The Little Magical Box

So Jack Pearson DIDN’T die in the fire.  Can we all just sit back for a minute and take a minute a mourn the loss of a great man.  If you’re reading this and haven’t watched the Super Bowl episode of This Is Us.  I’m sorry.  I’ve given you time.  This isn’t a spoiler.  I took time to process before I could even utter the words.  JACK. IS. DEAD.  We’ll get back to that.  That isn’t the crux of everything yet that stirred some shit in my soul.  It stirred shit in everyone’s soul.  The world shed tears.  I however needed to take some time and actually break down and sob for a while.  Let’s get in our Delorean and travel back in time, shall we?

 

Becoming a rad pool shark…look at that form.

Most readers know, I grew up on what some would call, “the wrong side of the tracks.”  I did not know they were the wrong side.  They were just the tracks.  They were the only side I knew.  There were lots of things in my life: friends, sunshine, laughter…drugs, abuse, neglect…

One of the rarities growing up in an environment like mine is new clothing.  Somehow (don’t ask me how or why) I ended up with a brand, spanking new Philadelphia Eagles t-shirt when I was little.  I remember getting that shirt. I wore that shirt with pride. (Not so easy being in the land of the Purple People Eaters.) It was grey with forest print.  It was so soft like your Grandma had washed it a hundred times with the Snuggle bear himself.  Every time I put it on, I felt as if I was getting a hug.  That shirt was never owned by anyone else. It was only mine.  I was so proud of it.  I was an E-A-G-L-E.

Then this weekend, Super Bowl 52 came home.  Not only did it come to ME (yes, they were bringing it directly to me) they were bringing my birds.  My little girl dreams were coming true.  Something, you may not know…I am HIGHLY competitive.  To. A. FAULT.  Honestly, it is a problem.  I should seek help.  I spent the weekend Downtown Minneapolis celebrating with my fellow Eagles fans (hating on the Patriots…boooooooo) and reveling in all the excitement.  It was something to FINALLY be with my people.  My emotions were high and truly, it is hard to put into words the culmination of what it meant for me.  It was like finally having that something.  Personally, I have worked so long to not be that little girl for so long to not have the hand me downs and am JUST getting to a place in my life where I’m not.  I feel like the Eagles were kind of in the same place.  They would get just close enough…and something would happen and they would fall.  Sunday, they beat the shit.  I, too am going to beat the shit.

**Deep Breath**  So, I was riding high on adrenaline. I thought I could handle This Is Us.  I knew it was going to be emotional. (Between you and me, I always cry but don’t tell anyone.  It’ll ruin my image.)  This episode hit me two fold.  It hit me as a child and it hit me as a Mama.  I was watching it with my best girl.  When Jack came out of the house and handed over the photo albums, I turned to her and said, “Do you know I only have a few pictures of me when I was little?”  I had never told her, my house burnt down when I was little.  What I wouldn’t do have had a Jack Pearson.

The episode continued, Rebecca was on the phone and the staff started to scurry.  I felt it happening.  My heart started pounding.  I could feel sweat on my neck.  I wanted to yell at the television even though I knew it was fictional and already filmed.  I knew she would not have heard me.  I knew she wasn’t a medical Mama.  I saw the movement in the background.  I knew.  I fucking knew.  My stomach was turning.  She had never been in a hospital.  She would have heard the movement in the scrubs.  She would have felt the air change.  GOD DAMN IT REBECCA.  TURN AROUND.  I knew.  I know the movement.  It is a television show.  It is on a magical little box.  It is my life.

As I am typing this, my chest is tight and my eyes have sprung such a leak I can hardly see through them.  This is post traumatic stress disorder.  It will never leave me.  The doctor said to her, “I’m sorry Rebecca, Jack has went into cardiac arrest.”  Rebecca’s response of, “No.  We’re just here for a burn” was the most spot on line I possibly have ever witnessed on television.  In THAT moment, I was suddenly transported back 5 years.  I was standing outside my son’s room, the ER was informing they were sending for LifeLink to transfer him.  My response, “We’re just here for a fucking headache.”  Flashforward 5 minutes to the breeze way, the next thing I remember saying, they’re moving us and they think he’s going to to die.

