My Spring Break From Hell: Haunted Denver Hotel Edition

It's spring break time, and while some people are out making new memories, I'm still haunted by a spring break memory of my own. And I mean that a little more literally than I would prefer.

Because during my spring break in March 2000, I was quite literally haunted.

It all started on a Saturday morning and my law school friends and I overslept and missed our return flight from Vegas. Or technically, you might argue it all started the night before, when we out too late having so much fun that it caused us to miss our flight home the next morning. We had all come in on different flights, and I originally considered myself lucky to fly on out on standby to the very next flight out to Denver, where I was supposed to connect, while my friends were routed on a couple differing connecting flights to get back home to Nashville.

I got to Denver smoothly, and then my luck promptly ran out.

Consider:

I had missed my original connection when I missed my first flight, so I was getting out of Denver was dependent on catching another flight home on standby;
All the flights were booked solid for the rest of the day;
My luggage, however, was checked all the way to Nashville as though I would make it on the next flight from Denver on standby, so it flew home without me (this was before 9/11, so that could happen back then);
The Denver airport had just opened and didn't have many restaurants or services yet. It was built out in the boonies and there were no other business nearby;
I had exactly three dollars in my pocket.

All of the above meant that when the last flight back of the day back to Nashville departed, I was stuck in a random city with no clothes, no transportation, and no money. I went to ground transportation to find a hotel that had a free airport shuttle so that I could get some sleep and try again tomorrow for a flight with room to fly me home standby. This was before the days of Uber, so it was my only method of getting too and from the airport. I called numbers for advertised hotels until I found a Ramada that could come get me, and it took me on a drive that seemed to take forever, which was only fitting because it was taking me straight to Hell.

It did, at least, stop at a Wendy's along the way to let me blow my remaining three dollars on two items from buy the dollar menu. I was about to enter the Gates of Hell, but at least I did so with a chicken Cesar salad in my belly.

I got to the motel (definitely not a hotel), and booked a room on my credit card. I got ready for bed with about 80 cents left in my immediate possession. I had to use the plastic water cups to store my contacts, because my toiletries were in Nashville inside of my suitcase.

I was exhausted and miserable.

To my considerable dismay, when I laid down and tried to go to sleep, I started hearing noises in the bathroom. It sounded like someone was taking the lid of the top of the tank in the toilet and moving it around.

I told myself it was just water running, and I was mostly convinced of that explanation, but whatever was causing it, it was making too much noise for me to sleep. I went into the bathroom to see if I could fix it.

Of course, the noise stopped when I got inside, and there was no obvious problem inside of the lid. So I put it back on and tried for bed again, and the toilet went back to rattling as before. I tried to sleep through it for about half an hour without success, at one point thinking that I might have heard the bathroom sink turn on. I was a little bit frightened by the sound, but mostly just annoyed by the faulty plumbing in the room, since it had been a long day and I really needed some sleep.

I tossed and turned having the occasional concern about the weird noises from the bathroom, but mostly I just tried to ignore it and get to sleep.

Then I heard footsteps. I heard someone walk from the bathroom, right in front of the bed, to the other side of the room.

I jumped up and raced to turn on the lights by the door. I hadn't checked behind the shower curtain when I went to the bathroom, or when I had checked in, and I surmised that someone must have been hiding in there the whole time.

I was not in the mood to deal with this game, and I was in fantastic physical shape at that point in my life, so I was ready to take down whoever I found. With adrenaline pumping and anger boiling, I turned on the lights and turned around.

There was no one was there.

Had I a car nearby, if Uber had existed, or if I had cash for a cab, I would have gone to a different hotel at that moment.  But I was out of options, and the hotel shuttle didn't start running until the next morning, so I was stuck. Stuck in a room where the bathroom rattled and I heard invisible footsteps. I would have rather there been an actual person inside of my room.

At least then I would have had an explanation and proof that I wasn't crazy, at least as it related to the footsteps.

The rattling noise got slightly better after I heard the footsteps, which I suppose makes sense because whatever was inside the bathroom had finished and walked over by the window. After another hour or two of relative calm, I finally got a little bit of sleep.

I had a dream that night about two otherworldly creatures with grey skin and glowing eyes that were coming after me and destroying everything in their paths. It was one of those ultra-realistic ones where you feel your emotions vividly as you're dreaming and it seems real even after you wake up.

When I did, it was still dark outside and I was positive that between the nightmare, the footsteps, and the bathroom sounds, there was something very evil in my room.

I told it to go away, in my best exorcist voice, which I learned in my Southern Baptist childhood, and I might have awakened my neighbors (assuming my visitor already hadn't) in the process. The whole scene may have sounded either frightening or ridiculous to anyone who heard (or to my current readers, I suppose), but the room felt a little calmer on the other side.

I laid back down and got fitful sleep for the next hour or so until it was close enough to morning to shower, put back on the same clothes I had worn yesterday, and wait on the first shuttle of the day back to the airport.

When I got there, my airline (sadly, it wasn't Spirit Air) told me there were two flights out that day to Nashville. The evening flight was oversold by two seats already, although some of those people might miss connections just like I had the day before. The morning flight was full except for one upgraded seat that it could sell to me, but it was too fancy for me to take on standby.

The seat would cost $750, and I had about $1000 in my savings account.

