Author Archives: Ron Byrnes

A Surprise Swing Dance For The Win

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A very good friend of mine has been “unlucky” in marriage. Three divorces. Although the first was so short, and he was so young, he doesn’t count it. A mulligan if you will. So, for all intents and purposes, twice divorced.

Of course, you and I both know luck has nothing to do with whether committed relationships endure.

After his last divorce, about five years ago, he looked in the failed relationship mirror, and really didn’t like what he saw, negative patterns of his own doing.

In no time at all, he fell hard for partner four. So hard, he turned to a therapist to avoid sabotaging it.

No dude in the history of dudes has ever told another dude everything they talk about with their therapist. But my friend has confided in me a bit about his therapeutic journey including his initial question of “Am I an asshole?” I could have saved him a lot of time and money by simply saying “No, you aren’t an asshole. Not even close.” But his initial question was his way of asking, “What’s wrong with me?” Which lead to, “What work do I need to do to avoid fucking up this relationship?”

Relationship Four really warms my heart. I asked him what explains his positivity and joy in this new relationship and without hesitating, he said, “We have fun together.” I herby submit that as a litmus test for any committed relationship.

I don’t know anyone over fifty who has pivoted as much as my friend. The key ingredients as I understand them—introspection, humility, vulnerability, and self-compassion. Inspiring stuff.

Fast forward to a text he sent this morning. And I quote, “And then to top the evening off, I showed M how I had spent the last five weeks secretly learning to swing dance to surprise her for her 50th birthday. Yes, that’s as much as I can manage after five weeks. I can’t dance! And I’m a slow learner.”

The low res video nearly brought me to tears. Just the two of them, swing dancing in front of a big ass swing band in a New York City club. It’s so beautiful. Because it represents so much damn growth. He’s prioritizing her happiness. And so the happiness comes back to him.

On my run this afternoon, I kept returning to the vid in my mind. And all the innumerable podcasts I’ve listened to and “think pieces” I’ve read that lament the problem of boys, and how to raise men, and how to teach masculinity.

My friend’s surprise swing dance is the most manly, most masculine thing imaginable. Because it’s the result of all the intrapersonal work he’s done.

I firmly believe the “boy-man-masculinity” discussion is completely pointless. Instead of asking, “What does it mean to be a man?”, we should ask, “What does it mean to be a decent human being?” Instead of obsessing about getting masculinity just right, we should shift our focus to the personal attributes we want all young people to embody, irrespective of their gender identities.

Especially how to be caring, kind, and selfless. I am incredibly proud of my friend for piecing together an equation that fosters those exact attributes.

Introspection + humility + vulnerability + self-compassion.

A Once Great Nation

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No real visuals to speak of. Consequently, won’t make the evening news.

From Bloomberg. “Trump Unveils Plan to Scrap Power Plant Pollution Controls”.

“The Trump administration revealed plans for repealing mandates that force power plants to curb greenhouse gas emissions, representing its most significant action yet to reverse policies combating climate change.

The proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency, which could be finalized later this year, is being coupled with a plan to ease limits on mercury and other toxic air pollution from the facilities.

. . . ‘In repealing the carbon pollution standards for power plants — without a proposed replacement — EPA is going beyond climate denial to outright climate surrender,’ said Meredith Hankins, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council. ‘EPA is attempting to claim with a straight face that power plants, the nation’s largest industrial source of carbon pollution, don’t significantly contribute to climate change.’

In addition to repealing the greenhouse gas curbs, the EPA is moving forward with plans to unwind standards that limit emissions of mercury, a neurotoxin that impairs brain development, as well as other hazardous air pollutants. EPA limits on mercury pollution, which effectively compel pollution controls at coal-fired power plants, date to 2011, though requirements were strengthened under Biden last year.”

Outright climate surrender. Simultaneously, gut the federal agencies that help people and places devastated by extreme climate events.

In Sickness and in Health

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Shout out to Redmond, WA and Hong Kong for the recent ever-so kind and encouraging words. Words that have inspired me to share this post from the other blog writing I’m doing just for friends of Lynn interested in knowing how she’s doing.

Just as there are two distinct Lynn MSA stories to tell, there are two distinct ones that I could tell about myself as primary caregiver.

When you tell your own story, you run the risk of making yourself into a hero. Of emphasizing all that’s admirable and slighting the inevitable messiness and selfishness. This story is hella complex with contrasting personal histories all mixed together with psychology, mental health challenges, emotion, and spirituality.

Thus, the Reader’s Digest version.

Lynn’s predicament is way, way worse than mine, but I’m as unhappy as I’ve ever been. Lynn’s only advantage is that her challenges are obvious to the steady stream of people who visit. People mostly look past me, assuming I’m fine, which I try telling myself I am.

