Thoughts from Between the Knees

While battling breast cancer, Diane Mapes hears the good, the bad, the you gotta be kidding me.

Thought I’d pass along the latest in her first-person series on living (and laughing) with cancer. Her nine tips on what to say to someone who has cancer is something a man can read but a only a woman can understand.

Earlier this week, Bella had an annual followup visit with one of her medical specialists. She ask me to go.

She didn’t have to ask twice to get me to agree because I knew the newest issue of Sports Illustrated would be in the waiting room. While I relish sneak-reading Cosmo each month in her office, she doesn’t have boy mags laying around if you don’t count Gardens & Guns. And that comes from home, so I have my own copy.

Now, that’s the way men talk when they don’t want to admit they are as scared when their belle walks out of the exam room as she was walking in. Remember the first grade when we used to just push you when we didn’t know what it took to hug you? Same thing. You get it.

It takes as much courage to have your scheduled mammogram or PAP or prostate exam, in my case, as it does to live with the results if they should be positive, in my opinion.

I’ve been following this first person story of a reporter who was diagnosed with breast cancer and chose a radical double mastectomy. Two weeks after her procedure, she went out on her first date.

If I wasn’t so madly in love with Bella, I find out what Starbucks she goes to and try to pick her up over a cup of morning brew. Nothing more attractive to a real man than a strong, courageous woman.

For all who care about you, most especially the ones unable to tell you just how much they do care, get your annual exams and go to your followup appointments. I understand first person just how uncomfortable some of it can be.

If for no one else, do it for the one who loves you the mostest – you.

As a means of introduction, I’m the Boyfriend. Many times I wonder how I should reference myself in connection to her – boyfriend, beau, boytoy, business partner, best friend. Reverse the gender references and she is all that to me – and more.

No matter, I always come regardless of what I’m called. Also, I put the toilet seat down, even in the middle of the night. And like every loveable old dog, I know when to get in bed with her and when to leave for my own.

Yes, we sleep in seperate beds more often than the same one, both under the same roof and just at the other end of the hall. Sometimes we trade and she goes to the other bed and I stay in her bed when she can’t wake me up enough for me to realize I’ve been thrown out. Some daybreaks I wake up early and, like every loveable old dog, sneak back into bed beside her as she dozes the last few minutes before the alarm goes off. For the record, she’s only thrown me out of the house once but she called me back – and I came. Another blog, another time for that relationship fable. Back to sleeping in two beds…

I once thought the quality of a relationship was in direct proportion to the total square inches of skin shared in a lifetime between two consenting adults. I’ve come to understand over time with Bella that the quality of a relationship can be measured by how much you care that your partner – husband or wife, boyfriend or girlfriend, beau and belle – gets a good night’s sleep.

I have something akin to Restless Leg Syndrome – at least that’s the best educated guess I’ve gotten out of a doctor so far. I’ve tried every drug. I actually almost flopped off the operating table during my colonoscopy while on Propofol – as in what they say led to Micheal Jackson’s Big Sleep. The arm and leg flopping with incessant scratching doesn’t keep me awake, but what I do sure makes sleeping hard for her. So I leave the bed when asked or shoved. Hey, I get it. Many nights when I feel the first twitch, I leave without being asked. And she gets it too, the reason I have to go and the reason I hate to leave.

I kinda’ like sneaking back into bed beside her. Or waking up with her trying to fit on a little twin bed with me. I think it lets each other know we care about where we sleep for a lifetime, not just a night.

If someone sleeping, or trying to sleep next to you keeps you awake, or if you (and you know who you are) are a Sleep Thief, talk about it with each other. Better yet, try the separate bed thing and then talk about it when you’ve both had a good night’s rest. You’d be surprised at the benefits that come from it.

How long has it been since you slipped back into bed at daylight with no reason to feel guilty about where you have been?

* Kris Kristofferson, “Nobody Wins“

Sometimes I used to feel like being the parent of children would never end. And then, like magic, my kids became grown ups (my daughters are 23 and 21). Fully functional, live independently, do what they want, grown ups. Now what do I do? Do I talk to them like my kids, like a friend, like who exactly? How often do I call, text or email? Do I wait for them to Facebook me? Do I even want to look at their Facebooks? This is so weird. Awesome, but definitely weird. Are there any books about this? Like a Chicken Soup for the Parents of Grownups?