I debated the cost of another night without clothes, toiletries or cash, and an airport shuttle to a motel that might or might not be haunted. I pondered the cost of missing classes the next day if I didn't get home, and wondered at what point the Nashville airport would stop holding my luggage. I worried that my cell phone battery was getting low, and I had no charger with me (this was back when chargers were individualized to their phone, so I couldn't just walk in to the airport book store and buy a cord that way you can today). I considered the cost of blowing what amounted to my life's savings and the shame I would feel for blowing over $800 extra because I missed my original Vegas flight by about 10 minutes.

I weighed all those factors, and then I concluded that no amount of money or shame outweighed the misery of spending another night stranded in Denver as a haunted homeless guy.

I bought the seat and flew home to Nashville, got my luggage, and met my friend Chris at Cheeseburger Charlie's just in time for the NCAA Tournament Selection Show.

Sometimes I wonder in retrospect if maybe I was just so exhausted that my mind starting playing tricks on me that night. Perhaps it was, but regardless, I slept in my own bed that night never having been happier to be home. 

I went to bed early and made it to class the next day. The thing in my hotel room, thankfully (for me at least), stayed behind.

And I still think these were the right decisions for both of us.

An Easter Story that Isn't What You Think

Next week I'm going to post something ridiculous and I think you're going to like it. But because this week is little more somber, I'm not going to write about Insects, or Donuts, or Penguins that Attack , or about the time my dad put put catfish in my childhood swimming pool.

I'll make it up to you next week, I promise.

You see, this blog was born on a Good Friday eight years ago, and that happens to be this week, so its a good chance to revisit why this blog is here. Even if Good Friday posts aren't usually your thing, I hope you'll hang with me for a second, because the point (I promise, I'll get to one eventually) is more universal than it might first appear.

You might relate to my story, if you keep going. And if you don't, there's a money-back guarantee.

The point of the blog is not a Bible story, at least in the usual sense, but it is a story about who I would be if I were a character in the Bible. I'm pretty sure I would be the thief being crucified beside Jesus who was making fun of him while on the cross on Good Friday.

And that's not entirely a bad thing.

It always strikes me that the thieves being crucified beside Jesus hurl insults at him along with the jeering crowd in the gospels' retelling. The motivation of the criminals is not immediately clear, as they were suffering the exact same punishment that they were making fun of Jesus for enduring, and in no position to look down on the person beside them.

Whatever the first century equivalent of the pot calling the kettle black was, this was it.

The motivations for everyone else at the scene was more clear.

The religious leaders of the day had Jesus arrested and accused of insurrection in order to protect their positions in power. The political leaders of the day had Jesus crucified, in between two convicted criminals, to protect their own grip on political power against the following of a potential revolutionary. Roman soldiers performed the execution, because that was their job.

The government and religious leaders had reason to resent and mock Jesus for his following and the threat to their power it represented. The soldiers wanted to show their superiority to break the spirit of those who might resist. The spectators wanted a show, and there was this guy who claimed to be a king of some sort providing a disappointing amount of resistance.

The thing that's more surprising, and the part I relate to, is that two criminals beside Jesus, suffering the exact same fate and in no position to condescend, started insulting him too, mid-execution. It's quite possibly the weakest basis for trash talk in recorded history.

Their motivation was a little less obvious, but I have a theory. It was about what they were feeling at that moment in their lives, because I sometimes feel it to.

Imagine how you'd feel if you were sentenced to be executed in a judicial system that offered no lawyer and no real shot at appeal. Maybe you'd even been framed or falsely accused to begin with, but now you've been sentenced to die. There's no way out, and your about to die an excruciating death.

On your execution day, you get word that a reputed miracle worker is set to be executed right beside you. For the first time since your conviction, you have a ray of hope. Maybe this guy is the real deal and will smite all of the authorities trying to kill you. Or maybe he'll cause an earthquake or a windstorm that will scatter the crowd and allow all of you to run free. Maybe, if you're lucky, he'll just snap his fingers and teleport all of you to a nice island destination where the drinks are flowing and no one is trying to murder you.

Wouldn't that be nice? You've found a way out of your troubles!

If it's possible to be excited on the day of one's execution, maybe the two convicts were. Maybe they were hoping not only for freedom from their current bondage, but for a new start and a better life on the other side of their predicament than they had before. If they were guilty of their accused crimes, maybe whatever factors that had caused them to commit them would be resolved on the other side of the upcoming miracle.

Then they were taken to the hill alongside the miracle worker, who strangely wasn't even trying to rescue himself, much less the other criminals. I can only imagine the disappointment on the down side of that roller coaster. Maybe the first conversation went something like this.

"Alright, Jesus, do your thing! Show them what you got! This is going to be great!"
"Jesus? Come on, any time now?"
"I'm really suffering here, what are you waiting on?"
"Are you really not going to do anything? I'm dying here! Are you even capable of doing anything?
"Screw you, Jesus. You call yourself God, but you're a liar and I can't trust anything you ever said. You are a fraud and you never even tried to help me. It was stupid of me to even think you could."

 That monologue looks really familiar to me, because I have it in my life all the time.

Maybe it looks familiar to you too.

Things are not working out the way you planned. The lifeboat that was coming turned around and went back to the dock. It wasn't supposed to be this way, and life seems unfair.

