My ABC’s of surviving

A: A beginner again

*I added audio for the first time ever! In true improvising form, the button to hear the audio landed down near the end of this piece. Hope you can find it and hope you enjoy!*

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Warning: This may sound heroic, but I never knew what I was doing.

Look at the beginning of this story if you aren’t sure. A for Apple? No, A for being

a beginner again.

The true heroes of my story are my husband, my mom, all our family, nurses, security guards, feeding therapists, cardiologists, surgeons, Moose, Lu and Sammy, and of course my friends who brought me hugs and chocolate. I survived because of their support.

I love games, and had the luxury to be part of an improv group for years, so think of this story as a form of improv.

In improv, you never know where the scene is going to go.

There’s a strategy in improv called A to C. In a nut shell, it means you take A (initial idea), skip B (the first thing you think of with the initial idea), and arrive at C, a third idea. If you want to start a scene, find the C idea.

My C idea for letter A (are you following me?) was

a beginner again.

I’m a beginner again all the time, in improv as in life. It makes me cringe, but I might never find my C idea if I didn’t have to restart and learn and begin again.

All of life is not a giant improv scene, but improv scenes really mimic life.

A world where we’re all beginners.

A scene where we’re all beginners.

Even if I want to deny it, all of my new beginnings have taken me somewhere. It doesn’t mean the journey was all lovely and perfect, like yellow nail polish (which is what my toes show me now and are lovely and perfect). But all my beginnings helped me learn to keep going.

Many people are interested in improv, so I’ll try to include as many stories as I can during this ABC series.

As I said, this story itself is a work in improvising. Right now I think I know what my word for letter H will be, but will it change? Probably.

My improv group performed on Thursday nights. We weren’t the headliners for sure, but we worked hard practicing scene work and games, so when Thursday rolled around we were as ready as we could be for going on stage for something you can’t rehearse.

Each night, our group warmed up with short games and little exercises to get into the playful mindset. Most of us came straight from work, in jobs from accounting to counseling, so we had to warm up to become fun. Isn’t adulthood delightful?

One of the ways we reminded ourselves that it was going to be okay, no matter where the scenes took us, was to say to each other right before going on stage, “I got your back.” We would physically pat each other’s backs. This meant, if you got stuck, someone would be there to bail you out, to make sure you didn’t look lost. We would cover for each other, make each other’s ideas looked good.

Pretend for a minute, I find myself in a scene in space. I don’t know how I landed in space.

I don’t know anything about space and I don’t know what to say.

My buddy to the right doesn’t how we got there either, but it doesn’t matter.

I got your back, she tells me, as she really tells me:

“Your space suit is beautiful! Look at that! You even brought your baby into space!”

Suddenly, it doesn’t matter that I don’t know anything about space. I know something about babies. That person helped me along.

We get by in improv with a little help from our friends.

I have been a beginner this past year, and you know my secret? It’s the same secret that I held on tightly to every time I looked like I knew what I was doing in improv scenes.

I get by with a little help from my friends.

The past few years have given me lots of lessons on beginning. I was a beginner when I got my beloved dog, Moose, at age 35, a beginner when getting married one year later, at age 36, a beginner when I had my first baby, sweet LuLu, at age 37, and as I’ve told you, I was definitely a beginner again at age 38 when dear Sammy was born.

I say these ages to tell you that I find myself a beginner now at age 39, as my 40th birthday is right around the corner in August. While there’s no right way to have a birthday, I want to slide into the next decade like I’m jumping into a delightful pool of water after being on a long, windy, fun, and terrifying water slide.

As a birthday gift to my readers, I want to share this ABC story with you, in the form of essays and tales and hopefully enough comedy to keep YOU going.

The greatest offering I have to a weary world is to write down and record all of God’s fingerprints in the year (plus) that we survived uncertainty, two open-heart surgeries, and the whiplash of four hospital visits in a year, one beginning on Christmas Eve night. Now that I’m a little removed from it all, I can tell you the real deal, with a side of laughter. Kind of like improv, it’s real life, but with

a lot of laughter.

I am talking about heart surgery though, so it’s not necessarily going to be funny the whole time.

Bear with me, I’m walking around with a tiny notebook and Notes app on my phone and I’m writing while driving (not really, please don’t call the cops). I’m writing in my head and I’m trying to go from A to C so you find out the real deal of how I survived some tough things, in hopes that you’ll know, friends, in the midst of your woes and scares and long and windy water slide rides, I got your back.