The little magic box.  Within 20 minutes brought me elation of childhood dreams coming true and down to the depths of my hell.  The thing about the little magic box is…I always have the power to turn it on and off.  I clawed my way out of hell…Like an Eagle.

Dear Body

Dear Body,

It wasn’t just one day.  It was a whole bunch of days and a whole bunch of people and a whole bunch of words and images…they were all shoved at me.  They were all shoved at me and fed into my brain telling me that YOU were less than some of the other skin coverings walking around. They were telling me that YOU were not as beautiful.  They were telling me that YOU were less worthy of love.  They were telling me that YOU needed to change.  They were telling me that YOU would never be loved looking the way you did.

Dear Body,

It is not up to me to apologize for the people who touched you without permission.  I do want to say I am sorry for that burning sensation you get whenever a hand grazes your vagina in the wrong way.  I want to apologize for the way your heart beats without a chance of escape from it’s cage when you see someone who looks like them.  I want to soothe the mind that you hold when you wake up in a cold sweat from the memories that forever haunt you…but it not up to me to say I am sorry.

Dear Body,

I know I have been hard on you.  I am not talking about all of the times I fell down and bruised you.  I am speaking of the times I did not give you the nourishment you needed to thrive because I was willing you to be smaller.  The times I deprived you of the energy you needed because I so desperately wanted to walk in a different skin because I believed you were not good enough to contain the soul I was given.  The days and nights I stayed awake so I did not need to sleep in you knowing that when I woke up…my skin would still look like YOU.

Dear Body,

Please forgive me for all of the terrible things I have said to you.  I did not know the power you contained within you.  The power to carry me through illness that would of killed others.  The strength to hold the hands of others needing love they could not find anywhere but YOUR skin.  A tenderness, so soft babies beg to fall asleep against it but so resilient the broken beg for it to accompany them into battle.

Dear  Body,

Thank you for not giving up when my brain begged you for release from the pain in my soul.  YOU carried demons meant to release me from this world.  Yet, YOU told me I had work to finish.  I was not ready to give up.  YOU reminded me I was bigger than the pain that was plaguing me.

Dear Body,

Thank you for knowing the beauty YOU had when my heart could not see it.   YOU could see the jewel held within my skin when my eyes failed to relay the message to my spirit.  While the world was telling me YOU were not good enough, YOU continued to create a landscape of peaks and valleys and lines.  YOU left a roadmap of where I had been and where I can go.  YOU saw the uniqueness that only this skin can hold.

Dear Body,

Although I can not promise you everyday with me is going to be easy, I can promise I will do my best to love YOU and treat YOU than I did the day before.  I will not let this world’s view on what and who they think YOU should be effect who YOU are.  YOU are amazing and I will not let ME forget it.

With Love,
Kate

F.A.T.

“You have such a pretty face.”  Thank you?…I never know exactly how to respond to that statement.  I am never sure if that means I am pretty or if just my face is pretty.  Peter Paul Ruebens was a famous painter and considered the most notable of all French Baroque artists.  He WAS what captured beauty.  He painted beautiful full figured women.  THAT was what was considered beautiful.  Somewhere along the line straight silhouettes became prefered over curves.  Firmness was adopted as the sanctioned body texture of a woman over the softness.  Muscled stomachs and thighs are preferred over fleshy arms and backs.

Who is it that decides what is beautiful?  How does the standard change?  I grew up in the 80’s.  I was a chubby girl.  To be honest, I was a super tomboy!

Yeah, that little girl with the football and jean jacket, that is me (I had already started my jean jacket obsession…but that is another post.)  Looking at my body though, I already had broad shoulders, thick thighs and a tummy.  People were starting to tell me what I should and shouldn’t do, say and eat so the boys would like like me.  The boys already liked me though because I was awesome!

The older I got the more I heard that I wasn’t beautiful.  That smile faded.  I covered my body in layers and layers of clothes.  I was ashamed of my thick thighs and broad shoulders.  That tummy I had…that tummy I once so proudly begged to poke out of a bikini (I was denied because nobody wants to see a chubby girl in a bikini) never wore a swimsuit in public.  I never wore shorts in public.  It would be 90 degrees outside and I would be in jeans.  It didn’t matter how hot I was.  Somehow, I went from a carefree girl to a girl who was so ashamed of my body because of three letters.  F.A.T.

WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK?!?!?  I let those three letters ruin my life.  I let myself be tortured by the expectations of others.  I was in high school during the time of “heroin chic.”  Go back and look at that picture of my childhood.  I expected myself to look like Kate Moss.  I was literally starving myself at graduation time.  I graduated in a size 11.  I was 179.  I drank 6 Mt. Dew a day and would only eat the crusts of bread.  

I thought I could look like this.  No matter what I did, I couldn’t.  This was an unreal expectation.  My body, my bone structure couldn’t look like this.  However, I was being told in order to be beautiful, THIS is what I needed to look like.

Recently, I’ve been learning to love my body.  My body, all 200+ pounds of it has held strong through multiple offender sexual assaults, depression, anxiety, severe autoimmune diseases, fibromyalgia, myalgic encephalomyelitis, two bouts of cancer, PTSD, 17 surgeries, MOTHERHOOD, miscarriages, being a caretaker of a disabled child…and the list goes on.  I need to LOVE this body.  THIS IS AN EXCEPTIONAL BODY.

I’m learning to be okay with my scars.  My curves…and yes, even my F.A.T.  My pretty face belongs to my fat and pretty body.  My body is pretty remarkable and I need to give it credit.  We are so busy worrying what everyone else looks like that we fail to look at ourselves and be thankful for the amazingness that we are.  So in my summer of self-acceptance.  I am going to accept, be thankful for and love THIS body.  Lump, bumps, fat and all.  This cute tummy is coming out again!

Down The Rabbit Hole

I crawled out of bed in my short robe with my hair tied up as my girlfriend sat in my bed watching me load laundry into a basket.  She was getting to see something I let very few people see (and it wasn’t just the cellulite on my butt that was poking out.)  I turned to look at her and said…”This is my depression…this is what it looks like.”  With that sentence, I waved my arm around my bedroom, motioning to the heaps of laundry and stacks of dvds just sitting…waiting for someone to take care of them.  She nodded her head.  After several years of friendship, I knew she wouldn’t judge me and it was safe safe to let her into that space.  You see…when I start falling down the rabbit hole, the whole world can think I am holding it together but behind the bedroom door a different story is told.

Depression and anxiety…when you say them together you think they could be wonder heros like Batman and Robin or something like that.  I find that most who deal with one of these conditions are a wonder…when you deal with both you’re a fucking hero.  I had anxiety growing up.  I think it was a result of some of the situations and conditions I had to deal with as a child and teenager.  I found as I aged it tended to get worse.  It wasn’t always an overwhelming worry but more of a cement truck that would randomly decide to stop and back up on my chest slowly crushing me with all of its force.  I would scream for help begging to be released from the crushing weight but it would only be in my head.  Sometimes, my heart would be beating so hard I wouldn’t know why nobody else could hear it.  Everyone would be asking me to do something and their worlds would whirl around and nothing would make sense…I would do everything I could to get everything done with a smile on my face but every ounce of me just knew I was failing…and letting everyone down…because…that.is.what.I.do.

….and DEPRESSION…I am a happy person.  My nickname is Sunshine for fuck’s sake.  I never had depression growing up.   I was the girl who made everyone happy.  I had jokes. I would just get sad every once in awhile.  It is normal to lock yourself in the bathroom so nobody sees you cry.  Nobody wants to see the happy girl cry.  Sunshine can’t have storms.  Every time I would go to the doctor and fill out the depression screening, I was “fine.”  The more fine I was on the outside side…the more my body was screaming to be saved on the inside.

And one day, like Alice I fell down the rabbit’s hole.  I was the Mad Hatter, Cheshire Cat and Queen of Hearts rolled into one.  I learned quickly what it is like to feel like in a sea of darkness struggling to find any glimpse of light.  The only thing I’ve ever found I am really good at is being a Mom.  I’m not the fastest or smartest or prettiest girl.  I will never make a million dollars or be famous.  I am a good cook and can make you laugh but…I am a GREAT mom.  That being said my body is not built to have babies.  No matter how much I want them.  12 years ago today, at 1:14 pm my sweet daughter Elizabeth was born into Heaven.  My pregnancy tried to take both of our lives and the hospital thought mine was more important.  My placenta had ruptured and there was no way to save us both.

