Just Write
If you had asked me the date of the last time I wrote something other than a sermon, I would have guessed it has been a little over a year. But a quick look at the stories I published on this blog will show that it was actually January 10, 2022. Two and a half years. Two and a half years. Insert astonished face emoji.
If you had asked me what the last entry was about, I could not have told you. It did not surprise me when I read through it and saw that it was about time going by too fast with my kids. In fact, a quote from that last essay is,
“Kid #2 hugged me. I held on tight.
‘At least you still have me for another three years.’
‘It isn’t long enough,’ I said. ‘It isn’t long enough.’”
For some reason, it seemed important three years ago to not use my family members’ names. I think I expected to blow up, become viral, and I didn’t want their privacy to be thrown out the window just because I wanted to be famous! They are grown now. And, I probably have a better understanding of the reach this blog will have, so I’ll use their names from now on.
The three years that Max referred to are gone. Poof! Just like that. He graduated from High School last week. In the time since I last wrote, Ian decided college isn’t for him and moved to Wyoming. WYOMING! I still track them on my Find My Friends App. Right this moment, he is 1,252 miles from where I sit. Max is just downstairs shaving his head. The balloons from his graduation party are still hanging. The “We are so proud of you” stickers are beginning to fall off. The hundreds of dollars in cash gifts is likely already spent. And, Max moves to Chicago in less than three months. CHICAGO! That is better than Wyoming, but still 537 miles from home.
There is a swirl of information in my brain. I think I’ve written that very sentence before. I don’t know if other people have this experience or if it is a sign that I should be hospitalized in the psych ward. There is so much information and so many thoughts that it feels like a tornado inside my brain. So, here I am trying to organize it, make sense of it all, and be entertaining while I do.
Here is a list of things swirling around up there right now:
1. Just Write
When I was in Jr. High School in a small town in Alabama, our English teacher assigned us the task of writing a short story. I wrote about what I love. Chocolate. It was a murder mystery set in Hershey, Pennsylvania at the Hershey Chocolate Factory. It was a parody. The names were nods to classic American writers. My English teacher LOVED it. He had me read it aloud to the whole class. And, it was so long that I didn’t have time to finish that day, so the next day, he had me to start at the beginning and read it from start to finish again. I’m sure my classmates were thrilled.
When I was in college, my acting teacher assigned us the task of writing an original monologue. As if I had never written anything before, I panicked. “I’m not a writer!” But, because I want teachers to like me, I did the assignment. And, my teacher LOVED it. She was the first person that I remember encouraging me to write. She was not the last. In fact, most recently, my husband, Andy, encouraged me to write about my recent experiences. Before that, Max asked me more than once when I was going to write on this blog again. “I like reading your writing.” And, yet, I continue to go through life not writing. Insert person facepalming emoji.
I happen to be a person who believes that God still speaks to us. It isn’t something that can be explained or fully understood, but in my best moments — or are they my worst moments? — when I am at my most desperate and finally being still and quiet, I yell into the great unknown, “So, God, what do you want me to do?” The answer is always the same. I’m hesitating right now even saying this because it is too crazy. It is always the same answer, “Write. Just write.” And, then I go back to watching Bridgerton like any sane person would do.
2. Cancer
About five weeks ago I was diagnosed with endometrial cancer. Here’s something I’ve learned in those five weeks — endometrial cancer is one of the kinds of uterine cancers. It is the most common form of uterine cancer and being fat is a major contributor to developing it. When I called my husband from work to tell him that I had just gotten that diagnosis over the phone, his first response was “How in the world?”
“Well, sweetie, I’m fat.”
I still laugh quietly to myself that this was his immediate response. He is a practical man. He wants things to make sense. Everything has some kind of reason behind it, right? When I called him a week later to tell him that my uncle had been diagnosed with lung cancer, his question was exactly the same. “How in the world?” My uncle is not a smoker. There is no clear vice to blame for his diagnosis. I don’t really believe there is a clear vice to blame for mine either. I just like to be dramatic.
3. Goodbye Lady Parts
The first order of treatment for endometrial cancer is a hysterectomy. Here is something else I’ve learned in the last month or so. There is no such thing as a “radical hysterectomy” even though it feels very much like a radical event. My surgical oncologist explained to me that the hysterectomy would remove my uterus and cervix. The procedure to remove my ovaries and the tubes attached to them is called a bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy. All of those things were done to me about a week ago. I haven’t even returned to work yet. It went just as planned including five small incisions, a robot, and all of my lady parts coming out through THE LADY PART. I still get queasy just thinking about it.
This was the third time I had gone under general anesthesia in less than a year. The first two times (three months apart) were due to my gall bladder.
“How in the world?”
“Well, sweetie, I allowed my gall bladder to go gang green instead of just taking care of it, so there were lots of complications including having to undergo open surgery.”
Open surgery is exactly what it sounds like. That is the term they use when they can’t use the tiny incisions, tiny instruments, robots, or the like. I’ve learned in recent months that this is a rare occurrence these days. The nurses acted like they had never even seen someone who had undergone open surgery. I was the freak at the carnival. I have the scar to prove it.
