Hidden Community

Until I decided to have surgery most of my friends didn't know I was sick, and it's only been a year and a half since I began openly talking about endometriosis. What I've discovered is that I'm part of this hidden community: the community of those who have suffered. To one who has known pain, it is restful to be with someone who can look you in the face and say, "I get it." It is restful to know you're not gonna hear, "But you don't look sick!" or any of the other well-meaning-but-misguided maxims people throw around (humans don't know what to do with brokenness). I don't ever want to be in pain like I that again, but I'm really grateful to be a source of comfort and rest to others who have or still are suffering. I saw he relief on another face today as I spoke with a man about what it's like to be in so much physical torment that you don't understand how you're still alive. "You understand," he said.

Yes, sir. Yes sir, I do.

Art for now

I wanted to post yesterday about the 50th anniversary of MLK's "I Had a Dream" speech, but I never got to it. Maybe I will in the next few weeks.  There's lots I have to say about race, but this week I'm simply too busy to write anything meaningful.  So I will direct you instead to you my favorite artist:

Marcia Furman

If you read this blog regularly (i.e. we're friends in real life) there's a strong possibility you've already heard of Ms. Furman because of me. :)  This woman paints what I would paint if I could paint, which is why I love her. Here's my current fave: 

"Doubts - they get the best of me" by Marcia Furman

If you like her style you can buy cool things at her Etsy and Zazzle shops.  (Also a good place to go if you're dying to buy me a present but have no idea what to get...)

Restoring Childhood

Come All You Weary

(Also, I've decided I'm going to learn the drums someday. [Magical Someday.])

::Goal::

That,
when my feet hurt from work
and I have homework
and housework,
I would be
as patient
and kind
and smiley
and invested
with the 6-year-old
as I am with
the grocery store clerk
or my best friend on the phone.

This is adulthood; this is growth; this is my goal.

At the Back of the North Wind

"Well we won't dispute about it," said Nanny: "you've got a tile loose, you know."
"Suppose I have," returned Diamond, " don't you see it may let in the moonlight, or the sunlight for that matter?"
"Perhaps yes, perhaps no," said Nanny.
"And you've got your dreams, too, Nanny."
"Yes, but I know they're dreams."
 "So do I.  But I know besides they are something more as well."

First Day, First Grade

I know she's nervous when she has a meltdown simply because I ask her to throw away her trash from breakfast.

I'm nervous too.
I want her to have a good teacher,
and not that curmudgeon from her summer class who didn't even like children.
I hope she makes a good friend -
just one good friend -
who fights by her side,
unlike that little blonde brat from kindergarten who treated her like a pariah
(don't let people treat you like that, sweet girl!  They're not worth your time).

People are mean.  I want to protect my sweet babies from mean people.  I want to keep them from my childhood heartaches.  First day, first grade, is hard on me too.

Favorite Smells

Summer camp
and Aunt Carol's house
and the shampoo I used when I lived in France.

One Thing Remains

One Year Anniversary

One year ago today, about this time, I was going under anesthesia.  I was shaking-nervous and my pre-op nurse who was as old as the hills (or older) didn't make matters any better; her eyesight was so bad she pulled out a magnifying glass to fill out my paperwork, then immediately afterward put the magnifying glass down and was like, "Now let's start your IV!"  After getting horribly bruised I requested she find someone else to to do it.  Then she gave me narcotics after I told her they do bad things to me, and I thought I was going to die before I even got to the operating table.  Then she used latex even after I told her I was allergic...

But enough amusing tangent.  This post isn't about Nurse Ratched.  This post is about a year.  A year of being pain-free. I called Bekah this morning to thank her for doing my fundraiser, then unexpectedly began crying on the phone.  (How can I ever thank her enough for doing that?) When I think about the decade and a half leading up to surgery...when I think of all the pain I pushed through, sometimes ignoring, sometimes trying to fix...when I think of the despair I warded off for 10 years that finally caught up with me in 2011...when I think of all these things, I don't know how I ever got through my 20s.  I actually broke down crying really bad yesterday thinking about it; God, I never want to go back to that place.  I don't know how I did it; I could never do it again.  I am so terribly, terribly grateful not to be sick like that anymore.  The annoying little maintenances, like not eating gluten or like going to PT, are small potatoes compared with the pain and dread and hopelessness I suffered (and tried to ignore) for so long.

