Crying on the Basketball Court

Beyond the Book: Reconciling with Change

In case you missed it, Behind the Book is filled with reflections on writing and writing life. Beyond the Book are my thoughts on…everything else! Welcome to the first installment of Beyond the Book.

Image description: an overhead photo of an orange basketball on a yellow court. photo credit: Daniel Mazilu / 500px

It has been a rough couple of years. My family has been targeted by white supremacists, forcing us to leave our home. Then the home we left to burned down. Then my older son got COVID. Then both of my son’s had mental health struggles due to the isolation of the pandemic. Oh yeah - and you know, the world is still a racist garbage fire/shitshow. It’s been a lot.

I can’t even say that I’ve been holding it together all that well, but considering all that has happened, I was doing pretty good. I was getting out of bed and showering most days. I was working. We were rebuilding our home. As spring turned to summer things were looking up. Less people were getting sick. Kids had returned to school. We were starting to be around people - yes, still masked - but not with the anxiety that a careful conversation with a friend or two in the backyard was going to lead to our deaths.

So why did I find myself on a sunny day on the floor of the basketball court at my son’s old high school crying and convinced that my life was over?

Because I fell down.

COVID? I can get through (fingers crossed). House fire? I’m ok. But tripping over my own feet on a basketball court? That appeared to be the end of me.

Let me back up a bit here. When our house caught fire in 2020, we were immediately sent on the world’s most annoying AirBnb/hotel tour for months. When we finally could stand the constant moving no longer, we moved into our forever home that was under construction. We had two bedrooms, one bathroom, and my partner’s music studio to occupy. Everything else was under tarps or filled with construction crews. We had a small mini fridge. We ate take out for three meals a day and breathed in so much dust that my partner developed asthma. I had to put on a mask in order to get to my son’s room to see how his homework was progressing. It was a very shitty time that took a toll on my mind and my body.

When construction completed at the beginning of the spring, I dove headfirst into the idea that now we could fix everything. I would cook all of our meals at home. We’d invite friends over for backyard socialization. I’d get outside every day and start to reconnect with my body again. Within, say, 4 months, I’d be back to my pre-pandemic self.

There’s a basketball court at the high school just down the street from us. For months my partner and I have glanced longingly at it, remembering younger days when we used to play ball. So I ordered a basketball online. Not only were we going to get our pre-pandemic selves back, were were going to get our pre-20’s selves back apparently.

The first game of horse was so fun. My partner, one of the gentlest souls I’ve ever known, is surprisingly competitive. I hate losing, but it was fun losing to him.

The second game, a few days later, was when disaster struck. I went up for a layup, tripped over my own feet, and went down hard. I laid on the ground for a few minutes, dizzy and dazed, while my partner tried to figure out what the hell had just happened. I mentally scanned my legs. Nothing was broken, but both of my ankles were very hurt. I had no idea how I was going to get up. I’m not a small woman. I’m 6 feet tall and fat. One of my biggest fears in my entire fat life has been a situation where people would have to carry me somewhere. That was out of the question.

After about 10 minutes we were able to get me upright. The pain was wild. Then we had about a block to get to the house. My partner offered to get the car but I was standing now and didn’t want to wait, and I also didn’t want to try to sit in something and then try to get out of that same thing. It just didn’t seem possible and I had an irrational fear that if we got my injured self into a car I would just be stuck there forever. I just wanted to get home. Step by painful step we got home. It took over 20 minutes. Every few minutes somebody would see us and ask if I was ok. I clearly was not. Every time somebody asked I became convinced that I would never be okay again. I was never going to heal from this. Every time that I tried to fix my life I would fall again. I would never be able to walk or hike.

My kids found this whole thing to be quite hilarious. My older son chastised me for thinking I could just play basketball like I wasn’t “hella old and out of shape.” My younger son’s nervous laughter filled the room whenever I tried to get up to go to the bathroom.

I cried a lot. I felt very sad for myself. It was a very dramatic time for me. Then, a separate conversation brought me back to a quote from Deborah Schurman-Kauflin PhD in an essay I wrote years and years ago about recovering from trauma and harm and the need to reconcile with the harm done to us:

“You are not the same person you once were, and you cannot act the same way you once did because you are changed. Finding out your identity is part of your journey.”

Well fuck.

The truth is, I had been avoiding for months the simple truth that I was forever changed and I was never going to be my “pre-pandemic self” again. I was forever changed when our home was swatted. My idea of home as a safe haven would never fully return. My connection to my work had also changed. The knowledge that random strangers on the other side of the country could utilize technology and the brutality of the state to put my son’s life at risk would never leave me. I was forever changed when our next home caught fire. I will never shake the knowledge that I would be sitting at my desk working one minute, and outside barefoot watching a lifetime of belongings burn. I was forever changed when my son called me, six states away at college, to say that he had COVID, and I realized that I no longer had the ability to protect him, and perhaps I never did.

We’re all going through unprecedented hard times. These times are leaving us forever changed. We have all been clinging to the thought of “getting back to normal” one day, and the truth is, that “normal” is dead and gone. We have been harmed in very fundamental ways. We have lost loved ones. We have been isolated. We have faced financial hardships. We have learned that many of our neighbors and even family members and friends care little for our collective health and safety. We have, for over a year and a half, had to treat our fellow human beings like they might be poisonous.

The harm is deep and real and it has changed us to our cores. Trying to “back to normal” will only stop us from truly being here now. We have been putting off finding new and better ways of working, educating, connecting with each other, and caring for each other because we’ve all been hoping that this will all just go away and we won’t need to. And so we keep prolonging the pain of trying to be people we aren’t in a world that no longer fits that old version of ourselves. This avoidance is preventing us from addressing the harm done to us, from figuring out who we are now, and from beginning to heal.

This isn’t really about my ankles. Two sprained ankles really suck. I’m still recovering from that, but I am now about three months later taking long walks around the neighborhood and overall feeling pretty steady on my feet. The fall wasn’t the end of me, as I’d feared. Maybe we’ll play basketball again soon. But I’ll play with an awareness that I haven’t completed a successful layup in over 20 years, so maybe I need to figure out what it feels like to play basketball as newbie at 40.

But even if I get that layup down, it won’t heal me. I need to figure out who I am. I need to figure out how to relate to people again in a way that makes me feel safe as I am now. I have to figure out how to parent in the reality that I cannot guarantee my children’s safety. I need to learn how to love freely in the reality that those that I love could be taken from me at any minute. I have to learn how to have open and honest conversations even with masks on. Who I am now is not just some phase I’m in while I get back to the “real” me. I am me. Right now I count. My experiences count. My pain is real. So is my joy. And I am worthing of care, healing, and understanding. It’s time for me to live.