For the following 4 months, I was sad but there were no storms for this Sunshine.  Then one day it got dark…and that darkness stayed.  It stayed for a long time.  People didn’t notice because I still was happy and I still cracked jokes.  Inside I was dying.  This is when I learned what my depression looks like.  My depression looks like lack of self care.  I stop painting my nails…because really…who cares if my hands and feet look nice?  I mean, I like it but I feel like shit anyway and it’s just one more thing to do.  My pretty simple makeup routine goes to just mascara and lip gloss…to just lip gloss.  10 more minutes sleep.  If I don’t get my haircut, I can just wear a ponytail.  I stop doing laundry for myself…as long as I have yoga pants and some sweatshirts to hide in.

I went from being joyous and outgoing to just wanting to fade away.  The world still saw a happy me but inside I was dead.  People would ask how I was doing…or if they hadn’t seen me in a long time how my baby was and I would politely smile and say I was fine or tell them there had been complications.  Inside I felt like a rotting tree…shriveling with each question.  I was sure the decay from any question would be the one that would take me to the ground.

Life started to seep back into my roots though. I had some rebirth.  There was a Spring.  The time came when I began to feel things and I wasn’t begging for sleep to come.  However,  anxiety and depression have attached themselves to me like those 5 extra pounds we always say we are going to lose after Christmas.  We are going to live a long life together.  We struggle with each other.  We fight.  We cry.  We are the bitchy roommates who leave nasty notes about leaving the cap off of the toothpaste.  The month of May, I always really hate them.  Nevertheless, I know we are going to spend our lives together.

The thing I have learned is I don’t have to always let them win.  I can fight back.  I can try to do everything I can to keep control of my life.  Right now, I am doing that by finding joy in the little things.  I am getting some laundry done.  I’m making sure I get to the doctor’s for the things I need to.  Find happiness where you can…chat up your baristas, snap silly pictures, go for a drive, visit a waterfall…find peace wherever you can…AND BE OKAY WITH IT.

That Circled Red Date

How do you celebrate days that hurt?  We are told holidays are supposed to be joyous and time for celebration.  We are given days on a calendar that we are supposed to circle with a red marker and automatically be happy and look forward to.  We look at each other and say, “Happy (insert holiday here.”  The magical Happy Memory Fairy sprinkles their glittery shit around and everyone giggles and happy dances and good moments are made.  That’s what happens…right?

Except, this is the real world and not some Rom-Com.  In the real world, real people see that red marker and around those holidays and feel pain and anxiety.  The memories aren’t always good.  They remember the loss that came around that holiday and the people who won’t be there to celebrate it or maybe the ones who weren’t ever there. Every “Happy ________” comes with a fake smile and some suppressed tears as the knife in the heart twists one more time.

Mother’s Day…Hell, the whole fucking month of May is shitty in my eyes.  I hate it.  I hate every damn day of May.  It doesn’t matter how hard I try to find good things, I have an overwhelming depression that just takes over.  I don’t even realize it is happening.  Spring was my favorite season…once upon a time.  Once upon a time before I knew how much my heart could hurt.  Spring always signified newness.  The Earth was being reborn.  Flowers were growing.  The buds on the trees showed me we once again could come alive after being dormant after what seemed like forever.  Yet, now without my knowledge it is almost like the darkest storms of Spring take over my heart with no promise of the tomorrow it truly offers.

When I was little and you would ask me what I wanted to be, my answer would always be “a mom.”  I wanted to be a mom.  More than anything I wanted babies.  I wanted 4.  A big brother, two girls and a little brother.  I wanted to be the best mom in the world.  I would love those babies more than anything.  Even though I was the most “developed” of my friends (and sisters) I got my period after them.  Then it was weird.  I found out I had Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome and it was going to be hard to have kids but I didn’t care.  I was having them.  Lots and Lots of babies!  I had my son MJ when I was 20.  He was a miracle birth to say the least and left me highly damaged but the second I saw him.  I knew I was right.  I was born to be a mom.  From that moment on, my life became about being a just his mom.  Until this very breath, he is my heart and soul.

