(aka Boulevard of Broken Dreams Part 2, in keeping up with the ‘dream’-theme; refer to my previous blog post http://crankycalico.wordpress.com/2010/04/04/boulevard-of-broken-dreams/ )
Wow…it’s been a long time since I’ve blogged. Almost 6 months! A lot has happened since…both good and bad. I’m not trying to make excuses, but it was quite an eventful 6 months. It began back in February with two medical events: my partner had shoulder surgery and my father was diagnosed with Stage 2 prostate cancer. Olivia’s shoulder surgery turned out ok…other than the fact she is an avid tennis player and needed to take the requisite break from the one activity she loves most. I am proud of the way she held up psychologically. I am not so strong (as you will come to realize later). And Dad’s prostate cancer seems to be responding well to radiation therapy. We were all quite on edge while we were waiting for the staging. But Stage 2 gave him some options and he chose what I feel was the wisest one. Heck, now he rides his new road bike so much I am beginning to think he’s blood doping or something a la Lance Armstrong!
And then there was March. On March 2nd I received a letter in the mail from the Indie Grits Film Festival. (Those that follow me and my Twitter persona KimBergie know that I have dedicated the last year of my life to my first (and zero-budget) documentary “Puker”.) I remember looking at the envelope convinced it was my first rejection letter (I like to expect the worst…that way I am always prepared…not much of an optimist, I know) and how nice it was for them to send it (unlike SOME festivals who shall remain nameless), and it turned out to be my first film festival acceptance letter! I will not lie…after multiple fist pumps and some victorious Peyton Manning-esque arm raising, I cried.
I spent the remainder of March getting ready for the festival and the first ever Puker screening on April 16th in Columbia, SC. Did I mention I was on Cloud 9 the whole time?? That is when I wasn’t technically challenged and struggling to render a version of the film in a format that could be projected on the big screen. Then there were travel arrangements and wardrobe decisions and hair appointments and t-shirt printing and DVD ordering and postcard printing and and…well, you get my drift. With a full time job (during which time I was acting team leader), I was pretty busy.
And before I knew it, it was April. I was prepared for the festival and team leading was going well and Liv and Dad were feeling good and I was excited to start the Spring soccer season and all was right with the world. Soccer…the one thing that I could count on 99% of the time to bring me joy. I have trouble reliving the first game of our soccer season, so I will be brief: in an awful match where we were outnumbered 11 players to 7 (yeah how about them apples, US vs. Brazil) by an upper division team (we are in the ‘recreational’ division) and losing 5 to 1 (and YES we scored one kick ass goal even outnumbered) with approximately 2 minutes left in the match, I ‘blew out’ my right knee in a take down by a very frustrated player whom we had been beating to the ball the entire game (anatomical details for those interested: torn ACL, torn lateral meniscus, and tibial bruise which they thought was a fracture, at first). I attended the Indie Grits Film Festival as a gimp. But it was one of the most thrilling experiences of my life. Puker had never looked better than it did on the big screen. For all of my time and effort and passion and dedication and love to be seen by a crowd of about 75 people…what a rush! And the feedback was so positive and knowing Puker’s story, as we told it, touched the hearts of a few like it had mine, I was so SO happy. So much so that I didn’t think about the impending doom that was knee surgery scheduled for May 10th.

Indie Grits Film Festival (aka the coolest film festival EVER)
I spent the beginning of May coming down off of my festival rush and getting ready for the surgery. And before I knew it, May 10th was upon me and I sat half naked on a gurney praying the nerve blocks I was about to receive wouldn’t be as horrific as I remembered from my first and only surgery at the age of 5 when I fractured my hip. (I have only a few memories of that experience, but the ones I do have are as vivid and traumatic as the memory of what I ate for breakfast this morning…yes…I am currently on a low carb diet. Nuff said.) Now I laugh…nerve blocks schmerve blocks! The Versed (aka happy juice and something I wish I had a personal stash of) beforehand took away any worries about the pain of the femoral injection.

Dude, Versed...rad. (pre-op)
And then I was in the OR and out, only to be awoken by a fire alarm while being dressed frantically in an effort to get me decent enough to be carried down 17 flights of stairs. (Needless to say, the outpatient surgery center is revisiting their fire emergency SOPs when patients are mid-surgery. All parties were thankful my ortho had just finished closing me up when the alarm sounded.)
Again, I will keep things short on the painful points. The next 3 weeks were one of two of the most trying times in my life, both physically and psychologically/emotionally. (The other was the death of a soulmate, which is a story in and of itself. For another time.) Simply…I was broken.