But that’s bullshit. I’ve never experienced anything remotely this challenging. And I don’t feel like I can tell the whole story to anyone because who would have the capacity for the whole damn thing? Simpler to say “fine”, “okay”, “hanging in”, “coping”, “keeping my head just above the water”. I’m a five tool player when it comes to keeping people at a safe distance.*

The sad fact of the matter is I have had to sacrifice everything that brings me joy, especially social connections, in service of Lynn’s daily needs. I have been housebound for exactly a year now. Except for a daily shortish run, ride, or swim. Without those physical activities, I don’t know where I’d be.

I also don’t know where I’d be without our two health care assistants, my two daughters, and Lynn’s closest friends who keep showing up for her, and by extension, our family. People keep making meals for us even without the Meal Train. People are praying for us and sustaining us with flowers, fellowship, and love.

Still, I recently told Lynn I don’t know how long I can carry my half. And feeling abandoned just at the idea of some alternative arrangement, she broke down. And for now, to make a very hard thing even harder, things suck between us.

Hearts will soften and things will improve. They always do. But this challenge will not lessen. I feel overwhelmed almost all the time. I am no match for this relentless disease. But doing the best I can for her. Today at least.

Postscript: I have caught a second, or is it third, or fourth, or fifth wind? And hearts have softened and we are back on track. For now.

*a baseball concept for a player that excels in all five key areas: hitting for average, hitting for power, running speed, fielding ability, and throwing arm strength

Sorry

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Owe the Slo-mo Turtle* an apology. Of sorts. One day last week I was running around baby Cap Lake when I had an inconvenient epiphany. Of sorts.

After pulling the plug on the run, I did what I almost never do. I pressed pause and sat on a bench by the lake to gather enough energy to scale the 4th Street bridges. And I reflected on all the things I do every day to extend my life, like run, lift weights, and eat vegetables. I don’t do those to consciously extend my life as much as I do to improve the quality of however much time is left.

But still, it’s hypocritical for me to be critical of the SmT for doing everything in her power to beat back MSA’s progression. Yes, it does make it harder to care for her, but I’d have the same inclinations if I was in her shell.

Because there’s no way to control for all the variables, and there’s no counterfactual, I don’t know whether her efforts are having any real effect. I see them more as grasping at some semblance of normality.

Today the SmT fell asleep while eating lunch. Afterwards, Hospice Audrey, a very nice PLU grad, came for a visit. We talked about sleep among other things. The SmT is bothered by sleeping way more than normal. Audrey encouraged her to listen to her body. As I repeatedly do.

She’s not good at that. She’s choosing to crawl into the ring with twenty-something Mike Tyson.

All of us are trying to delay the finale. Aren’t we? All of us fight inevitable decline in some combo of small subtle ways and larger more dramatic ones. Don’t we?

Sorry SmT, upon further thought, we are more alike than different.

*Another nickname for the GalPal inspired by her morning routine.

Trying To Keep It Real

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Newish ritual. When Abigail comes at 8p during the week, I take advantage of the evening light and walk towards the co-op and then down the Garfield Nature Trail, popping out on West Bay and up West Bay back to basecamp. A serene 2k. All while whittling down the podcast queue. Since starting this ritual my sleep score has risen a bit. Cowinkydink?

The last “evening walk” pod was an interview with a male family therapist who explained men don’t learn to be vulnerable. Dude, not an original insight, but one that trigged one in me. While listening to him it dawned on me that The Good Wife wasn’t being vulnerable with me about her worsening condition and finite time. At all. And that, as a result, I wasn’t feeling very connected to her. Just the guy who helps her in and out of bed and the wheelchair. The bloke who cooks, cleans, and keeps her calendar.

And so I told her that, and said, “What gives?” And she deflected, saying I wasn’t being vulnerable, which was humorous because I had just defied my gender and communicated a heartfelt feeling. And I told her that too. And she was silent for awhile. And then.

She talked about my first marathon back-in-the-day which went by our street at mile 21 and how I had dropped out and didn’t even make it to there. And how I felt so bad for failing A and J. That it was a perfect opportunity to model toughness and I blew it. And how my beating myself up stuck with her. And she said I always praised her for any toughness she showed. And that if she’s tough now maybe she’ll slow down the disease’s inevitable progression.

Ah shit. Any chance of rewinding the tape? Of a do-over?

I told her I didn’t think toughness would slow down the atrophy, but that it most certainly would make it more difficult for us to connect.

Then she went deeper. Talked about being afraid of dying. About questioning lifelong religious assumptions. About specific anxieties tied to what will happen to her body upon dying.

Which allowed me to return to the old familiar fold of closest confidant and best friend.

