THE QUEUE

Do you remember the Netflix queue? You could line up all your favorite movies and after you rented one and returned it, Netflix would send you a DVD in the mail of the next movie on your list. Although an archaic practice now, the queue was like a snapshot of your interests and sometimes a way to surprise yourself, as you could often forget what was next in your queue until it arrived in the mail. Surprise!

My writing has turned into somewhat of a queue. To be sure, many of the things I am printing, and publishing have been written in the past, but I am also voraciously writing, as Hamilton (a.k.a. Lin-Manuel Miranda) would say, “…like I’m running out of time.” In essence, we’re all running out of time, but while I’ve always thought of myself as a writer, I didn’t have the time to practice my craft when I was working full time and raising children. Yes, there are people that can do that, but I’m not one who could shave any more minutes from the day to devote to what used to feel like a selfish pursuit. However, now I can barely get my ideas on paper fast enough. The queue is filling up and waiting for the next, ‘Sent.’

Part of my urgency is the paradigm shift I’ve had since retiring. It has taken almost all of three years to decompress from my life as a teacher. Not only living in the adrenaline rush of working with many students in crisis, but also dealing with some personal and professional trauma of my own, was an all-consuming pursuit. I had to leave for many reasons, not the least of which was my rapidly deteriorating health. I developed several auto-immune diseases, the most profound of which is a rare disease of the eyes called Birdshot Chorioretinopathy. The autoimmune response causes the body to perceive healthy tissue as foreign invaders and attack healthy organs and systems. It is often triggered by stress and stress makes it worse, which in turn creates more disease. It’s a vicious loop that is hard to escape. Lifestyle changes definitely help but getting off the stress treadmill is imperative.

The year 2020, which was obviously harrowing for all of us, was the year my vision took a nosedive. The steroid treatments to control the inflammation in my eyes caused aggressive cataracts, especially for someone my age. By the end of the year, I had to exist in pretty much total darkness because the glare was so overwhelming. I couldn’t read the largest text size on my phone and I could only see the brightest shades of blue and red--all other colors had faded. It was also the year we lost health insurance. Because of the generosity of some dear friends and family who started a GoFundMe, I was able to have surgery near the beginning of 2021. It was a life changer. Colors came back and I could finally see my facial features in the mirror again, along with the faces of those I loved. I sobbed in thankfulness and decided I needed to get back to cultivating joy in my life.

Since then, I have been through a plethora of tests and treatments, only to have serious complications to every drug and treatment I’ve tried. My doctors decided I needed to take a time out and let my body recover from the detrimental effects of all of the drugs that only exacerbated my conditions. Since the break, my body has actually settled down. My hair, which had been falling out, is growing back. The several forms of arthritis, my thyroid, and even my eyes have not improved, but are also not getting worse, which is the goal, in absence of any cure. The biggest control I have in my life now is to not expose myself to more stress. Creating joy, which for me, comes from writing, is the best tool in my toolbox.

Ultimately, I know that autoimmune disease is unpredictable, can be triggered by a variety of things, and can take a turn for the worse at any time. On the horizon is the very real possibility of completely losing my sight at some point. That fear of not being able to see, read, and write, was the biggest barrier to my writing. I just felt like a lost cause. I didn’t want to step up to the starting line, knowing that I may not be able to finish the race. I had resigned myself to feeling like a writer who failed to launch, when I ran across a quote by Stephen Hawking, “Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.” I thought deeply about how he lived his life, his perseverance, and how he developed his intellect. Most profoundly, I thought about how he wrote most of his fifteen books by tweaking his cheek to type each letter on the page. It makes my face hurt, just thinking about it, but that was how devoted he was to putting his thoughts out into the world. I’m not vain enough to think my ideas are on par with the great mind of Stephen Hawking, and yet I know I am the only one who can share my ideas. I am the only conduit for my unique voice and set of experiences.

And so, I continue to fill my queue. Some projects are ready to go, just waiting for the right opportunity, and some are still in development. If you were to look at my full queue, you would see the essence of me, from sarcasm to thoughtfulness, and from exasperation to hope. I don’t know what obstacles await me, but I’ve shifted out of neutral, and most days I'm going full speed ahead. There is also so much adaptive technology now, that when needed, I can no longer use my eyesight as an excuse. Starting this blog was the next step in my evolution to make sure my queue is not stagnant. So, in the spirit of retro Netflix, I launch today as, ‘Sent.’