Copyright © 2021 by Michelle Rial.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Rial, Michelle, author.

Title: Maybe this will help : how to feel better when things stay the same / Michelle Rial.

Description: San Francisco : Chronicle Books, 2021.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021008211 | ISBN 9781797211251 (hardcover) |

ISBN 9781797211268 (epub, mobi)

Subjects: LCSH: Pain--Humor. | Anxiety--Humor. | Grief--Humor.

Classification: LCC BF515 .R53 2021 | DDC 152.1/824--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021008211

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CONTENTS

Introduction 10

Everyone is going through something 12

What if we don’t compare our problems? 13

The worst part of waking up 14

Sometimes it helps to think about breakfast 15

Le Pain Three Ways 16

An easy puzzle for something hard 20

“I’m not a hypochondriac” bingo 21

Types of brain fog 22

Why is it always six visits? 24

Every day is chronic pain awareness day (if you have it) 25

Have you tried . . . 26

Referral fatigue 27

Have You Tried— 28

Elimination diets are actually very easy 30

A quick trip to the grocery store 31

Has anyone found the answer? 32

I have some questions about this treatment 33

Something doesn’t feel right 34

Anti-inflammatory drinking game 35

I’ve tried everything, but OK I’ll try that 36

The cost of healing 37

Making Adjustments 38

Sometimes trying to fit in will only hurt you later 42

Why do I give myself less space? 43

I’ve been feeling stuck 44

A little better is not nothing 45

Wait, is everyone just here to show off? 46

Make your scrolling finite 47

Maybe one day I will break out of this 48

Should I wait until the pain is gone to tell my story? 49

When I’m caught in the same old loop 50

It might help to stop and breathe 51

A Different Theory of Relativity, Part 1 52

How do I get noticed? 54

What is my “artist statement”? 55

OK, it’s time to get to work 56

I’m trying to be original 57

Keep in mind that nothing is original 58

Someone will always be better than you 59

Everything I accomplish will fade eventually 60

What If You Could Change One Thing? 62

How do you stay in control? 66

Am I prepared for the worst-case scenario? 68

There are some things I can control 70

Accept the good things and don’t get stuck on the bad 72

Is this who you want to be? 73

It Hurts to Write This, but Don’t Worry 74

Sometimes it helps to think about fall 76

You can become a hat person 77

Sometimes you just need a cold drink 78

You may need a variety of drinks 79

Try making a new wish 80

It might help to brighten up the space 81

Close your eyes and picture yourself on a California road trip 82

It’s so nice, isn’t it 83

A picnic might help remind you of human generosity 84

Things I’m prioritizing 85

I’m giving up my favorite things, in moderation 86

Everything I already know 87

Feeling Better about Not Feeling Better 88

Is it luck or hard work or both? 94

You might need a break 95

What do I say to this? 96

It’s worse for you if you don’t say it 97

It can feel hard to speak up if you’re used to getting shut down 98

Sometimes everything can feel overwhelming 100

Try not to let it numb you 101

You might need some air 102

Is it too late to make a difference? 103

Pain Anniversaries 104

It’s time we invest in a comfy shoe 106

Sometimes too much of a soft thing can be bad 107

It might help to adopt a dog 108

Maybe try going to a dog park 109

If one day at a time is too daunting, try one meal at a time 110

Relationship advice from the Beatles 112

Take responsibility early and often 113

Why aren’t they getting the message? 114

There are some things you can let go of 115

Are you suuure you don’t want to talk about it? 116

You don’t have to talk about it right now 117

Postmortem 118

Ode to the strict parent 122

Ode to my immigrant parents 123

There are two types of accomplishments 124

Accept the praise when it’s given 125

How do you hold on to hope when it feels frivolous? 126

Sometimes it feels like I should never get excited 128

Having hope can help get you through it 129

Do I want to talk about it? 130

Don’t sweep big feelings under the rug 131

Sometimes it helps to listen to R.E.M. 132

Why I’m wearing black today 133

It can help to talk to someone who gets it 134

Share things that make you happy 135

I thought you said this would pass 136

Will you please stop saying it? 137

Everyone keeps asking 138

“It’s better that you weren’t there” 139

Even when they’re gone 140

Ode to the caretaker 142

Energy can neither be created nor destroyed 143

What is this feeling? 144

Getting through the night 145

Ask for help when you need it 146

In the meantime, maybe this will help 147

Maybe someday I’ll get there 148

A Different Theory of Relativity, Part 2 150

Sometimes it feels like the end 154

Not all rock bottoms are created equal 156

The lows mean there are highs 158

Just when you think it can only get worse 159

Acknowledgments 160

INTRODUCTION

I don’t think this is a scam

The following charts were made on shared equipment in a facility that processes wheat, nuts, milk, and feelings. They were made in an aching place, a grieving place, a physically painful place—a have-you-tried-an-elimination-diet place.

This book and these charts are about chronic pain and loss and an overactive immune system that continues to attack itself, even as I write this. In it I try to find the formulas for how to go on each day with the least amount of will-it-be-like-this-forever despair.

It’s about the little things we do to make the unbearable slightly more bearable, the experiments we do on ourselves to try to find the one thing that really might work this time, the coping mechanisms discovered along the way, and the adjustments we make to keep moving forward.

I’ve shared much of my own pain in this book, and I hope you find it helpful for the kinds of pain that you have experienced as well. But by no means is this meant to encompass all painful things, for there is much in the world that I have not and will never experience.

And this is important: There are no cures in this book. I’m not trying to sell you a method or a new outlook or a guaranteed-or-your-money-back option—I’m only trying to sell you a book. If this book is a scam (I don’t think it’s a scam?), then I hope it looks nice enough on your side table to be a scam with aesthetic value.

