The cross country team flew to Portland for a meet this weekend. I didn't go. We split the squad — some traveling to a fun race at the Aloha XC Invite and a few seniors opting to stay home to train. It always feels unusual when half the team is in another place.
I'm a big believer in pushing limits as often as possible, so Friday meant some decent aerobic mileage along with 20 minutes of steep hill sprints on the horse trail between Dove Canyon and the old Gold's Gym strip mall. Pine trees line one side of the rutted path. The fence rails are falling apart, giving the border a haphazard feel. Saddleback Mountain looms in the background. All in all, a very scenic place to coach.
Saturday was a long run. Nothing robust. Just ten miles. I told them to keep the pace conversational so we can go hard on Monday (hammer the weekend-long run and you don't get enough recovery for Monday's hard sessions). This is the time of year when the temptation to pour on hard VO2 speed sessions grows every week. I need to remember to stay the course and continue building strength for a few more weeks, just like I planned on that flight back from Warsaw so many months ago.
The seniors asked if they could do the long run OYO — on your own (no coach in attendance). Sure. Why not. So instead of heading into O'Neill to coach, yesterday morning consisted of me sitting out back to work on the fiction project, throwing the ball with Sadie, and saying yes when fellow coach Rick Martinez and his wife, Jade, asked me to join them at Docent Brewing. Then I literally came home and did nothing but read for six hours straight. I felt guilty for not taking a break to practice my guitar but I'm trying to get rid of that worthless emotion, and so I let it go.
I can always tell if some underlying thought or emotion is trying to get my attention. It usually happens when I do something as hyper-focused as read half of an 800-page novel in one sitting. That's me, pushing away the things I can't process.
I had a discussion Friday afternoon with Nancy Babcock, who used to live on the cul de sac. She told me that one time when she was out for a walk with my wife, Calene let on that she thought I was showing signs of PTSD from accompanying her to four years of treatments. I haven't google'd PTSD to see what those symptoms might be, but I was surprised to hear that Calene thought I was enduring trauma. We never mentioned anything like that. The sudden bouts of stifled tears and raised blood pressure could have been anything.
It also made me think about the act of being a caregiver, watching someone you love lose their health, symptom by destabilizing symptom: weight loss, hair loss, swelling, fluid on the lungs, lower energy, and literally dozens more things like lowered heart function that you never imagine happening to your sweetie when you swear for better or worse.
Calene knew that, obviously. Me, I always thought it self-indulgent to even imagine making myself the center of the conversation. She was the one with cancer. I was just the guy who always went into appointments with a book and a laptop in case the waiting room was extra busy.
The thing is, I miss being a caregiver. I miss those waiting rooms. I miss driving home the long way, taking the scenic canyon route instead of the freeway to buy more time together. A few weeks ago when I was driving to Mt. SAC for a cross country meet, I almost missed my exit intentionally, thinking it would be good to drive one offramp further to go sit in the cancer ward at UCI for a bit because that's where we spent literally hundreds of days since her diagnosis. A still, small voice inside suggested that I might find her there, waiting for me to come pick her up at the front door. A little perverse, right?
If Calene saw signs of trauma, then they must have been there. She worked in hospitals for 24 years. Callie wasn't the sort to concoct a fanciful diagnosis just to put everything in a neat box.
Now I have cross country and books to distract me during the day. I have a very "finish what you started" take on the fiction book, which is also helpful. But the nights are horrible, irrational fears and sweats. I wake up a lot. Sometimes, Calene flirts with me in my dreams, which is the opposite of trauma. I wish, of course, that Calene had never gotten sick. But if I have PTSD because we endured all those appointments, ER visits, ambulances coming to the house, and ICU hospital stays, then I'm fine with that. We were a team.