Privilege Disguised as Burden

It happens at 2:00 AM. That is the hour the darkness gets heavy.

In the bedroom, the baby cries. It is a thin and needy sound. It pierces the sleep deprivation like a needle. Beside me, my wife shifts. She groans deep in her throat. It is a sound of exhaustion so profound it makes my chest ache.

She throws the covers back. She stands up. She walks to his room. She picks him up. She paces the floor.

I lie still.

I do not move because I cannot.

If I try to roll over, the L5 nerve root screams. It does not whisper. It feels like someone has jammed a live wire into the meat of my hip and turned the dial to maximum. A loop of electricity runs down my leg. It wraps around my ankle. It shoots back up. A NASCAR race of pain on a track made of my own nerves.

So I lie there. Useless.

I listen to her footsteps. I listen to her comfort our son.

I am the father. I am the husband. I am the protector.

And I am stuck on my back or my stomach. It depends on the day. But there I lay. Listening to the people I love carry the weight I should be sharing.

That is when the thoughts come. They don’t knock. They just walk in and sit on the edge of the bed.

You are worthless.

You serve no purpose.

And then the darker one. The one I don’t say out loud. The one that draws a map in my head. How many pills? How fast? How clean of an exit?

It would stop the lightning. It would stop the guilt of watching my wife wither while I lay frozen.

But then I think of my sons. I think of the baby in her arms and the older one asleep in the other room. I think about leaving them before I have taught them how to weather a storm.

So I stay. I let the pain run its lap. I stare at the ceiling, sometimes until the sun comes up.

I wasn't always this broken thing.

Before October I was a runner. Not a fast one but a relentless one. I was training for a 100-mile race. The Sadler’s Creek Stumble. I wanted to prove to my boys that 40 is just a number. That the human body is a machine designed for endurance.

I defined myself by motion. When my feet hit the pavement my mind cleared. The rhythm of breath and step was where I solved problems. It was where I prayed. I dreamed. I hoped. It was where I was me.

Then came October.

No dramatic accident. No car crash. Just a day where the soreness didn't leave. Then a day where the bike ride felt wrong. Then the morning the train hit me.

Herniated L4-L5. Nerve compression.

The doctor said surgery.

I heard the race is over.

My resting heart rate climbed. The fitness I spent a year building evaporated. The runner died. In his place was a man who couldn't put on his own socks without weeping. Or asking my wife to slide them over my heels because she doesn't have enough to do already.

I needed to move. I am a creature of momentum. If I stop moving I start dying. But my legs were gone.

November 1st.

My wife and I were sitting on the couch. We were watching TV because that is what you do when you cannot do anything else. Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend.

On the screen a chef was doing something absurd.

Fire-roasted grapes.

With Gorgonzola. And Mascarpone.

I don’t know why I did it. It wasn’t hunger. Maybe it was desperation. I pulled out my phone and took a picture of the TV screen. Like a spy stealing secrets.

Roasted grapes?

I had never roasted a grape in my life. I didn't know what Mascarpone was. I just knew that the man on the screen was moving. He was creating. He was taking raw things and turning them into finished things.

The next day the kitchen became a tornado.

I stood at the counter. My leg throbbed. The nerve fired its electric signals. Sit down, you idiot, sit down. But I ignored it. I leaned my weight onto the good leg. I chopped. I mixed.

I made the grapes.

They were weird. They were delicious.

Then I made salmon. Then mashed potatoes with a dill sauce.

Then I tried a lemon meringue pie. It failed. It collapsed into a sugary weeping mess.

I didn't care. I scraped it into the bin and started a loaf of bread.

The kitchen was not a peaceful sanctuary. It was a battlefield. Flour on the floor. Dishes stacked in towers that threatened to topple. Me leaning on the counter. Grimacing. Sweating. Gripping a whisk like a weapon.

I tried to force flavor into a soup. I wanted umami on steroids. It was a mistake. It tasted heavy and brown. Like salt and fat fighting for space in the bowl. It was inedible.

I made a cranberry loaf. It was perfect.

I made a spatchcock chicken.

I remember taking the first bite of that chicken. I stood in the wreckage of the kitchen. The smell of roasted fat and rosemary hung heavy in the air. I tasted it and my eyes widened.

I looked at my wife.

"You know," I said. I was almost laughing. "We can just make things."

It sounds stupid. But in that moment it was a revelation.

I couldn't run a mile. I couldn't pick up my son without fear.

But I could take a raw chicken and fire and time. I could make dinner.

On November 23rd we went to church.

I didn't want to go. I needed to. I was still using a cane then. Every step was a negotiation with gravity. Sitting in a pew for an hour was torture. But I missed the people. I missed the feeling of belonging to something other than my injury.

So we went. I sat stiffly. My teeth gritted. My wife squeezed my hand. She looked tired. Her eyes had the look of a woman who is carrying two lives while her husband figures out how to carry himself.

The sermon was on 1 Peter. The pastor talked about suffering.

He told a story about an older woman. She was at her daughter's house while the daughter did laundry. The daughter held up a shirt with a sigh. Another chore. Another burden.

But the mother looked at the shirt and said she would give anything to fold her husband's shirt one more time.

I call that privilege disguised as burden.

The things we hate doing. The laundry. The dishes. The slow walk to the car. Pain, even if temporary. Yes, these are privileges. We only see them as burdens until they are taken away.

I sat there. My leg burned. I thought about the kitchen.

I thought about the pain of standing at the cutting board.

I thought about the mess.

I thought about the nights I paid for it. The extra pain. The tossing and turning.

Cooking was a burden. It hurt. It was exhausting work. So why do it?

Because it is a privilege.

It is a privilege to stand. It is a privilege to feed my family. It is a privilege to be in pain because it means I am still here to feel it.

December 5th. My birthday.

I decided to go all in.

I shouldn't have. My doctor would have yelled at me. My physical therapist would have shaken her head.

But I needed this.

The menu. Sweet Heat Tacos.

Coca-Cola reduction. Homemade jalapeño lime aioli. Pickled onions. Slaw. Mexican rice. My first time attempting it.

The kitchen filled with people. In-laws. My wife. My boys. My family.

The air smelled of sugar and spice and searing meat.

I was propped up against the counter. My weight shifted back and forth. Sweat ran down my neck. The pain was there. It hummed its familiar tune down my leg.

But I was louder than the pain.

I plated the tacos. I spooned the rice.

My wife stood beside me. She handed me a spoon. I dropped it. It clattered loud against the floor. I froze, waiting for the ruin. She just said it’s alright. She didn't tell me to sit down. She knew I needed to stand.

She leaned in. Her voice was quiet under the noise of the family.

"I'm proud of you."

I looked at the food. I looked at my sons eating.

I felt it then. The same feeling I used to get at mile 15 of a long run. The endorphins. The clarity. The runner’s high.

I hadn't lost the movement.

I had just moved it.

I don't know where this goes.

I have a surgery date. I have a long road of rehab. I don't know if I will ever run 100 miles. I don't know if I will ever run one mile.

But I know this.

The intrusive thoughts still come. The nights are still long. The pain is still a passenger I can't kick out of the car.

But when the darkness gets too loud I go to the kitchen.

I take out the flour. I take out the yeast. I take out the knife.

I turn on the heat.

I thought I lost my ability to move. But what I really lost was my doubt.

I found the joy of the privilege. The privilege of the burden.

I stand there. I hurt. I cook.

It is not a race. But I am moving. And for now that is enough.