meridian.

i first met patrick upon visit number one to louisville. visit number one was, of course, also visit number only, keeping in line with the alacrity with which my entire relationship with nic has unfolded.

this will sound silly, but i moved as much for patrick as i did for nic.

let me back up.

i moved, because i was immediately and emphatically in love and wanted to indulge that love. follow it, explore it, magnify it, ground it, give it space to be real and mundane and everyday. i moved, because nic lived here and i lived there and the distance between here and there was far too much. i moved, because i wanted him and was not content to have anything except for exactly what i wanted.

yes, of course all that was true. it still is.

those reasons were the impetus, the romantic version, the beautiful and daring story.

but then there was also what was underneath. the need to move that had long since been in place. the routines i'd created that satisfied what i thought i needed, what people expected. the stress i felt day to day. the franticness with which i was living. the feeling that my body was slowly, but certainly retaliating, becoming achy, sore, strained, decayed.

after spending almost an entire month unable to sleep or move my neck, losing the ability to rotate my right shoulder, and lamenting my ever-clenched jaw and subsequently lopsided face, it was very evident that as much as i loved san francisco and wanted to hold onto all of the joy and love i had there, that ultimately it-- i, rather-- was becoming insurmountably unhealthy. that i needed to uproot the routine and find something more sustainable.

skip to visit one and nic taking me to meet patrick. patrick is an acupuncturist and one of nic's best friends. i had heard plenty of almost mystical stories about him prior to meeting him.

i was skeptical.

not about patrick as a person, but about the idea that he was even one small part as intuitive and capable of healing as nic depicted. i am more than willing to indulge romantic ideas-- ideas of the universe working intentionally for us, ideas of synchronicity, celebrations of joy and love and redemption and the resilience and ultimate goodness of human beings. these are all things i genuinely believe in, absorb, try to emulate.

and yet, despite the liberalness of my beliefs, i'm doubtful. doubtful about people that laud the amazing healing power of acupuncture, of herbs. people, who ask about my sign or my birth hour. people, who want to feel my pulse and ask about my poop. it's not that i haven't partaken in it, because i certainly have. i've been to the acupuncturist plenty of times. it's just that i'm not completely sold.

i believe, wholeheartedly, in the healing power of the belief of healing power. that efficacy goes hand in hand with expectation. the placebo effect, if you will. clearly there's a term for it, so i haven't unearthed something revelatory here.

it's taking me forever to get to the point.

the point is that, patrick undid all of that.

i walked into meridian acupuncture and said my requisite cheerful hi, nice to meet you! upon being introduced to patrick, and he replied, "cut out dairy."

no hello. no participation in social niceties.

i didn't quite understand him, excuse me? and so he repeated, "cut out dairy."

being a girl, who basically only wants to ingest various forms of carbohydrates and cheese, i was reluctant to actually hear these words and probed him for more information. he asked me a series of questions about my health and bodily functions that rapidly clarified that he, without any prior contact or conversation with me, knew exactly what my body needed and had been doing. it was vaguely uncomfortable, but also somewhat relieving to be seen in such a way.

we talked briefly and i asked, anything else? to which he, terrifyingly accurately replied, "yes. don't hide behind the laugh."

this, of course, made release an uncomfortable hide-behind-the-laugh laugh. because, simply, this person knew more about me in three minutes than most people know in three years. people think i'm joyful and blissfully happy, and i am. i really really am. but underneath that, there's anxiety and discomfort and a lot of cheese that apparently making me really unhealthy.

he said i had a long way to go to be healthy, but i wanted lots of pretty babies and i could get there if i wanted it for myself and for them.

i went back to san francisco and talked about nic and how i loved him.

and then i'd talk about patrick and how he'd seen inside me.

when i decided to move, i said, patrick will fix me.

fast forward to now. i've lived here, inexplicably, over three months. on saturday, i finally, finally went in to see patrick. it's easy to wait. it's easy to wait when things are only minorly uncomfortable. we acclimate. we come to view them as normal. we corrode, slowly, gradually accepting, integrating each small pain or limitation into our daily life until we barely notice anymore. we come to allow discomfort as the standard.

we wait until we're so far gone, until something climactic and terrible happens, to attend to ourselves. we wait to fix what's totally broken instead of working regularly to maintain.

i refuse to do it anymore. i refuse to be unhealthy. i refuse to wait to be so broken that i have no other choice than rectify things.

so i went to patrick. i walked into meridian and it was more beautiful than i remembered. it was serene. quiet and warm. the walls lined with glass jars, filled with unfamiliar things. it smelled like earth.

patrick and i sat down on either side of a bed and he said, "complain to me."

and so i did.

my neck.
my shoulder.
my lower back.
my stomach.
my jaw.
my head.
my stupid, anxiety-ridden, worried, busy head.

he listened and asked questions. and then he told me. he told me things it felt like i'd always known. i didn't know them, but once he said them, they seemed so evident, so irrefutably true, that it seemed certain they'd always been in my head.

they were many and i, despite all my words, am incapable of capturing all that is the wisdom patrick gently and casually revealed to me, but the salient parts were this.

i am an earth person, and the earth person is governed by the stomach and the spleen. my actual stomach is incredibly uncomfortable and dysfunctional. my emotional stomach is as well. he said, "this is literally a problem of digestion." as in, both the way in which and the kind of food i am ingesting, and also the way in which and the kind of emotions i am ingesting. the way i'm processing things is off. and my body is retaliating. it's manifesting as worry and stress and an unhealthy body.

i need to reset.

he assured me he can help me reset. redirect energy. encourage movement and absorption. but that i'm also responsible. for what i'm putting in. i'm supposed to eat warm, cooked food. no dairy. he was understanding that this all would take time. it takes time to change habits, to edit. but i feel absolutely certain that he's right and my intention to have a long and healthy life makes me want to make those changes.

he poked me with needles.

he said, "these are going to be terrible."

they were terrible.

i've had acupuncture before and this was more terrible. it felt like every punctured part of my body was radiating heat and pulsing with pain. tiny, rhythmic waves of pain, radiating out in ripples from the source. but also that kind of pain you can tell is necessary. that kneading of knots. that massaging of clots. a loosening. breaking up what has become congested.

i throbbed.

and then it was over. patrick unpinned me, hugged me, and sent me away.

he said it will take time, but it will be worth it and i will be so much better. and i believe him.

i feel better even just knowing i believe him. it feels good to believe. to allow myself the space to reset. to have people to help me.

i'm in louisville now. i am three months into louisville. and it will all take time. but it will be worth it and i will be so much better.

life is so much better.