Now I have several scars. One is about 10 inches long. There are a couple that are only a couple of inches — the attempt at laparoscopic gall bladder removal before it was aborted. And, I have five that are 3–4 inches long. Just big enough for a robot finger. My belly looks like Frankenstein’s Monster. I have the scars, but all my reproductive organs along with a couple of sentinel lymph nodes are sitting somewhere in a labarotory awaiting the verdict. I’ll hear that verdict next week. The expectation is that the lymph nodes are clear of cancer and that surgery is the only treatment required.
The only treatment required? That is what my OB said after she gave me the diagnosis. That is what the surgical oncologist said in my one meeting with him before surgery. Such good news. “Surgery is likely the only treatment required.” But that is a pretty big kind of treatment. I pray I do not need radiation, chemotherapy, brachytherapy, or any other kind of treatment, but I think I’ve been minimizing a bit. Even if it is the ONLY treatment. It is still surgery and there is still a big void where my womb used to be.
4. Fully in My Body
I meditated today. I used an app to try a “somatic meditation for emotional release.” I did this because I have been depressed all week. This shouldn’t be surprising to anyone, especially not me. They used a robot to remove my reproductive system last week! But, this depression has been weird. Or, maybe it has been exactly the same as all the times I’ve been depressed. I’m still figuring that out.
I just feel numb. I haven’t cried. I haven’t yelled at my family. I haven’t thrown things. I just hang around feeling like maybe I’m in a bowl of jello — this image courtesy of 2009 animated movie Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Man, we loved watching that together as a family. It isn’t exactly uncomfortable, but I’m not able to breathe very deeply. I can feel everything going on around me, but it is kind of like I am touching things while wearing gloves. I eat chocolate pie and it tastes good, but my tastebuds are muted or something.
So, over the last 24 hours, I’ve been asking myself, “What’s the deal?” And, for not the first time in recent years, I realized the deal is that I live inside my intellect and leave my body to fend for itself. And, that hasn’t been very good for her. Do you see? I don’t even think of my body as ME. My brain, yes. But, my body is outside of me. She is something that must be tended to and cared for and blah, blah, blah. She is just so damn needy.
And, so I tried the somatic meditation today as an attempt to live fully in my body which is a goal of mine now — to live fully in my body, integrating mind and body. It is no wonder I am surprised when I cross in front of a mirror. I don’t recognize her. I’ve done everything I can to be separate from her. And, she has had to suffer so very much because of it. I’m going to make amends.
5. Hello Empty Nest
While I sat for 30 minutes practicing something called Havening Technique which is just a new age way of describing petting yourself — rub your palms together, run one hand from shoulder to elbow, then the other arm, rub your face in a way that feels good to you. In other words, acknowledge that you have a body. It sounds really stupid, but I’m telling you that it worked for me. In addition, more woo woo came as the voice on the app led me into identifying a feeling, talking to and for that feeling, and attempting to integrate the feeling into my whole body. For the first couple of minutes of this, I sat repeating “I don’t know. That is the problem. I don’t know what I feel!” Eventually, it became a giant red beam emanating from, you guessed it, where my womb used to be, and identified itself as rage. Imagination is one of the greatest gifts God gave us.
But, I didn’t really feel rage. Or, if I did, it was just the surface. It is grief. I am grieving intensely and it was a surprise to me to find out that what I am grieving is my babies. Weeping on a cushion in the floor of my bedroom, I found myself saying out loud, “I miss my babies.” Well, shit. I didn’t see that coming.
I know that if you are reading this, you are thinking, “Really? She didn’t see that coming?” Yes, it seems so obvious now. Three years ago I was writing about not having enough time with them and now I’m surprised that I’m sad. Call the psych ward! We’ve got a crazy one on our hands.
I think for the last three years, I have gradually pulled away from my kids. They are supposed to do that! Not me! When a friend who has kids the same ages cried about her youngest graduating and going off to college and asked me how I am handling Max going to Chicago, I shrugged and said, “I’m good.”
And, I am good. I really am proud of both of them for going out and making lives for themselves. I do not want them to remain in the nest! I repeat. I do not want them to remain in the nest. But, did the metaphor have to become so literal? Did it really take the loss of my womb to make me understand that this is grief? And, that the grief is about my children? I tried to think of a good meme to send to them that would say,
“Hey, I’m sorry I’ve basically ignored you for three years so that I didn’t have to feel my feelings about your growing up. I do want to reconnect with you as an adult and treat you as such. I do really love you very much and want you to have a wonderful life and be a good, productive member of society. Nothing you can do will ever change my love for you.”
I’ll probably just send them the link to this blog post instead!
The swirling in my mind feels a little less now. I’m noticing how my body feels too. It will take work to make amends to her and to bring the two together in a way that they haven’t been together since I was a child. I’ll keep working to understand how living fully in my body is related to cancer and being an empty nester soon and having three surgeries in less than a year. I guess I’ll keep asking, every now and then, “God, what do you want me to do?” And, I imagine the answer will continue to be “Write. Just write.” And, I hope I will. I really do hope that I will write, that I will write for Max who encourages me to do so, that I will write for my husband who does the same and said I must write about this diagnosis and experience, that I will write for you, whoever you are that may be reading this.
More than anything, tonight, right now, I hope that I will write just because I am a writer. I hope I will write not to make my teachers happy or to get likes or comments. I hope I will write because it is part of who I am and what I do in order to be a fully integrated human being who has entered her second half of life. I hope I will write for me. I’m not making promises to her that I can’t keep, but I am going to try. Insert person raising both hands in celebration emoji.