Why read it if it does not hold the Number One Cure for Bad Times™? Fair question. As I’ve lived certain struggles, I’ve found myself seeking and craving the company of only those who have had very similar experiences. Sharing these difficult moments with those who get it can keep us going while we’re digging ourselves out of rock bottom or quicksand bottom or a rock bottom that’s made of that sandpapery boulder material that’s easy enough to climb but still a significant effort. I want to take the journey with you of doing anything to get better, little by little, from skeptical to gullible and back again. If you laugh along the way? That’s the tart cherry on top.

On this journey I hope to bring lightness to something that can be all-consumingly heavy. I hope to honor the gravity, and by sharing my own experiences, distribute the weight and lighten your load. And I hope it encourages you to tell your story in a way that honors your own journey.

In pain and suffering we’re constantly readjusting and trying to find even the smallest moments of relief. Sometimes that’s physically shifting our postures to see whether yet another position will give us momentary distance from our pain. Other times it’s finding distractions to interrupt the endless ruminations in our minds. I hope to help you with the latter, and maybe I can manage to shift your emotional posture while reminding you once in a while that you’re not alone in your pain. Or your eczema.

Unfortunately, I’m not a doctor, oncologist, physical therapist, network chiropractic practitioner, massage therapist, acupuncturist, certified Egoscue instructor, NUCCA chiropractor, osteopath, essential oils representative, psychiatrist, nutritionist, functional medicine doctor, shaman, or emotional-support animal, but I’m here to help. I hope.

Besitos,

Michelle

Le Pain Three Ways

I’m the absolute first person to tell you to go to the doctor if you have any type of body pain. I became this person after chronic pain became my new normal due to an untreated neck injury combined with repetitive stress injuries, a not-yet-diagnosed autoimmune disease, and an unboundaried, viscerally precarious “full-time freelance” position in media.

It’s a pain I’ve been living with since October 2011. I think about it in résumé terms: 2011–present. From the moment it started, it’s never stopped hurting.

When I later heard my dad was having shoulder pain—similar to the pain I’d been having for the last three years, also exacerbated by computer use—I’d already collected all the answers. If I had known what to do at the time of my own injury, everything would be different. But now I had the opportunity to help: I knew exactly what was supposed to be done, and it was still soon enough after his injury to do it.

I already had my once-or-twice-yearly flight planned; I flew across the country with the steadfast energy of someone who hasn’t yet fixed something for themselves but somehow knows how to fix it for everyone else. Upon arrival, with a pile of warm arepas on a large plate between us, I probed: “Did you go to the doctor? Did they do an MRI? You need an MRI if it’s not getting better. Did they give you exercises? What are they? And you’re doing them?”

“Have you tried—”

“Listen,” he said with the slight, carefully unsculpted accent of an assimilated immigrant geophysics professor, “my doctor said my numbers are perfect. I’m the picture of health.”

At some point, he noticed I was actively avoiding the bread.

“What’s wrong with bread?” he asked, very aware of the 2014 War on Bread.

“I have celiac disease.”

“That’s a made-up disease—[gulp of red wine]—total bool-shett!” He grinned and ripped off the top of a baguette, and my mom quietly passed me the arepas.

“I got tested for a few things since I haven’t been able to heal from the injury, and celiac was positive. Also, you probably have it! We fart a lot. It’s not normal!”

“Look, our bodies are miserable piles of garbage. The more you look for something wrong, the more you will find.”

Five months later, he was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.

He lived four years beyond the six-month sentence, our optimism growing and shrinking with the slowing and then sprawling of his tumors. Maybe his desire to keep working really is keeping him alive. Maybe he actually is too stubborn to let the cancer win. He might be eligible for that new trial where they create a VACCINE out of your tumor, which sounds TOTALLY FAKE.

My own aches and limitations felt trivial compared to what my dad was going through, but that didn’t make them any less present or less nagging. As I flew coast to coast, my emotional and physical pain weaved itself into knots, each ache indistinguishable from the other. By this point in my “pain journey” there was still no definitive answer for why, after that one injury, so many more of my tendons had developed -itis and -osis. I had already spent copious amounts of time and energy looking for a diagnosis, and of course, a cure, and now it was time to adapt.

I spent every moment of each six-hour flight trying to find the one position that would finally allow some rest. Regular intervals of micro adjustment in an attempt to alleviate the accumulated pains of my tailbone, Achilles tendon, shoulder, neck, arms, hands, head, shoulder again, knees and toes (knees and toes).

Constantly in fear of a spiraling flare-up, I’d carry as few items as possible: one black tank top, black leggings, six pairs of black underwear. I’d rotate the four items of black clothing—two of which I’d worn on the flight—and wear my ’90sera, starchy, oversize shirts to sleep atop my thirty-year-old mattress, waking up through the night, wishing I had a foam roller and a neck pillow, lamenting the irony that the more pain you have, the more weight you need to carry.

The pain would steal at least a day of presence, of quality time, of helpfulness. I became another patient who needed care. My mom didn’t seem to mind and delighted in being able to bring me the immigrant parent special: a plate of cut fruit and hot tea.

There were times when he told me not to visit—I shouldn’t have listened (everyone with a dead parent knows you should never listen)—but it temporarily eased my guilt of dreading the physical pain of the flights, the luggage, the rock-hard bed, working at the dining table, working on the couch, transporting my laptop—which seems like it’s supposed to be light but feels like three weeks of laundry strapped to my back. Then there was the additional full-body clench created when he would erupt into a tirade about the injustices of the world (and leaf blowers). Sometimes we could blame the volatility on a new medicine, or the gnawing discomfort of the cancer chewing its way down his ribs, but often it was too familiar for that.

