As a Woman . . .

What does it mean to be strong?

Does it mean she has muscles? She can benchpress her body weight, run a marathon, swim across the Molokaʻi Channel?

Does it mean she's tireless? Is she indefatigable? She works her nine-to-five then comes home for the second shift, which may or may not include homework help, cooking, cleaning, and shuttling kids to and from extracurricular events. She does it all!

Does it mean she doesn't rely on others to get shit done? She takes out the trash, washes the dishes, fixes the broken bike tire, carries all the groceries to the house from the car not because she needs to, but because she can.

Is a strong woman resilient? She bounces back in no time! She doesn't mope about, doesn't wallow in self-pity. She keeps going as if she wasn't just kicked in the shin or bopped on the nose.

Is she self-aware? She knows her limits, her dreams, her dislikes. She knows her body and mind. She knows where she's going and where she's been. She is unapologetic about who she is and doesn't let others define her.

Perhaps a strong woman doesn't take shit from nobody. Like, for real. She is no nonsense cuz she ain't got time for it. She won't let herself be pushed around or taken for a fool. She respects herself and expects others to do so as well.

Does a strong woman suffer in silence? Will her eulogy contain the words, "She was a generous soul who never bothered anyone for anything"?

Is a strong woman humble? She is grateful for what she has in this life and doesn't complain.

Wanna know something? I don't really know what a strong woman is. I catch glimpses of her in the mirror from time to time, and I think I'd see her more if I knew what I was looking for. Isn't that kind of a strange? Because you can break an idea into its individual pieces and then define that thing by those individual components, but by doing so, you make all kinds of specious assumptions about the world and the people in it. What I'm only starting to realize is that some ideas and some goals are in motion. They aren't places-- either geographical or ideological-- and they aren't even always achievable. So this idea of "strength" may be used to describe a woman, but not every strong woman will be defined by the same thing, nor will that same woman be defined in the same way in every situation or even similar situations.

That's a bit wobbly, I know. Let me briefly illustrate my point. A woman may have five babies and her experience of each pregnancy will be different. Each pregnancy may go exactly as the one before it: the morning sickness, the weight gain, even the labor and birth. But mom won't be the same. She will have different needs, possibly a different job, spouse, or place of residence. So much can change and so much can change her, and she will need different supports at different times even if everything else is more or less the same.

When I was younger, I was proud that I was self-reliant. I was physically strong, could play at least four different instruments, and wasn't the kind of girl who needed a partner to make her feel whole. I went to the movies alone, caught the bus around the island alone, and could even change a flat tire. I eventually became self-aware enough to make my own decisions even if they went against what was expected of me, and to verbalize what I wanted and to pass on what didn't satisfy. I was proud of my strengths.

I am no longer a teenager. And though I haven't been for decades, it has only occurred to me now that I cannot hold myself up to my teenaged standards. Self-reliance these days means something quite different. Self-awareness may actually resemble itself over the course of years, but what it produces is also something newer. Maddeningly, it might not even always be different. It might be the same! It can change from moment to moment because I can change.

I am learning to forgive myself if I'm not who I want to be-- if I'm not kind or generous or insightful enough. I am learning that I can be multiple things at one time: angry, loving, compassionate, and selfish. I am learning that being a strong woman doesn't mean I have to be (or should be) strong all the time (or hard all the time), and that if biting my tongue in one situation makes me strong, being strong in another situation might mean that I scream at the top of my lungs.

Even now when I see that the face of a strong woman belongs to my sister, my mom, my coworker, my daughter, or really any of the women I know, I admire them and envy them their equanimity, wisdom, talent, or intelligence. However, I also respect their decision, intentional or not, to be that woman of strength and character. Situations that require us to be strong usually make it tough to be strong. We think that some women instinctively do what needs to be done, and we think we need to be that person. But I believe that those instincts rely on muscle memory. Those instincts come from repeatedly making the choice to endure in a manner that resonates with each woman as "strength," and perhaps has less to do with the grace with which she acts, and more to do with perseverance and compassion. What I'm saying is that we can all be that person. Whatever our differences, we all have the capacity to be that person.

The kind of women we respect for their courage, wisdom, and strength really do exist, I believe. I don't think they're a thing of fiction, but our idols are not what they seem, which is not their fault or even to their detriment. We hold these women in such high regard and desire to be like them, but they are human and they falter, they doubt, they screw up. Allowing myself to screw up is a kind of strength, wouldn't you say? Being selfish can be strength, too. It can also be liberating. I tend to expect myself to be perfect all the time instead of being good some of the time. It is exhausting and debilitating and self-defeating.

If you search the internet, you betcha you can find articles galore that will tell you what a strong woman is. You'll discover lists and lists! I like to think that these are not meant to define strength, but rather help us identify it when we see it. They are helpful to remind ourselves that the faces of strength are varied and fluid. It can also be inspiring to see how so many women around the world struggle with and sometimes even conquer their myriad battles against all types of adversity. All I really hope to do here is to remind myself to be kind to myself, to be patient with myself, and to remind you to be kind to and patient with yourself.

Defiantly

Some issues with opening up to people about things that really matter to you:

• They don't listen. You can be crying, you can be pouring out your deepest fears, and they'll ignore you, brush you off, tell you what you really need to be doing. They don't listen. They don't hear. They only hear the sound of their own voice inside their head. 
• They judge you. You're being dramatic, you're seeking attention, you're fishing for compliments or platitudes. You're weak, you're whiny, you're annoying. People suspect you have an agenda.
• They no can handle. What you're saying brings out their own pain and anxieties and all they can see is themselves. They're uncomfortable with your vulnerability because it reminds them of their own perceived inadequacies.

So what happens? No matter how relevant it is to them or how your experiences affect their lives, they reject you and your story. 

They will find ways to discredit you. They will call you names, bring you down, make you sound unreliable. Because if you're not trustworthy, neither is your logic or feelings, ideas, and opinions. If you don't have any credibility, then they don't have to listen to your nonsense.

