I seem to be purging…a lot.
Here we are in February and so much has happened since my
last post. January was a strange and difficult month. It seems that many people
struggled through it. 2015 came in like a violent beast. On December 31st,
I had a boyfriend. We had actually been seeing each other for a couple of
months. By New Year’s Day, I was without him although I think it took him at
least most of the day to figure that out. Long story. Not worth sharing. No
matter…it was a fun couple of months.
January 22nd was an important day. It was the day
I got nipples. It was the day of my last surgery, and I mean LAST surgery. I’m
done. I’m finally done. And the funny thing is…that kind of scares me.
January 23rd was George’s birthday. He would have
been 29. I spent a couple of days with friends recovering but I did manage to
make cheese enchiladas for dinner. I had sour cream on mine. I’m sure he’ll
forgive me. There was Barq’s root beer to wash it down (and I’m sure he’ll also
forgive me for making it diet). Even in my post-anesthesia, narcotic-induced
stupor it was nice to do a little something for him. Last year, I believe I was
having surgery ON his birthday so celebrations were left out.
There was no Krav Maga for me for a whole week. THAT was
torture! I’ve committed myself to training every day, Monday through Friday.
Some weeks I only manage four days and I injured myself a few weeks ago so I
had to take a couple of days off, but that just comes with the territory I
guess. On Friday I went in to sit and watch. I told Mr. Eric that I felt
homesick and just wanted to be there. I’m glad I went in too. He’s always a
great teacher but he was especially hilarious that day. Turns out it was his
birthday. A fellow Aquarian…that explains a lot! Yesterday I finally got to go
back. I’m back to totally sucking at push-ups, but otherwise it felt so good to
get my Krav on!
I had an interesting weekend. Although I’d been building up
to the purge for a while now, I think it was the weekend that really set it in
motion. I attended a spiritual retreat hosted by a beautiful woman named
Jeanette. This was the third of her retreats for me and as I expected, it was
exactly what I needed. There were guided meditations and stories shared. I won’t
go into too much detail because I like to keep parts of my spiritual life
private but during one of our group sessions, a memory of something I
experienced during my radiation treatments triggered a wellspring inside me. Sometimes
during these events I will get a little teary. I even had a good cry over
George at a beautiful Mt. Shasta event last summer. This was different. This
was much more intense and went a lot deeper. It was as if for the first time, I
really got to look at all I’ve been through over the past five years; my
brother’s death, my marriage falling apart, the horrors of breast cancer and
the traumatic events surrounding it. It all came at me with full-force. As my
tears flowed freely and without apology, I realized with a sort of shock that
terrible things have happened to me. Terrible, frightening, painful…and
beautiful things. It’s not that I was unaware of all this before. I was just
too busy surviving it all and besides, how can you look at the whole picture
before it’s been fully painted?
And oh, it’s a masterpiece! Its shapes and hues…the way they
pull me in. Even now as I’m attempting to write a perfectly ornate and gilded
frame for this work of a lifetime, I am unsure if I will ever be able to fully
understand it. Perhaps this is why I share my story so freely. Sometimes the
painter doesn’t fully understand the work created. Sometimes it is up to the
viewer to aid in its interpretation.
I suppose I could say that the story isn’t over yet but a
very large and important chapter, at the very least, is coming to a close. The
stitches still need to come out and I will be needing tattoos to finalize my
surgeon’s masterful work, but that is all in the gilding of the frame, I
believe.
As I stand here looking back, reading the story, viewing the
pictures, finding the emotions, I am overwhelmed. I survived this. I really
survived this. There are parts I finally get to grieve over. There are parts I
have yet to learn how to celebrate. And there are fears of the future coming to
surface as well.
What happens now? I’m in school again. I’m still working on
my jewelry. A year ago, I had just kicked my husband out. A few days later on
my birthday, I was literally facing homelessness and then a friend on Facebook
put $1400 in my PayPal account. That same day it snowed…and it was beautiful. I’ve
been living as a single mother for a year and on my birthday this time around,
I will be attending one of Mr. Eric’s seminars, learning how to disarm
handguns. Holy shit. What happened? When did I go from learning to survive to
learning how to LIVE? I suppose it was getting my nipples in January. Nipples
in January: sounds like a great name for a band doesn’t it?
