The Stories That Lie Just Beneath

Sometimes I stand staring at my naked body in the mirror running my fingers along the scars that scatter my stomach as if they were braille and I was trying to read the stories that live buried deep beneath them.

I try and remember the intimate details of memories from a long time ago. All that comes to mind are vague and scattered ones. Only bits and pieces, sounds, and smells.

The beeping of the machine that connected the pic line into my inner bicep that pumped the three different liquids into me fighting to keep the infection at bay and keep me alive. I remember the day the technician came into my room to insert the pic line and how while she was inserting the line up my arm she told me that if the line went the wrong direction she could blow out my eardrum and how I started crying and demanded that she stop and asked if there was another way and how they wheeled me down somewhere else to finish what she started.

I remember another procedure in a cold room in the basement of the hospital a week after my first surgery when they asked me to lie on my stomach and how I looked at them as if they were crazy and around the room realizing I was all alone and had nobody to defend for me. I sobbed because I was so scared of the pain. My stomach had been cut open and they were asking me to lie flat on it and I still could barely even walk by myself. They gave me valium to calm me down as they inserted the plastic tube into my left butt cheek and deep into my pelvis to help drain the infection that was trying to kill me.

Then the muffled voices of doctors and nurses shuffling around the hallway. I remember Chris the Charge Nurse and how I loved her and everyone that worked on the Swedish seven southwest surgical floor.

I remember watching my mom sob uncontrollably at the end of the hall as they wheeled me back for emergency surgery right after my surgeon told us he was going to have to give me a temporary ileostomy bag. She sobbed for me because she knew my biggest fear was coming true but I was too sick to care. She cared enough for both of us and that image of her crying as she watched me roll away is burned into my mind.

And the mixed smells of sterilization and illness that wafted throughout the halls and the taste that filled my mouth as they injected certain drugs into my line.

I remember waking up in my room from the first surgery, eyes fluttering open, head still foggy from anesthesia and pain meds. The pain I’ll never forget. The excruciating pain and staring up at my older brother looking down at me with his big hopeful smile as I whispered, “Am I going die?”

I trace the smooth six-inch reminder of this time knowing these memories will never go away. These memories will always be there teasing me with the complicated emotions that come from a trauma like this. That one time when someone else’s mistake cost me something great and how what I didn’t know then was that I’d never be able to have children because of it.

There are other memories too. Ones that make me smile. Like how if it wasn’t for that time in my life my older brother would have never met his wife and I wouldn’t have my niece and nephews. She was the nurse that happened to be in the hall when my mom rushed to find help as I stood sobbing naked in the bathroom after the seal broke on my temporary ileostomy bag and everything starting leaking down my leg to the ground below. I remember the door opened and she was backlit by the sunlight and I couldn’t see her face, I could only hear her sweet, comforting voice and somehow I just knew she’d be in my life forever.

Or how every night my dad would come into my hospital room and curl up on the reclining chair next to my bed and we’d watch a documentary about the Green River Killer or the latest on the aftermath of the Tsunami in Thailand until we both fell asleep and how the nurses never asked him to leave. In the middle of the night, I’d have to pee and he’d jump up and we’d fall into habit, helping me put on my socks with the sticky grips on the bottom and unplugging and untangling the cords from the wall from my machine as he slowly pulled me up from the bed.

I remember this one time I needed to feel the January sun on my face so he and I snuck out a back door of the hospital and into a concrete garden and stood there, hand wrapped tightly around the machine pumping different liquids into me as I closed my eyes and felt the sun for the first time in days.

And how after work my older brother would come to sit beside my bed and read the writings of C.S. Lewis to me as I drifting in and out of sleep. I don’t remember a single word but I do remember thinking how his love for God would be enough for both of us.

Then this one time I was sitting on the edge of my hospital bed crying about something I can’t remember what. My mom stood in front of me trying to help me get up. She was growing impatient and I was feeling sorry for myself. I don’t remember why but suddenly we looked at each other and both started laughing and it hurt my stomach so bad but I didn’t care because it felt so good to feel joy for that brief moment. That’s my mom and I for you with our secret language and understanding and perfect timing.

