Happy Birthday To Me
Today is my 37th birthday. In the last four of my thirty seven years, I have been gutted six times. Literally. Not dumped by a lover gutted, not lost a job gutted, actually gutted, like gutted, gutted. As in, my intestines, and perhaps other organs, have been taken outside of my body, manipulated for a few hours, deleted-cut-pasted and then either gingerly or perhaps more like a poor turkey, stuffed back in. I’m not sure, I wasn’t there. I mean I was, but I was unconscious.
I’m not saying this for sympathy, or to shock anyone. This recently occurred to me as a fact. So that’s all it is, a fact. Like my brown hair, or address or blood type. Girl who has been gutted. Never knew to wish when I blew out my birthday candles that my intestines would never feel the cool breeze of the world outside my body. Next time you get candles and can’t think of a wish, consider it.
For the last eight months I have been staring down the barrel of planned surgeries as my future. Harsh realities with needles and knives and the only way to get through was to get very narrow. Let the edges blur, the periphery fade and become a city horse; Blinders on and submit. Getting through and to became the name of the game. Through the first surgery. To home from the hospital. Through the complications. To the next appointment. Through the next test. Labs and scales and numbers. Phone calls with procedure dates that feel like a Christmas and armageddon smoothie. Surgery-recovery-repeat. Surgery- recovery- repeat. A strange little melody to march to. October. March. June. Bam. Bam. Bam.
Now, I have been released from this timeline. Freed. Thrust back into the world to re join the; “not awaiting the next surgery" population. The swaddle of family fades away and as others resume life as usual, I am lost. Unmoored. Adrift. Looking back at what has ended that once seemed endless. Did I really just do all that? Am I still here? I am glass tumbling in the ocean that is no longer jagged and not yet soft. A zoo beast in the wild. i am told to rest.
I don't know what’s next or if the dreams or jeans I had before even still fit. I know despair and pain and prayer. Dear god let this all not have been for naught. It can’t have been. But it could have been because this disease is cunning and resilient and smart. Stories and stories to sink into of those still in pain, suffering through life. Then comes the tidal wave. Why am I special?
I know, I absolutely know that my salvation lies in my ability to keep my thoughts “positive.” To believe a miracle is happening behind the scenes and soon I will experience it as the podcasts and books and articles and shamans and counselors tell me. The pull to darkness though, damn, she’s a scrappy bitch. So here I am on this seesaw of miracles and misery, up and down, up and down. My body deserves time and space to recover and the thick, dusty debris of trauma must be cleared. The surgeries are over. So now, its my turn. Let’s go. Maybe I should put up a sign for that scrappy bitch;
No love, no hope= no service.