There are several methodologies that attribute physical pain to mental and emotional traumas. Dr. Sarno, who wrote The Mindbody Prescription, says that it’s mostly suppressed rage, and Louise Hay’s book, You Can Heal Your Life, pairs pain in the right side of the body with masculine energy and “the father.” OK, I’m listening. But I can also pinpoint the start of my pain to two very specific injuries that very often lead to chronic pain.

In the final four months, we began to lose hope; just because he had lasted as long as he had didn’t mean he was guaranteed to live any longer. In the final three weeks, our mindsets mutated: We wanted the suffering to end. After the suffering ended, we ached for his presence.

The things I miss about my dad are only the good things. Listening to his musings on the beauty of each element of nature, space, and sky felt like being on the inside of a kaleidoscope. But just like the nature he loved, he was volatile and unpredictable—full of verbal eruptions. I’m not going to say he set me up for a perfect storm of chronic pain, but some of the literature might say it for me.

When we cleaned out his office, it appeared as if we had just missed him. A coffee cup on his desk, graphs and formulas on his whiteboard. A line chart scrawled on a yellow sticky note inches from my framed senior portrait. I felt the back of my throat tighten and my neck go stiff, and I gathered as many of his books as I could carry.

Have You Tried—

Have you tried Whole30?

Autoimmune paleo? FODMAP diet? Keto? Paleo? Have you tried cutting out nightshades?

Do you meditate?

Have you tried Transcendental Meditation? Mantra meditation? Vagus nerve breathing? Somatic therapy?

What type of chair do you have?

What type of mouse do you have? Have you tried a separated keyboard?

Have you tried a gaming chair?

Bees?

Have you gotten your blood sugar checked? Maybe it’s your thyroid?

INBOX Your order of Pain Free for Women: The . . . Your estimated delivery date is Nov 12, 2013

Have you cut out sugar? Any relief with the alkaline diet?

Have you tested your home for mold?

Do you eat dairy?

INBOX Michelle, did Memory Foam Massage Mat with Heat, 6 Therapy Heating pad . . .

Let me give you the number for my Rolfer. Ohhh, you’ve done Rolfing? OK, but Sean is who you need to see.

You HAVE to see this one A.R.T. guy who CHANGED MY LIFE. It really hurts, though. Like a LOT.

Would you consider talking to a psychic about it?

INBOX Appointment This Week? We miss you around here . . . are you able to come in and see

INBOX Your order of “Thera Cane Massager” and 3 more items . . . Your estimated delivery is Sep 10, 2014

Are you a perfectionist?

Have you read Dr. Sarno? You HAVE to read Dr. Sarno. My pain is GONE after reading Dr. Sarno. GONE!

Have you tried Feldenkrais? Alexander technique? Orthotics?

Water therapy?

INBOX Happy Holidays! Our holiday schedule is filling up fast, so get in on the healing today!

Would you consider going to Brazil? Have you heard about that one shaman that treats you for free if you are able to find him?

Bali!

Ayahuasca? The “purging” part is not that bad, I swear to god!!!

You have to see Margaret for cold laser.

Have you considered that you’re not allowing yourself to heal?

Have you—

They say placebo method—

Are you in therapy?

Have you done EMDR?

Egoscue method?

INBOX Postural Stress Analysis & Treatment Plan We believe that “your spine is your lifeline.”

Have you tried a rib belt? Kinesio tape? Cupping?

Do you wear a brace for it?

Have you considered changing careers?

Going back to school?

Do you meditate?

What about acupuncture?

Vitamin D? Glucosamine and chondroitin?

Collagen? It’s not that bad if you add it to a smoothie!

WAIT, have you tried—

INBOX Help Quarantine Become Less of a Pain in the Neck! Hi there, Are you suffering

Making Adjustments

ADJUSTING MY POSTURE OVER THE COURSE OF WRITING THIS (A KEY)

*

Hands tingling, had to stop

**

Stretch break

***

Need to lie on the floor for a few minutes

****

Had to run to a physical therapy appointment

*****

Googled “arthritis how young”

HIGHLY ADJUSTABLE

I learned de-escalation at a young age, and I never minded being the person people wanted me to be if it meant greater ease and less conflict. If there was a question of what we were going to do or eat, I had “literally no preference,” and “I eat everything!” Over time, I had unknowingly created an ever-present, low-grade vigilance: Who can I be to whom and how? Externally easy, internally stiff.

CERVICAL SPINE ADJUSTMENT

I have finally learned that neck adjustments don’t work for me. I think* they might even make my neck pain worse—which seems confirmed when I read about hypermobility and chiropractic adjustments. Maybe it’s the alarming CRRRACK that my neck makes and the dissonance of feeling no relief after such an onomatopoeia. Or maybe it’s that my nervous system thinks I’m about to be murdered. I know it works for some people. Good for them!**

A WELL-ADJUSTED CHILD

When my parents became US citizens, they were given an American flag, which I promptly hung up in my bedroom amongst a grid of Tiger Beat teen boys who all had the same haircut.

I have always been highly sensitive to my surroundings, and as young as I can remember, I paid close attention to what seemed like the acceptable way to adapt to a culture that both felt like my own and like I had to earn my place in it. I often overcorrected: If my family was loud and boisterous, I doubled down on silence. If they seemed to take up too much space, I policed their joy. I internalized the implied feedback from authorities that I—the well-adjusted, perfectly assimilated child—was the adult, and my parents were the ones that needed to be supervised.