Maybe you prayed a prayer that God isn't answering. Or even if you're not the praying type, maybe like the thieves on the cross, you can still relate to putting your hope in something that didn't work out like you'd hoped and now the path forward seems dark.

Our sense of fairness tells us that problems are supposed to be temporary and if we wait long enough or work hard enough, anything can be overcome. Life tells us otherwise. The bills go up. The friend moves away. The disease can't be healed and no amount of hard work can make it go away.

Our sense of loyalty tells us that the close relationship will return to its happier days, the job will get better, or that a loved one will come through, but reality sees you tired and lonely.

For some of us, our sense of faith tells us that there's hope on the other side of our struggle and we'll see the reason for the pain when we get there. The hole in our heart from the loss of someone close to you disagrees.

The thieves on the cross lashed out because they were disappointed. I get that, because sometimes I am too.

But this story doesn't end in disappointment, at least not completely.

There's no record that Jesus ever responded to the insults of the other criminals, but there is eventually a different kind of conversation. One of criminals hears Jesus forgive those who persecuted him and offer love to those in the crowd, even during his suffering. He has a realization that his own life's should have been larger than himself.

Maybe had he spent more time showing love to others and less energy taking care of himself his entire life would have turned out differently.  Maybe had he lived that way, he wouldn't be in the spot he was in. Maybe the example of love and self sacrifice was more important than his own hopes for comfort. In fact, maybe there is no "maybe" about it.

One thief, the text records, has this kind of revelation with his closing breaths, and makes amends with the miracle worker who had initially disappointed him. The other dies without further mention, apparently taunting away until the end.

I don't think these two contrasts are a literary accident. We can choose to be either. They both suffered the same disappointing fate at the end, sadly, but the one who stopped obsessing about his own troubles to think about others at least got a moment of peace and a hope of better things to come. He didn't get a release from the pain he was suffering, but he at least found a way to make his life be defined by something else more important.

Maybe that's the lesson in the story for us.

I don't know what you're going through, but I know I didn't sign up for multiple sclerosis, and that God didn't answer my prayers to have anything else. But in the moments when I start to get frustrated that I get tired all the time, that the weak muscles in my broken leg won't allow it to heal, or that the stabbing pains keep coming, I try to remember to look past my own problems, at least with my one eye that MS hasn't taken away.

That's what the thief on the cross did, and his story encourages me, even if it didn't end exactly the way he wanted it to. No matter how my story ends, I hope I can offer some encouragement to every else with me along the way.

We might not control whether God answers prayers, but sometimes our story can more powerful if He doesn't.

Just like it was for the thief on the cross.

Attack of the Donuts

He was lurking, waiting for me the moment I entered the front door of my office building. It was as though it were my birthday and he was herding me to my surprise party.

“We have donuts and coffee! Right this way! Come and get some.”

I love the taste of donuts (and also their more sophisticated cousin, doughnuts), which is why my soul shatters a little every time this happens. I’m not allowed to eat things like donuts anymore. To keep my MS under control, I get about five grams of saturated fat a day, which is roughly one serving of dark meat chicken. A single donut probably has 237,000 grams. 

“Thanks, I’ll just take some coffee.”

He leads me into the break room, practically pulling me along with the force of his eagerness.

“We have chocolate filled donuts, and regular. And also ones with custard. Just take your pick!”

“And coffee?”

“Oh, yeah, I’ll pour you some.”

“What’s the occasion?”

“We’re just trying to improve morale with the federal shutdown and everything.”

“That’s nice.”

I was hoping he would just show me my options and walk away.  I didn’t want to break his spirit by turning down his  well intentioned treat. But it was clearly not to be.

I am one of the few employees in my building who doesn’t work on the same prison schedule as the institutions we serve, where all the morning shift employees arrive at 6:00 a.m. An array of donuts still lingered on the table, and by the time I got there at 8:00, I was among the last targets left. I was either going to have to take a donut and throw it away when I got upstairs or explain my weird diet, for the 527,000^th time, to a relative stranger, who would then immediately feel bad for having tried to nice to me. 

This is my daily life. 

Yesterday it was a minister at my church who seemed to take it as a personal affront that I didn’t have one of her frosted cookies. Last week a waiter at a party gave me a dirty look when I changed my mind about an appetizer he was walking around with after I realized it had red meat. The week before there was birthday cake to celebrate a co-worker’s birthday in my division, where everyone has heard me explain why I can’t have cake at least once a month for the last 15 months but still responds in shock and awe when I turn down a piece that’s already been cut for me.   

The worst part is not even that I have to turn down the junk food, it’s people’s reactions when I do. 

“Why not? You’re so skinny!” is a popular refrain. Of course, I already know that I know I’m skinny. I’d rather be less so, in fact, but MS disagrees and we argue about this frequently. I’d also really like that donut, but not quite as much as I’d like the use of my legs. 

I don’t like to tell people I can’t eat what they’ve offered because I have MS. Sometimes it makes them feel bad for having asked. Other times people are visibly jarred and things become awkward. Occasionally, I then get asked my whole life story when all I really want is to decline that donut and get to the bathroom to pee, because, hey, I have MS and can’t hold it very long. 

