Storage

Well, it's happening. The infamous storage unit in Oregon is being emptied and its contents reunited with their owner.  The truck won't get to me for another two weeks, but two weeks is a short wait when I haven't seen my things in three years.

(Things.  In French, directly translated, les choses.  I said this a lot in France, because I say it a lot in English.  Months and months into my stay a friend finally said, "Rachel, we just don't say les choses like you're using it.  Say, maybe, mes affaires instead."  Way to teach me not to be so vague, Cyril.  Your voice will be in my head til I die, correcting me every time I use the word "things." Kudos.)

So tonight I am listening to All Good Things Come From the Desert and rearranging mes affaires yet again, anticipating the tight squeeze it'll be once my second half arrives.  Half my wardrobe.  My favorite books, to be added to the almost ceiling-high stack in my closet now.  Dishes I still won't need for a while.  A bike.  My desk - that last one so important and greatly missed these passing years, but I find it a bit painful to think about fitting it into a crowded bedroom that already has to make room for my niece's toys, a bed, and two dressers.

My things.  Mes choses.  Mes Affaires.

And Christopher Miner.

The rearranging, the anticipation, the music...I feel like I'm 26 again.  I feel like I'm neurotically in like with T.J. and discontent with my life.  It's funny how just the right combination of things can throw you back like that.  I'm not discontent, and I no longer like T.J., and I'm certainly not 26.  But music can rub on your heart scars sometimes, pulling them just the right way to remind you there was once a wound.  It's not bad.  Sometimes it's nice to remember what life was, even to enter the emotion for a second, like watching a sappy movie.

Did you now scar tissue can have its own blood supply?  Scar tissue is not, as so many assume, dead tissue, but living. That's why its still sensitive sometimes. But the little pinching reminders are good.  They say, "This is what your life has been; this is what you've been through.  Remember, and be grateful.  Embrace the growth."

Christmas is coming!

And so are the packages!  I totally buy into the season's commercialism, cause who doesn't like to give presents?  I did most of my shopping online and a few things have already arrived...

Can I just say it?  We so excited. 

(Artwork by Marcia Furman can be found here; books can be found here, and here.)

That bit about getting married...

February will see me to 31, and I have no problem with that.  I didn't have a problem with 30, or with 29 before her, so why should 31 be any different?  I don't agree with the phrase "age is just a number" because I definitely experience different things with different ages...there are biological realities that simply pay no attention to cliches, and these things must be faced and, to some extent, embraced.  But I don't get panicky over the passing years or my changing body, so growing older doesn't bother me.  I like birthdays.  I like birthday presents.  I like birthday cards. (February 22, ya'll.)

The one thing that never changes as I age is my older, married, female friends' conviction that I'm going to get married someday.  I have reconciled the possibility of "spinsterhood" for myself, cause, frankly, I may not get a spouse.  I mean, I just might not.  I'm nearly 31 and no prospects*. And for me, that's okay.  I'm okay with my marital status.  But when I make comments like, "Well, I may not get married," my older, married, female friends jump in with

"Oh no, I'm sure you will!"
and
"I don't think singleness is what God has for you!"
and
"Don't worry honey!  There's someone out there for you!"

I...don't know how to respond.  I'm content; don't steal my peace.  Cause really sweet friends, I simply might not get married.  And I am perfectly, 100% fine with that.  Please let me focus on my present and not be distracted by a future that may never happen.

*A word to my friends: do not suggest online dating.  Just don't. Just.don't.

The air shifts slightly

and somehow my body just knows:
it's fall.

Leave.

If your spouse is abusive,
leave.
Get out.
Stop enabling.
Your abuser is not going to change,
no matter how much you pacify.
In fact, the more you pacify,
the worse he gets because it makes him believe
that he has power,
that he has control.
Please, sweet sweet friend, leave
before it's too late.

Heads or Tails

I've always rushed headlong into life without stopping to catch my breath and never had a hard time making a decision; I know what I want, I go for it.  Then life got messy and I had to go to the ER for my endo and I suddenly realized that I'm not invincible and my "life is a grand adventure and I can do anything I set my mind to" mentality flipped, like a coin, to "I'm too sick to even commit to doing dinner with you tonight so let me go hide in the closet for a while".  I find myself internally backing out on decisions I've made for myself. Two days ago I was sold; today I want to run back into the secure arms of the status quo and pretend like I've always wanted to be there.  I hate being this old while being so completely dependent on my parents...yet at the same time I never want to leave their house, never want to work for anyone else, and always want to act like I'm 14.   I don't like this post-ER me.

Which is why I should buy a motorcycle.

The Season of the Rage Monster

For all the negative words I could use to describe myself, anger is not one of them.  I get moody, yeah, and can seriously grump out when things aren't going my way (working on that!) but anger...that's a relatively unfamiliar emotion to me, especially when it shows up in the form of rage.

I mean, Rage.  Like the Hulk.  Like Mark Ruffalo terryfing the shiz out of Scarlett Johannson at 30,000 feet then falling to the ground and surviving.  Like blood and fear and anger and hate speeding through your veins and enlarging your heart and brain til you think your body will burst with the pressure.