VICARIOUS ADJUSTMENT

On a Sunday in January 2019, Tom Brokaw said—and apologized later for saying— “The Hispanics should work harder at assimilation.”

***

On a Monday in January 2019, my mom was shopping at the Harris Teeter she’s been going to every week for the last thirty years. She was picking up my father’s cancer medication and cashing in her fuel points when she noticed another customer struggling with the machine. She tried to explain the process, because it’s one she had struggled with herself: “First, you have to—” she said. “Don’t YOU tell me what to do, you [bleep bleep derogatory insult]!” It fell in the genre of every racist, xenophobic viral video I’d grown used to seeing. I was so angry for her, but I wasn’t surprised.**

I called her the following week, and she happened to be rolling her cart through Harris Teeter. “Hi Michelle. I’ll call you back,” she said in a low voice. She wore dark glasses and a large hat as she pushed her cart down the aisle. She was indistinguishable.*

In my adolescent years of policing her differences and pushing her to be someone she wasn’t, was this stranger’s outburst what I was avoiding, or was I unknowingly attempting the same end result?****

CULTURAL ADJUSTMENT

In second grade, I pretended not to know Spanish.*** Throughout elementary school, I told people my dad was named Joe instead of José. For a time, he did the same.

***

Spanish was my first language, but I often feel like a fraud when I speak it. I speak it as a last resort, when I’m positive someone would like me to speak it with them. It never feels natural. I’ve made efforts in spurts, and I know I could speak it with my family, or friends who speak the language, or I could befriend every Spanish-speaking person I come into contact with, like my mom does, but that never feels right. I want the Spanish-speaking confidence of someone who just returned from studying abroad, ordering un carne asada burrito, por favor.

ADJUSTING THE TEMPERATURE

When I was young enough to take baths with my best friend and old enough to notice our hair was different, we stayed in the bath as long as my mom would let us, to see if we could make my hair turn straight.

When that didn’t work, we put my dad’s heavy physics books on my damp hair while I lay on the carpet waiting for a Disney hair miracle.

In adulthood, I discovered the CHI iron and turned it to the hottest setting, unconcerned with the sizzles and smoke rising from my hair.

ADJUST THE OXYGEN, PLEASE

What exactly do you say to a person hooked to an oxygen machine already at the highest level when they ask you to please, please, turn the oxygen higher?

NECK ADJUSTMENT

OK, yeah, I guess let’s try it again—CRRRACK*****

ADJUSTING THE VOLUME

In the last months of my father’s life, he began to speak almost exclusively in Spanish. It wasn’t a decision; it just came naturally.

With all the pain he was experiencing, hearing the ease and melody of these words that came so fluidly lifted a previously indiscernible weight.**

To lift our spirits—and to muffle the cacophony of gasps and gurgles from the oxygen machine—we listened to mariachi music at high volume, newly unconcerned with how the neighbors would feel about it. My mom cried out during the gritos and Einstein tilted his fluffy white head every time, unsure whether it was joy or pain. I had never known they liked mariachi music.

“Alexa, play ‘Las Mañanitas,’ volume 10”

A Different Theory of Relativity, Part 1

The moment I arrived in New York at the very beginning of what one might call “a career,” two pieces of unsolicited advice were immediately thrust upon me: 1) Someone will always look better than you. 2) Someone will always look worse than you. These also apply to art and making art. (I was also told it’s pronounced HOW-ston Street, but that’s largely irrelevant outside of New York City.)

Someone will always be better. Someone will always be worse. Let’s call it the theory of relativity, which definitely does not already exist. We want to compare ourselves to others because we want to know where we stand. But is that comparison useful?

In art and creativity, and really in general, someone will always be better. You will want to be the best, but you probably aren’t. You will want to be first, but it’s not likely. Even if you thought you were first or best, you will carry the dread that someone else has already done this before (they have), or someone is doing it in tandem (they are), or someone has done it better (they did).

According to this made-up theory, I’m not alone in this, which is both comforting and distressing. It means someone else is probably also writing about all of this right now. Wait, what?! Really? Really truly? Is that what you heard? OK. Welp. Shut it all down. Shoot me into space. Nope, not far enough, keep going. OK, great, that’s good. Are you ser—someone else had the same space location idea? Literally the exact effing celestial coordinates? OK. Well. Forget it.

It’s OK. (Is it OK?)

For a person who is deeply uncomfortable with competition and came home with exactly zero eggs in childhood Easter egg hunts, I’ve spent a lot of my time on this earth avoiding competition while still comparing myself to other people. Seeing someone who is worse than I am at something makes me feel like I’m not the absolute worst. But wait, so what if I’m the worst? What is even the worst? Some of the most genius and stunning art is just an old wooden broomstick leaning against the wall. I sincerely do not mean to offend anyone whose art is a broomstick leaning against the wall. I’m sure it’s great.

So why does any of it matter? Why do you do what you’re doing? If you’re doing it for the attention, for the accolades, for the likes, then you’re already unhappy. When you do work for the end goal of getting attention, even the attention feels empty. Keep making work you’re proud of, and if you get attention for that, let it soak in—people like it! People appreciate what I do! That feels nice! Now it’s time to get back to work.

So maybe it’s not all relative. Do what you do and let people live! Let yourself live! Everything happens on your own time line, and all the time you spend torturing yourself over the success of other people is a distraction from the little time you have left in this life to do the thing you love doing.

What If You Could Change One Thing?

After my father’s death, I became much more interested in the things he tried to teach me while he was alive. I have a carefully curated stack of his physics books, and as I read them, I attempt to absorb the concepts he tried to teach me, listening much more carefully now. His scientific passions were chaos and catastrophe: earthquakes, volcanoes—anything that could change the course of humanity in an instant.