We were told kids after MJ weren’t likely but I wasn’t giving up.  One year turned into two years turned into three and my hopes started to diminish.  By the time MJ was five I was resolved that he was going to be an only child from us but we had talked greatly about adoption.  I had been sick for sometime only to find out I was pregnant.  Nothing could describe my surprise or my elation.  I went back to the if you want something bad enough…in time, you’ll get it.  My pregnancy was horrible.  My whole pregnancy with Elizabeth, I felt overprotective of her.  My heart knew I would never bring her home from the hospital.  My heart knew her big brother would never kiss her face.  My heart knew she was never really mine.  Yet, I loved her fiercely and deeply.

May 25th, 2005, I woke up in the morning after the worst sleep.  I have never experienced pain like I was.  My heart and soul knew this was the day.  I had been bleeding for weeks and even though the doctor’s said it was okay, I knew it wasn’t.  I sat on my living room floor crying.  I begged God not to take my baby.  I begged please let me keep her.  MJ sat in my lap, I will never forget him asking me, “Mama, why can’t we keep my sister?  Am I a bad brother?”  I drove my husband and myself to the hospital (I have control problems.)  I was in surgery right away.  My placenta had ruptured.  There was no way to save my sweet girl.  It was too late.  I was never able to hold my girl.  Never able hold her hands, kiss her cheeks or tell her I love her.  Saving me was more important to the doctors.  I don’t know if they know in that they are slowly killing me.

So Mother’s Day hurts my soul.  12 years ago, I was the happiest Mother on Earth with a beautiful son carrying my daughter just waiting to love her Earthbound body.  This Mother’s Day.  I grieve.  I grieve for my son who wants nothing more than to be a big brother.  I grieve for the tears I keep hidden until everyone sleeps.  I grieve for the toxic mother I have walked away from.  I grieve for the empty arms I have.  I grieve for the mothers who have lost, who can’t, who long…This Mother’s Day…I grieve for the red marker.

The Dirty Laundry Is Talking…

“You are the strongest woman I have ever met!”  I don’t know how you do it!”  “I could never handle all of that!”  These are things I have heard many times.  I don’t say this in ANY sort of bragging manner.  Often times when I hear things like this my insides cringe.  I want to scream back something like, “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!?!?” People see how you handle things from the outside and their perception is skewed…at best.  I will give people that.  On the outside, I can make it look like I have my shit together.  The whole house could be burning down and I will make sure your eggs aren’t over poached before I save all the valuables, call the fire department, get the kids out, grab Great Grandma’s afghan, reapply my favorite MAC lipstick and put the dogs on their leashes and head out of the door all while not breaking a sweat.  Inside, my head is swirling and I am a shit show every minute of everyday.

Currently, it is 3:17 am.  I can’t sleep so I got up to do some laundry.  As I was getting putting my dirty laundry in I was replaying some of the conversations I have been having lately (if you have any form of anxiety…you know that’s what you do.) All the sudden, my dirty laundry spoke to me…seriously, it was funky.  Mostly because it was my 17 year old son’s.  No really. My dirty laundry aired my dirty laundry.  I have been saying the same things to people lately.  “I’m sorry you met me right now.”  “I’m sorry you (re)came into my life right now.”  “This isn’t the person I normally am.”

I was talking to my cousin about this and he said, “What like a person who has been beat to shit by life for the last several years and needs some support?”  Those words rang deep to me.  I DON’T KNOW HOW TO ASK OR ACCEPT HELP.  I don’t know how to show my fear on the outside.  I’ve realized suddenly, my inner chaos that I deal with on the inside, people are seeing and I am embarrassed.  People are seeing what I see.  They are seeing that girl I have been ashamed of all of my life.  I’ve needed to say outloud that I am scared.  I am scared that I might need someone to help me carry all the burdens.  I may not be able to quite the chaos this time by myself.  Typing these words are making me cry.  My fingers are hardly able to move.  This might be the most terrifying thing I have ever written.

Not letting anyone see what I am feeling on the inside has become a HUGE coping mechanism for me.  When nobody can see the chaos they are less likely to leave the mess.  Everybody leaves when they think I’m Superwoman…who is going to stay  when they see what the inside looks like?

