normal

"I want a Jr. Cheeseburger Deluxe with no bun," I say.

My husband turns back to the screen and says "Can I get a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger with no bun?"

I wait, thinking maybe that's his burger, but, no, he then orders himself another Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger, no sauce, no bun. As we pull up to pay for our burgers and the kid's chicken nuggets, I ask him what I wanted.

"A Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger."

We're having a bad brain day today. After we get home, he starts watching X-men First Class, which he told me he got for us from the library, but he starts watching it while I am reading How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran in our bedroom. Then he asks me if I would like any Sprite.

"Yeah," I say, but he leaves our room with the soda and finishes it in the living room while watching a movie without me.

I am reading another book right now, The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, from which I am taking notes. I am having a hard time describing the book but I am enjoying reading it. It is about "The Impact of the Highly Improbable," according to the subtitle. In more depth, it is about the randomness of our world. The notes I have been taking are about brain damage. Taleb doesn't mention brain damage, at least not that I've encountered yet, but he does, in the introduction, write

I don't particularly care about the usual. If you want to get an idea of a friend's temperament, ethics, and personal elegance, you need to look at him under the tests of severe circumstances, not under the regular rosy glow of daily life. Can you assess the danger a criminal poses by examining only what he does on an ordinary day? Can we understand health without considering wild diseases and epidemics? Indeed the normal is often irrelevant.

This reminded me of the conversation my husband and I had about his being "normal" 75 percent of the time. That 75 percent of time is not what defines our lives. The times Karl cannot hold my burger order in his head for the amount of time it takes him to turn around define our lives. In wounded warrior circles, people frequently discuss finding a new normal. I'm sure it applies well to some people - maybe to a wounded warrior who learns to put on a prosthetic every morning - but it doesn't work for us. We have no new normal. What we have is, on average, 18 hours a day of our old normal and six hours a day of living in a fun house.

fireworks

We yell "oooo" and "ahhhh," clapping loudly as each colorful burst fills the air. We are not worried about the person next to us. We don't need to make sure anyone has noise cancelling head phones or emergency anxiety meds. We do not hear anyone mention car bombs or mortars. We are just standing, watching fireworks. The Fourth of July was over a week ago, but none of us got to enjoy fireworks then, because we were taking care of our husbands. Now we are in San Diego on a caregiver retreat with Wounded Warrior Project. We spent the evening on a dinner cruise, some of us dancing wildly to YMCA, Gangnam Style and the Electric Slide. We had cheesecake for dessert. We watched the sunset. Then we got to see fireworks.

As we stood on the deck of the boat, the 20 of us who are here, watching fireworks, I was almost brought to tears. This is all we want. In our lives of caring for men who are missing legs and arms and brains, we just want a moment of normalcy. We don't want a magic potion, though I certainly wouldn't turn it down. I don't want someone to take over and fix everything. I just want moments when life doesn't feel like a tightrope walk.

My husband and I are doing better than we once were. I know I am doing better than I was. I spoke with one woman who is living off roughly 1,600 dollars a month, for her family of six. I remember applying for food stamps when our income was that low. In the grocery store, I would mentally dare people to mention our benefits card as I paid for our groceries. I planned on telling them my husband was a disabled veteran. I planned on making them regret judging me. Luckily for everyone, no one ever even looked at me sideways as I paid for apples, yogurt, goldfish, wishing my husband was different. Now we are financially secure and I still wish sometimes that my husband were different.

Before I came to San Diego, I had a long conversation with my husband about what needed to be done while I was gone.

"The problem is 80 percent of the time you're fine," I said.

"I'd say more like 75 percent," he corrected me.

"Fine, 75 percent of the time, you're fine, but I never know when that 25 percent of the time is going to be."

"I know, I'm sorry," he said and I felt sad for both of us. I wish he wasn't sorry. I wish he didn't carry so much guilt about needing so much. He does need so much and I am always on the verge of being overly stressed out.

It is nice to have a weekend away. The group sessions, the benefits counselor, the spa treatment and the company of women who get what I am going through are all rejuvenating. Most important, though, is the opportunity to just be a woman watching fireworks.

misery loves company

My phones buzzes again:
You will have to hit the buzzer and say you're here to see Andrea Lombardi.

I step out of the elevator and walk to the buzzer. A girl is looking out the long window. I wonder if she should be that close to the door. I press the buzzer and recite what my text told me to. They buzz the door and I pull it open. The girl steps back a few feet. I step up to a clipboard and write my name. I recognize the name above mine and turn to the girl who was standing by the door.

"Hi Marie," she says.

"Hi. How are you?"

As the words are coming out of my mouth, I realize it isn't what I should be saying. Her hair is stringy and unbrushed and her eyes look sunken in. When you run into someone you haven't seen in almost five years and they are in the psych ward, you do not ask how they are. Obviously, she is not doing as well as she could be. Obviously, something is wrong.

"Fine," she says and asks how my eldest is. Our kids were best friends when they were two, then three. Then I moved away and we lost touch. We chatted briefly online before I moved back but I figured we didn't have much in common and I let it go.