I’m drawn to the books about chaos because they promise images of fractals—a concept my dad taught me about, likely before covering basic shapes.

What I learned from the chaos books is that chaos, or disorder, is created from small changes in initial conditions. While trying to cope with everything that happened globally in 2020, I could see the concept playing out in the world around me, as well as in my own life.

If not for that one thing, none of this would be happening. If I hadn’t attempted the headstand, I wouldn’t have chronic neck pain. If I had been louder about grabbing my backpack out of the backseat, Shannon’s mom wouldn’t have run over my foot with her car. If I had pushed harder for my dad to get the MRI, maybe they would’ve caught his cancer earlier. My regrets become indistinguishable from the blame I ascribe to the actions of others. Moments that the culprits themselves have likely forgotten. Meanwhile I trap myself in a cycle of escalating helplessness. It turns out that being angry with someone whose past harm still affects you now is also chaos.

Does this mean we should be vigilant all the time, always? Technically, isn’t everything an initial condition if we’re anxious enough? The “everything is cancer” mentality doesn’t just come out of nowhere. Usually this type of paralysis is caused by the scar tissue left behind by our traumas, and our muscle memory learns to limit movement.

Attempting this kind of vigilance puts a lot of pressure on past you to be retroactively in control, and future you to be more in control. And being fully in control is impossible, unless we’re talking about a dictatorship, and what is a dictatorship if not a semblance of control with absolute madness beneath the surface.

At what point does the continued state of vigilance itself spiral into catastrophic effects on our well-being, and how far out does it spiral onto the lives of our loved ones and the loved ones of our loved ones? For me, this state doesn’t help my relationships or my friendships or my well-being. I jump at unexpected noises and everything is dangerous (!!!) and if you don’t text me that you got home OK I will definitely assume you died in a horrible accident. In the world I’ve created, everything is deadly and everything causes cancer and we’re in end-times, aren’t we?

If you’re like me, you may also begin to resent anyone who hasn’t developed the same sort of hypervigilant, overly considerate sensitivity to initial conditions. You begin to resent “it will be OK” and “this too shall pass” and your well-meaning, free-spirited (GOOD FOR THEM THAT THEY ARE SO OBLIVIOUS TO REAL LIFE!!!) friends. You become so focused on the potential initial conditions—the tiny threats you spot from every angle—that you get stuck in a state of potential beginnings with no movement, no growth. You stop moving forward in an effort to be “safe.” No decision is better than a risky decision, so you live in paralysis, dodging invisible bullets, so afraid of spiraling outward that you begin to shrink inward and then forget how to move forward.

Sometimes I turn to my aunt for advice, even though she eats bread with a fork. She is the wisest, most resilient person I know, and when she has electricity and reliable internet at her home in Caracas, she and my mom dance salsa together on WhatsApp. Sometimes the three of us will video chat, and she’ll offer comfort amidst worldly chaos, even though on any given day she may be lacking water, food, gas, or toilet paper.

She says: “Micha, hay que seguir adelante.” We have to keep moving forward.

For every outcome, there’s always something better that could’ve happened and there’s always something worse. That one tiny thing we did differently in our imagined ideal alternate universe, where everything is going as planned, may not have taken us on the path to that thing we wouldn’t give up for the world, or the universe, or the cosmos.

What if I hadn’t made the mostly bad decision to move across the country for a relationship that failed almost immediately upon arrival? Would I have been trapped in my literal closet room in our “five bed,” one bath, fifth-floor walk-up, East Village apartment building when it exploded? (Yes, that one, the one you’re thinking of.) If I hadn’t moved, would I have ever met the person I’m married to now, who is the glass half full to my Brita pitcher completely empty? And who always carries groceries and breaks down boxes? No, probably not. Or would I have started the project that led to my first book, had I not been unable to do my regular graphic design job because of chronic pain? Also probably not.

So, when every initial condition and every small decision paralyzes you into stasis, you have to think of the times the unexpected brought you something magical, or kept you from dying in a gas leak explosion. That’s chaos too.

It Hurts to Write This, but Don’t Worry

A TRANSCRIPT OF MY IMAGINARY VIRTUAL CHRONIC PAIN WORKSHOP

Today I’m going to teach you how to achieve your goals and manifest success when you have chronic p—

but first I’m going to need to move my laptop to my ergonomic desk setup—

but first it might help to stretch my rhomboids for thirty seconds—

Ah, my Pomodoro timer just went off! Can’t work for more than twenty-five minutes at a time or I will regret it—sorry, hold on

So I’m using this new standing desk that is supposed to [clanking noises] help.

Actually, have we talked about how my foot got run over by a car as a child? It starts to hurt sometimes, so maybe I’ll sit.

It was a Jeep Grand Cherokee. The weight equivalent of three hundred bowling balls standing on my foot in the middle school carpool, but it’s mostly fine, don’t worry!

Hold on… lowering….

OK, desk chair time!!!! Soooo ergonomic.

Hmm, my tailbone………. (I fell on my tailbone super hard, but, like, twenty years ago)

These things never heal, which is why that one doctor said there’s a very high chance I have chronic Lyme! We’ll get to that later!

Sorry, where was I?

I might actually try sitting on the couch again—

maybe if I write this on paper—

hold on, I have to connect my Bluetooth keyboard—

I know it looks like I’m Ariel coming up onto the rock discovering the human world, but I’m just trying to get a slight crackle out of this one upper rib so I can have ten seconds of SWEET TEMPORARY PEACE.

I might grab the Thera Cane, one sec.

Going to lie on the floor for a moment, but after that I’m all yours!!