They will find ways to drown out your voice and ignore that you're saying anything at all. They do this by talking loudly, which may actually manifest as loud talking, but also includes posting articles or blogs written by experts who cite scientific studies that refute what you say. Or it could simply be talking over you so you don't get a chance to speak or shut you down so they don't have to hear it.

It's not so much that I think I have so much to say that is relevant to anyone but me, and it's not that I think things happen in only way every single time for myself, let alone for all of us, ever. My intent in sharing my story is twofold: it is therapy and I hope that someone else who hears my story might not feel as alone as I did/do. There is strength in numbers and misery loves company. And when someone else approaches me to say that something I wrote or said resonated with them, that my journey sounds eerily like their own, I realize that I can live with the haters. I can live with people thinking I'm seeking attention, with the people who try to drown me out and discredit me because me and these other folks over here? We connected.

There's a certain generational element, though, that I think is also relevant to this discussion. In general, I think many of us are conditioned to keep our traps shut. To speak out is to be ungrateful, shameful, dishonorable, or just messy. We don't talk about feelings, especially if they're negative ones. We don't talk about pain, sorrow, despair, frustration, and the like. It is strength to endure in silence, and people count on that silence. They get used to it until it becomes the norm. (For that matter, we also don't dwell on things like how much people mean to us and how connected we might feel to them).

My story for the moment revolves around my reproductive health. About how a hormonal imbalance resulted in heavy, unpredictable bleeding for nearly a year (but really for most of my life). My story revolves around the countless treatments, ultrasounds, and doctor visits and repeatedly proving myself and the severity of my plight to countless nurses, techs, and coworkers. My story for the moment revolves around my struggle to make sense of my cancer diagnosis, the silencing/avoidance of any conversation that followed that diagnosis, and the uncertainty of what it means to me in the future. I was blindsided when I learned I couldn't donate blood for another year. I wasn't expecting that. I forget that cancer, though eradicated from my body before I even knew I had it, is not through with me yet. It will affect my future in ways like donating blood and like more frequent doctor checkups.

I feel abandoned by my doctors who talked about cancer so nonchalantly. I feel foolish because I didn't advocate for myself in a satisfactory way (which is really to say at all). I don't talk about cancer and I don't think about it, but it's not really that I don't think about it as much as I avoid thinking about it. I don't feel entitled to it. I don't feel entitled to it because in comparison to other people's journeys and the severity of other cancers, I feel pretty manini.

I am afraid to think about cancer. I am afraid of what I'll learn about myself, the people around me (including my doctors), and how my relationship to the world will change. I am less concerned about the physical threats, although that's pretty real, and worried about the psychological and emotional aspects. I am afraid to talk about cancer because I fear being rejected. I fear being ridiculed. I fear people talking behind my back and accusing me of attention-seeking behavior, or being weak, of being over dramatic. I am afraid to write about cancer because so many of you have been touched by cancer and I'm afraid that I will come off as a knowitall when really my story is so very small.

I have been conditioned, like many of you, I'm guessing, to be silent. To not complain, to not ask for things, to not call people out for their own shortcomings or their offense to you. For me to speak about something like this makes me very uncomfortable. I'd really rather not talk about cancer or bleeding or admitting to foolishly not advocating for myself. That's just embarrassing. For me to speak about this takes a lot of effort and trust, and I feel particularly vulnerable and open to judgement and criticism. I cannot in my personal life talk about my strange relationship with cancer because it's a frightening thing to deal with, even my teeny tiny nearly non-existent brush with it. Even now as I'm writing this I feel this incredibly strong urge (and you can probably tell without me pointing it out) to minimize my experience.

As much as I want to keep telling myself that this whole thing is behind me-- I'm uterus-free, after all!-- it keeps finding its way into my my mind and guts. It keeps wanting to turn me inside out, and for the most part, the only people who still ask how I'm doing are people I haven't seen since before the hysterectomy. And that's not really a criticism of all or any of you because even I want to put the whole thing away for good. But I think the general assumption is that my troubles are over and I've fully recovered from the surgery. And yet I emerge daily unsure of who I am and who I was and where I'm supposed to be. I'm so confused about how my hormones have been affecting me, shaping me, constructing my personality in subtle and persistent ways. Not just my hormones, even, but the stresses of dealing with the uncertainties of the bleeding, of the headaches of the bleeding itself, the very real anemia, and the despair that blanketed everything.

I want to find some version of a me that I'm happy with. I want to stop struggling to feel good about myself and in general. I want to feel validated and heard. I'm learning to remember myself and in the power of my voice, and I'm slowly even starting to believe in it. I don't know why I ever believed I am unworthy of compassion, but it's proving a difficult thing to unlearn. So many of my friends have approached me either in person or in writing to tell me that they've experienced very similar reproductive issues and experiences with their doctors and loved ones. Some of them have said they were inspired to finally seek medical attention after reading my story. Some of them, like my sister, recognize they need to see a doctor but aren't yet ready to face that particular music for whatever reasons. Even after all that I continue to doubt the legitimacy of my voice.

Here's the thing, though. I am stubborn and I am a writer. I have to write and I write to soothe myself and to work things out in my head. I cannot foresee a time when I will stop writing and stop sharing, so I will continue to write and share. Even when my emotional and insecure self worries about being judged and silenced and mocked, I share because that's who I am. It's just who I am.

For All My Life

For all my life there has been the beach.

For all my life there has been the beach.

It's worth saying twice or a million times. Because for all my life, there has been the beach. When my life is shit, I seek and find refuge in the ocean. It welcomes and embraces me, it scolds me for being away so long, it tells me that I'm radiant. It recognizes me. It remembers me. It takes my pain and makes it float, just for the moment, outside of me. It presses pause and I can breathe. The ocean, it strengthens me. It makes me happy to be alive.

I don't ever feel like dying, but I'm not always happy to be alive. I'm often confused and pulled in multiple directions. I want to be loved and cherished. I want to be happy. I want to be productive. I want to finish writing a novel. I want to make a difference in my students' lives. I want to know that what I give to the world is not for nothing. I want to feel valued.