I've been realizing something else this summer: I no longer know myself.  I think I mentioned in a recent post that my mood is far more stable than it ever was. This is because my hormones are balanced since I no longer have a thousand little estrogen-makers living on a diseased colon. I don't freak out about things like I once did, I don't get angry as quickly, and I'm (generally) in a happy mood.  I think...all that energy I used controlling my moods and reactions - what can I do with that now?  I want to grow into this healthier me; I want to live well and do things well and feel things well. There are differences in my life that some would consider minute which are, in fact, huge.  Like, I can go months without journaling; I used to not be able to go half a week without it.   It may not seem like much to a non-journaler, but that's how I used to process my life.  I...I don't know, I somehow don't seem to need it anymore.  Who is this new me?  How do I interact with myself?  How do I interact with God?  With others?  With my family?  I don't know yet.  With only a year in this new body, I haven't had time to figure it out.

Yet I press on, full of gratefulness to God, my doctor, and everyone who helped me through surgery via prayers, money, and emotional support.  It has been a good year.  I look forward to the years to come.

------

I got this tiny little potted rosebush a year ago today:

She is now over three feet tall!

There's a time and a place to die, but this ain't it.

Hilarity

Sister to 6-year-old niece: Get used to disappointment.
Niece: Aunty Rachel's used to disappointment.

And We Change (part deux)

Makeup came up in convo today.  If you've known me for any length of time you know I don't like makeup because I feel it's just one more way for women to look at themselves every morning and say, "I'm not good enough, so I'm gonna hide mysefl."

(I know, I know, makeup can be fun, blah, blah, yeah.  I know.)

Anyway.  I used to be so vehement about this.  I mean, I would get really bothered by people depending on their makeup.  It wasn't just, "I don't wear it because I don't feel I need to change myself to fit into some unattainable standard of beauty," it was, "I don't wear it because of reasons stated above, AND YOU SHOULDN'T WEAR IT EITHER!  LET'S BURN OUR BRAS!  LET'S MARCH ON D.C.! WOMEN, UNITE!"

Despite my former extremism, today as I sat with a group of people I've only known for six weeks the topic of makeup came up and I realized three things:

1. I still don't wear makeup and still for the same reasons, but I'm now largely ambivalent about it. 
2. I haven't talked about this in probably three years.
3. I didn't want to talk about it today. 

How ashamed 21-year-old Rachel would be of 31-year-old Rachel!  I can hear what she would say: Don't you have any convictions, you washed up old sell-out?? Then she would proceed to present her argument on women's rights and equality and objectification and hound me until I conceded.

Wow.

I'm so glad to be old.  But more than that, I'm glad to be healthy.  I think I posted this somewhere (though I took a lot of my endo posts down when I was job hunting): surgery did wonders for my hormones. All those little pinprick points of endometriosis were creating excess estrogen in my body, which made my emotional state extreme every single day of my life.  Post-surgery when I had my first period I also had my first PMS.  I'd never had PMS before; everyday had been PMS before surgery.  My whole like - my whole life - my emotions were strong and tended predominantly toward the negative.  In hindsight, I think I was depressed for the entire decade of my 20s.  Life was extreme and induced extreme reactions.  Nothing was "meh"; everything - including something as minor as makeup - needed a stance, an opinion, an argument, a thesis, a campaign.

Thank You, Lord, those days are behind me.  No wonder I'm exhausted. 

Friendship!

It's so great, guys.
The investment of years is worth it.
The good times.
The bad times.
The times you wonder, "Why are we friends?"
Yeah. 
Life is good.
Make friends. Keep them. Stick with it. It just gets more beautiful.

Sometimes

you want something for a very long time.
Like, say, for 22 years.
And you don't get it.
And after 22 years, you begin to wonder if you still want it.
Are you weary from the waiting?
Have you given up?
Or have you just changed?
Maybe if you're given a chance to get it, you'll figure it out.