Actually, I’m gonna grab some ice, so let’s chat about this later. Same time next week?

Feeling Better about Not Feeling Better

It’s not totally intuitive that you could injure yourself significantly while sitting completely still. I think back to days when, as a contract employee, I shared the “intern closet” with a fellow always-a-contractor-never-an-employee. As we copied and pasted magazine content into glitchy web forms, we took turns raising an arm to trigger the motion-sensor lights that went dark every twenty minutes.

I had initially interviewed for a temp job: half days with the potential to become full days, while I taught English in the evenings at the opposite end of the 7 train in Queens. During the interview, the manager asked what I really wanted to be doing because no one copy-pasting magazine articles to the internet was in it for the long haul.

“I want to make charts.”

My cover letter was an intense infographic begging to be considered for a job in design or data or both. It was clear from the graphic that I’d tried this “foot in the door” technique already at a few Cool Creative Companies, taking entry-level non-creative jobs, but never quite being able to transition. In boomer folklore, I would be a creative director by now.

This job allowed for creative work once I’d finished my data entry duties. The creative work was something I wanted to do so badly that of course I would do it in my free time. Eventually, I created a revamped spreadsheet system to make mine and others’ jobs quicker and more efficient so I’d have more time to design or pitch ideas, but that only made them give me more and bigger slideshows to enter into the system.

Quick note: Nobody likes slideshows.

I eventually became “full-time freelance,” and then was later given the opportunity to work remotely, as a trial. In 2011, this was a rare privilege and I took it very seriously. I tethered myself to my desk and made sure I was available for anything that came my way. Tasks began to pile up on my proverbial plate as people left the company—many had already been laid off, some became ill, others were deeply unhappy, and some found jobs in industries that offered health insurance and career growth.

On one particularly difficult day, I had moved from my desk to my couch because I needed a softer place to feel helpless. On a scale of “I’ve got this!” to “I may need some things taken off my plate,” I was openly weeping into the cracks of my keyboard. The job market was awful and my position was tenuous and they were letting me work from home. If I couldn’t do everything they asked, from the comfort of my home, why did I deserve that luxury? It should be easier this way. Right?

The beauty of remote work is that “crying in the bathroom” can happen anywhere: on the couch, at your desk, in the shower. Your entire one-room studio becomes a slightly larger bathroom stall with better toilet paper.

That evening, friends invited me along to a yoga class. I envisioned light stretching and soothing candles, the perfect cozy release. I was so thankful to be invited, to be picked up, to get a break from work. I vented as much as felt socially acceptable for a newish, casual friendship, and thanked them again, because “If I don’t go to this class, I will SNAP.”

Reader, I snapped.

It wasn’t immediate. Looking back, I don’t remember an actual, audible *snap,* but I remember the teacher lifting me into a headstand, and I remember wanting to get down. Around 24 hours later, I couldn’t move my upper body. My boyfriend at the time brought me a heating pad, and I worked for several days in pain with it draped over my shoulders on full blast. I’ve learned a lot of things from this injury in hindsight, such as: 1) Probably don’t do a headstand if you’re a yoga beginner. 2) Don’t put heat on a new injury. (I think. Every time I learn something, it’s disproved, so maybe you do put heat on a new injury. Definitely don’t do the headstand.)

Some people heal from these injuries relatively quickly, and some people have to work. Yes, to be fair, I wasn’t doing backbreaking labor: I was updating a magazine’s website with a 52-page slideshow of Kim Kardashian’s Best Birthday Outfits. It paid the bills, sort of, and it came with the potential of maybe one day leading to a career in something more creative.

And I did not want to be difficult.

After a few weeks of nonstop pain with no respite from the symptoms, an inner car alarm started beeping: Something’s not right, something’s not right. I tried to tune it out, which only made it grow louder and louder. I started to read about neck pain and how sustained acute pain can turn into chronic pain if untreated. Does everyone know this already? I didn’t know. OK, technically, I had lingering pains from other injuries, but “chronic pain” was a new concept to me because the other pains hadn’t yet affected my ability to make a living.

Slowly more things became painful, then unbearable: driving, reading (books about neck pain), spending even more time on the computer reading about neck pain, holding up my phone to read about neck pain.

My new manager was really sorry I was still in pain, and could she do anything to help? (Other than lighten my workload or approve time off.) And could I also please design her Halloween party invitations? She wished I was in New York so I could see the Best Sports Medicine Doctor in NYC. Her husband swears by him! My full-time freelance position didn’t come with health insurance, so I typed “haha” in our Gchat window and searched on Groupon for a chiropractor nearby.

In hindsight, it’s obvious that keeping this job wasn’t worth ten years (to date) of chronic pain, the disturbances and despair in every job that followed it, and an unending pain when I try to do the creative tasks I love (and daily chores I don’t love). But ten-years-ago-me wanted a creative career at all costs, not really understanding what this cost would be.

So, here I am, ten years and thirty-five chiropractors, seventeen physical therapists, a drawer full of expired supplements, two jobs abandoned, one disability claim rejected, and a purposely uncalculated amount of money spent later, I am here, writing and drawing this book. Because of my nonexistent physical attention span, I have doubted several times whether I’d be able to finish it, so if you’re reading this it means I finished.

If you want to make this an inspiring story, you can draw a direct line from my chronic pain to the book I wrote before this one, Am I Overthinking This? The style came directly from an attempt to create something using the least amount of physical effort and my enduring love for charts. I was still in pain while I made the book, but unlike with my graphic design jobs, it was a sustainable amount of pain.

And I got to make charts.