But most often, revealing my diagnosis to a stranger leads to trail of comments to which I’d rather not have to respond. The classic line those of us who are still walking upright hear is “you don’t look like you have MS?,” as though I decided to make up my nerve pain, fatigue, and partial blindness as a fun prank. "You're right," I want to say, "perhaps I just need a V-8." 

When I turn down junk food in public settings, I also tend to get questioned about my research. 

“Well, I have a cousin with MS who just eats whatever,” I hear sometimes. “You’ve also told me that your cousin is paralyzed,” I think in my head, but respond with something slightly more civil, about the latest research and it being a snowflake disease that effects everyone differently. Other people are skeptical and aggressively demand that I to explain the science of how saturated fat, dairy, red meat, and possibly pork, gluten and most everything else that isn’t a piece of broccoli affect MS, as though without their stamp on my diet is the one piece that's missing from a cure. 

Still others over-apologize for eating those things in front of me, making me feel self conscious for their discomfort. Really, I just wish people would eat what they want to eat, while letting me do the same, and not make a big fuss about it all. 

But that’s not likely to happen, especially not at my office, where Mr. Donut Guy’s eyes bearing into my soul. 

I reluctantly took a donut with sprinkles, intending to throw it away when I get to my office. I slink away thinking the interaction was kind of weird, but anxious to get into the confines of my own office where I can do my own thing and people will leave me alone.  

When I get there, I see something wedged between my closed door and the door handle, with napkins stuffed on each side. 

Someone, it seems, had grabbed a donut for me and placed it on my door.

To Take a Chance or Play it Safe?

During my first multiple sclerosis attack, I packed up my office and cleaned up my files, unsure if I’d ever go back to work.

It sounds dramatic now, but in that moment life was about as frightening as a ride with Toonces the Driving Cat. In a matter of days, I had gone from feeling fine to being totally blind in one eye, unable to sleep through the night between the alternating sweats and chills, and walking with a hitch in my left leg. I was getting worse every day, and there was no guarantee it was ever going to stop.

It finally did on December 26, 2016, and I’ve been mostly stable since.

Life is different now, but I can get by just fine, with a few extra challenges. Nothing that seems
unmanageable. Unless it’s hot outside, that is, in which case I turn into jello.

Still, my instinct ever since has to go into survival mode, to hold on to my job as long as I could still bring in money, make no life changes or moves to rock the boat and ride out the storm as long as I can. Any goals of advancement, or my dream of getting in front on the Supreme Court got left behind. My toolbox was full with what I needed to battle MS and didn’t have room for the extra baggage.

That was then. But It’s funny how our experiences change us over time.

It sure has for me.

Let me explain.

I unintentionally lost some weight after my diagnosis.  Once my symptoms calmed down, I could run faster than I could before I had MS, even with the occasional hitch in my stride. When I set new personal records for a half marathon and a 5K last spring, I realized the rest of my life didn’t have to be spent in a slow and steady decline.

It gave me the confidence to take the California bar exam. Last summer I did that and I won a potentially tricky case by outlawyering the (jerkface) attorney on the other side. I survived the stress of my fourth successful bar exam-- the nation’s hardest-- while taking no time off work except the two days of the actual test.

Thousands of people pass the exam every year, so it doesn’t make me all that special, but it was nice to know I could still do things.

Which brings me to now.

There’s a job opening out there that might get me an onramp to that Supreme Court argument that I’ve always wanted. If I take it, it might turn out to be the latest chapter in my MS redemption story.

Or it might end in disaster.

I’ve read about nightmare stories where MS patients change jobs and immediately have an attack,
either due to the stress from a change in routine or just dumb luck. They become unable to work,
without leave to fall back on, and maybe even worse, without any goodwill built from their history with their new company to help accommodate the storm. In some cases, they end up leaving the work force.

That could be me. Making a change is risky.

My current job isn’t easy, but it’s relatively unstressful (most of the time) for a legal job, because I don’t have to deal with opposing counsels or appear in court all that often. I get to work from home twice a week, which is nice, because I am usually pretty wiped out by the time I get home on the days I don’t.

To chase what I’m missing, I’d have to give up a routine that is working. The other routine would require a longer commute, the stress of opposing counsels, and more hearings. I would like it, but it might burn out my candle faster. And it’s probably a pay cut, when God only knows (literally) how much longer I’ll be able to work at all.

Like I said, making a change is risky.

I don’t really like risks. But I also can’t imagine a world where living safely gets me to the dream I’ve had for 15 years. It occurs to me that not taking risks can be pretty costly too.

I haven’t decided what I’m going to do yet. Maybe I should be thankful for my current financial comfort and stability, and be grateful for what I have. Maybe that should be enough, and I should store up my dreaming for whatever energy I have left after hours and just get back to my other dream of writing that book. Maybe otherwise I’d miss a good thing given up in pursuit of a pipe dream that didn’t work out.

Maybe I won’t know what I have until it’s gone.

Or maybe I shouldn’t rely on old proverbs like that, because there’s one to justify every decision. One
says “better safe than sorry,” while another says “Carpe Diem.” For every “You only live once,” there’s “a bird in hand.” For every “live your dream,” there’s a “don’t push your luck.” We should reach for the stars, we should keep our feet on the ground. The grass isn’t always greener.

The English language has too many clichés.

