Sometimes we forget and eat breakfast
There’s no good way to break up when you’re on vacation together.
I didn’t know what to do with myself while he packed his things, so I stowed away in the bedroom office and pretended to work. I don’t think I wrote a single sentence that afternoon. My itinerary was full-up with fidgeting and wondering what the hell I’d just done.
Before he drove off he asked me whose problems I wanted. He told me that everyone had them, and what set was I looking for. These aren’t issues you break up over, he said, these are things you work through.
After he left I headed out on a trail where my feet padded along to the thud of uncertainty. I picked out the agave from the aloe plants that dotted the path — he’d taught me how to tell the difference from their spikes.
I didn’t know if I’d made the right choice. I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I didn’t know.
As I walked, I made up a wise old woman in my mind, and asked her if I did the right thing. She wouldn’t tell me cause she’s a bitch.
A new thought flickered into my consciousness that lit my chest.
I could grand gesture him.
I could show up at his doorstep with a dozen Old Fashioned donuts, and get them to write “I suck” in frosting on the top.
I started to plan. I would need a few days to wallow and second guess myself. I’d have to call everyone I’d ever met and ask their opinions. I’d have to journal, and probably do some yoga and meditation, maybe a sound bath or two.
Then I’d have to pick out an outfit of reconciliation, but a sexy one. And drive seven hours to San Diego, and wonder if I was allowed to park in his second space.
If I wanted to grand gesture by the weekend, I calculated, I’d need to start wallowing as soon as possible.
My grandpa forgot and ate breakfast. Accustomed to spending his 83-year-old days chopping firewood and planting hydrangeas, he'd been hobbling along for months.
He’d been meaning to go in for a knee replacement, but it kept getting pushed off due to the pandemic. After vaccination he finally got an appointment, and with not much else to talk about, the news spread far and wide. The better half of everyone he’d ever met called him the day before his operation with well wishes.
The much-anticipated morning of surgery, my grandpa woke up and buttered himself a slab of toast, scrambled a couple of eggs, and ate about half of his breakfast before remembering.
He ran to the toilet and stuck his fingers deep inside his throat, but it was too late — there was already food in his stomach, and the doctor’s wouldn’t take a chance.
He then had to tell every single person who called and asked about his new knees that he didn’t have any. That he forgot and ate breakfast.
I’ve been doing more yoga and meditation lately, and they always talk about coming back to your breath. How even coming back just once is enough.
How getting distracted or falling is actually part of the practice. Because that gives you the space to return. To find that your breath is still there.
I was out hiking when I saw a woman wearing a t-shirt that said “Grow through what you go through.” The slogan was surrounded by flowers and was something my mom would wear.
It made me think about how sometimes in life we fall off, or fuck up, or forget and eat breakfast. But every time we get back up, we get to take that with us.
We recenter, and recalibrate, and then we begin again. But this time, we’re a little bit older. The good kind of older.
When I got back to the house I dove for the phone and dialed his number.
No answer.
I called again and again until he picked up. I didn’t know why I was calling, or what was going to come out of my mouth when it opened.
“I think I fucked up and I want to try to work things out if you do.”
I was supposed to spend a few days second-guessing myself, and consulting others who were much more versed in matters of my heart.
There was no way I could get him back as I was, without some cleavage and a grand gesture.
But the words felt as terrifying as they did right. And either he’s delusional, or I’m enough, because he turned around and drove back.
I sat on the bathroom floor and dry heaved into the toilet while I waited. I had no idea what I was doing, but my heart did something it’s never done before when I heard him open the front door.
I called my grandpa to wish him well the morning of knee surgery round two, and asked if he’d eaten breakfast. I’d spoken with my mom earlier, and she’d told me to remind him not to eat.
He let out an exasperated groan, and enjoyed complaining about the six foot sign my mom had hung in his kitchen that read, “DO NOT EAT!!!”
On the phone with my mom later, she defended herself saying the sign was only three feet long.
Isn’t it great to be loved?
He underwent surgery without a hitch, and all was well until they let him come home. The thing is, my grandpa doesn’t really do rules. Especially not ones that require leg elevation and armchair recovery.
Once home, he decided to make a fire and waltzed outside to grab the wood. Where he fell, and less than seven hours from his release, was taken back to the hospital.
The man is resilient, if anything. They patched him up and sent him on his way, with a promise to listen to his body over his will this time around.
If you drop by, he’ll be the first to tell you how they don’t normally do that surgery on folks his age because it’s a dangerous procedure, but the doctor thought he was strong enough to make an exception. He’ll show you his scar, and tell you about his friend Jim who’s still waiting to get his knees done.
You’ll likely find him standing out on the deck of the house that he helped build (back when his knees were twenty years younger), doing his exercises from the physical therapist. Twice as often, and three times as many as she prescribed.
Because sometimes we may forget and eat breakfast, but that doesn’t mean we can’t come back twice as fast, and three times as strong.
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