Anyway, last week my buddy Jim asked a very important question on his Facebook page: How do you feel about Nickelback? and the results are shown above. According to this comprehensive and scientific poll, most people really don't care about them one way or another. But... it got me thinking. About Nickelback. (I know, right?) and if I'M being honest? I will never hate them, and I'll tell you why (warning: this post isn't going to be funny, but my blog therapist says that's okay).
10+ years ago hubs and I checked into the hospital so that I could be induced with Child 1. I had spent the previous few weeks or so on bedrest, doing absolutely nothing except working myself up into a panicky froth about how the hell I was going to get this damn baby out of me.
I've already written my birth story so I'm not going to write it again, but you can read the full story here if you're interested. In a nutshell, I was put on Magnesium Sulfate, which is a drug meant to prevent seizures during labor and which, to quote myself, "was like that feeling when you’ve taken a nap in the middle of the day and you wake up too early and then you walk around in a daze; like you’re not really there, but you are, but also add serious dizziness to that." That feeling of spaciness/dizziness/weirdness stayed with me for the entire duration of my hospital stay. I had this new baby, and not only did I have absolutely no idea what to do with it, my mobility was limited by my c-section incision, I was walking around in this weird dream state and it felt like I was watching from afar as my husband took care of the diapering and the wiping. He would bring me the baby, and I would look at it and think "what is this thing? What am I doing here? What the hell is going on?"
Remember that I started this whole process in a frothy panic, and the panic did not go away once the baby was born; it was intensified and lengthened by the drugs and by the newness and the weirdness of the whole thing. Was any of it really real? Was it really happening? Followed by: panic. Oh my god, is this real? Is this really happening? What IS happening? What am I doing? What am I going to do??
We were allowed to leave the hospital three days after we had checked in, and as I was wheeled down the hall and out the door to my car, I was still looking at this baby wondering what the hell I was going to do with him once I got him home. I hadn't been outside or seen daylight the whole time, and it was bright. It was like an overexposed movie scene; almost cartoon-like in its weirdness.
I got into the back seat with Child 1 in the car seat and hubs started the car. The radio came on and How You Remind Me was playing and.... oh my god. It was a song I knew. Something familiar. I know this song. I know the lyrics. I know the melody. I can even picture the video. It was the first "real" thing I had experienced since arriving at the hospital three days before. I felt almost grounded; not 100%, but more normal than I had felt in what seemed like an eternity.
I'll never forget that feeling of familiarity in an ocean of unknown. And that, my friends, is why I don't hate Nickelback, and why I never will.
Let's enjoy the tune, shall we? No need to thank me.....
