What is in Your Sidecar...

I have a secret to tell you.

Writing is not relaxing for me. It produces high levels of anxiety. I don’t see myself as a good writer.  I’m a horrible speller, I can never see my own mistakes. Small insignificant typos make me doubt why I ever thought anyone would want to read my work. I have my college professors’ comments in my mind, your arguments lacked cohesion and your ideas are far from inspired.

For years, I would never call myself a writer.

I began writing PilgrimageGal in 2012, out of necessity, because I was dying.

I was in my mid-thirties and critically ill with an undiagnosed rare disease. For years, it was a tossup as to where I spent the most time, it certainly was not actively parenting. It was a dance between hospital admissions, doctors’ offices, my own bed—bouncing into and out of world-renowned medical institutions. My poor health was soul crushing; my children were little, just starting elementary school. I was terrified.

It was my best friend Jessica and my husband Jeffrey who pushed me to write. They both thought that writing my story would ease my suffering. They were right. My life often reminds me, the correct decisions are often the most painful.  These decisions can feel horrible and yet we need to lean into them to ultimately gain the life we desire.

My writing became a living record for my children.  When my Beauties became adults and had questions about our life, it would all be there. Every story, every painful new treatment. They would have access to my deepest thoughts and feelings. My children would know me. They would also know how deeply they were loved and how hard Jeff and I fought to keep me alive. I wrote for them…

As adults we don’t often like to talk about our origin story. The true story of us, the one that has guided, shaped and at the core defines our parenting. In my origin story, anxiety has been a constant companion. I have carried her into every interaction and every situation I encountered.

My earliest memories are trauma informed, a life ripped open over-and-over- again. A life etched with my parents messy and unhealthy relationships— filled with divorce and remarriage.  In my childhood, I saw critical illness, my mother’s brain tumor and my brother’s severe car accident. We also buried far too many, including a six-week period where I lost both my father to lung cancer and stepfather to a massive heart attack. Was it any wonder I was an anxious child, constantly suffering from headaches, stomach aches and was known to vomit often and everywhere?

Anxiety has at times limited me from pursing dreams and opportunities.

In my youth, I tried to ignore and out maneuver my anxiety. However, when ignored, it only intensified.  The destructive messages I tell myself are old, and while I have worked diligently to eradicate these messages, to excise them with tools and skills, as you would a cancer with chemo—I have not always been successful. To manage my anxiety, I have participated in therapy. I have worked to improve my health, wellness, and self-care.  I have at times used medication. Each of these tools have helped me manage my anxiety.

I’ve kept writing through my anxiety. I wrote through my treatments. I wrote when we diagnosed Ian with autism. I wrote when my treatments became more complex, they worked, they failed, and I learned how to better understand my own illness and my body’s needs. In 2014, we moved from our home just outside DC. This decision remains the best decision for my entire family, but it was and remains the most painful one for me. We had to move to stabilize MY health. We left our community, closest friends, family, and the ten-minute drive to my mother’s home. I had to rebuild my amazing medical team and replace the forever home I had designed with a much smaller rental home. These losses still sting to this day, seven years later. The move did stabilize my health. I was able to parent as I intended. The move also connected us to the best autism supports for our son and gave us proximity to the eating disorder treatment we would eventually need.  Once again, a reminder that sometimes the hardest decisions provide unexpected gifts.

Writing has now become ingrained in my life. And as a result, it has become a unique gift. It has been the venue to share our families’ unique experiences. I spend hours each week, speaking to parents I will never meet. They reach out because of my writing. Something in my words speak to where they are in the moment, a place of fear or apprehension. Time and time again, they share the flawed belief that I hold some unique strengths- ones they themselves lack.

Do I have lessons and tips that I can offer?  Absolutely! But more often, all they need is to know that in those dark moments, someone has been in their shoes, and successfully made it to the other side.  

My shoes are worn. They are the only shoes that I have in this journey, and so I continue…

When you read my words, you may feel my tenacity and my fight for my children and life. Yes, and at its core the origin of my strength is faith and love. But it is also driven by anxiety and fear.

If anxiety has provided me anything, it is a strong early warning system for danger. My anxiety, my worry helped me diagnose Norah’s eating disorder. However, anxiety comes at a great cost to my body. A weak body can be damaged further when forced to remain on constant long term high alert.  One of the tools I use to nurture and repair my body is therapy.

Recently, I was in a therapy session discussing how my writing has changed. I was explaining to our brilliant therapist that a few people had suggested I needed to consider writing a book. As you can imagine, my list for why this was a bad idea was endless. As I was running through my exhaustive list, I noticed her reassuring smile was missing on my iPad. She was having none of it.  Nope, this look I knew well, it was the same one I had watched her give Norah for four years. I believe the technical professional term for the look is the, I’m not buying your bull sh*t! This face always appeared when Norah had pushed a rule well beyond what anyone would deem acceptable. And in my bedroom on a small screen, she was giving it to me and I didn’t like it. My eyes began to glisten as the hammer came down.

Kathryn, you have things to say, and you need to say them.

You. Need. To. Write.

And you are going to need to put anxiety in the sidecar and tell it that it’s coming along for the ride.

And then as soon as she said ride…  I groaned, and then she gave me her dazzling reassuring smile.  The tears leaked out and I said,

I know why Norah hates you…

And we both laughed, as I wiped away my tears.

Her image was so clear, a motorcycle and a sidecar. Who is driving? Am I really driving or is anxiety? Now to be clear this isn’t the first time I have had to face that my anxiety was limiting my life. But honestly, when I started thinking about it as a motorcycle and a sidecar it felt different. It resonated so clearly. What else is driving my life? What needs to be knocked off the motorcycle and sidecar entirely? What needs to be run over?

My rare disease was driving for a long time, it is now firmly in the sidecar.  Anorexia was always in the sidecar—how it would have loved to drive. But it never got the chance, I ran it over and will never fail to run it down on the open road again, if necessary.

The image was so clear to me. I wanted a little motorcycle and sidecar for my pocket. I wanted to carry it with me. I hopped on Amazon searching for a tiny matchbox toy. I could not find what I had in my mind, instead I found something larger.

It is a wooden child’s toy, painted Tiffany blue with an adorable dog driving and his companion in the sidecar. You cannot look at it without smiling. Each of us, in my family of four can’t help but pick it up and drive it around the kitchen table. It is not lost on me that something that appears beautiful can hold a darker and harder truth. This happy child’s toy would hold my anxiety.  My anxiety lives in this toy as I write. I am looking at it right now. I stare at it, when I feel uncomfortable, when I need to make a change, when I need to push myself.

I now literally have my own sidecar…

As my beautiful, talented, and wise therapist has instructed me, I continue to push myself to write. To share my truth. To speak into the void and tell you, I am filled with doubts, anxiety, and worry. Everyday.  Just like all of you.

Today whatever fears or anxiety you have, take a moment, and list them. Then ask yourself. What is driving your motorcycle? What is in your sidecar? Do you need to make a change? And do you need to run anything down on the open road?

The answer may surprise you.

Me, I have a toy to remind me that I am firmly in the driver’s seat and anxiety is going to stay in the sidecar.

I still need to name these little guys. Any suggestions?

Take care,

Kathryn / PilgrimageGal

(Photo Credit: PilgrimageGal)