Which is not to say I never lie awake and ruminate in the small of the night. Years of insomnia have made this a habit. The other night, as I lay awake considering my upcoming birthday, I formed the inane thought that I am now at the age where I could have a child as old as I am.
But even in the fog of insomnia, the “nowness of now” can be a refuge. As I lie in bed, sifting through absurdities like the one above, I’m aware of my husband beside me. I’m aware of one dog snoring softly on my pillow and of Theo flung across my legs. With nobody stirring, everything feels OK. It’s a feeling worth staying awake to appreciate.
Dana Shavin is the author of “The Body Tourist,” a memoir about mental health and anorexia. Email her at dana@danashavin. com, visit her website at Danashavin.com and follow her on Facebook at Dana Shavin Writes.