I spent my college and early adult years 3000 miles away from where I grew up, so that I could become an adult very much on my own. Somehow I knew I needed to get away from my childhood influences. I spoke with my parents by phone once a week, and went to visit a couple of times a year, but my world was my own, and they had very little place in it. By the time I lived close enough to see my family regularly, I was in my 30s, married and working. My contacts with them were sometimes tense. I think many in my parent’s generation had difficulty making the transition to being the parents of adults. For a long time I still felt treated like the rebellious 15 yo, my knowledge and experience ignored. Does anyone else’s parents start every sentence with “why don’t you” or “why did you” or “you should have”?

So how do I not do this to my kids? How do I gently offer my wisdom, yet respect their decisions, understanding they have to build their own base of knowledge and experience? How do I create the open door that they will use to ask me for my advice when they need it? Sometimes I tell a story about a similar situation I experienced, and then reflect on how it all turned out. Perhaps the art of sharing a good story about our lives is more effective than giving an opinion about how they should live theirs. And since my kids don’t live near by, I do this by email. Sort of like the old fashioned letter writing that has memorialized many a relationship for future evaluation. Letters are not really a bad thing. They allow both parties to revisit and contemplate the thoughts they are expressing.

For now, I guess I will just play it cool, trying to gauge if they are eating healthy, paying their bills, having fun with friends and building their own lives, without me there every day. I will continue to build my own happy, healthy life, without them here every day. And when we do all get together for a visit, I hope we can gossip, and giggle, and not act like adults at all. But when I allow myself to think about how much I miss them, and how much I love them, it brings tears to my eyes.

The best way to get Vitamin D is the old fashioned way – direct from the source, not in pill form. Just remember your SPFs.

Boot camp, hot yoga, pumping iron, triathalons, walks for cures, pilates, zumba, cycling classes. The list of ways to try to get us off our butts seems endless. And yet, Americans are getting fatter and more sedentary by the year. Could it be because we seem to have made being physically active seem like work?

Has anyone been to a playground filled with little kids on a sunny afternoon? Do they look like they are working? No, they seem to run, not walk, and they are laughing: they look like they are having a blast! They are playing! And all the adults just sit by on the bench and watch. Passive, detached. Have they forgotten how to play?

But once those kids hit elementary school, the “organized sports” take over: T-ball, soccer, tennis, dance etc. Instructors, coaches, rules, winners, losers. What happened to just going outside to play after school? And it doesn’t get any better as they get older: music lessons, competitive teams, after school enrichment learning programs. On and on. They begin to understand that they live in a competitive world,and believe that opportunities for success are scarce, available only to those who win. They lose their ability to function without the structure of the “activity”. They forget how to play. It is so sad. No wonder there is so much anxiety amongst our teenagers.

So I vote for more play! Would someone please create an after school program for kids that is like the old “recess” I remember? A teacher standing in the middle of the school yard with a whistle, supervising 100 kids playing various games, everything from kickball to jacks, to jump rope to 4 square. The kids managed the games themselves, without coaches or parents shouting from the sidelines. And maybe there were winning teams, or the kid who could jump the longest without tripping, but by the time recess was over, no one cared anymore. It was about the playing. They were hot and sweaty, and they had fun.

How about an after work “recess” for adults?! Good old fashioned games. Perhaps if adults remember how much fun it is, they would actually go outside with their kids and play once in a while. It might also make them more fit. But it is really about the fun.

Confession. I got a tattoo at the ripe old age of 53. According to an article in The Huffington Post, I am not alone. Apparently lots of us mid-life baby boomers have decided that we need a little “ink” at this particular time in our lives.

The article touches a bit on motivations, but I would like to explore this more deeply. I know I spent years considering the “what, where, and why” of my tattoo. Yes, it was definitely about making a statement, about celebrating the fact that a really hard part of my life was over: the kids were grown, the 20 year marriage was over, I moved out of my big house in the swim/tennis neighborhood, quit my ALTA team, and stopped volunteering for everything. Actually, I think I crawled into a bit of a cave to lick my wounds for a few years.

And part of the coming out of my cave was getting my tattoo. While the content certainly had to be meaningful, the location was as important. I wanted to be able to show it in public if I felt like it, but I didn’t really want it to be part of a first impression. Rather it would be my “after” statement.

People who know about it always ask if I plan to get another one. No. For me it would detract from the freedom and power I felt getting it, and still feel when I expose it. I can’t see it, but I know it’s there, and I am proud of it.

So if you got your first tattoo over the age of 45, please feel free to share your thoughts about it, along with a picture!