A Trail of Hearts

Once upon a time there was a little girl.  She loved with all of her heart. For her heart was big.  People would come and they would tell her she was sweet or she was funny.  Sometimes, they would tell her she was cute.  So she would break of a piece of that giant heart for she knew hers was extra big and made for sharing.  The people would gladly take the pieces.  Yet, the people would always leave…sometimes very slowly and sometimes they would scuttle off in a jif.  In return, they would leave a piece of their pain for the little girl to absorb where she had given her heart.  As the girl aged, she came to expect nothing more than the pain in return for that is what she had been conditioned to.  However, she had heard whispers of a great healer called “Forgiveness”and it is on a search for the great healer she went on a journey.

My life has been a scattered array of people in and out.  People telling me they would never leave and certainly never hurt me yet it often seems that I end up with a lump in my throat asking where everyone is.  I’ve come to a place where I have learned to shelter myself from letting anyone really get to close as a matter of self preservation.  I can’t let my heart scar if you can’t get to it with a knife.  However, I’m questioning if I am really able to experience any kind of life at all that way.  Instead, I am trying to teach myself to learn how to forgive.

Forgiveness isn’t easy.  People think forgiveness and forgetting have to coincide in one bundle.  I’ve found so rarely that they do.  What I am finding is the the hardest part to forgiveness is allowing myself to feel the emotions that hurt me in the first place and actually dealing with the moments instead of just leaving them lay dead.  I can’t forgive someone if I don’t deal with the shit that’s there.  Fear, pain, rejection…things I don’t deal with well.  Usually, when I need to forgive someone, they have inflicted one of things on me.  That means I need to deal with it.  I can’t ignore it anymore.  Those emotions and pains are going to come out.  It is going to be real and it is going to be raw.

The more I age, I try not to put myself in any situation where those things are going to happen.  Almost all of my life I have dealt with rejection.  I’ve known I was never really wanted.  That being said, I try to never put myself in a position where that is the case.  I try to only be in positions where I have the upper hand so letting myself be vulnerable is one of the most scary things I can do.  I choose not to let my guard down that way I can’t get hurt…Is that the best way to life my life though?  Closed off and not allowing myself to feel?  What am I missing in the meantime?

Recently, I had to deal with death of one of the people who was sexually agressive to me as a child.  It was sort of a numbing experience.  A friend of mine told me it was really okay for me to hate him and I responded that I didn’t hate him.  I had no good feelings toward him and no good memories when he was in my life but not hate.  I felt really sorry for him.  I know of others that he sexually assaulted.  I feel sad for them.  I wish I could have protected them.  Although I was a child, I feel like I was responsible.  I pray it didn’t continue.  I love his family and I feel sad for them because they knew he was sick too.  I haven’t been able to forgive him or myself.  Yet, I don’t hate him.  I’m relieved he isn’t here though to hurt anyone else.  I wish for no one else to deal with these memories.

Is there a way to forgive without dealing with the memories and the pain or is that like painting with a brush?  Sometimes, the journey is so long and exhausting I wonder if it is even worth it but I can’t just keep breaking off pieces of my heart for everyone who comes along…there isn’t too much left.

 

The World Is Our Museum

Art.  Why can we all walk into a museum and look at the same piece of art and feel different things about it and that is okay yet society tells us we are to look at a body and there is only one (type) that is okay to be qualified as beautiful.  There are only certain physical attributes that are deemed acceptable in the world we live in.  Why are the bodies that we live in so different from living breathing artwork?

Growing up, I was always the “chunky girl.”  It isn’t social acceptable to call someone the fat girl and in the 80’s “plus size” wasn’t really yet a term.  So, I was chunky.  I was always the girl who liked to play football with the boys and ride my bike.  I had shaggy hair and just wanted to have fun.  When I asked for a bikini to run through the sprinkler, I was told no…my belly would show.  Ummmm…okay.  What was the matter with that?  No one wants to see a “chunky” tummy.  By the way, boys don’t really like “chunky girls.”  Really?  I’m hanging out with them all the time.  They all like me.  But those words started to burn into my brain.

