Traumatic Iritiis

I shouldn't be accident prone. Ten years of ballet, I do Yoga...You'd think I'd be the picture of grace and poise. Not so much. I injure myself on a fairly regular basis and always in the most ridiculous way. I sprained my ankle falling off a tricycle...I was thirty-five. Fractured my wrist walking by the meat cooler as a cook was violently kicking it open. (I have to add that even though he kicked the door into my wrist I didn't drop the case of beer I was carrying). I slipped on ice and hurt my knee. Exactly one week later I fell down a flight of icy stairs and hurt my shoulder...I should really stay off ice...I had four surgeries from those two falls...ice sucks. Anyway. You get the point. I'm accident prone. 


My most recent injury involved a therapy band, a doorknob and my eyes. When I tied the thick band around the door knob I thought it didn't look too secure but surely I'd notice if it started to slip? Nope. It hit so hard and fast I was on the floor writhing in pain before I knew what had happened. I was terrified to look. I expected to find copious amounts of blood and bits of exploded eyeball oozing down my cheeks. I didn't see any of that. Mostly because I couldn't see. Piper got ice packs for me. Alex lamented that it didn't get caught on video. I could have been on Tosh.O...gee, sorry I missed that! The eye doctor told me I was extremely lucky. A blow like that could have cost me my vision. Traumatic Iritis. That's just a fancy way of saying the colored parts of my eyes were swollen. Made the pupils look weird and hurt like hell every time they adjusted to light. He sent me home with steroid drops and orders to rest.


Rest... 


Rest is something I've never been very good at. Sitting around is not in my skill set, that's why I have a physical job. But you don't fool around with your eyes. So  I had an unexpected day off and I couldn't take the kids exploring. I couldn't do anything. I figured I may as well read one of the twenty books I'd lugged to NC. I picked up the one I was reading at the bed and breakfast. It's a very good book. I don't know why I hadn't already finished it. Every time I'd reach for it something stopped me. But now. Now I had a whole day to fill so I read the whole thing. Good thing weeping didn't hurt my eyes. This book is about a spiritual journey and I swear I could have written it. I'd been raised southern baptist. Loud, frightening preachers who banged pulpits and damned our collective souls to the eternal fires of hell. Very dramatic. I remember looking around church searching for a face that mirrored mine. Someone I could meet eyes with, roll them and shrug like, "Pfft...do you believe this guy?" It was a vain search. What I saw were enraptured faces. These people were not only buying into what was being said, they really felt something. And I felt nothing. It made me feel defective. The older I got the more skeptical I became. I went to pastors, friends, family with questions. When you tell people you don't believe in God, they look at you like you've said you enjoy murdering puppies. After years of feeling like a hypocritical phony I stopped going to church. I stopped pursuing anything spiritual and even developed a disdain for it. But I missed believing in something. Here, in the pages of this book, I'd found the God I believe in. I'd gone on this North Carolina journey to find my way out of the darkness and thanks to getting the hell knocked out of me I'd found light. A light that had been closed off to me for years. A light I'd closed off. 


It was a real eye opener, pun intended. 

Charlie's Kabob Grill - Wake Forest, NC

We found Charlie's after a particularly stressful day. I met the kids and the ex at a lake after work. Work for me involves physical labor. I scoop adults up out of beds, stand them on their feet and help them walk. I don't mean I'm holding their hands and cheering them on. I am supporting a good deal of their weight and am sometimes moving one leg for them. I'm tired at the end of the day. Just plain tired. But I met the kids at the lake for swimming with the intent we'd all go out to dinner after. Except the ex forgot to bring dry clothes...

An hour in a car with wet hungry kids? I don't think so. 

We went to Walmart, bought dry clothes and then tried to find a restaurant everyone could agree on. Boy and Ms. Finicky agree on something? What was I thinking? The arguing and the whining started. The ex found Charlie's on Yelp. More whining but I didn't care. My sister tells me all the time you can't negotiate with terrorists and she's right. "We're going to Charlie's, you two don't have to eat! Now shut up and get in the car!"

The kids pile into my car, we're following the ex since he has a GPS. It took us to the back of a strip mall. Are we supposed to knock on one of the doors and give a password to get the kabobs? We continue to follow him around the block...twice. Alex and I are laughing and wondering if maybe we should indeed try a password in the alley. The ex turns right for the third time, I turn left. I found it.
  

At this point, I wasn't expecting much. It's a strip mall, how good can it be? The gentleman behind the counter, who turns out to be Charlie, greeted us right away. Charlie is a delightfully pleasant man. He joked with my kids as he took our order. There's a picture of his new baby on the cash register. We talk about his kids, his wife...very friendly, very personable. As we're eating I notice Charlie greeting everyone else that comes in. He knows details about all of them, asks about their wives, business...This is the kind of place where I like spending my money. A genuinely nice man who loves his job and makes a hell of a falafel. My kids ask what baklava is so I go to the counter and ask for two pieces. Charlie insists I take four and won't hear of me paying for them. I stood and argued with him for a moment but he won. I took the baklava. If you're ever in Wake Forest, give it a try and an fyi, go to the front of the strip mall cause you can't get into Charlie's from the back.

The Ex

It was extremely nice of the ex to bring the kids to me and it was very nice that he was willing to come check the area out to see if he'd like to move here. All I will say is that ex's should NEVER. EVER, EVER live under the same roof. Even if it's only a week. Just not a good idea. That's all.