But that doesn’t mean the pain is the hero of this story. I often mentally bargain with my past self and ask: Would you give up the book you wrote if it meant having no pain? I think about the immediacy of the pain and the agony that makes me hyperaware of the moments I’m doing something that isn’t worth the pain. And I wonder whether without it I would’ve continued to spend my life doing these things, just because I had the energy and the ability. And then my past self chimes in: Psssst, you’re ruminating again—wait, omg you wrote a BOOK?!!!

Sometimes I’ll receive praise for “overcoming” the pain, but the pain is still there, and it may get worse. I’ve gotten a lot better at advocating for myself and my time and my well-being, but I’ve lost and turned down a lot of opportunities because of the pain. Sometimes I simply can’t make it happen, even if it’s a dream opportunity. Some people ask if it’s “better” and I answer that it’s “better than it used to be.”

During the worst, most hopeless parts of this journey, I asked my mom to recite something she told me when I’d fall and skin my knee as a child: “Sana sana culito de rana, si no sanas hoy, sanarás mañana.” We’re going to skip the part about the frog butt, and I’ll share my own interpretation, which is: Even if it doesn’t heal today, it will be a little better tomorrow.

Find the thing that makes you feel a little better, and don’t ever stop doing it. If it stops working, find another thing that helps a little. Keep looking for things that help a little, and commit to them.

A little better every day adds up.

Pain Anniversaries

THINGS I SHOULD’VE GIVEN MY CHRONIC PAIN AT EACH ANNIVERSARY

YEAR 1 IS PAPER: A gift certificate for a massage that I should’ve gotten you when this all started. Maybe that would’ve changed something.

YEAR 2 IS COTTON: Something soft to wear when everything hurts.

YEAR 3 IS LEATHER: A sort of ugly couch that is very ergonomic and comfortable. Sorry it’s not as beautiful as those light tan, sun-kissed leather couches that look so elegant but are too chic to be comfortable. It’s fine, right?

YEAR 4 IS FRUIT AND FLOWERS: Papaya and pineapple, for the inflammation. Tart cherry juice (also for the inflammation). We are very inflamed.

YEAR 5 IS WOOD: A motorized standing desk for your “home office”—ahem, kitchen. A pencil for telling the story of your pain. Whenever you’re ready.

YEAR 6 IS IRON: A DISHWASHER.

YEAR 7 IS WOOL: The perfect hat. Hats are important when you realize the amount of shoulder strain you’ve wasted on straightening your hair. Congrats, you’re a hat person now.

Maybe also those shoes everyone is wearing this year that look very cozy and apparently can be casually thrown in the wash! Realistically, though, they don’t seem to have any arch support, so maybe some soft but supportive hiking boots instead? And wool socks!!! And the hat.

YEAR 8 IS BRONZE (OR SALT OR LACE? DEPENDING ON THE LIST WE’RE LOOKING AT, IT ALL FEELS MADE UP, HONESTLY): Well, we’ve made it to year 8. Amazing. For our “bronze” pain anniversary, let’s finally be OK with coming in third. Or tenth. Or last.

YEAR 9 IS POTTERY: I promise not to get us a pottery class. I looked into it and it’s a lovely thought, but my hands ache just thinking about it. Instead, what about one of those precious ceramic mugs that just says “ u g h ” in tiny elegant letters? And some plant pots, because we will be really into plants that year.

YEAR 10 IS ALUMINUM: OK, hear me out: a first-class plane ticket. I know— but—think about it. It’ll be the one time you won’t have to pack your “foot hammock.” And can you imagine arriving at a place and not feeling like your entire body went through a meat grinder?

Plus! Champagne.

FAST-FORWARD TO YEAR 26, WHICH IS ART: If we’re still together by year 26— and even if we’re not—my gift to you is art. Not, like, a framed wooden slab that says “wine o’clock”—I mean I want you to make art. Whatever that means to you. Making art (even if you don’t call it art) is one of the best gifts you’ve given yourself, and in 16 years I hope you’re still making things that bring you happiness, purpose, and healing—both despite the pain, and even if some pain comes along with it. Oh, and I think you can call yourself an artist now.

Postmortem

You may think you’re done with the hardest and most immediate part of grieving, until the inevitable question brings it back to the forefront: What would they think about what’s happening right now? It’s always a grief-loaded question, whether or not you’re asking during a year of unprecedented fires and whether or not that person was a climate scientist.

QUIZ: Is this A) grief, B) existential dread, or C) all of the above?

In August 2020, heat lightning struck the land all around us—unprecedented, of course—igniting fires in every direction. It is too hot to think, too smoky to open any windows. Einstein, our dog, is splayed across the floor in a way that makes him look less like a chonky floof and more like a racehorse suspended in midair. I drape an ice pack over him and, suspicious of its purpose, he shakes it off and side-flops back into dog body language for oh f*ck, it’s so hot.

“Do any of our friends have air condi— Oh.” The pandemic.

I don’t even know where we would go, since there are fires to the north, south, and east—ocean to the west—but I pack a go bag because the internet says to have a go bag. The first object I place inside is my dad’s all-weather field book from his research on ice melt in Greenland.

C) all of the above

Instead of getting the rest of my go bag ready for a just-in-case event, I page through his metrics and observations. This is me in Grief Mode, but also procrastinating. In Grief Mode, I let myself look at every photo in the “Dad” album and check the dates of the photos where he looked most healthy. I try not to think about what would’ve happened if—anyway. I read his books looking for underlines, scribbles, notes, the inevitable equation scribbled inside the back cover. In the back of his mind he was always calculating how to solve the unexplained, looking for meaning in the numbers.

