Dawning

My Abortion Story

I never thought I’d be in this position.

The last month of my life has been the strangest whirlwind of physical and emotional debris and I never thought it would happen to me. But it did.

Let me take you back to July 3rd. I was at work, and I was feeling a little off. Like my abdomen was cramping, as if my period was about to start, but my period had not come. When I went to the bathroom, my pee was orange. Sorry if that’s TMI, I grew up in a family of nurses. I don’t have a sense of delicacy about bodily functions. And if this bothers you, exit this post now, it will NOT get better.

I assumed I had a bladder infection. So after work, I went directly to Urgent Care, thinking that I would pee in a cup, they’d send me home with antibiotics, and I’d be right as rain in a couple of days.

This is not what happened. The doctor came back and said “you tested negative for an infection but… are you concerned about pregnancy?”

Here’s the thing. My period was 2 weeks late at this point. But I was sure that it was just the stress of my mother being in and out of the hospital. I was positive my period was going to start in a few days, based on my weird abdominal cramping the weeks before and the worse than usual hormonal acne on my back. Totally normal. Right? RIGHT?!

The doctor came back into the exam room and told me “you tested positive for being pregnant.”

I literally told the doctor to “SHUT UP!” Not like in a “I want you to shut up” way, but in a shocked like a surprised valley girl way. And then said, “well, that’s a whole OTHER thing to start stressing out about…”

The doctor and nurse were incredibly nice, they told me to be kind to myself, to keep living my life as normal. But I was urged, due to the symptoms I was having (remember, I thought I had a UTI) to go to the Emergency Room.

I drove home, my mind spinning. I got home, my mother was sitting in her recliner, napping through another foreign language detective series. I told her that I had to go to the Emergency Room because I…. was pregnant. Her face lit up and she got the softest smile I had ever seen. She asked in a hopeful tone, “Really?”

I had to tell her immediately, “don’t get excited, don’t get attached. It’s too early.”

She understood and I told her why it was recommended I go to the ER. She asked if I wanted her to go with me, but after spending literal days in the hospital the week prior, I told her she’d had enough time in the hospital. I could go on my own.

I then called my partner Sid and the moment I told him, his face lit up and he showed me the brightest smile I had ever seen. I told him the same thing I told my mother, not to get excited, it’s too early, going to the Emergency Room because I have weird symptoms and I’d rather be safe than sorry.

I spent a total of 4 hours in the local, small town Emergency Room.

As soon as I got there, I called my sister. Her brain literally broke.

It was very surreal sitting in the Emergency Room waiting area, discussing being pregnant, unsure if I was going to keep it or not, in a room of strangers.

When I was called back to my own room, they ran blood tests which again confirmed the pregnancy, checked my vitals, and I mostly waited, watching cable tv – old reruns of Modern Family. The strangest part of the visit was being wheeled to another part of the hospital where I had a transvaginal ultrasound.

It was 45 minutes of me awkwardly trying to make the ultrasound tech laugh, because that’s what I do when I’m nervous or uncomfortable. She was great though. She explained the process and did her best to prepare me for what to expect. I can understand why these kinds of ultrasounds feel so invasive and violating. There is literally a big rod covered in lube and the tech has to insert it into the vagina and sweep side to side at different depths to get a full view of the entire area. I was wheeled back to my room where I waited yet again, watching more bad cable television for another hour and a half.

After all the tests and imaging, what they found was that I was indeed pregnant, it was super early so they couldn’t tell me much, it was in the right spot (meaning it wasn’t an ectopic pregnancy, which is actually dangerous), and that there wasn’t anything concerning that they could see, but they gave me a referral for the local women’s clinic.

Side note: I just got my bill for the ER visit. What’s even the point of Health Insurance? I’m grateful they took care of half the bill, but seriously. It’s a scam. America’s Healthcare system is stupid.

By the time I had my first visit with the women’s health clinic, my earlier concerning symptoms had gone away from that first ER visit and I was feeling more normal. My sister went with me for support. The doctor and I talked about all sorts of things. My fatigue and low blood pressure, which she validated by telling me I’m like a human battery right now, powering this tiny thing inside me. We talked about my concerns of being pregnant and 40 years old, fibroid tumors and how they would affect a pregnancy, and high blood pressure, which I don’t think I necessarily have but it was flagged at the ER because sometimes it does read high when I’m anxious about being at the hospital, and high blood pressure increases your risk of preeclampsia, another dangerous pregnancy complication.

This is where the magic happens. The doctor asked if we had time to do an ultrasound, and I said “yeah, sure!” I think I still felt very separated from the pregnancy. It was happening to my body, but I was still unsure how to feel about being pregnant. It didn’t feel real. So I put in a box and locked it to protect my heart from getting hurt.