Rage.

In 29 years of life I never felt Rage, but at 30 it's my new worst enemy.  I don't think it's biological, I think it's because when I hit 30 my world was falling apart - I was half-raising my sister's kid while bringing in less money than my bills were taking out and my pelvic pain was getting steadily worse even while I was doing more and trying more and spending more than ever to try and make it better.  I felt trapped in a cyclone of worse, and then the cyclone became me, and now, I am the cyclone.

I am not enraged about having to have surgery.
I am not enraged that my sister returned and is being a mom again without acknowledging what she did to the family.
I am not enraged that I don't make much money.
I am not enraged that I felt, and feel, stuck.

I am enraged that that dbag cut me off in traffic.
I am enraged that we're out of dish soap.
I am enraged that the new guy at work won't put the lid down - even when asked.

Like, that's the thing about Rage - it doesn't make sense.  You think you're working on all the hard emotions that arise with hard circumstances, but all of a sudden you're having a screaming fit in your car because the grocery store was out of your shampoo.

Really?  Shampoo?

No, not shampoo.  This is really about the fact that I never got a thank you from my sister.  This is about the fact that I am scared shitless about surgery - so, so, so, so scared.  This is about the fact that surgery is really expensive and I've already poured approximately $15,000 and 10 years into trying to get better and the weight of all that money is making me tired. This is about thinking I'm taking my worry and stress and sorrow to God when really I'm just holding it behind my back while smiling and saying, "Here you go, Jesus.  It's all yours."

I need your prayers.  And please - if this has happened to you, please please leave a comment on how you dealt (still deal?) with it.

******
And for fun:

Previous experience and a blog that I had to kill before its time have taught me that blogging late at night when I'm emotional and tired isn't a good idea.

But what the heck...I'm gonna be stupid for a bit.

Twenty-four days ago I posted on the goodness of God.  Yesterday I was yelling at Him about how I feel unloved and don't feel I can trust Him.  The change came because Monday I decided to get surgery.  Surgery has been my dying option - I will try every road, every method imaginable in order to avoid going under.  But 13 years of pain and it only worsens.  I have little glimpses of getting better, like Lewis talks about his wife having several "miraculous" remissions.  I've had those too.  In fact, my entire year in Kentucky when I was 22 was characterized by zero symptoms.  And last month was brilliant - half the pain of usual (which is saying a lot when your pain is at a 9 out of 10), making me think that maybe my dietary changes were making a difference after all.  But this month was unbearable; I almost asked Mom to take me to the E.R.  The only reason I didn't was that I finally stopped throwing up...and I believe the only reason I finally stopped throwing up was because I sent out a mass text to everyone I know who takes prayer seriously and asked them to pray for me.

Then I praised God for keeping me out of the E.R.
Then I yelled at Him the next day for not making me better.

Have I written this here before? My income has been consistently below the poverty line for the last 5 years because of missed days at work from the endometriosis.  Have I written this here before?  I don't have insurance because of the endometriosis.  I know I haven't written this here before: those two stated realities mean that I'll have to take out a personal loan to in order to get surgery.

And the surgery is only effective 40% of the time.  So I'll be taking out, say, a $20,000 personal loan so that I can stop missing days of work in order to get a surgery that might not work.  In essence, I may be screwing myself.

I've never wrestled with God's love for me before, and it seems childish that I should start now, over an illness.  But I'm worn down, my friends.  Endometriosis pain is more severe than the pain of a woman in labor.  And I have four days of it. Every.month. And I've had 13 years of it. And I've tried every non-surgical remedy in existence, and I've considered getting knocked up like that one doctor told me I should.  Yeah,

"Hey baby,
I brought you into this world just to make my body feel better,
but I didn't really want you
and I didn't like your daddy very much either."

Yeah.
No.

I know other people suffer worse than I do.  I know I have it pretty good, considering I have a dad who's self-employed and is letting me live in his house rent-free and work for him while I try to sort out my shit. I know I am blessed to live in the U.S. with running water and flushing toilets...imagine the women who live in the bush and have endo...poor things.  I have a soft bed and a heating pad and filtered water and a cell phone with which to text my mom downstairs when I run out of said water and need more but am in too much pain to walk.  Really...in the land of disease and suffering, I don't have it so very bad.

But I'm tired.  And I don't understand.  And I feel like I have no future. And I feel like even my present is being stolen away from me.  And I wonder why God hasn't healed me or allowed one of these other methods to work.  There's so much I want to do, so much life to live, and my dreams aren't selfish. I know other people who have been miraculously healed from the worst of diagnoses.  Yet here am I, constantly moving in the direction of worse.  And I question God about it. And I know the right answers.

But
to know
is not always
to feel.

So...surgery.

You know that thing that you never wanted to do and you tried desperately to avoid?

Well, sometimes it's your only option.

(And a joke only my sisters will understand: Now That I'm a Woman.)

Kylar D.

Life cannot be controlled, only responded to. 

(From here.)