My toenail is infected. I know this because the flesh surrounding it is hot and pink, and every time I walk barefoot on my floors, it feels like I am stepping on a knife.
I first notice the pain during a contemporary dance class. Twenty-five years of dance have destroyed my high-arched feet. Hammertoes, calluses, and blistered, bloody ankles. You get the picture.
The throbbing becomes easy to ignore. I’m focused on my breath, on counting, on squeezing my abdomen, lengthening my neck, and tucking my pelvis. I know that tomorrow my calves and thighs will ache — pains that are familiar and welcome.
On this particular Monday, I drop into the advanced class. Many of the women here are in their forties and fifties. I listen to their chatter about kids and careers without feeling any desire or obligation to participate in the conversation. Talking feels exhausting lately. But most nights, I don’t want to be alone. I enjoy moving silently among these women, our feet stomping the ground in unison, our shared exhales heating the basement studio.
I am floored by their strength and power. Their arms and legs slice through the air precisely, almost violently, while my own limbs flail, always one or two counts behind the group. Though I’ve danced on and off for most of my life, my muscle mass, balance, and flexibility have remained stagnant. I’m terrible at remembering choreography — my mind wanders to other places while our instructor plots out movements and my classmates ask him thoughtful questions. I try to figure out where the past 10 minutes have gone.
Toward the end of class, he stops the music and says, “You’re all moving like steel. I need you to be liquid.”
I’m sick of being liquid. I’m sick of oozing with emotion, sick of falling apart. I want to suck it up, put my head down, and get to work. I want to be steel.
After, I am sweaty and filled with clarity. I decide that this is the Week I Will Get My Life Together. I will absorb the strength of the mothers in my dance class, who seem to manage their lives with poise and stability. I will accomplish every task on my Google doc entitled, “Weekly Plan.” I will write goals for the year. I will eat healthy and get enough sleep.
***
In the middle of the week, a series of events spin the next 48 hours into chaos. My plans fall apart. I’m juggling two jobs and multiple side projects. Amid the crisis, I answer a few emails, have distracted phone interviews with sources, and reschedule meetings. As for organizing my life, well, that will have to wait.
On Wednesday night, I am emotionally and physically drained. I want to crawl into bed and disappear from the world. It’s then that my toe reminds me of my neglect.
Taking matters into my own hands, I hobble into the bathroom, prop my foot on the windowsill and attempt to perform a small surgery with nail clippers and a file. Blood oozes out, and the pain intensifies. Fuck.
I call a podiatrist’s office the next morning. “Is it infected?” the receptionist asks. “I’m not sure,” I lie.
“We can squeeze you in at 2 p.m. today.”
“Great.”
The events of the week come to a head. I miss the appointment.
The books about Buddhism I am reading say that we can’t choreograph our lives or shield ourselves from the pain of external forces. We must instead build strength internally — by removing our “inner thorns,” so that we are open wide enough to let painful events simply pass through us. “Just relax and let it go,” Michael Singer tells us over and over again in “The Untethered Soul.”
Well, what if you try to remove the thorn…err…nail…and you just make the problem worse? Sometimes pain is lethal. Sometimes you need an antibiotic or an operation to remove it.
This week, I keep receiving more bad news: A relative’s death. A friend’s diagnosis.
But it’s the smallest event that ultimately breaks me. I see something on the internet — a quiet betrayal that no one would notice unless they were looking. Why was I looking? The revelation triggers a pain that is overwhelming and acute.
Isn’t that the way life goes? In true moments of crisis, we find the superhuman strength to do the hard thing, to make the phone call, to protect the people we love. But it’s the ingrown nail — small, seemingly insignificant, and slowly festering beneath the skin — that hits us where it hurts the most. And then, we melt.
I write, “Delete social media” at the bottom of my to-do list. Under it: “Go to podiatrist.” And finally: “Just let it go.”