Because of the fibroid tumors, the doctor had to do another transvaginal ultrasound (fibroid tumors make it hard to see from the outside) and the doctor showed me on the screen the yolk sac, and the fetal pole and put me at about 6 and a half weeks pregnant. She was then able to aim just right so that my sister and I could see a tiny little heartbeat.

The little box inside of me burst open and I looked at my sister, who was already in happy tears, and I don’t really know how to describe it. I knew my life would never be the same. This was magic. This is literally life. Everything I thought I knew was now different.

My partner and I had been talking about it for a long time. He wanted a family so bad, and I had been unsure. For the last 20 years of my life, I had assumed I would never have children. I could never afford it, and I never had a partner who wanted children or I felt would help me divide the work in a way that didn’t make me resentful. Sid had challenged all of my preconceived notions about parenthood and he showed me that he was capable of being the man that I needed if I were to become a mother. HOWEVER, Sid has been struggling to find a job for months and has been so stressed out about it. You’ve never seen a more hardworking unemployed person in your entire life. At least, I never have.

But after this doctor’s visit, something in me changed. I decided that I was going to be a mother.

I spent three weeks getting nervously excited about what my life might look like in the future. As long as everything went well. Because it was too early to get excited, even though I was getting excited. I was also ill. I know this is different for every pregnant person, and for me, it wasn’t that bad, but I felt so ill after eating literally anything and I started to be unable to eat some of my favorite food. I was constantly drinking peppermint tea to settle the nausea. The thought of certain foods made me want to gag. I haven’t been able to eat chicken in a month. My body also had new limitations. I would get fatigued by early afternoon at work. The HIIT workouts I used to do a month previously, now required 3 full days of rest and were too hard on my body. No one really tells you how hard the first trimester of pregnancy is. Sure, morning sickness is a typical film trope, but it’s only one aspect of the symptoms pregnant people feel as their body goes through a lot of change.

Sid was getting less and less on board with the pregnancy and more and more stressed out. My heart was starting to break watching him literally tear himself into pieces working so hard, speaking to so many job recruiters, studying new skills to make him a more outstanding candidate, preparing for so many interviews, and coming up empty every time, multiple times a week, for 5 months. I knew that it wasn’t 100% decided, but I had a feeling that I was going to have to let it go. And like I always do, I started preparing my heart for the worst.

Sid did the math and figured out how expensive having a child would be, and he panicked. We “discussed” back and forth a lot. I tried to convince him that 1. this is how life is, it NEVER goes according to plan and 2. we would figure it out.

We met and we talked it through. He had written down all of his points and told me his thoughts, like the president addressing the masses in a time of crisis. He didn’t think we should keep it because he didn’t have a stable source of income, he didn’t have the savings to support a child. And I understood and I was incredibly sad, but I said okay. Because I don’t want to bring a life into this world if it’s not entirely welcome. I didn’t want to bring a life into this world if we aren’t ready for it. We should both be all in.

Then the sadness overtook me. I was so sad. I was grieving (still am) for something that wasn’t fully formed, something I didn’t know, the potential of a future life, I don’t know. All of the above probably.

There was also the fear of judgement. I had to tell my boss at work about being pregnant, even though I didn’t really want to, because being sick and fatigued all the time, I needed to be open about my limitations in my semi-physically demanding job. She was so excited for me when I told her I was pregnant, and when I had to tell her that I wasn’t keeping it, even though she has been more open-minded than I expected her to be, I could still feel her leaning towards me keeping it. Part of me knows it’s because she saw me get excited, and then she saw my tears when I told her we weren’t keeping it. She kept insisting on me taking my time to decide. Time. The truth is, I didn’t have time. Generally, terminating a pregnancy is best done before the 12 week mark because it’s easier and less complicated. And when I had decided to terminate, I was already at 9 and a half weeks. Getting an abortion after 12 weeks becomes a hospital surgery and is available in my state, but more costly and more difficult.

I had to go to my next doctor’s appointment by myself. I was terrified. It was my 10 week check up and I was supposed to have an ultrasound, but I called the day before and told them that we had decided to terminate the pregnancy and I didn’t want to waste time and resources on an ultrasound. I was in tears when I called. And I was shaking when I left work to go to the appointment. When I got to the appointment I was almost in tears again. When the doctor came into the exam room, she gently asked me to clarify that I was terminating the pregnancy and I said yes, and she gently and kindly told me everything was okay, there was no wrong answer here, and walked me through my options while being extremely welcoming and nonjudgmental. I felt so much better after talking to her.

Before my appointment I had researched my options to try to make a decision about how I wanted to terminate the pregnancy. There is medicine abortion and there is the procedural abortion. I had planned to do medicine abortion because the abortion happens in the comfort of your own home. But after talking to the doctor who added details like: it takes 24-48 hours for the abortion to actually start, there is a lot of bad cramping and heavy heavy bleeding for about 1 to 2 hours, and then it’s over. Procedural abortion is coming into the clinic, they dilate your cervix, then scoop and suction everything out while you are asleep. The actual procedure probably takes about 10 minutes with a pretty quick recovery.