And then there was the day I went from bad to good. From sick to healing. From walking a thin line to turning the corner. I remember it as if it were yesterday. It was day seven. I woke up and felt better. I felt the life come back to my cheeks and I ate real food for the first time in a week and saw hope for the first time too. My surgeon came into my room and said he could take out the drain in my butt cheek that had become almost unbearable at that point because of where it was and he said, “okay, count to three.” I was so scared it was going to hurt but by three he had already taken it out and I felt nothing but a relief I had been desperate to feel for a week.

I went home two days later but that is a story for another time because those are the stories from only two of the nine scars on my stomach.

Most days I just see the scars that scatter my belly but sometimes, these are the memories that come rushing back when I look at my stomach as I think about how scars are these crazy visual reminders of stories from our lives and nobody ever knows until you open your mouth to tell them.

What's Love Got To Do With It?

"If you are searching for that one person that will change your life, take a look in the mirror." - Unknown

The other day I was Skyping with a friend who's current situation eerily resembles mine almost three and a half years ago. As she shared her fears and worries, I couldn't help but feel a deep sense of empathy and compassion for where she was. As she nervously confided in me about her decision to leave her marriage of two years, I wanted to wrap my arms around her and say, "It's gonna be okay. I promise. One day it will be even better then okay." 

I wanted to tell her everything I had learned over the last three and a half years about love and how sometimes loss leads you to discovering some of the most magical things about yourself and about life.

I wanted to share how a lot of the time, we think the love from someone else is enough but it isn't. What is enough however is having the courage to do what is in your heart which isn't always the easy thing.

 But I couldn't, it wasn't my place. I knew all these lessons were ones she had to come to on her own. All I could do was listen and hope that she felt my love and support from thousands of miles away. 

It got me wondering though, how many people are married or coupled up who have done so under the same false pretenses I did? The one that says the right person will come along and save you. They will love you enough so that you won't have to learn the very thing that WILL save you; loving yourself.

 I also wondered how many people were staying in relationships that resembled the very one I was in because it felt safe or because they felt it was something the should do. Those damn should's. 

I grew up believing in the fairy tale. The one that had my prince charming riding in on his Technicolor My Little Pony and rescuing me in some way, shape or form. Hey, these were my fantasies and regular horses bored the hell out of me. My Little Ponies were what my romantic dreams were made of. 

He’d trot in with his perfectly parted Ken Doll hair because what young girl doesn't adore Ken. With his sparkling blue eyes and his big, bronze muscles, which were just a little stiff if you asked me, and he'd scoop me up with his arms that barely hinged at the elbows and we’d ride off into the blazing sunset to live happily ever after in our Barbie Dream House. The one with the white picket fence, the perfect career making the perfect amount of money, the 2.5 kids, and a friggin' partridge in a pear tree.  And that wouldbe our "The End".

Fast-forward to real life and one painfully failed marriage and a handful of brutal dating scenarios with openly emotionally unavailable men and this single thirty-seven year old has finally realized that love looks a little different then what my youthful (and delusional) dreams were once so naively made of.

It's taken me a long time to admit to myself that real love isn't the stuff that Blockbusters and fairytales are made of.

It definitely isn’t a Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan movie.

It isn’t black and white.

And absolutely, under no circumstance, can real love sweep in on a brightly colored pony and save you. 

Entering any partnership under these pretenses is bound to fail you at some point.  

But let me start from the beginning. Let me tell how I came to realize that I had it all wrong. That my idea of real love was nothing more then a deceptive idea passed down over time and adopted by a girl who just wanted a happily ever after. 

Let me tell you what love isn't. 

I remember waking in the early hours of a cold February morning in 2014 from another restless night sleep. A fresh layer of white snow covered the bare vines and steep rolling hills of the fifty acre farm and vineyard I had called home for the past four years. I pulled the covers up close to my chin and in the stillness of the early morning light left over from the moon, I looked to my left at the silhouette silently sleeping next to me and my chest tightened. The heaviness returned from its eight hour break and once again, I wondered how I had allowed myself to get here. 