When I'm in the ocean, as I sit in the shallow water and talk stories with my sisters, when I float on my back and my hair fans out around me (less so now that my hair is always shorter), as I read a book under the hot, unforgiving sun, I feel good. I don't have the stereotypically ideal beach body, yet how rarely do I feel inadequate walking amongst hot, nearly naked bodies. I feel strong. I feel confident. I feel so completely comfortable in my skin in a way that I never do anywhere or anytime else. Nobody can make me feel inferior when I'm on the beach. And yes, these thoughts actually pass through my mind each time I'm there.

It is necessary for me to visit the ocean. I count myself lucky that for all my life there has been the beach. I am lucky that my parents valued time at the beach. We went after school and on the weekends. We camped out on the beach back when we had neither tarp nor table nor the knowledge we have now. When my first boyfriend, Doug, had moved away, leaving me brokenhearted and crying on the sofa for days, my mom shoved me out the door and onto the beach. I think that was the first time that I'd realized where I was supposed to go for healing. I spent a lot of time that summer strapping mismatched fins to my feet and catching waves on a borrowed body board-- not even doing it well, but doing it nonetheless.

I spend a lot of time sitting at my desk these days. Charlie began clearing it off for me, which was no small task, and then Kama and Judah helped me refine. I needed a workspace. Somewhere for me. Somewhere for the work of writing and healing. Like the beach, for all my life, there have been words. For all my life, I have been sitting somewhere, writing things down, trying to make sense of my world. I have been using this space lately for the same healing I seek at the beach.

So often these days, I am in conflict with myself as I strive toward a happiness I have not felt in a long time. I am constantly uncomfortable, which I'm assured is totally normal and necessary if I want to change my bad habits. It sits like a rock in the space between my shoulders-- heavy when I stand, painful if I lie down. Once I am comfortable with these new dance moves, I've been told I should start feeling better. Because the goal of the new moves isn't to get what I want (although, wouldn't that be nice?), it's to find my voice.

I used to go dancing a lot, too. I used to find my joy there. Again, I don't have the stereotypically ideal body for the club scene, and I don't have the moves, either. But no one can make me feel diminished when I dance.

These are sacred spaces. I can dance, I can write, and I can visit the ocean. These are my centers of power. I am strong. In every other place in my life, people find ways to diminish me. Make me feel bad about myself, about what I do, about what I value, about what I want. And I don't understand why because if I stop to consider, I already usually feel shitty enough without any help whatsoever.

I vow, then, to return to these bases of power whenever I feel weak. Whenever I seek sustenance and when I need to be embraced for the wonderful person I sometimes feel like I am. I invite any and all of you to join me to dance, to write, to go beach. Maybe you need the healing, too. Maybe you like try something different.

Anyway, I'll close with this quote I found. Paula D'arcy is someone I discovered in a very old issue of Parabola magazine, and I've often posted that quote about being good to those who are good to us. Then I stumbled across this gem, which I think is especially relevant to the work I'm doing:

"I wish I could understand why I so often change myself, trying to please others, and gain their approval of who I am. Right now, the fear of meeting with someone's disapproval seems so small compared to the fears I've had to face to come here and stick it out. Does the river try to please a tree? Does the bird try to please a stone? In nature, things are simply who or what they are. A tree, trying to please the river, would be ridiculous. I imagine a tree trying to edge itself over so it can place shade in a different spot. The notion is silly. But I wonder . . . isn't that what I do? What if I put all my energy and power into being me, instead of someone else's version of me?"

If I Could Press a Button

I still can't say that I'm happy I had the surgery. Not with my whole heart, anyway. Even when I say it out loud, inwardly I wince. Because yes, it's nice to not have to bother and it's also nice not to be diseased. Yet, when my therapist asks me if I ever wish I could go back to Before, my answer is, "All the time!"

Prior to the surgery, I was despairing. DESPAIRING. Life felt hopeless. It seemed an endless round of bleeding, feeling weak, not doing the things that bring me joy. I had started a new heavy period just days before surgery, and if I'd had to endure yet another round, I don't know how I would have survived. I was DESPAIRING. For months. Surgery alone doesn't just fix that kind of emotional turmoil. I claim that I never had to deal with the emotional fallout after learning I had cancer, but Charlie and Beth say I still suffered from cancer. I still suffered from the heavy and constant bleeding. I was always under such emotional and physical strain from it. It was hard to watch people swim and exercise and just walk around and go to sleep when they felt like it. I wouldn't say that I'd been depressed, but maybe on my way towards that door.

It might be confusing to some why I would choose to go back to that endless misery-- a misery that prevented me from engaging in the life I saw for myself. Why would I possibly choose that depressing existence over the one I have now? To understand that, I guess, you'd need to know that my surgery stirred up some shit. Physical pain and discomfort, I expected. I know how to handle that kind of thing. I can handle pain. The hormonal stuff, though, blindsided me. For at least three weeks, I woke up each morning with a weight on my chest. A dread. I felt isolated and confused much of the time. I traded one sadness for another, but at least the older sadness was familiar.

I don’t know why I assumed things would just improve After the hysterectomy, though I wonder if I wasn’t the only one to think so. Even people who have never had surgery assume that surgery changes shit. And while I’m always thinking about how my life has changed post-op, I rarely remember that I’d already been feeling shitty pre-op. You can’t just turn that off on a whim or because you want to or because you get your uterus cut out of your body. I’m no doctor, but it seems like It would take some time no matter what to recover from what I was feeling Before.

Now, let’s talk about After. Not even going to talk about the physical recovery because that was easy peasy in comparison. I'd just been through this major thing, both physically and especially (and unexpectedly) emotionally, and now I was just supposed to forget about it and get over it. My feelings and my pain were meaningless. Short-term. An aberrant blip on the radar. For the first time in a long time, I felt sad. I felt uncomfortable. I felt like I was going crazy. I felt unequal to the task and I needed help. And I was spending so much of my time ALONE. Actually, physically alone. And then I started feeling like I was being a burden to the people around me with my sadness and confusion and isolation. I started feeling like I should be hiding my feelings because I was being selfish and unreasonable.