After talking to the doctor, I decided to schedule a procedural abortion. Being asleep for 10 minutes while the horror show was being taken care of just seemed like a better option than the visceral pain and blood of doing it at home. I wanted Sid to be there, partly because I was so angry and I wanted him to see and understand what I was going through, but also, because I needed someone to drive me there and back home. My sister also decided to come, and honestly, I needed her so much. She gives me a sense of inner peace and calm and will tell me everything will be okay, and if things are not okay, she will make sure I am taken care of.

I was so angry though. I was angry at Sid, and I was angry in general. I’m the one who has to pay the price. I carry the burden of pregnancy, my hormones rage and change, my body changes, my body gets hijacked and is exhausted and I can’t eat the food I want and I am the one who has to suffer the pain of going through an abortion. I was especially angry because this man wanted a family so bad, and when the opportunity came, he changed his mind. I understand why, but I was feeling an emotional whiplash that was hard to swallow. This is also something I am going to carry for the rest of my life. I don’t feel shame about this. This is just another form of healthcare. But it’s also incredibly complicated because the child was wanted, but the timing was bad. I will probably always wonder “what if?” I will probably always question whether or not I made the right decision, no matter how many times I tell myself that the timing was bad, and if it was meant to be, it will happen again when things are better. This is a scar that I will carry forever.

Sid was also heartbroken. The Saturday before my scheduled procedure, we talked about us, big picture future stuff and we committed to each other. He also asked me if we could wait to decide whether or not to keep it. I told him no. Because if we decided later we couldn’t keep it, it would be so much harder on me, physically and mentally, but also, we had decided and I can’t keep going back and forth. My heart had already been broken and I had grieved. I wasn’t even angry anymore. Somewhat. Once it was decided, that was it. No going back. The box was locked and would not be opened again.

I was 10 and a half weeks pregnant. Sid and my sister Candyce both went to my procedure with me. I was in the exam room all by myself with the nurse, nervously chatting to her for an hour as I was prepped for the procedure. She explained the procedure so that I would know what to expect, which my anxious brain always appreciates. NO SURPRISES! The doctor came in and did another quick ultrasound just to make sure that there was a need for the procedure, which there was. I wasn’t forced to see it or anything, it was just a quick verification. The anesthesiologist was an incredibly large man with the sweetest softest voice you could imagine. When he asked me if I had any questions I just told him to make sure I get a good nap. When it was time to start, I had the nurse in the room, two doctors, three medical assistants and the anesthesiologist. It was incredibly overwhelming to have so many people in such a tiny room. I didn’t have time to feel overwhelmed though. As soon as my knees were in the stirrups I was asleep. The next time I opened my eyes, and it was just me and my nurse in the room. She had me drink some apple juice and she gave me a bag of goldfish crackers. She popped a heat pack and gave it to me for my abdomen. She told me that the procedure went perfectly, “textbook” they said, repeatedly. I always aim to be the best at everything, including best patient. As soon as I felt ready, I was able to get up and walk out to the waiting room in which my family, Sid and Candyce were waiting. As soon as they saw me, their faces lit up and they jumped out of their chairs to come meet me and wrap me in hugs. In this whole mess of an experience, I’m going to carry that moment with me for always.

One of the hardest things for me to do is to accept help from others, let alone even ask for it. I’ve been taking care of myself for almost my whole life. My sister took care of me when I was a child, and as soon as I was a teen I was taking care of myself. I’ve been taking care of my mother for the last few years and there is a huge part of me that feels tired and wishes someone would also take care of me. My partner and my sister made me feel supported. I cannot convey in words how overwhelmingly grateful I feel for Sid and Candyce. This whole weekend has been so difficult. The incredible warmth I feel from my sister and my partner I will carry with me always. I am loved.