As I started to get a little bit older, I wondered if Donny Wahlberg wouldn’t like me because I was a “chunky girl.”  I was sure when I went to the New Kids On The Block concert, he was going to spot me and fall madly in love.  (By the way…it hasn’t happened yet but I’m going again in July.)  I started to cover up more and more.  My thin strapped tanks became tshirts and my shorts became capris became jeans.  I grew these enormous boobs way before everyone else.  At that point, I was told the only reason boys were talking to me was because I had a great rack.  Boys don’t like “chunky girls.”  Boys like boobs.  It wasn’t that I was smart or funny and fun to be around…damn it, I couldn’t be pretty because I was “chunky.”  I had big boobs.

I noticed all the other girls around me as I aged.  They would say things like “Ugh, I’m so fat” or “I wish I had (insert body part here)” or “I need to have (blank fixed.) Which leads me to believe we are just conditioned to believe we are not good enough.  Even when we are the “ideal” of what society tells us to be; we are striving to be something more attainable.  I personally have struggled with my weight issue my entire life.  I look at pictures of myself in my late teens right before college when I was literally starving myself everyday.  I had a BEAUTIFUL curvy figure.  One that people are paying for right now. Yet it was the era of Kate Moss and heroine chic so I felt fat and ugly.  At one point, I was 327 lbs.  I never recognized it.  I didn’t know I was heavier until I lost weight and looked back at pictures…because I felt good about myself and was in a healthy state.

I bought myself those bikinis last summer.  Those bikinis I was told I couldn’t wear because no one wants to see a “chunky tummy.”  I bought them because I wanted to.  I want to wear them because I like the suits.  I like how the sun feels on my body (with sunscreen of course.)  I wore them (although terrified at first) with pride at the public pool.  I wore them in front of teenage girls who seemed appalled at first then curious as to my confidence.  I pray they will someday know they too can wear whatever they want as long as they feel good.  I let the sun glow on the silver lines I carry.  Silver lines that remind me of growth.  Growth from babies carried and babies lost.  Growth from growing up.  Growth from late lights drinking wine and laughing with friends.

Our bodies are works of art.  Each piece is different.  We carry different lines and spots.  We come in beautiful arrays of colors and sizes.  Today, you will see art everywhere you look.  Our world is a museum on display.  Don’t be afraid to walk up to a piece of art and tell it how beautiful it is.  It may be that crook in the nose that scares that person that you find beautiful.  Telling them that may change their perspective and in that…It could change their life.

Painting Her Shoulders With Gold

 

My friends all joke that I am the most random person they know.  I have a friend, Jack, who says my ADHD isn’t really that…He claims I have ADAD…Attention Deficit Accessory Disorder.  I can be in a heartfelt conversation about the death of a loved one and stop the conversation with “OH MY GAWWWD!!!  Did you see those shoes?”  So randomness envelops everything that I am.  That being said, I don’t know why it seemed to be such a wild answer when I was asked what my favorite body part was of mine and I responded with “my shoulders.”  I received the most quizzical look.  I was further questioned on why my shoulders were my favorite.

My shoulders…they are broad and strong.  They are covered with freckles which I were told were kisses from angels that protect me.  I have scars on my right shoulder that remind me of surgery from a lie I told in High School that resulted in a terrible accident.  They remind me to stay honest.  My shoulders have carried the weight of the world yet they remain soft and somehow feminine.

My shoulders have barred the pain of so many others.  I have willingly taken the crosses of others so they didn’t need to carry them.  My shoulders are clothed by the tears of others who have trusted me to hold their shame and sorrows.  When asked who then holds carries my weight for me?  I can look at the scars that remind me to be honest and say “I do.”  My shoulders bear my own burden as I have learned, I am the only person I can truly depend on.  I am the one who won’t hurt me or walk away.  My shoulders may rock but they will never break.

I have been told I am a broken person.  I am a broken person who fixes everyone around them but doesn’t take the time to fix herself.  I am broken.  I look at myself like the art of Japanese pottery Kintsugi.  The Japanese don’t throw out the broken pieces they heal them with lines of gold.  I am scarred…physically, mentally, emotionally…spiritually.  I am learning how to paint over my scars with gold and see the beauty in my brokenness.

