Nipples in January

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 31^st, 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 22^nd 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 23^rd 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?

When I leave it behind...

Most people would never guess in a million years that there are scars stretching across my chest with no nipples.

I've just been struck by a thought...or rather a string of them. This happens sometimes when 'm beading. As my hands piece things together my head begins to do the same. The parallels are fascinating, really. Sometimes the pattern doesn't work out so I have to undo my work, re-plan, re-arrange, and re-string. I suppose life can be like beading necklaces.

My mom came out of surgery doing quite well. Since she does not have to suffer chemotherapy or radiation, she was able to get breast implants at the same time as the mastectomy. That gave me comfort. It doesn't completely erase the horror but it softens the blow quite a bit.

It was in May of 2012 that I was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer. For the past two and a half years, breast cancer has been the major defining factor of my life. I've been a new mother fighting breast cancer, I've been a wife fighting breast cancer, I've been a single mom fighting breast cancer. I've been an artist, a writer, a student, a destitute daughter and friend...it's all been tangled up in cancer. Having done this dance twice, I already knew that its mark was permanent.

You don't just “get cancer” and then leave it at the side of the road abandoned or sitting by itself in a restaurant wondering what happened. Once it grips you it is a part of you forever. However, that leaves me to wonder at what point it will stop being one of the first things that is used to describe me, like having my hair dyed purple or learning Krav Maga. When I take off my bra I see breasts with no nipples and scars screaming across them. Cancer's mark is there in the mirror every day. It is inside my voice when I say hello to someone, when I do my dishes, when I pay my cell phone bill. I make jewelry for the cause, I am writing a book. I have been shut away from the “real world” for so long that social situations normal to most have become strange and alien to me.

Looking back at my brother's death, I see how losing George is a permanent part of me but not the defining circumstance hovering over every day like it once was. I will always be a grieving sister I suppose, but I don't start each day with “my brother died” anymore. Will cancer be the same way? When it is no longer one of the first things to talk about what will I have to say? I've been walking this dreamscape for so long, I'm not so sure I will ever be fully returned to “reality.” Maybe that's okay though. But at some point...I'll need to find something else to talk about.  

Not Dealing With It...

Some days I feel like I can face anything. Even on the more difficult days, I know that whatever is going on, whatever monsters are breathing down my neck, nothing will stop me. Even if they slow me down or knock me over, I will get back up because that's what I do. I get up. I deal with it.

My mom has breast cancer. I haven't talked about it much because, well, I can't deal with it. Tomorrow she goes in to have both breasts removed and I can't deal with it. She won't have to do chemo or radiation like I did...but I'm still not dealing with it. I can't. I don't know how.

When I was pregnant with my daughter and my husband crawled into a bottle, my mom swooped in and gave me support. We had been distant from each other for a very long time, but in an instant, the gap was closed. I largely had to go through my pregnancy alone, but I had my mother back. Then as breast cancer came for me a few months later, there she was again. The mom I was always at odds with or felt misunderstood by became my rock. She became my connection to survival and sanity. She put herself in financial and marital strain to help me through. She has been supportive in my divorce and my decision to do Krav Maga because she wants me to be happy and she wants to see me thrive.

I can't deal with this. I just can't deal with this. It hurts too much. It scares me too much. And there's this crazy, irrational part of my brain that wonders if the strain of helping me through my cancer somehow lead to her cancer. It's not uncommon to hear of a woman getting breast cancer years after it happened to her mother but this...this is weird. This is unsettling and I just can't process it. There is nothing I can do for her and there is no way I can be there at the hospital so far away to wait in agony while she undergoes the same painful surgery I had to endure. Maybe if I was there, maybe if I could hold her hand, I could process it. Maybe I could smile at her the way she smiles at me and tell her that it's alright because I've been there and I know. But here I am, in the dark, all alone, knowing that tomorrow my mother will be butchered and there is nothing I can do.

Some things as it turns out, are beyond my ability to deal with.

Prayer to the Dancing Wind

Today the wind blows fiercely.

Branches are falling,

their remnants littering the roads.

The towering evergreen sentinels

guarding my little sky-fortress

are caught up in a wild and impassioned dance and I...

I am quiet.

I am still.

Brimming with

a heady, disembodying sensation,

I step out into the day

and let November's cool rush around me,

swirling my cloak, tangling my hair...

kissing my neck.

I am calm in its wild.

I am free in its chaos.

Loving winds, wake me please.

For the Love of Krav Maga

I have a new love...

I know it's been a while since my last post. Things have been a whirlwind and I'm just now figuring out my new pattern, my new way of progressing. I have returned to the Reike Path and have recently been attuned to Elemental Reike. It is doing wonderful things for me. My new love however, my new love has taken the fighter I am inside, and is extracting it to my exterior, piece by piece. It is making me feel more whole and alive than I have ever been.