I have no idea which one wins when they all conflict. Maybe I should make a list of as many of them as I can think of and choose based on which side has the most.

It’s a confusing moment, but it’s nice to feel well enough to potentially have the choice. That wasn’t a given, and I’m so incredibly thankful for every moment when I can do the things I used to take for
granted.

I hope the decision gets clearer as time goes on. And until then, for once again being well enough to
dream, I count my blessings.

And that’s a cliché I can get behind.

The Parable of the Man Who Never Fell Down: How Multiple Sclerosis Helped Me Pass the California Bar Exam and Life in General

There once was a man named Abe whose job it was to roll big stones up a hill. He was pretty good at it, at least until the moment he suddenly wasn't.

That's where his story gets interesting.

You see, all his life, for as long as he could remember, Abe was told how good he was at pushing those boulders, and most everything else he did. Abe learned from a very young age that falling down was a sign of weakness and that he was not weak, so he should never need to fall down.

Once as a kid he saw another boy fall down, and, if you can believe this, the boy wasn't even pushing a rock when he fell. Abe stopped to look, but his teacher shooed him along.

"That kid fell," the teacher said. "But you're not the type of kid who falls down very often. When you grow up and get strong, you will learn never to fall at all." Abe was proud of himself, and happy not to be like the others. Falling down was painful and not very much fun.

As he grew up, Abe became better and better at never losing his balance. The few times he wobbled, his teachers told him that he must not be trying hard enough to stand tall. "You're not the kind of person who falls down unless you are careless. You are not the kind of person who falls down unless you are being lazy. If you only apply yourself, you'll never fall down at all."

Whenever Abe did fall, he always felt like it was his fault for not being more careful or for taking his eyes of the path.

Abe eventually grew up and fell into a job pushing rocks, which he thought he was pretty good at. He rarely fell, even when the climb was steep. Others had similar jobs along side him, and occasionally he would see them slip on the incline. Abe was thankful that wasn't him.

Despite his best efforts, Abe occasionally got overwhelmed and lost his footing on one of the hills. Whenever he did, he would throw himself behind the boulder he was pushing, and jump back up quickly so that nobody could see him on the ground. Abe thought that he was not the kind of person who fell down, after all, and he was afraid people would think less of him if they found out otherwise. Not falling was what Abe thought made him special.

So Abe had made a nice living, gathering modest acclaim as the guy who was one of the steadiest hands in town at pushing rocks up hills. He was unsure of the answers to many of the great questions of life, or to what use all those stones at the top of the hill would eventually be put, but he took comfort in knowing that he could usually get them up the hill seemingly with less effort than some of the other people in town.

Abe was glad not to be one of those people who fell down. They were bruised and dirty and scraped, some of them to the point that it looked like they might never fully heal. Abe was dry and clean, and he liked it that way.

Abe thought he was different.

Until he wasn't.

One day Abe was putting all his effort into hauling a large rock up a mountain. It was a tall mountain, but he had hauled rocks up it three times before, so Abe was sure he could do it again. But this time, as Abe got almost to the top, he lost his footing and rolled all the way down back to where he had started, and the boulder rolled over him a few times for good measure on the way down.

Abe was bruised and bloodied, but his first instinct was to look around and hope no one saw him fall. "This is so embarrassing," he thought. "I'm not the kind of person who falls down." He hoped no one would notice what happened, and sure enough, most people didn't.

Abe was shaken by his failure, but he kept showing up for work, pushing rocks, mostly up smaller hills. But soon Abe starting falling down all the time, and he didn't know why. He tried harder and harder to hide his falls, and his ever-increasing bruises. He tried as best he could to get his rocks up the hill without anyone noticing his newfound struggles, hoping his problems would only be temporary.

One day Abe went to the village to see a doctor to find out why he was falling and put a stop to it quickly. Instead of a solution, however, the doctor had somber news.

"You have a condition," she said, "that will cause you to fall down all the time. There is no way to fix it, and it will only get worse over time."

Abe was heartbroken. He had thought he was the kind of person who didn't fall down, but suddenly he was instead the kind of person who couldn't easily stand up. He had once thought he was good at pushing rocks uphill, but he had failed spectacularly to climb the last mountain he tried. His life suddenly seemed purposeless, and maybe even hopeless.

"I'm not the kind of person who never falls down, anymore." Abe thought. "And I never will be." Abe didn't know who he was anymore.

Abe went back to the hill the next day to push rocks as best he could. He wanted to just give it up, but he didn't know what else to do.

Abe fell down a lot. The first few times his instinct was to hop back on his feet, hide behind his rock and cover it up, but soon Abe realized there wasn't any point because he was going to fall back down again soon anyway. After one big fall, Abe looked around expecting to see people laughing at him, but he was surprised to see that most people were to busy struggling with their own rocks to really notice. And of the people who did notice, most of them shouted words of encouragement his way rather than scorn.

Abe felt a little embarrassed climbing the hill with so many falls, and he sure did pick up some bruises along the climb. But before he knew it, he had reached the top of the hill.

Abe went back down and grabbed another rock, and the process repeated. After he had pushed a few stones to the hilltop he looked over and saw some of the old stones that he had pushed up years earlier. Abe suddenly realized that his new rocks, the ones on which he had fallen a few times while pushing uphill, were just as high as the old ones that he pushed up easily long before.

