an egg at rest

Not that many people know about this blog, and that was intentional. I wanted to be able to write freely, without a client or employee knowing who I am, without consequences. I curse and dabble in some self-indulgent rambling... I talk about sex, write about sex and, on occasion, actually get to have sex that I'll want to talk/write/think about… but most of you who read this already know all of this (and more) about me, and love me anyway.

At any rate, I was flattered to have folks ask me why I wasn’t blogging, asking me to update the blog because they liked to read it. Like I told a couple of people, I had started a couple of entries, but I wanted it to be real, to be good; for me, at this time, “good” requires real, and real, in this case, isn't so easy.

But the more I thought about it all, and struggled to put it down in just the right way, the less real this would be. So here it is, rough but real… unfinished – like me.

Thank you for being there... always.

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i almost died on may 21st. and on may 22nd. and on may 23rd.

i guess we can all say that we “almost died” on any given day – leave 5 minutes late and avoid that car accident, chew thoroughly and fail to choke, take the same flight but a day early to surprise your mom and twist your fate… but i mean it. i almost died.

something was wrong and i knew it, knew it in my core, the way that you know what your name is. and i felt my body take it to the next level, i felt it fight back against my attempts to mold it into what i wanted and take control once and for all.

i had signed all of the papers, the plethora of pages that detail how they are not liable, how they should let you rest when there is nothing left to do because that's what you want, that's how you'd like it to be. it makes you feel empowered and merciful, to a degree – i choose to go peacefully, with dignity. my mom won’t have to decide, my friends won’t have to tell her that this is what i would have wanted. i've said it, in writing. i'm a responsible person. i've made plans.

but you don’t think it will actually be relevant. not now. not for you. not when you are finally getting everything together to take the next step, to take care of yourself. that’s not how stories work – i’m a reader, a writer, i know these things. this is not the part of the story where the living will is relevant. this is not the part where the heroine dies.

but i felt it all. i felt my body fight back against my attempts at a new beginning. i felt my stomach – the old/big one, not the new/baby one – tear open. i felt it rip, like someone had stabbed me from the inside out. i felt that bile, overflowing, hot and heavy with fear and unhappiness, gush into the rest of my body in an attempt to penetrate me. it seeped into parts of me i didn’t know existed, fiercely staking its claim.

i had to step outside of myself to gain some perspective on it… i had started to write that “i had to leave myself” but, for the first time in my life i didn’t leave myself, i didn’t want to. i wanted to fight back, to claim myself and be present in a way i never had been before. but to do that i had to give myself room, i had to work on bigger things from the inside out while everything from eating and peeing to breathing was being done for me.

in my version of pygmalion, everything gets worse before it gets better. i am told that i was monstrous, swollen beyond recognition. it was days before they washed the blood from my hair, days before i was allowed to realize that i was still alive. so much work had been done – to me, for me – in so many ways, by my doctors, my angels, the pillars in my life that i am lucky to call my family and friends. when they opened me up a second time and evicted the bile within me, i was washed clean with the love and good wishes of the people in my life; that is what bloated me, what healed me, what i had to accept and digest.

it may be hard to understand but, having come out of the ordeal happy and healthy, i am almost grateful that it happened. i can be somewhat stubborn and, when it comes to my personal issues/work i tend to stay in my head and deconstruct it, trying to find “the” solution. my “solutions”, however, have traditionally started with a physical change: lose weight. in addition to being an incredible release (which, in my mind, was a proportional response that almost validates what a huge issue my weight is for me), my body’s response was a reminder: stop letting your body limit how you see yourself or define who you are. your body will still be your body, your questions your questions, your fears and desires yours alone, regardless of your weight. some would argue that my body shouldn’t have felt the need to speak so loudly… but, as i mentioned, i can be stubborn. this forced me to focus, it made me listen.

my stomach is now the size of an egg (or probably a baseball, if i’m full, but an egg at rest).

i am alive, and i am grateful.

i am present, and i am grateful.

i listen, and i breathe... and i am grateful.

i almost died on may 21st. but i didn’t.

i have too many things to do.