Emotional Wins Hot Streak

I was thrilled to receive an acceptance this week for some poems I submitted to an upcoming anthology. I haven’t submitted work in a very long time, and I had forgotten the rush of good feeling it gives me to be granted a “yes” on my work: Someone thinks I’m worthy! Someone likes what I wrote! Approval is a powerful drug, and it’s been a while since I’ve gotten a good dose of it. Most of the time these days I go around seething to myself, “If you want to tell me about all of ways I’ve disappointed you, you’ll have to get in line behind everyone else.” So being given the Nod of Worthiness felt pretty darn good.

I also had a lovely moment of feeling not 5’9” and not...my weight, let’s just say. My new trainer is as strong as an ox, and in service of this pull-up goal of mine, he suggested that he hold my feet and assist while I pulled myself up on the bar. I have never had a trainer offer such a thing, and all I could think was, “Well, good luck buddy, because in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly a waif.” But he lifted me with no problem at all, he didn’t even break a sweat, and for a glorious few minutes I felt dainty and light. He’s also had me pull on a rope while he resisted, and even after throwing my entire body weight against his resistance, he didn’t budge an inch. It’s maddening, but also really fun to work with someone who’s built like a tank and willing to use himself as a de-facto resistance machine. I’m hoping that working with him will finally get me to my pull-up goal. He pushes the weights harder and higher than any other trainer I’ve had, so maybe this at last will be the winning formula.

My third good feeling of the week came in the form of total vindication when I read a book entitled “Overkill” by Dr. Paul Offit, in which he explains, among other things, that you do not need to take your entire course of antibiotics. You can stop taking them when you feel better. In his chapter, “Finishing the Antibiotic Course is Often Unnecessary,” he explains that the persistent notion that stopping antibiotics early promotes the growth of drug-resistant bacteria is a myth. In fact, the opposite is true—the longer the course of antibiotics, the greater the chance that bacteria will become resistant. When I read that, I shouted, “Yes!” and pumped my fist in victory. I’ve very rarely needed antibiotics, but when I have taken them, the dire warnings to finish the entire course never made any logical sense to me. As Dr. Offit points out, we stop taking every other medicine once we are better, because the side effects of the medicine outweigh the benefits once we don’t need it anymore. I could never understand why antibiotics had some magical property for which this logic didn’t apply. Antibiotics have terrible side affects, they mess with your gut, and they cause all kinds of problems. So I was thrilled to finally have my questioning of this notion validated. And then slightly traumatized by my memory of having an allergic reaction to sulfa antibiotics and breaking out in hives over every inch of my body. But it was worth it to be vindicated on this one.

I’m just hoping that my week of emotional wins doesn’t come with a karmic cost, and that this week isn’t full of disappointments and disillusionment as an energetic balance.

--Kristen McHenry