"I guess it didn't really matter how many times I fell," Abe realized. "It only mattered where the rocks ended up."

Abe started falling more and more often, but wanted to prove he could still do his job, in part because he had gone to one of the best rock climbing schools and didn't have many other skills. But the memory of that giant mountain where he had crashed and burned once before haunted him. He knew he needed to push a rock up it just one time to prove to himself that he still could, and so that he wouldn't have to settle for shallow challenges from that point on.

He also knew that he was going to fall many times along the way, but he promised himself he would get up and keep inching forward as best he could.

Abe started up the hill in the dead of night because he was still afraid that people would laugh at him if they saw him fail. Abe fell constantly, more often than he ever had before. Some days he didn't even have the strength to get up immediately and had to lie there a while, holding the rock in place, until he could push again. But every time he fell, he told himself to get up again, because the joy of making it to the top--of proving that he still had something to contribute--would be worth the fight.

The climb seemed to take forever, and it only got steeper as Abe continued. Abe had grown weak and weary from the climb, so he used every bit of strength he could muster to give the stone one final shove. He pushed it and fell forward before he collapsed, thinking he had given it all he had but again fallen short.

Abe woke the next morning to a beautiful view of the valley floor beneath him. He had been to hills like this three times before, but never really stopped to look, so he was stunned and awe-struck when he stopped to appreciate the view. Abe smiled at the view, but he was ragged and ready to get back home, having given it his best shot but having again failed. He was disoriented from the climb, so he took a moment to gather himself, find his boulder and figure out which way led him back down.

But in that moment Abe realized that every path in sight led down the mountain, because he already had made it to the top, with his rock right beside him, sitting just a little bit higher than the three he had pushed up the mountain years before.

He made it to the summit even while falling down along the climb. He made it to the top, even while dirty and bruised. He made it to the end of the journey. And that's all that mattered.

Abe looked into the valley, and into the sky, and at his bruised and battered body, which might always bear scars reminding him of what he had just overcome. As he looked down on the hills he had climbed, Abe suddenly knew exactly who he was.

"I'm the kind of person that falls down sometimes," he realized. "And I'm the kind of person who gets back up again when I do.

"I'm the kind of person for whom things don't always come easily, and I have to work harder than I used to in order to get them.

"I'm the kind of person who got this boulder higher up the mountain than I could before, because this time I wasn't afraid of falling down.

"I'm the kind of person willing to fight through the pain and the failures for something that really matters.

"And that's so much more interesting and joyous kind of a person than the kind who never falls down."

Adventures in Customer Service

 When my property tax bill came in the mail, I had no idea how much agony it would cause me.  And absolutely none of it was financial.

 I called my mortgage company to report the outstanding bill, but when I navigated the automated menu to the escrow option, the friendly recording told me that if I got a property tax bill mail, there was no need to report it because they would receive a copy automatically also. I went on about my life, a decision I would soon regret.

In early October a letter came in the mail from the Alameda County Property Tax Division, dated September 3rd but conveniently postmarked September 25th, informing me that my tax bill was overdue, and that additional late fees would be charged if the bill was not paid by September 30.

So I called my mortgage company, to yell at them, figure out what was going on, and most importantly, asked them why they had recently changed their name from Nationstar to "Mr. Cooper."

Was my mortgage company now a male human being instead of a corporate entity? Did Mitt Romney see the future when he famously said that "corporations are people" during the 2012 Presidential campaign, the same way he was right about Russia being our biggest international threat? And if my mortgage company is now called "Mr. Cooper," is Mr. Cooper literally made of money?

I had a lot of questions. But most went unanswered, as the call went something like this:

(automated voice): Welcome to Mr. Cooper! Please listen to the full menu before making a selection, as our menu options have recently changed. If you're a borrower, press "1." If you're a financial agency, press "2."

I press "1," wondering why I had to listen to the other option before committing to that choice. I'm then given the option of making a payment, or requesting the escrow department, property tax, or a few other things. I pick "property tax" and sit on hold for 10 minutes.

"Welcome to Mr. Cooper, this is John, how may I assist you?"

"I have a property tax bill that didn't get paid."

"Ok, let me get you over to the property tax division..." (puts me on hold, where I wait for five minutes).

Welcome to Mr. Cooper, this is Monique, how may I assist you?

"I have a property tax bill that didn't get paid and now I'm being charged a late fee. I need you to pay it, and cover the late fee. Also, why did I have to select "property tax at the last menu if I didn't get transferred to the property tax division?"

I'm not sure, but let me see about that tax bill. I don't show it in our records, but we'll put in an inquiry with your county and find out what's going on in 5-7 business days.

"You can look at the online property records and see right now the amount that's unpaid."

Sorry, but we need an official statement. Then if there's something due we'll pay it in 5-7 days, along with any late fees.

"Fine," I say, and go about my life. Nine days later I checked again and the bill still showed online as being due, so I call back, press the button to be transferred to the property tax division, and am once again transferred somewhere else, which I only discover after a significant time on hold. When I eventually get someone on the line, I can quickly tell that she has a room temperature IQ and will not be the answer to my problems.

She claims to have no record of my prior call or any unpaid tax bill, but informs me that if I want them to pay my tax bill, I need to send them the bill and put my request in writing,.