I should be able to cry and moan. I should be focused on what I need to feel good, to improve my disposition, to come to terms with the huge change I just experienced. I should be allowed time. Loads of time. All the time I need, in fact, to come to terms with everything. I went through some shit. The bleeding, anemia, the restricted activities, the despair, the surgery, the pain, the hormonal imbalance, the feelings of isolation and sadness, and then now this feeling that I’m selfish and mean because I’m still not better. I’m still not over it. And you could say I’m whining or weak, and you could go fuck yourself for writing me off, for explaining away my experience. Yes, I’m whining and perhaps I’m weak. It doesn’t mean I don’t deserve to work through this, to be allowed to be not okay. I can take some time to focus on me.

Anger is a shy friend of mine. She is a friend, no doubt, but she is hesitant and flees quickly and easily. I wish she would stick around more. I wish she were more of a bad influence on me. Maybe I would be better at standing up for myself. Maybe I wouldn't feel like I was being an asshole for trying to process this last year. Maybe I wouldn't feel like an asshole for paying more attention to my own troubles. Maybe I wouldn’t feel like I have to mask my feelings and deal with this myself.

The kicker, of course, is that on the outside, my life doesn’t look much different, does it? I go to work, I buy bananas, I drink coffee, I laugh, I joke, I do considerate things for other people. I still often consider other people’s needs before my own. I still do my utmost to keep my mouth shut. I still do what I can to please other people. Despite my therapist’s good advice, I still don’t do what I should do as often as is good for me. And my lack of diligence shouldn’t at all reflect on the quality of her services, it’s just hard (and by hard, I mean hard for me). Challenging. It makes me unbelievably uncomfortable, and it forces me to face situations I’d rather avoid.

People who have gone through the same or similar experiences say that it took them a long time to process and deal with what comes after surgery. It doesn't make sense. Why should surgery—why should improving your life through surgery actually complicate your life, especially after you’ve recovered? Why shouldn’t I just feel healed and happy about it? It’s so confusing. But, okay. Long time to process. Long journey toward healing. I can do that. I have to do that. It's not like I have a choice. I can’t stay where I am right now, and I can’t go back to where I was. There’s only forward progress.

Don't you think that if I could only press a button to fix things, I would? Don't you think if I could manage to keep my shit to myself, I would? Don't you think I'd rather be happy and satisfied than confused and struggling? Why would I choose this? Why would I intentionally put myself in this position over and over again to be hurt, to come up with no answers only questions, to make myself so disgustingly uncomfortable that I wish I could just float away? I would press that button a thousand times. I would cross that street in a heartbeat. I would jaywalk, even. I would run across the five-lane highway against the light even if a cop was watching, and I am not a rule breaker. Because dealing with this in my own head is not fun. It's the least amount of fun I've had in a long time. I have cried more post-op than during the entire year of bleeding. I just want to be okay. I just want to feel grateful for having the hysterectomy and for being disease-free. I just want to be okay. 

And if I could just press that stupid fucking button, I would.

Being Explicit or My Big I Feel, When, I Need Statement

Sadness is not weakness. This might seem obvious to you, but I'm only now starting to wake up to the idea that being sad doesn't make me any more vulnerable than when I'm angry or anxious. Being sad doesn't mean I'm weak. Being sad doesn't mean I need to be fixed. Being sad doesn't make me defective. Sadness is just one aspect of human emotion. Of human experience. Our culture doesn't encourage us to experience (and share, for that matter) anything but positive emotions, and so many of us don't know how to identify sadness, feel it, and deal with it.

Here's the thing, though. I feel sad. I feel sad because my friend is dealing with cancer treatment. I feel sad because I haven't been able to hook up with my best friend. But I have an overarching sadness that is different from the hormonal imbalance thing, and this sadness touches varied parts of my life on a daily basis. I can't always identify how or why, but here's what I DO know:

• My sadness isn't a criticism of you. It might be sometimes, especially if it's a response to something you said or did to me. I can be upset that you didn't call me back, but I don't hate you for it and it doesn't mean I think you're a jerk.
• Expressing my sadness isn't selfish, and even if it is, it might not be in the way you think and honestly, I think it's okay to be selfish sometimes. I still care about you and your struggles. My pain doesn't take away from yours. It's never my intention to do that to any of you. Sometimes I'm a moron and don't think to ask. I'm sorry.
• Allowing myself to experience and then communicate my sadness helps me to discover what I want and need. It's also helping me learn to do the same for you: if I can do that for myself, then I can generalize that skill to my friends and family.
• Being sad doesn't mean I need or expect to be babied or pampered or mocked. Being sad doesn't make me a victim. Crying doesn't mean I can't handle. I can be sad and strong at the same time. My thoughts may sometimes be clouded by melancholy and I might not see clearly enough to find the most direct path to an answer, but I am still clever enough to figure something out.
• I experience all emotions on the spectrum. I am elated, excited, anxious, dreamy, distracted, confused, angry, irritated, thrilled, and more. I am not only sad. Being sad does not negate my other feelings, and it doesn't define me or my interactions with other people. Being sad is confusing, but so is being angry. Anger has been like a tentative, shy friend who is also quick to abandon me. It's complicated.

My first inclination when I feel sad is to fix whatever's causing the problem. I want to confront the problem ASAP because I don't feel good and I want it to stop. Often, though, confronting the problem so hastily reveals that I'm not actually sure how I feel or what's making me feel it. Sometimes the reason seems obvious. For example, someone says a mean thing to me, and it hurts my feelings. I'm a big girl and I'm smart enough to know that people say mean things for a variety of reasons, and many of them have more to do with the other person than with me. But I may still respond without giving a whole lot of consideration to WHY the insult bothered me in the first place, and that's probably the more important issue.