I thanked her for her honesty and encouraged her to think about dying as a natural process that happens to her beloved plants, animals, all aspects of nature. To think of it as falling asleep, but not having to wake up.

I said it would be unbearably sad alone, but that she’ll be surrounded by people who love her dearly. People who are much better off having known her.

Right now, I’m the oldest and wisest I’ve ever been, so I don’t expect any of those words to ameliorate her end-of-life anxieties and fears.

But maybe, hopefully, a little.

Slow Learners

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Us Democrats.

Did you see the story about the Mad King and drug prices? Here’s an overview from (cough, cough) Fox Business News.

“President Donald Trump used the story of an overweight friend getting weight-loss medication at a much lower cost overseas to illustrate why he’s working to cut prescription drug prices for Americans. 

Speaking to Fox News’ Sean Hannity earlier this week, the president said one of his ‘slightly overweight’ friends purchased what Trump called a ‘fat shot’ in London for significantly less money than in the U.S.

‘He called me and he said, ‘Hey, strange thing happened. I just bought a drug, same company, same plant, same everything, everything was the same. In one case, I paid in New York $1,300 and in London, I’m paying $88,’ Trump recounted. ‘He said, ‘What’s going on?’”

I heard multiple Demo opinion leaders rip the MK for flippantly using ‘fat shot’. They probably preferred “weight control injection”.

More important is what Fox left out of its own reporting on its own interview. At the end of the story, the MK smirked and added, “I told my friend, it’s not working.”

Demo opinion leaders were appalled. How dare the MK call his friend fat. They were genuinely upset. Uncouth. Not presidential.

I wondered, were they asleep from 2016-2020?

The Mad King’s secret sauce is the contrast with all the politicians who came before him who said exactly what they thought everyone wanted to hear, not necessarily what they were thinking. And his contemporaries who regularly measure their words too closely to connect with anyone.

People dig the Mad King for saying things no one else will. Telling his friend his “fat shot” was not working harkens to the middle school nature of my friends’ group text.

Sometimes I wonder whether some Demos have had their sense of humor surgically removed. Telling his friend his fat shot was not working was rude, crude, and funny. People like that it’s unexpected and not at all presidential. That’s the point. That the Demos still don’t get.

Some Demos are trying to get it by using the “f” word more often. I agree with Michael Adam’s take on that.

“I think that in the case of the Democratic candidates … the swearing reflects their sense of crisis,” said Michael Adams, a lexicography expert and author of the book “In Praise of Profanity.”

The Mad King’s calculus is “If all of your peers are trying to appeal to the largest possible audience, do the opposite.” Talk like and to non-elites, who greatly outnumber the humorless, and too polite for their own good elites.

Why Not?

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Inner peace is elusive the more we try to control others. True contentedness results from relinquishing control over other people’s thoughts and behaviors.

That’s what I’m in the process of learning. Am I half way? Who the hell knows. All I know is I will never arrive at the Total Acceptance train station.

When Lynn was diagnosed with Multiple Systems Atrophy and the symptoms started taking over our lives, I had unusual clarity about what I wanted to provide her in whatever time was left. I said to her, “I want this final chapter of your life to be as calm and comfortable as possible.”

As it has turned out, what I wanted was totally irrelevant. Her thought process was completely different, saying through her actions, “I want to ignore this diabolical disease to the best of my ability and maintain as much normalcy for as long as possible.”

Which makes caring for her so much more difficult. She’s always been uber-considerate and kind to a fault. Now though, her preternatural consideration is getting squelched by widespread atrophy. The lack of dopamine in her brain is wreaking havoc on her body and mind. I have to remind myself she’s not making a difficult situation more difficult on purpose. It’s brain chemistry.

A few examples. Six months ago or so, after dinner, I was able to say to her, “I’m going upstairs to read in the bath. I’ll be back down in one hour. Sit tight until then.” One fall night while I was decompressing in hot water, the bathroom door slowly opened. “What the hell!” No one else was home. Lynn entered on all fours. She had wheeled herself to the base of the stairs, gotten out of her wheelchair, and crawled up the stairs and across the t.v. room into the bathroom. Because she “wanted to see what the upstairs looked like now”. It wasn’t pretty getting her back downstairs.

A couple of nights ago, she appeared in my peripheral vision as I was watching basketball in the office. “WHAT are you doing?!” “Crawling.” “Why?!” “Why not?”

“Why not” is her philosophy.

Yes, you’re right, her stubborn resistance to the disease’s progression is better than giving up on life, but man oh man, I wish I could get her to accept the ways her body is failing her. At least a little bit.

But I can’t. And the more I accept that she gets to decide how to live out her final chapter, the better for both of us.

Who are you trying to control? How? When will you throw in the towel? The sooner, the better.