"But the entire reason I have an escrow is for you to pay my tax bills!"

"Yeah, but this is your first tax bill since you've owned the property, so a lot of people want to pay that one out of pocket."

"Why didn't you tell me that you wouldn't pay it? You're automated message said you would handle it."

"Well, we don't unless you tell us to." 

"Then why did someone tell me last week they would pay it? I spent half an hour on that phone call. But whatever, just pay it, please."

"You'll need to send us request in writing."

"Do you have an email address?"

Our fax number is... (she rattles off some numbers at a lightning pace).

"But is there an email address?"

Yeah, (at an equally rapid pace she) it's payment.proof@corelogic.paymentservices_billpay.tx/incompetence.net (I might have made up one small portion of this address. The address might have been .te instead of .tx)

"Ok."

Now before you go, can I ask if I've provided you with excellent customer service?

"No, you might a lovely person, but it's been like pulling teeth to get a tax bill paid, when that's the only reason I have an escrow account in the first place."

I send the request, along with the bill, and get an email back 5 days later saying I will receive a response to my request in 5-7 days. I hear nothing back, but the next week I see that money was taken out of my escrow on October 19, so I figure I'm in the clear.

On October 30, I check the online tax records to see that my taxes are still unpaid and that another late fee is coming November 1. I call Mr. Cooper. The automated system hangs up on me. I call back and the automated system tells me there's an extended wait time, so I call Alameda County instead, where the automated system hangs up on me. I give up.

I check back on November 6, and the Alameda County website says I now owe and even larger tax bill. I give my old friend Mr. Cooper another call, once again my request to speak to the tax division is routed to another division, again after a lengthy hold.

Welcome to Mr. Cooper, this is John, how may I help you?

"I have a property tax bill that you I've asked you three times to pay but still is listed as unpaid."

Ok, let me get you to the tax division...

"Wait, John. Are you John Cooper?"

No, Mr. Cooper is just our company name.

"Well, can I speak to Mr. Cooper? I have an issue with his customer service."

...(he transfers me over to the tax division instead)

Welcome to Mr. Cooper, how may I help you?

"I have an unpaid property tax bill that I've asked you to pay three times. Money came out of my escrow three weeks ago, but it still is listed as unpaid, so I'm trying to see what is going on."

Did you send us the bill?

"Yes, on October 12."

Ok, but I don't see it.

"Well, $1700 was taken out of my escrow account three weeks ago."

Oh, was that for a property tax bill?

"Yes, but the county hasn't received it, so can you tell me if it was sent and if it cleared the bank?"

Ok, let me work on that while I place you on a brief hold

(5 minutes of holding)

Mr. Smith? I haven't been able to track that payment yet, but I'm working on it.

(3 minutes of holding)

Ok, I have a tracking number. It's 588234765298777333.

"But what is that, and how is it supposed to help me?"

Now you can track the payment!

"Is that your internal check number, or a the number assigned by a delivery service?"

That's the Fed Ex number.

"Has the Fed Ex been received?"

Let me check on that...

(5 minute hold)

Yes, the Fed Ex was received October 30.

"Has the check been deposited?"

Let me check on that...

(5 minute hold)

Sir, we don't have any way of telling that.

"Can't you tell if the check has cleared the bank?"

What do you mean?

"When I write a check, I can view my account online and see when money has been taken out of my account as a result of the check. Surely you can do the same thing. You're a bank, for godsakes!"

Oh, well I don't have access to any of those records.

"Do you at least have a check number I can reference?"

No, I don't have any record of that either?

"Why on earth don't you record your own transactions? Can't you go look at a bank record and tell when company money has been withdrawn? It seems like a really easy thing to track. (awkward pause, while I resign myself to the reality that the person on the phone is not going to give me any useful information. Sigh.)  You know, I will just call my county office and see if they can help me, and if not you will be hearing from me again."

Ok, but before you go can I ask if I've provided you with excellent customer service?

"I have no problem with you personally. You seem very nice. But no. It's ridiculous that I keep better records of financial transactions than my mortgage company does. So this entire month-long process of a customer service experience where I've written a letter and made four phone calls in a futile attempt to have my escrow company to do the one and only thing that it is was designed to do has been ludicrously and unnecessarily painful."

Well thank you for calling Mr. Cooper!

I hung up the phone and then called Alameda County, which I'm pretty sure hung up on me again. But I called again, and (after a long hold) the agent to whom I spoke said they had received the payment on October 31, and the online records just hadn't updated yet.

"So, I'm in the clear?," I asked?

"Yes," she said. "At least until your next payment, which is due next month."

Wake Me Up When November Ends

Here comes the rain again
falling from the stars
Drenched in my pain again
becoming who we are.

As my memory fades
but never forgets what I've lost
Wake me up
when September ends. 

-Green Day


The good news is that today is the end of the hardest five month stretch of my life. The bad news? Things don't seem likely to get that much better, at least for a little while.

If my life were a book (and I'm working on that!), I'd be somewhere in the middle at a point where the plot starts to drag and you want to skip ahead to the end where something exciting happens.

I sure know I do.

It was exactly five months ago when I broke my kneecap by falling on an uneven Portland sidewalk while jogging back to my hotel. The fall ripped my jeans, but it didn't hurt that badly so at the time I was relatively sure it wasn't that serious.