What I'm learning is that I need to stop rushing to solve a problem I don't understand. I don't need to fix everything right now. When asked what's wrong, I need to think before I speak. I cannot be rushed by anyone-- even by those who mean well-- especially when I don't know. I need to spend more time thinking about how I feel and why before I try to fix the problem, and then break that down into as simple terms or concepts as possible. That's probably why writing is so appealing: writing allows me to turn things over in my mind. (Incidentally, walking does that, too.) I've been discovering that what I think is actually the problem, isn't really, it's just a manifestation. A symptom.

Because what results from this rush to diagnose and medicate are a few things that ultimately don't help.

1. I usually land up explaining away how I feel. I'm tired. I'm stressed and anxious. I've got a long work week. All of these explanations are likely to be true on any given day, but not likely the cause of my sadness. It often prevents me from digging further or precludes any future conversations because, hey, we already talked about it.
2. Explaining away my feelings leads other people to dismiss my feelings because it implies that my sadness doesn't mean much to me and therefore does not mean much in general. It belittles and undervalues what I feel. That friends don't respond to text messages isn't a big deal at all, but it DOES bum me out when it happens a lot for no reason. It can make me feel undervalued, taken for granted, pushed aside. So it isn't so much that the unreturned texts bother me, but rather the idea that maybe my friends don't want to hang out with me and I don't know why.
3. After trying to explain away my feelings with stupid excuses, I then feel defensive. Even after I've already implied it's not important! Confusing. And that might even mean that I defend the wrong reason or feeling! And then I later realize that I overlooked important details because I was rushing to a resolution.
4. I'm even sadder and more confused and defensive than before I started. I let myself be soothed without actually feeling better because I feel foolish and I don't want you to feel bad. I'm the one making trouble because generally, our culture says I'm supposed to be happy, I'm not supposed to be sad. I buy into that and I start to feel that my sadness is a nuisance, an inconvenience. I live too much inside my head. I put pressure on myself to act happy.

How could I not? For the majority of my life, my emotional education was severely limited. No one ever taught me how to identify my feelings or what to do about them. I grew up thinking feelings were inconvenient. I denied them, hid them, renamed them. I wasn't sad, I was angry. I wasn't hurt, I was irritated. A happy chid made no noise. A happy child was rewarded with, "Oh, what a nice kid!" while an emotional child was "difficult." Difficult children were seen being scolded and were sent to see the principal. Nice kids got rewards, extras, compliments. It's hard to unlearn those things.

My therapist has been helping me own my feelings and explicitly communicate them in healthy ways. And while I believe her, I still doubt the process and fear trying. So here are my resolutions as of today:

• I will allow myself to feel sadness. I don't have to be soothed, I don't need my problems solved immediately, and I don't need to pretend I'm happy. To that end, I want to learn ways in which I can own my sadness without it becoming toxic to myself and those around me.
• I will not diminish my feelings by explaining them away. It sends the message that even I don't believe in what I'm going through, so why should you, right? I will use my "I feel __ when __. I need __" statements or some variation of them.
• I will start doing my gratitude journals again.
• I will remember that this isn't forever. Just because I can't see the other side, doesn't mean it isn't there. This resolution is harder because it's more a thought exercise than something to do. I will try to stay here in the present moment because when I start to wander to the past or the future, I become even more anxious. Now might be painful, but I can take it.

Here's what I need for you to do (and this is the hardest part for me):

• Allow me to feel sadness without jumping to soothe me or offer me solutions. I know you want to help and I know it sucks seeing someone you love in pain. I know sometimes you just want to take it all away. Sometimes I just need to feel safe to explore how I feel and know that you're open to simply lending support. A hug. A smile. An ear. Patience.
• Ask me how you can help. Your instincts to help have been honed over the years, I don't doubt, and your advice probably isn't bad or wrong. I appreciate your effort, and I know it usually comes from love, but sometimes your well-intended help actually does the opposite.
• Cut me a break. Encourage me. I don't care if you roll your eyes at me as long as I don't have to see it or hear about it. I'm not perfect, and I'm working on stuff I might normally just sweep under the rug. Sweeping under rugs is far more pleasant short-term than pulling that shit out and shining a light on it. Cut me some slack. I'm not perfect. Also, I know you have issues of your own you're dealing with. Just because I voice my feelings I'm not trying to diminish yours. I'm not saying yours doesn't matter. 

In return, here's what I resolve to do for you:

• Cut you a break because you're going through your own shit, and you may not know how to deal with things any better than I do. We can all be confused and struggling and doing our best with what we've got. I can't expect you to always know what to do or say, especially when I know how flawed I am.
• Respect the struggles you're going through. It's again a vague resolution. I might jump to conclusions, for example, about why you did or didn't do something, and I know the world doesn't revolve around me. Your actions aren't determined by me. You've got stuff on your mind, stuff you're worried about, stuff that makes you anxious.

The resolutions that I've made today are a compact I make with myself. Just because you've read this does not mean that you also agree to my I Feel, When, I Need statement(s). According to my therapist, getting what you want isn't the success, it's the asking. My intent is that this blog functions as one big I Feel, When, I Need statement. It is my way of communicating with you, though you might think it's cowardly to write it instead of speak it. You might be right. You might think I'm blaming my friends, my family, my childhood. I'm not trying to. In fact, this is far, far less about you than it is about me.

Some of life's biggest changes often occur in tiny increments-- so tiny that you don't even realize what's going on. I know that I'm where I am in large part because of the decisions I've made. They weren't always the right ones, the wise ones, the best ones. Lots of times I probably took the easy way out. Make too many easy choices, you might find you don't like where you land up. You may find that you have become too mean, too nice, too complacent, too pushy, too bitter, too insecure based on the things you've decided to do/not do, say/not say. I'm just trying to figure myself out.

For more reading, try these links:

Why it's Good to Feel Sad

The Importance of Sadness

Negative Emotions Are Key to Well-Being

How Compassion Meditation Can Improve Your Life

My Homework Assignment

I feel like that Gwen Stefani song because it's 4:30 in the morning and the tears are pouring. It's been a 3 hours of sleep night,and an I gotta wake up in two hours to go to work kind of morning. Do I go back to sleep or do I write? It's not really a choice.