We are all broken.  Somewhere in us…on us…around us there is a brokenness that needs to be healed.  I use humor, music, water…all of them heal me.  They help block out the painful things.  Learning to accept them however…learning to accept that they happened.  Learning to talk about them.  Learning to not be ashamed of them.  Learning that they a PART of who we are and not who we are or what defines us…THAT is our paint brush.  Start painting those beautiful gold strokes.  We may be broken but that doesn’t mean we are not beautiful.

When The Memories Won’t Fade

When you ask someone their first memory, they usually tell you something about playing with a toy or school or they will describe playing with a new sibling.  My first memory is laying on a couch.  I was laying on a couch, while a man with a reddish orange beard had his hands between my legs and said it was okay because it would tickle and I could be a big girl like my Mom.  That’s what he did to her and she always did.  I remember the color of his jeans and that’s probably why I hate when men wear that color now.  

We are stuck in this paradox of life telling everyone to plan for the future but live for the moment.  Yet there is so many of us us who have a hard time breaking out of our memories because they flood us over and over everyday, washing us away in the tides of the past.  It doesn’t matter how much I therapy I do or how many times I tell myself I am okay and know how to protect myself, men with beards still scare me.  A man with light colored jeans will all but stop me in my tracks.  When someone experiences trauma, it is something they can never just move past.  It becomes a part of who we are.  Which leads me to question, which trauma am I?  Am I just trauma?

Sure, there have been tremendous moments of happiness and laughter in my life.  Moments crashing back into the waves, singing while speeding down highways and shouting “I WIN!” at the top of my lungs…somehow, in this moment of my life they seem egregiously muted as I am searching for sunlight.  I started my day today with a word I thought I would never hear again.  Lymphoma.  Three years ago, I slayed this beast.  Three weeks ago…I found a lump in my neck.  Although, I had been experiencing some symptoms, they could have been caused by a myriad of things.  My husband experienced a brain injury 5 weeks ago so I am super stressed!  I haven’t been sleeping so I am exhausted.  I’m clumsy so the bruises could be explained.  I already am caregiving for a son with Traumatic Brain Injury…I mean really…I have a lot on my plate.  Symptoms could have come from anywhere.  Then there was a lump.

The lump.  It was there and I didn’t feel good.  Everybody had the shit that was going around so it was just a swollen lymph node and my immune system sucks.  Week one it grew.  Week two it grew.  Week three.  Fuck.  It is still here.  I don’t want to tell anyone.  There is so much bad going on in my life.  I am so scared of what it could be.  I know what it could be.  I’ve played this game before.  Last time there weren’t visible masses.  I finally let my husband feel it.  “What the fuck is that?!”  “I don’t know.”  “You better get it looked at.”  I called the doctor and he was out of appointments!  WOOOOOHOOOO!  

 

Guess who got a call back?  With your history, he wants to see you first thing in the morning.  “I don’t really like the placement or that it’s sitting under the muscle wall.”  I’m going to set your ultrasound and schedule you to see the surgeon.”  “However, it could be a lot bigger so we have that working in your favor.”  “Thanks Butch.”  In that moment, every hospitalization for my son and my treatments came rushing back to me.  I was alone and scared.  I don’t do scared.  There are emotions I don’t allow myself.  Scared I have found is one of them.  

 

I don’t know what scares me though.  Last time I was sick, my son had just been diagnosed with a horrible brain disease.  I never let him know I was sick.  I sat through every brain surgery.  Scheduled my chemos and appointments for days he was allowed out of the hospital.  He never knew Mama was sick.  At that time, Daddy was 100%.  Right now we are looking down a double barrel shot gun.  I am back at work.  My sweet baby (17) is looking at going back to see very specialized doctors for a special kind of brain cancer.  Daddy is not at 100% and probably never will be again.  As for me…it is the fear of the unknown and all of the memories that crash upon the shore of my brain.  The smells of Oncology wing.  The words Lymphocyte and Monocyte and fact that I even fucking know those words and meanings.  The fact that it is April and I march for Sexual Assault Awareness while funding is being cut.  The fact that I have slept a whole night through the entire year of 2017 without a nightmare.  The fact that the memories that never fade are not the beautiful ones.