The next morning I strolled through the Portland Airport without issue, thankful I had escaped without major injury. By the time I got home, it was aching a little. The day after that, it was on fire.

I thought about going to the doctor, but I had a million things to finish up at work because I had a trip to Japan planned the next day. Also, I had a trip to Japan the next day. 

I didn't have time to both go to the doctor and pack for the trip, so packing won. I thought about cancelling, but I knew my swelling would be too bad to get an MRI yet anyway, and for all I knew the knee would be fine in a couple of days.

It turns out that it wasn't.

It became clear soon after landing on the other side of the world that I was in trouble. But this was a once-in-lifetime trip, so I bought the first cane I saw (it immediately became the most expensive piece of my wardrobe) and tried to keep going, armed with the lesson that it is surprisingly hard to mime one's need for a cane to a Japanese store salesperson if you can't speak the native language.

 I did the best I could for a week, coming back to my sister's apartment every night and lying on the floor with my leg in the air in the hopes that the swelling in my leg would recede enough to distinguish my ankle from the swelling. I saw some beautiful things while there, but the beauty and the pain will forever be intertwined in my mind.

Which is kind of how life works, if you think about it. I haven't been able to do much the last five months, so I certainly have.

I got back home a week later and went to the ER, where the young doctor who looked overwhelmed told me the X-ray didn't show a break, so it was likely just a bruise that would heal within a week. I reminded him it had already been 10 days since my fall, so his diagnosis didn't seem to match the evidence.

He told me to see a specialist.

The specialist told me I had a microscopic fracture that would take 6-8 weeks to heal. And then a few days later I went back to the ER, because I contracted some weird Japanese death virus requiring stronger pain medication to survive than did the broken knee.

Things got worse from there last summer.

I saw a veterinarian who told me my cat was dying. I saw my dentist because I developed a weird ulcer in my mouth in a spot where I'd had an invasive surgery 14 years ago. My eye specialist told me my vision would never fully come back in my left eye, and that I had yet another issue to keep an eye on (see what I did there?) in my right.  And then I saw my boss, who told me that I would need to work the equivalent of three jobs because yet another attorney had left our team, and we can't replenish our workforce, even with lateral transfers, due to the idiotic federal hiring freeze.

I counted down every day of those 6-8 weeks, but when they passed I wasn't much better.
One physical therapist told me that this is just how life is going to be for me from now on because I have multiple sclerosis. I told him he was nuts and found a new physical therapist.

I spent the summer on crutches, occasionally my fancy Japanese cane, and for a glorious few stretches of days when the planets aligned just so, I felt well enough to get by with just a knee brace. But then I would walk one aisle too many in the grocery store and I'd be on crutches again for a week.

After he three cancelled appointments, I finally got a follow-up visit with my doctor, who recommended another MRI to see why I wasn't healing. It turns out my fracture was worse than initially thought, and those 6 weeks of recovery turned into six months, which I suppose was better than forever. And I'm now five months in, and hoping that the goalposts don't move again this time next month.

It still feels like I lost the summer this year, and most of the fall. You miss out on so much when you can't walk, I'm learning, especially when the disability is supposedly too temporary to invest in major life accommodations.

I spent all summer and fall wondering if there was some Cosmic lesson I was supposed to learn through my inexplicably extended recovery. I wondered if maybe my healing wouldn't come until I learned some lesson through the suffering, like the main character in Crime and Punishment (speaking of books that drag in the middle).

My pastor told me that wasn't how life worked, and I think he's probably right. Hard times don't magically go away upon the discovery of a brilliant insight or a magic genie. You just have to keep doing the best you can, through almost imperceptible progress that always doesn't flow in a straight line, until slowly things start to get better. Maybe a good book or supportive friend will breathe life into a few moments along the way.

Sometimes the only lesson in a long struggle is to get up and keep struggling.

And this week, the first signs of progress are showing. I did my first five-minute session on the elliptical machine this week, which I was excited about at first. Then I realized that if I continue to progress at my current pace (one minute of exercise per month of recovery) it's going to be two-and-a-half years before I can go half an hour.

I was hoping that I would be able to run again by my 40th birthday next week, but it's clear now that's not going to happen. If the timeline holds, maybe I'll be ready around Thanksgiving, which might make for the best one yet, but my doctor has been wrong before.

In the hopes that he's right this time, I'm counting down until the end of November. If life works out how I want it to, then by then I'll be running again, training to set another personal record at my hometown half marathon. If life goes how I hope, I won't have to strategize to reduce my number of trips to the office printer, and I can make social plans based on what sounds fun instead of what has nearby parking and a place to sit. If things work out, I will have even snuck away to Lake Tahoe for a few days around my birthday to regroup and I can find parking close enough to see that crystal blue calm in the water that I keep hearing about, this time firsthand.

If my hopes are met, I'll soon pick right back up where I left off in late May, and I'll hit December running, literally.

But until then, if I've learned anything by limping through the last five months, it's that sometimes the only way to get through something tough, is just to lower your head and walk through it.

Even if you need a fancy Japanese cane to do so.

I really hope I won't have to use mine again. But I mostly hope November goes by quickly.

Wake me up when it ends.