If you're reading this, you're very likely familiar with these posts by now. The ones dated after my surgery. You know I'll whine and probably still feel hopeful. I'll write about how sucky some things are, but that I'm working through and have had bits of joy along the way. It's a recipe. I'm trying to heal and understand.

I found out recently that a dear friend of mine had a malignant tumor in her lung. I was slain. My first thoughts were of her and her family and their fears and their futures. I could envision her. Them. And I could imagine them together, supporting each other and loving each other. But I am sad and worried for them. I am sad and worried for my friend. And if we're all lucky, she'll have the opportunity to fight and flourish because the world isn't yet ready to be without her loving spirit.

And then I felt relief because I really dodged a bullet. Things could have been much worse than they were and that could have been my family huddled together for support and love. Instead, I'm at home, I'm back at work, I'm making plans to do the fun stuff that I missed. I wouldn't say I feel guilty to be in this part of my illness/recovery. I feel lucky.

But it hasn't been without its sacrifices. Luckily, I wasn't planning on having any more children. I'm lucky this happened at this point in my life where I didn't have to make the kind of decision between child-bearing or a hysterectomy. There are pregnant women at work, and I am confronted with this thought every day. They are young and just starting their families. I don't envy them, and I don't regret or feel bad about my decision. I just feel lucky, which seems to me to be a weird feeling to have. Even after all the shit I've been through, I still feel lucky. I feel lucky to have had a partial hysterectomy and to have removed the cancer when what I think I should feel is angry that I had those problems at all. Because though I'm happy to not be bleeding anymore, I still can't tell you that I'm glad I had the surgery. I wish it hadn't been necessary because it's caused so much turmoil for me in its wake.

I could be dramatic and say that I don't know how much more my heart can take, but I'm sure we all know that in the end, I'm tough and will endure. And if you know me at all, you must know that I'm fairly dramatic, so what else would you expect? Maybe this will be the thing that helps me find my voice again. I hate confrontation so much, it makes me so uncomfortable, that I shut my mouth. I don't say what I really mean, I say instead what I don't really mean, and I don't ask for what I want. And right up until 4am this morning, I thought I didn't ask because I didn't deserve, but since then, it's occurred to me for perhaps the first time that I deserve it. I've been afraid that when I ask for what I want from someone and they don't want to or won't give it to me, it meant I wasn't deserving. Only now, only this morning, did I think that maybe the problem isn't internal.  Yes, not asking denied the other person or people the choice, but it also protected me from rejection.

Anyway, my point is that not getting what I ask for makes me feel like I'm not worthy. I put the onus on myself. Today, for at least the last few moments of my morning, I begin to feel that if I don't get what I ask for, if I don't voice what I want, it's not because I'm not worthy. It could be a lot of things, but it isn't because I'm not deserving.

Speaking up, though, when you don't usually, can make life difficult for those who have gotten used to you deferring to them. It can be uncomfortable and I might still be sad and disappointed. And really, I am sad. I am disappointed. Because here are some things in my life that I want:

• Not to be lied to. It's not a confusing or complicated thing. Don't lie to me, don't hide things from me, don't omit the truth. Certainly don't lie to me or hide things from me and then say it's for MY benefit. It's not. I don't prefer the lie or the feeling of being lied to. It breaks my heart. I feel cheated and disrespected and insignificant. Saying the lie is for me makes me feel stupid. Lies aren't comforting or nurturing, they're insulting and hurtful. It's not my fault if you decide to hide the truth from me. Your truth might slay me, but don't deny me the choice, and, shit, it's not like my response ist unusual. Wouldn't most people feel the same way? Wouldn't you?
• To be appreciated as an entirely autonomous human being who has wants and needs. I want you to see this movie with me even if you don't want to. It isn't your sacrifice I'm after, and it isn't that I get off on imposing my will on you. It's the acknowledgment that you know this means a lot to me and that's reason enough to do it. It's also acknowledging that I wouldn't have asked if it didn't mean something to me.
• To be heard. My words to your heart with my intent overriding your interpretation. Because it isn't always about you. Because I pick my words carefully, and I usually pick my battles carefully, too. If I am saying something this way, it's usually deliberate.
• To stop apologizing for or accommodating others so much. I do this thing where I say I want something and then go, "But I know you're busy" or "I know you've already got a lot going on, so you don't have to if you don't want to." Or you cancel on me and I say okay instead of saying, "I'm so bummed about that!" because I don't want you to feel bad. I try to protect your feelings at the expense of my own. That's on me, that's a choice I make, and so this one's something I can do something about.

It's my fault to have fallen into some of these routines that hold me back. It's my choice to have not asked for your time or respect or your honesty. I don't speak up about what I want, especially if it conflicts with what you want. I don't like to ask you to get out of your comfort zone. It's hard for me to ask for anything. It's so hard, in fact, that it was my homework this week. I was supposed to ask for something. One thing. Anything. One thing in one week. I didn't even know where to start. I didn't even know what counted and what didn't, which sounds silly, doesn't it? And then I didn't really know what was supposed to happen after I asked. I hadn't thought about it that far, I guess, because I expected a no and wouldn't know what to do with a yes. How would I measure success? A yes? Actually, I'm pretty certain the success was me asking, never mind the response. The asking helps to break through my anxiety and change my habitual thoughts. Growing up as an observant second oldest of five children taught me not to ask for anything when you should be grateful for what you already have. Asking is a sign of ungratefulness.

Behaviors are reinforced by their consequences, right? I'm tired of feeling like I'm gasping for air. I'm tired of feeling lied to, overridden, not heard. I'm sick of feeling guilty for asking for what I want and being disappointed if I don't get it, especially when the things I'm asking for are simple shit: do what you say you're going to do; mean what you say; give me a break every now and then because I'm not perfect, either. I wish I could resolve here and now to stop crying over other people. Leslie and Merf are probably onto something, and if I asked Mahana, she'd probably agree. Better to know if the investment is misplaced than to keep blindly investing.