That had become the norm. I was thirty-three and found myself in a manipulative marriage of less then two years that had become more about constantly trying to change each other then acceptance, support, encouragement and love. I found myself constantly wondering if this was really it. Was this really what love and marriage were? Deception, lies, dread and control? 

Was I really that desperate to be coupled up that I had sacrificed my own personal happiness to do so? 

What about the fairytale? What about my prince charming and my technicolor pony ride off into my rainbow color sunset? What about my happily ever after? 

I slipped out from beneath the covers, quiet as to not wake my then husband, desperate for a few more hours to myself before I had to face my very own Jackal and Hyde. I tip toed down the stairs into the bathroom on the main floor and flipped on the light. Instead of avoiding the mirror as I normally did, I stood, staring down the reflection.

I looked tired and defeated from the daily disappointment and heartache of what I had allowed my life to become. I had no idea who the women in the mirror was. I had broken a promise I made to myself a long time ago after growing up with parents who's marriage resemble the one I now found myself frantically treading water in.

"How did you let this happen? This can't be it." I whispered to the girl in the mirror. For the first time I allowed the words to bubble up and before I knew it, slip out my lips and into the hands of the very thing that could save me, my own.  

It was as if I had broken some kind of spell and I snapped out of the delusional fog I was in. I made a promise to  myself that I would do whatever I had to do to live this one precious life the way I knew, in my heart, I needed to live it. Not chasing down the love of someone else but rather figuring out what that meant on my own.

The events that transpired over the next two months were heavy and heartbreaking but perfectly laid out for me so that I had no other choice but to leave.

In mid-May, just days before what was to be my second wedding anniversary, I found my car packed with all my belongings as I drove north back home to Seattle wondering how I was ever going to put my life back together. However, in my heart I knew a life stumbling solo was far better then being coupled up in something that was abusive and neglectful and lacking any sense of what I believe to be true love. 

So what does love have to do with it anyway?

Not to sound incredibly cliche, but one of the greatest lessons I learned from walking away from my marriage was that love between two people just isn't enough. You have got to love yourself first. Unfortunately, I had no idea what that looked like and had a long road of hard and repetitive lessons ahead.

How we learn to love ourselves looks different for all of us but I wholeheartedly believe that until we learn to do just that, our lives are going to be full of a lot of pain and suffering because we are going to be constantly looking for that love from others.

The greatest step I ever took was finally listening to my heart and walking away from something that was safe, comfortable and familiar for the complete and utter unknown. It was in that moment I cracked a little piece of the puzzle and realized that this was the way to the truth. This was the way I was going to learn how to love myself and step into a life that felt like me. 

The moment I drove away from comfort I knew I had started a wild and crazy journey into the depths of my own heart. Something I had only ever dipped my toes in. 

I said yes to something big and scary and I have kept saying yes to things that terrify me because I know they will keep leading me to deeper parts of myself. 

So what does love have to do with it? 

Absolutely everything. 

Love with someone else may not be enough but you better believe the love you feel for yourself is. That is the answer. Until you know what that looks like it is going to be really hard to invite in the kind of love you deserve and want with someone else. 

The path isn't always paved perfectly and those bumps and challenges are usually leading you to discovering another part of yourself that needs some love. That's what all those hard, often repetitive lessons are meant to do. They are supposed to shine light on the areas that need more of your own love. 

That is where I'm at now, facing many of the same lessons over and over, slowly realizing I have the choice to love myself enough to say not again.

I'm learning to love myself by leaning into those parts of me that are unfamiliar and choosing to do things differently. I'm creating the life I want that feels like the truth even if it doesn't make sense at the time. And I'm just going to keep doing this. Day in and day out. I'm going to wake up every day and continue to make choices, easy or hard, that are based around doing what is best for my heart, my path, my journey, my life.

I'm going to continue to say goodbye to people, places and things that do not serve my heart and allow time and truth to cultivate the space for those things that do. 

So that hopefully, one day, when the right man walks into my life, I can let him love me just that way too.