Having studied seismology, and later, abrupt climate change, he focused his research in Greenland on the study of ice quakes. As I understood it, rapid ice melt can spur ice quakes, and ice quakes create a greater loss of ice, which accelerates melting. In science, this is called a positive feedback cycle. It’s the opposite of a self-regulating cycle; the effects can be exponential. So the rate or magnitude of quakes might be able to tell you, more or less, just how screwed we are.

I open the gingko yellow journal, made a warmer yellow by the smoky light streaming through the shut blinds, and carefully turn the pages, looking for clues and meaning in the scribbles left behind.

Motion of ice sheet: 235

Station 69.5913

49.1505

Thickness: 115 m

A year ago, I’d have been able to call or email or ask him in person: Are we screwed? Not that he would ever give me a definitive answer; he was a scientist, after all. I look through the notebook, trying to find answers, warnings, observations that might, indirectly, if I’m reaching, give me some kind of postmortem fatherly reassurance.

C) all of the above

I find nothing. Mostly numbers. An Amtrak schedule. The name of the leader of the expeditions glares back at me in my dad’s nicer-than-you’d-expect-for-a-dad handwriting. Koni. My dad had a problem with most people, but he loved Koni. In September 2020, Koni fell into a crevasse through the Greenland ice and died. This seems like a clue. This seems like a metaphor for “oh lord we are absolutely fucked.”

C) all of the above

I told my mom about Koni and we cried over video chat and then hung up and cried separately. The crevasse had not been there when they arrived. Again, unprecedented. My Grief Mode switches from personal to planetary. I google “Greenland.” The Greenland ice sheet has melted past the point of no return. I stop googling Greenland.

C) all of the above

Back in Grief Mode, I search my dad’s name.

I find an interview from 2017, three years past “get your affairs in order,” three years beyond his Predicted Cancer Death Date, even though, still, at this time, no one knew he was sick. He was too proud to be sick. Or too insecure. Perhaps both. They talk about his research theorizing that the north pole is speaking to the south pole, about Greenland’s ice acting as “earth’s air conditioner.” The article ends on a quote:

“I cannot become depressed—even though there are a million reasons why I should.”

D) Hope

This will do for now.

Oh right—the go bag.

A Different Theory of Relativity, Part 2

Remember what I was saying before about how someone will always be better than you and someone will always be worse (see page 52)? It also applies to grief and suffering.

Someone will always have something harder to grieve, and someone will always have something seemingly less hard. Someone else’s grief will always feel more important and more urgent to other people than your grief. There is no reason to compare. Grief is grief, and it is personal and specific, and the love that came before it is love, even if it was complicated. Of course your grief is more important to you. The person you are grieving was special in ways other people will never know. You can try to tell them, but it’s likely that you and the people who most loved that person are the ones who fully appreciate the life and legacy of that person. Your person is important whether or not their name is on a bench, or their obituary is in an important newspaper, or whether it was your dog and not your dad. They mattered to you, so they mattered. There is no reason to judge someone else’s grief. Feel your grief fully and allow others that same courtesy.

And those first two statements apply to pain and suffering too: Someone will always suffer more than you, or receive more recognition or empathy for that suffering, and many will suffer less or get less empathy. There is already enough pain and suffering without adding the stress of making it into a contest.

People’s beliefs and values are often shaped by the things they have once lacked or lost. One of my paternal grandfather’s most memorable sayings translates to “when there are turnips, eat them,” which only becomes more meaningful once you know he spent seven years in one of Francisco Franco’s concentration camps.

Losing and suffering something shifts your mindset into appreciating what you had in hindsight, relative to now, and hopefully valuing what you have in front of you. Like turnips.

I often get caught up thinking about all the things I used to be able to do comfortably or at all: hours upon hours of digital design and getting into the zone and not stopping until it’s dark outside, kayaking, wearing cute shoes, running, playing tennis, sitting through a movie or a play or a flight without focusing solely on how to get comfortable and missing the whole plot, working on a laptop at a coffee shop, having a regular job, long walks, hiking, backpacking, walking barefoot without my arch-support house slippers—I mean, the slippers are great. I love them! But.

Instead of focusing on those things, I focus on what I can do. I can still bike, and I love biking. I thank my body for allowing me to bike. And I try not to think about what I’ll do if I can no longer bike. I try not to think about what I’ll do with my life if I run out of creative ideas that are made in this specific style that I can still do. I try not to think about what I’ll do if this also becomes too painful.

And if that happens, I will keep looking for something that brings me joy, purpose, and movement. But I’m thankful for these abilities for now.

Somewhere adjacent to that relativity are the people you want to make proud, even after they’re gone. The people who ingrained in your mind: “Why isn’t this A an A+?” The people you look to when wondering, “Would they be proud of this?”

I was lucky I got to show both of my parents my first book, dedicated to them, with charts and graphs that were inspired by everything my dad taught me to appreciate. He only got to see the first draft of the book, neither bound nor in stores. But he was proud. He was in the ER the day it went on sale for preorder. After they drained his lung he shouted as loud as he could: “My daughter is a best-selling author!” I softly corrected him, knowing his praise was reserved for only the best: “It’s only on one website, in one category, only for today.” He shrugged it off and continued to tell anyone who would listen. Even with reduced lung capacity, his voice boomed at full volume, ricocheting through the sterile hallways: “Best. Selling. Author.” There were only two settings: embarrassing displays of pride and condescending disapproval. With limited time left on this earth, he erred on the former.

When he came home from the hospital, I showed him the cover of the German translation. He exuded pride. “My genius!” When you impress someone not easily impressed, the feeling of accomplishment lasts a little longer.

He paused.

“Are you working on the next one yet?”