It's easy to acknowledge that I need to go back to the gym to strengthen my muscles and to find a healthy weight. I know how to challenge the muscle groups that need my attention. Likewise, I feel like I need to establish new routines and personal rules that will help me be happier in all my relationships. I need to speak up more. I need to stand up for myself. It's like I've been out of the emotional gym for a long time and I need to go back and strengthen my core. I need to stop worrying about other people so much.

Sigh. It is all so much easier in theory than in practice. So I'll tie up this lumbering blog with a few thoughts of gratitude. I'm glad today is Wednesday and I get to talk to Mahana. I'm so lucky and thankful for the many of you who have reached out to me the last day or two. It's heartening that you wouldn't even allow me to censor you, and instead told me how you feel and passed on your thoughts.

I search for strength. I search for peace. I search for a way to calm this anger and feeling of betrayal. I seek balance. I seek to quell this unease, this feeling like I'm missing something pivotal that will eventually reach out and break me. I search for wisdom to know how to help my friend-- to know what to say and do because I'm not a particularly nurturing person. I search for happiness.

Six to Eight Weeks

Perhaps when the doctors say it will take 6-8 weeks to recover from your surgery, they mean more than just your bodily aches and pains. But if that's so, patients (like me) should be informed ahead of time so we can anticipate what's to come. Maybe if I'd been forewarned, I wouldn't be up before 4am on a day I work both jobs, writing because my thoughts won't leave me alone until I put them down on the virtual page.

Let's establish some vocabulary before I move on. "Out of it" is how I'd describe what it was like coming out of surgery. I was exhausted, disoriented, and in pain. But notice that I don't describe what it was like by saying it was painful, and that's mostly because that wasn't the overriding feeling. A week and a half later, I felt healed "enough" to drive, to walk without support, to get out of the house by myself. I felt more discomfort than pain, and I looked forward to completely healing and getting back to normal. Healed "enough" seemed pretty damned good after sleeping upright on the couch for days and worrying if pooping was going to cause some kind of internal damage.

But enough is not enough when you're hormonal, and life gets messier instead of normal-er. Things that don't usually bother you, you obsess over. Being anxious leads to worrying, which then leads to obsession. And then you can't change everything-- sometimes you can't change anything-- which may lead to depression. Or the other way around. I don't know, I'm not a doctor of any kind, but these are things I've heard from doctors. These feelings contributed to my deepening sense of isolation. After all, I reasoned, why would anyone want to hang out with ME if I felt like this all the time? Even today that seems like sound thinking. Nothing irrational about it. It just isn't necessarily TRUE. You can feel like shit and people still want to be around and help you through it, but when you're anxious and sad, it's hard to change your thinking to a positive mindset.

This Friday will make six weeks post-op, and my doctor has assured me that I can return to all normal activities, like swimming. Yay! And guess what? About last week Friday (five weeks post-op), I started to feel-- like, emotionally-- better. I started to feel less obsessive and more in control. Maybe going to see the therapist on Thursday helped (and she really did. I went home and hours later had an epiphany that helped me understand a particular problem I was having), yet it kinda seems bigger than that. The therapist and my PCP both assured me that when my hormones evened out, my emotions would, too, and that's what this feels like. More like me. I couldn't turn the switch off before, and now I can. Usually. Nine times out of ten, which actually sounds like a normal human being, anyway.

So this is to say that the hormonal healing appears to have led to an emotional healing, and that this should have been included in the pre-surgery heads up. In fact, when I'd told the surgeon at my last follow up appointment two weeks ago that I'd been feeling really emotional, he totally ignored me. He didn't even address it. I'd like to think that even if he'd said to me that this was part of the 6-8 week recovery, it would have made a difference because it would have given it a timeline. It would have reassured me that it was normal and it was going to end. If medical professionals, like the surgeons and ob/gyns anticipate this hormonal imbalance in partial hysterectomies, why not plan for it? Why not mention psychological care as part of the surgical follow-up recovery process? Especially since, you know, there'd been a cancer diagnosis, too. Seeing a therapist earlier than five weeks out (especially since I'd starting feeling shitty at two weeks out) might have helped stave off the anxiety and sadness while giving me tools to fight those feelings as they arose. I knew that post-surgery, I'd need to walk and move around in order to heal faster. I didn't know that I should be doing the same with my internal self-care.

I expect that swimming in the ocean will further add peace to my life. It's been a very long time since I could go to the beach without the stress of bleeding, which means it's been a very long time since I actually went swimming. I fantasize about the sensation of being enfolded by the ocean, feeling its pull and push against my body and its caress over every inch of my skin. 

Anyway. I'm getting carried away.

Returning to normal activities will help, I'm sure, as well as continuing the new habits I've adopted per doctor's orders. Time, though fairly reliable, is a hard friend to trust. Of all the things my doctors have told me, of all the articles and blogs I've read, time was rarely if ever mentioned. And that might be because at face value, it doesn't seem like useful advice. That time will heal all wounds sounds trite and suspicious. That my hormones will eventually even out also is not as helpful as giving me a period of time because yes, but WHEN will they even out? When? That is important information when you're feeling sad and anxious and isolated all the time. And I get that you can't provide me with an accurate timeline. Duh. I get that. But you can't see the other side when you're in the midst of it,  yo.

I'm not saying that I think I'm at the end of this emotional healing even though I feel a lot closer to normal than I have in weeks. It's like a bruise you poke at each day-- is it still there? Does it still hurt? Yeah, that's me. All I'm saying is that from where I stand today, expecting that I'd need time to heal emotionally would have done me a world of good if I'd know that from the beginning. Where I stand today, even if I have a ways to go toward getting over all this shit, I have the benefit of hindsight, and that going forward, maybe I can be more patient with myself.