"Did you bring her anything?" asks the nurse, ignoring my side conversation or maybe trying to spare me more awkwardness.

I turn to the counter, showing the nurse the Diet Coke, the candy and the lottery ticket I brought Andrea. The nurse checks to make sure the Diet Coke is sealed, then tells me I'm going to need to bring her back the plastic bag I brought everything in.

"Why don't I just leave it here?" I ask, pulling Andrea's junk and my own Cherry Coke out of the bag. It isn't that I am thinking of the nefarious uses of plastic bags, it is that I don't want to remember to bring the bag back to the counter. I will not forget, but I will spend my entire visit feeling anxious about remembering the plastic bag. I would rather not have something else to worry about.

Andrea walks up as I'm asking which way to go. The girl I used to know stays by the counter and I walk off with Andrea.

When we get to her room, she asks if I knew that girl. Yes, I knew her, a long time ago. Apparently she is having trouble here. I am consumed with both curiosity (why is she here?) and guilt (should I have tried harder to be a friend?). I don't think I could have saved her, but she could use a friend.

So could Andrea, obviously, and Andrea and I actually are friends. I know why Andrea is here. Her husband is a disabled veteran currently going through the process of being medically retired or "med boarded" from the Army. I am of the opinion that the med board process is enough to make anyone want to commit themselves. The hospital is pretty nice, actually. Andrea has an amazing view of Mt Rainier and the room is cute if you ignore all the rounded corners and plastic fixtures. There are yoga classes in the morning. There are silver linings somewhere between the group therapy and the overdone "pot roast."

I have been where Andrea is. I have wondered how I was supposed to do everything and stay sane. I learned, like Andrea will, that the answer is: I'm not. I'm not supposed to do everything and stay sane. I am supposed to do what I can do. If some days that means I finish my to do list, then that is what I do. If some days what I can do is get out of bed, then that is what I do. I don't need to do everything. I do need to stay sane. There is usually some kind of choice, some kind of balancing act. How much I can do will vary from day to day, but I will not be able to do everything every day and I don't have to.

I once told my best friend that my mother is depressed by the futility of life.

"Really?" she laughed, "I find it kind of comforting."

I started laughing, because she so brilliantly articulated the way I never knew I felt.

"No matter what I do, I'm going to die."

"Yes!" I agreed, "And one day, everyone who you've ever known will be dead too!"

It sounds morbid, but it feels refreshing.

If what I can do today is breathe in and out, if that is all I can do today, that is okay because one day my life will have ended whether I accomplished anything or not. If what I can do today is file paperwork, turn in forms, clean the house, make dinner from scratch and not yell at anyone in the process, one day I will still be dead. One day, no one will ever know whether or not I ate french fries for dinner or whether or not Andrea was in the mental ward or whether or not I once wore a white dress on my period in high school and, very embarrassingly, had to go to the office to borrow clothes. Nothing will matter.

Knowing that whether or not I accomplish anything today will one day not matter gives me permission to sometimes not accomplish anything. Sometimes I get to choose to play solitaire for hours instead of reading a book. Sometimes I get to flake on plans because I feel anxious. Sometimes I get to talk on the phone for hours while my husband cooks dinner. Sometimes I get to leave town, hoping everyone at home will be okay, but knowing they would be better if I stayed home. Sometimes I get to choose me and what makes me happy over what will make everyone else happy... because one day it won't matter whether or not I made anyone else happy, so why should I be miserable now?

Visiting hours are over and it is time for another group therapy session. I've spent three hours with Andrea, who is going home tomorrow. It didn't seem like that long because we spent most of the time laughing, making dark jokes about the loony bin. As I drive home, I inventory my friends here. I do not have many friends in my new home, but I know the friends I do have would bring me a Diet Coke in the mental ward and that is important... because who doesn't need a break every now and then?

oxygen

I should be doing a lot of things right now. I need to sift through my husband's medical records, find proof of his brain injury and details of "how it affects him" and send them to the Disability Student Services at his new community college. I need to scan craigslist for cheap, functional, not-too-old, not-too-ugly, dining room chairs, because our family of four has three chairs and I stole one of those for my desk chair. I need to find my husband's VA GI Bill eligibility letter or request one somehow so it is here before next Thursday when he has a veteran's orientation at his new community college. I need to unpack the boxes that are all over our bedroom - the only room in the house that hasn't been unpacked in the two months we've been in our new house. I need to write. I need to write. All those other things I am supposed to do, need to wait, because I need to write.

I need oxygen. My life is a plane ride. Sometimes the cabin loses air pressure. Sometimes we all need oxygen and I have a decision to make. Am I going to try to put an oxygen mask on my husband? Or one of the children? Which one? Or am I going to put on my own damn oxygen mask first? Does putting my oxygen mask on first make me selfish? Does choosing to ensure my survival first mean I am a horrible wife and mother? Someone who would choose her own life over that of her children? No. I have to remind myself: No. Putting my oxygen mask on first means I will have the strength to take care of everyone else. If I put a mask on one of my children (which one?), I will probably pass out before I get those elastic lines taut against their chubby cheeks. I will not save them. If I put my mask on first, I will have my wits about me. I will be able to save us all.