Recovery

What I actually remember about yesterday morning: my last shower, the weird calm of a double dose of Klonopin, how the Ipod mix I made for the occasion felt surreal as San Francisco looked, fog-less, as we drove over the very empty Bay Bridge. I remember my friend rubbing my back and telling the nice people at the surgery center to stop referring to me as "male," that they did - but didn't put "m/f" on my wrist ID. I remember my pale-faced girlfriend having to sit alone in the pre-op room with all whirring and buzzing machinery while I changed into a crazy outfit involving a cap and stockings and footies. I remember that the kindest nurse kept calling her my "honeybunny," and that the anesthesiologist was handsome and nice. I remember that my surgeon, Dr. B, showed up in a sportscoat which, for some reason, put me at ease - like he'd just stopped by on his way to Napa.

I remember walking to the surgery room, that it was freezing but the bed was heated somehow, and then I remember suddenly seeing my girlfriend back in the pre-op room with the "honeybunny" nurse. I remember thinking I was dreaming, then trying to jigsaw together my environment, movement, language itself. I remember eating tons of peanut butter crackers so I could go home, and the nurse explaining so much to my girlfriend that I knew was important but it was like when I was younger and I would play this game with myself where I would tune out sort of halfway when adults were talking and words would just cease making sense. I remember wanting to go home, which I felt would be less confusing, and asking them to take the IV out. The nice nurse kept saying, "Only when your eyes stop moving around like that." I guess I looked drunk, I know I felt wasted. I remember getting dressed with my girlfriend's help and being happy that someone knew where my glasses were. I remember everyone getting all excited that I peed, because I guess your bladder and intestines are the last to "wake up." Something about my organs sleeping so deeply seemed funny to me.

I remember something about the drains, about the nurse showing my girlfriend how to work them and me saying "You're paying attention, right?" I wasn't. My cognitive speed was at about 20%. I remember the wheelchair to the car, the binder holding me like a turtle's shell, high noon and back across the bridge and talking to my friend about something or other that was - you guessed it - sentimental. My friend said goodbye I think and then my girlfriend settled me in and went to get me magazines and soup and I passed in and out of sleep and then my girlfriend and I fell asleep watching "Orlando" on two separate couches, holding hands. I woke up and just about fell over myself in excitement, talked to several people, all ecstatic. Then I was all irritable and stir-crazy because I talked to Dr. B and got annoyed because he said I couldn't leave the house. Finally, it was night time and then later at night and my exhausted girlfriend and I watched "The Office" and I slept erratically, cuddled with my cats, read design magazines and GQ at the crack of dawn, and realized that the teaching moments here are plentiful. What I've learned in the last 24 hours:

1. Sometimes people genuinely give their time, energy, emotional strength, more than fair share of house duties, etc. without expecting a single thing in return.
2. To sit still with myself is incredibly difficult, especially when there are "things to do."However, pain is just another feeling - something to track, understand, even appreciate. Same goes for: excitement, anxiety, irritability, restlessness.
3. I can't plan or anticipate my life any better now than I've ever been able to - I'm just more adept at navigating through it.
4. That GQ and Details are too sexist for me to enjoy much anymore (but the seersucker suit spread in GQ this month is pretty sweet).
5. That there is something gorgeous behind every corner, door, woozy draining, lower back pain, forced moment of immobility.
6. That there are moments - wonderful, humbling moments - where I realize that I can't do everything by myself. I wish this experience on everyone. Because these moments - even small ones, like when my girlfriend admonishes me for trying to put on my hoodie alone and then helps me into it - are the point. The point of what? Still working on it. Stay tuned.