The Thing About Writing or If You Love What You Do

I may not do it all the time, but I think about writing all the time. However obvious this might sound to you, it wasn't to me, and by that I mean that I never noticed I was doing it. Never noticed I was thinking about writing. There was a time way back in the the early 2000s when I blogged nearly every day on MySpace-- I thought about writing all the time. It's like people who take photos with their phones these days of nearly every mundane event that occurs. I was taking snapshots in my head and converting what I saw or felt into words. What words would I use? What emotions or events did I want to replay? Which emotions or events would most accurately relate my emotions or thoughts on the subject?

Stop me if you've heard this story before. Or skip ahead a paragraph or something. In the spring of 2017, I interviewed an English professor who had greatly influenced the way I saw myself as a reader, writer, and student. I'm a little shame to admit that it was he who unveiled this obvious truth, but I'll explain later why I could not see it. He said that people write all the time and don't even know it. People text, email, engage in social media, yet how many actually consider that writing? Why don't more of us consider that writing? And this was in response to the idea that many folks hold that they "can't"write. "I don't know how to spell," "I'm not creative," "I don't even know how to make a sentence." Except, you know what? Spelling doesn't matter, describe what creativity is and where it comes from, and yes, you do! And even if you don't, it doesn't have to matter.

Now, I can point out the lie because I've repeated them to myself over and over again. My favorite excuse for not writing is the I'm not creative one. I know some writers-- like, personally know them-- and they blow my mind! I feel like Bill when he says, "We're totally weak. We can't possibly fight you." I'm totally weak, I can't possibly write like you! It took me long time until I realized so many things about writing, including this truth: not everyone writes like Stephen King. Or Ernest Hemingway. Or Toni Morrison. So why do I expect to write like my friends? Doesn't mean I can't write if I don't write like someone else.

Writing isn't just for entertainment or academia. For me, and probably quite a lot of other people, writing is healing. And if it isn't healing, it's exploration. As Georganne used to say in class, writing is thinking. My way of dealing with stuff is pen to paper or fingertips to keyboard. You have read a few of my blogs since my surgery, but there are so many more that went unpublished. Writing allows me to go down the proverbial rabbit hole. I have an experience and I can explore it from different angles, and then I pull the words I need to express myself and then cull what I don't need in the end. Writing can help give my experience shape when I don't understand it.

When I woke up this morning to say goodbye to Charlie as he left for work, I began to think about what I was going to write about today and then I drifted back to sleep. I can't remember specifically what my thoughts were, but even thinking about writing brought me peace because I knew that writing would bring some measure of peace when I actually got around to doing it. And in my gratitude journal, what I really want to write in there every single day (and maybe I should, right?) is that I'm thankful to have some measure of talent in and understanding of writing because I have no idea how I'd cope without it.

One of these blogs might take at least an hour to compose-- longer if I actually take the time to reread it for errors or editing. Usually, I don't do that, especially lately. During that time, though, and likely ONLY during that time, I feel in command of my life. Like sorting beads by color into different bowls, writing is cathartic. It feels good.

Find Your Words

It hit me today at my post-op appointment. My doctor said, "You're gonna have to come see me every six months, you know, because of that early cancer." And it hit me just a little. I keep thinking that cancer didn't affect my life because it came and went without so much as a hello. It was there and it was gone before I could even think about it because I didn't even know about it till nearly two weeks later. What do I have to think about? To mourn about? What is there for me to contemplate? It came, it went, it's pau.

And it might be pau forever. I might never be affected by this again. The worst of it might just be the inconvenience of seeing my Ob/gyn every six months instead of twelve.

I've lost about fourteen pounds since the surgery. You'd think I'd be ecstatic. My clothes fit better, which is great. I have a decreased appetite and I find less joy in the actual eating of food, so that sucks.

If you recall, Dr. Chelsea prescribed some anti-depressant, but I haven't started those yet. I want to find emotional balance without resorting to drugs. I don't think she prescribed them without thought-- she knows me well enough to remember I won't swallow a pill unless it's really necessary--and I know she wants to see me well again.

Shouldn't I be happy? I'm not bleeding anymore. I wasn't planning on having any more children. I don't feel like a shell of a woman without my uterus. I've lost weight and I feel physically great-- why am I not happy? After Dr. Chelsea described that mini-menopause stuff, I've since read a couple of articles, like this one, about how even a partial hysterectomy can result in menopause-like symptoms. That article I linked to says that "hormones work on feedback loops, the uterus contains many important hormone receptors that communicate with the ovaries. When the uterus and cervix are removed, these receptors are removed, too." So, I believe Dr. Chelsea. That's only one article that has supported what my doctor said, but I believe there's something going on physically with my body that I can't see or feel that is making me an emotional wreck, I just don't know what to do about it.

Dr. Chelsea had me start a gratitude journal (pictured below), which I did with earnest. It's a great exercise. I've done it before. I bought a lovely new journal from the bookstore, some lovely markers, with the intent of making my entries as pretty as possible to encourage a cheerful disposition. I also keep what my sister calls a Fuck You journal or what Lucy calls a mad journal (not ever to be pictured anywhere, ever). It's one in which you might write the nastiest things you can think of about yourself, the world, the people around you. You write things you never want anyone to ever see. If you haven't tried this before, you should. The effects for me are very fleeting, ending as soon as I put down my pen, but so worth it. The key, I think, is to remember that no one should ever read what you write and that you're attempting to purge those negative feelings through writing. It isn't meant to be kept as a record of every junk thing anyone has ever done to you, especially those in your tightest friendship circles.

I don't know that I'm actually depressed. I know things aren't completely normal. What I feel feels real. I'm not making it up, I'm not looking for sympathy, it's not fun for me. I've contacted one therapist today to see about getting some professional help. That makes me hopeful. Even if she can't see me or if we're not a good fit, maybe she can point me in the right direction. Because I hate how I feel, I hate being so sad all the time, I want to be happy again. I want to enjoy my life. I want to feel strong and capable, multi-dimensional, and interesting. I'm beginning to hate myself just a little. And isn't all of this just so attractive?