Shortly after my reconstruction began, when I was still living with the crippling pain of tissue expanders in my chest, slowly stretching my burnt and scarred skin, I was sent to a physical therapist. I had lost most of the ability to lift or reach with my left arm, due to the removal of my lymph nodes, and the decimation of my chest muscle by radiation as well as the re-routing of a portion of my latissimus muscle from my back to the front. In short: the brutality of treatments lead to an equally brutal and shockingly horrific beginning to the journey of making me as physically whole as possible. There was so much pain...and so many limitations to how I could function.

My physical therapist was a delightfully boisterous woman named Joyce. Joyce was wonderful! She loved dogs, she was a master at her profession, she had a warm spirit, and I could talk to her. I can't remember how many sessions we had, but it was cut short by my insurance refusing to cover all that she had planned for me. At the beginning of one of our sessions, I noticed that she had bruises on her forearms. I wasn't going to ask but she said “Before you ask...” and told me about how she was in her Krav Maga class and somebody had a weapon and she didn't. It was her job to take said weapon from the other person...and that was her explanation for the bruises. I could feel my eyes widen with interest. She filled me in a little bit on the wonderful world of Krav Maga and I had her write it down for me so I could look it up.

I never did.

The sessions ended and the piece of paper wound up in my purse. I would find it occasionally and put it back. Tissue expansion continued for a while. Thankfully Joyce had helped me enough so that I wasn't in constant pain. Mornings were still rough but I had stretches to help. Once I was expanded to the size I wanted, it was time for permanent implants and...well...if you read back there are entries about some of the following surgeries.

Surgeries continued (and are almost finished), my marriage fell apart, I damn near went homeless...a few times, I won my disability case, and I began to focus on my jewelry business and getting better emotionally, physically, and spiritually. I started going for walks, and then I started riding my bike six miles a day. Finally, my life was becoming something good. Finally, I was finding happiness.

Shortly after I won my settlement for the two years of disability I was initially denied, despite meeting the full qualifications...you know, having breast cancer and all...of being disabled. I could now pay off a few bills, pay rent, take care of my car...and take some good friends out for a well-deserved meal.

Amber and Nasir, who have taken me out numerous times for dinner, picked me and Violet up and before we found our destination, we happened by a little plaza-strip mall-thing that I go by several times a week. I think I knew there was a Martial Arts school there, but hadn't really thought much about it (other than once in a while musing about what form of martial arts would be good for me if I ever had the guts to pursue it). However, on this particular passing, a sign...no literally, a sign caught my attention. It's big red letters spelled “KRAV MAGA.”

I thought about Joyce. I thought about how I've been poisoned, butchered, and burned. I thought about my brother's death, the heart-wrenching end to my marriage, and how I'm still here. I'm still standing. I'm shaking, but I'm standing. I thought about the countless times I've been called a “warrior” through all of this, and I realized that it was time to really become one.

The very next day, I went into East West Martial Arts and signed up for an introductory “see-how-you-like-it” class. $25 and a free shirt! How could I pass that up? I left my name to be called back for an appointment and as events unfolded, I found myself in my first class on a Friday afternoon, nervous as Hell, but bubbling with excitement. I was taken to a small room with mirrors where I was given a brief one-on-one introduction, then I was lead out into a much larger room with mirrors...and there were other people there. I was surrounded by strangers in a well-lit room, feeling out of my element, wondering if I'd made a mistake but refusing to go back. I hate being “the new kid” but new I was, and already on a journey of re-birth, as it were. I had no idea what to expect so in that wide-eyed and terrified kind of way, I listened for instruction and followed as best I could with a little extra help. We started by jogging in circles...and I tripped over a raised part of the floor mat, falling on my ass. Great. Awesome. Get up. Keep going. You're here. Do this. I ran in circles, I did push-ups...sort of, I did sit-ups, I learned how to punch, how to kick. It was exhausting, but I was unfolding. I was filling up with vitality and life. I was hungry for more. By the end of my first class I knew I had found my new love, Krav Maga. I signed up for the nine month program. THIS would be my rehabilitation. THIS would be the physical therapy I need.

It's only been about a month, but everything has changed. I am already stronger, more confident, and happier. I am SO happy!!! I have even officially gone off antidepressants with my doctor's full approval because this...THIS fills a void. Even when it hurts, it brings me such joy, such fulfillment, such purpose! I don't ever want to quit. I want to see this thing through. I want to get good at it. I want to become what people tell me I am. I want to be a warrior. For me it is not enough to survive. I want to thrive. I want to fly.

I will learn. I will grow. I will fight. I will fly.

Pulling Triggers

A day in the life I suppose…

But the triggers. The triggers are daily. I really outdid myself on dinner tonight: chicken strips, jo-jo’s, battered mushrooms and onion rings…and it. Was. Amazing. I’m still pondering 4ths.