48 hours post-op (I used to have such a pretty knee)
And then there was June…full of physical therapy and family visits and rejection letters from film festivals and VIP tickets to the US Open. And did I mention physical therapy?? There was a lot of it.

Two weeks post-op
And now it’s July and I feel like I’ve missed the summer. Although the 100+ degree temperatures are trying their best to remind me I haven’t. I have started writing again (I just didn’t have the inner strength for it while dealing with the knee) and I’ve filmed a little bit and I have picked up drawing again (which I did while I was laid up and it proved to be very therapeutic… see my whimsical works at http://crankycalico.deviantart.com/gallery/ and I will likely blog more about that at a later time). And oh HELLZYEAH I am golfing (albiet with a half swing). Physical therapy is a constant and will be for the foreseeable future because my strength is coming back a little slower than I had hoped. And I have to get ready for more film festival decisions and starting an online graduate program at Georgetown next month. So that brings us to today…
Oh yeah…and to the point of this blog…
Dream On.
Cue: Aerosmith…
“Every time I look in the mirror,
All these lines on my face getting clearer.”
I had a lot of time to think during recovery from the whole knee ordeal. Most of my thinking time was on the couch as an invalid. But when I wasn’t on the couch, I was driving (or being driven) to physical therapy. And I am kind of a goof ball…I need to get ‘pumped up’ for anything physical, so I rock out. My car is full of CD mixes…soccer mix…metal soccer mix…chick soccer mix…dance soccer mix…workout mix…you get my drift. I listen to them on the way to whatever event I am going to and they get me pumped up. And believe me, I was in dire need for pumping up for physical therapy appointments. But my needs were more of a classical rock variety, so I opted for the radio. Soon I found the lack of (and it’s not really a bad thing) variety in radio programming. Every day for like a month, BIG100 would play Dream On and the timing would be just right to correspond with my drive to physical therapy.
“The past is gone.
It went by, like dusk to dawn.
Isn’t that the way.
Everybody’s got their dues in life to pay.”
I bet you know what THAT did to me. Me, being in my vulnerable, post-operative, drug-induced state with a mind idle of everything other than the pain I was in, questioned EVERYTHING. Career, the role of filmmaking in my life, my writing efforts, the passage of time, approaching “over 40″…you name it (other than my relationship…BTW my full time nurse during this time was wonderful), I questioned it. Those thoughts were all so overwhelming so I turned to the one sensical question in my life…will I ever play soccer again?
“Dream On
Dream On
Dream On”
Yeah…I spent some time on that one. When I moved to DC, which can be an overwhelming city for a small-town girl like me, I struggled to meet anyone outside of work. And I being in my early 30s, I also knew I had to start thinking about steppin’ it up in the staying in shape department. So one random day, I Googled “over 30 womens soccer league Washington DC” with the hopes of finding others like me that enjoyed the sport and that I hopefully could have a connection with.
And the rest was history.
I have been playing in the Washington Area Women’s Soccer League for 8 years. And the gifts it’s given me (…ok, let’s see if I can get through this without balling uncosolably) are some of the most amazing gifts I have ever received. The sense of accomplishment, the confidence, the fitness, the outlet/release of stress, the connection to my past youth…and all of these things could NEVER compare to the one thing I am most thankful for when it comes to soccer…friends. My life was forever changed for the better because of that simple Google search on a random summer day. My life was forever changed for the better because of the women known as the Psychedelic Furs.

The Psychedelic Furs (outdoor team)
“Half my life’s
in books’ written pages
Lived and learned from fools and
from sages.
You know it’s true.”

The Psychedelic Furs (indoor team)
I will never play outdoor soccer again. My ortho says I need to find a non-contact sport (his gentle way of saying your body is too old to play). And although I should be “back to baseline” in 8 months, I never want to go through the pain I experienced in May/June again. They say pain makes us stronger. And although it might be true, fuck that. I am ashamed to say that the entire experience outweighs the joys of playing with my team. Some might label me smart, mature, rational for making this decision. But to me, I am admitting defeat. To me, I am a coward. To me, I have surrendered. And although everyone, including me, saw this coming, it still stings.
Father Time…you may have won this round, but I’ll find something to knock you back and off your feet if only for a little while. I’ve got unyielding courage, determination, passion and Lancome Extra-Firming Neck Cream in my corner.
“Dream until your dream comes true.”

Catch ya on the flip side!
- Kim
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