Violet would have none of it. She wanted cereal or chips, or whatever was inside the cupboard she was pointing at while screaming until I wondered if my ears could actually bleed from prolonged exposure to this otherworldly screeching. Really the sheer emotional violence of her protest was quite something to behold. Now, mind you, I had another one of my reconstructive surgeries only 9 days ago…one of the liposuction/fat-injection deals. Have I mentioned how excruciating liposuction is? Well it is and the recovery time is a bitch. It takes forever, it leaves nerve-damage, and don’t even get me started on the bruising.

So the protest became escalated to the point of having to take her into her room, lie down with her in her bed and attempt to hold her while she screamed it out. Now, I know she wasn’t starving. She was just being picky. But let me tell you…holding a raging child screaming “I hungry, I HUNGRY” while you are struggling not to allow further damage to your post-surgical person…might just pull a trigger.

Have you ever been so hungry that you cried? I’m not talking low-blood sugar or being out of the good stuff until food stamps come in a week. I’m talking continuous barely eating so as not to run completely out until your ribs show, your period stops and you are so exhausted from being hungry all the time that some days you open the cupboard and weep. Yeah. That’s hunger. I’ve cried over many things in my life. Some were really worthy of tears, some were futile and wasted, but there is nothing so bitter as crying because you’re hungry. That my friends, for me, is the bottom of the barrel. That is the ultimate in humiliation and despair.  

Thankfully since I’ve been a single mom, those tears have not return. Let me be clear that I am NOT blaming my ex-husband for any of that part. I’m choosing to chalk it up as just how the dice landed. For whatever reason, it has turned out the way it has and I have not shed a tear of starvation in quite some time. There have been plenty of other tears, of course. In early July, I even broke. Yes, I broke. But it wasn’t hunger that broke me and I have since rebuilt myself. As my daughter kicked and screamed tonight because she was “hungry”. A trigger was pulled. And so in turn I am choosing to pull that trigger AWAY. Away from me, away from my child. As long as I have any power over her wellbeing she will never cry from genuine hunger and I will never allow myself to starve to that point of sad desperation again. Ever.

*Que Scarlet O’Hara*

Here is another trigger from today...

Waiting for the Lines to be Painted

Divorce sucks even when you are glad to be out of the relationship. I think there’s a period in which we lie to ourselves to ease the transition. My marriage certainly wasn't full of comfort and togetherness…at least not the last few years of it. I grew cold toward him and he did the same. However, even when you are miserable you have the illusion of comfort. When something difficult or painful was happening other than the marriage itself, there was still usually a shoulder or warm arms to wrap myself up in and pretend that there was comfort…pretend that everything would be okay. Now when everything is not okay, there is no masking it with hugs. There is no illusion of protection from the partner who really isn't my partner. The harshness of everything is right there and I have to deal with it.

To ease the trauma, we might tell ourselves that significant others are more trouble than they are worth and that we really don’t want to deal with that shit anymore. It’s true that I don’t NEED a man and to have one too soon would be damaging and confusing. To say I don’t want one though isn't entirely true. I’m not looking to be taken care of. I’m too prideful for that. Sex is fun and I do miss a good go-round, but that’s not it either. To have someone play with my hair, to hold me when tragedy shakes my world, to have those conversations that we only have with a partner while cooking dinner, having coffee in the morning with messy hair and bad breath, or maybe while cuddling on the sofa…that’s what I miss and it was missing from my marriage for a long time. I miss emotional intimacy. I miss knowing that there was someone to talk to without pulling anyone away from their world because that person was part of MY world.

I don’t need a man. I don’t need a relationship and right now that would be bad for me. But I’d be lying if I said that sometimes I don’t want one…just to ease the sting. This is a rite of passage, I suppose. I’ve always been independent and content to spend time alone. But sometimes when alone is the only option…alone can turn to lonely. Maybe when Violet is old enough to discuss her day in more detail it won’t be so bad. Maybe as time continues to pass I won’t want to be with anyone other than her at all. But one day, she’ll move on to live her own life which is what I want for her.

Don’t get me wrong, I love being able to call the shots at home. I like having MY territory. As the ghost of my marriage still haunts me, I am rebelling against what was by becoming what I want to be. I am stirring up the what-is to create the what-will-be. One day maybe I’ll have someone to share that with. Right now what I really want is to be happy alone. I don’t need anyone but I don’t want to want anyone either.

The apartment complex has been repaving the parking lot. Today as I stood in the middle of it under the afternoon sun, what is usually filled with cars and residents moving about, was more like a desolate ghost town. The pavement was new and smooth, waiting for the lines to be painted. Ready but not ready. Renewed but unfinished. Maybe I just need to remember that it’s only going to feel like this until my lines are painted.