It’s hard taking care of your pregnant self and taking care of your mother. Especially when she seems incapable of being sympathetic, empathetic and understanding. My mother and I are similar in how we deal with stress. We shut down, build walls, and have a hard time opening up and being vulnerable with each other. The difference between us is that I work to be open and communicate with her when I am having a hard time because when the tension is thick between us, I don’t want her to feel like it’s her fault, even if sometimes, it is. Or it’s the dementia I’m mad at, not her. I just often don’t have the energy for myself or for her. It’s hard. It’s really hard. It’s heartbreakingly hard to take care of a parent who wasn’t really around to parent you. It’s hard when my mother is so self-centered, and not in a malicious way, she just has a hard time with letting her walls down enough to connect with others in a vulnerable way. But through this experience, she has tried. When I told her about our decision to terminate the pregnancy, she was sad. She said, “Oh, I really wanted to meet my grandson.” (Bold assumption to think it was a boy…) A few days later, when I was angry, my mother and I weren’t communicating well. Our walls were built up and I had no energy between feeling nauseated and fatigued, and the emotional turmoil I had within. I opened up to her, letting her into what I was feeling. First, I told her it was really hard to be okay when I had to have the energy for her and have none left for myself. I told her that it made me feel very alone when I’m struggling to be okay and she needs so much of my help. Then I opened up to her about the anger I was feeling. Sid was off having fun with his friends while I was nauseated, sick, anxious about a procedure and feeling like I alone carry the painful burden of not only being pregnant, but also of going through the pain of terminating the pregnancy. I was so surprised when my mother’s “Mama Bear” side came out. I never saw it very often, but suddenly this frail 80 year old woman was mad at my partner too, and wanted to let him have it. Then my mother did something that she rarely does. She let down her wall and opened up to me about her own abortion experience. This is not something she has ever opened up to us about before.

*FLASHBACK*

My father was already a full blown alcoholic when I was born. A year or two after I was born, my mother was pregnant again, but she knew that there was no way she could raise another child with my father who was not only incapacitated most of the time, he was also abusive. This was the mid-80’s. Yes, abortion was legal, but dismantling societal shame around women’s reproductive health is still something we are doing today. She also did this alone, with no support and was awake for the procedure. Not even my father knew about this. I thanked her for being vulnerable with me, and sharing her story with me. It was her way of trying to connect and comfort me, and it’s not something she does very often. I then asked her if I had to go through a traumatic experience to unlock her other secrets. As a joke. But my mother has buried her wounds so deep that they don’t get unearthed very easily. Over this weekend, with my sister being here, she opened up even more. Watching me go through this process brought up her own traumas and pain and I am so grateful that she was able to open up to us, and connect with us.

The thing I’m struggling with right now is my mother’s self-centeredness. Again, it’s not malicious, and she probably doesn’t see it as self-centeredness. Which is fine. I’m doing my best to meet her where she is at. My mother’s friend had passed away a couple of weeks ago, and the funeral was this weekend. She was supposed to fly out on Thursday morning, the same day as my procedure. My partner and my sister offered to take my mom to the airport in the morning so I could sleep before getting ready for work. Sid was so mad at me for working before my procedure. He thinks I should have just taken the day off. He’s not wrong, he rarely is. But, Capitalism. Anyway, my mother left, and I had my procedure in the early afternoon. As soon as I got out of the procedure, wobbly and drugged up and they let me out of the group hug, my sister said. “In other news, Spirit Airlines lost mom’s luggage and she’s coming back home tonight.” My sister tried so hard to help my mom with her luggage dilemma, but my mother was adamant about coming back home. I think my mother felt bad about not being home with me over the weekend. Even though she wanted to go to the funeral, I think the baggage being lost gave her the perfect excuse she needed to come back home. The issue is that I was not going to have energy to deal with her, or even go pick her up from the airport. The airport is 50 minutes away, without traffic, from my house. Sid offered to pick her up, even though he had driven to the airport in the morning, driven me to and from my procedure, and now he was going to pick up my mother that evening. My sister was going to go with him but she was overtaken by exhaustion and migraine, which meant I had to go with Sid. I’m just going to say it right now, I shouldn’t have gone. My mother was surprised to see me just hours after my procedure, up and energetically trying to corral her at the airport. As soon as I was in the car, I felt my exhaustion. I felt my anger. I was well over my limit. I should have been home resting. And this is where I am right now. My mother came home and immediately needed help, demanded the energy of everyone. I am empathetic towards her, I understand her dilemma and I am so glad she came back home and feels better after being able to take her meds. But this weekend was supposed to be about me. It was supposed to allow me to recover, grieve, heal. I am feeling so resentful of her. She wasn’t even supposed to be here. I’m glad she was, I’m so glad she opened up and was vulnerable, but I also just don’t feel I got the time I needed for myself.

It’s going to take me time to unravel all of it. The tears are free flowing now. I think they are going to flow for some time. I am not okay. But I will be.

Betrayed by my Body (Again)

Yes, another tale of woe from a thirty-something about how a body part keeps breaking.

Sometimes, things break. You can either glue it back together, or replace the thing with something new. Well, it’s hard to do that with a part of your body. Like, when I herniated a disc in my back, I couldn’t just get a new spine. I had to fix it manually, which meant lots of physical therapy and changing my entire lifestyle. Or when my stomach broke, I had to take lots of Prilosec and change my entire diet. But now I’m at my wits end. My vagina broke!

Yeah, this might be TMI for some but honestly, people with vaginas don’t speak often enough about them. For some reason it tends to be a taboo subject when half the population of the planet has one. So, please don’t be squeamish. Also, advanced warning, this is going to get gross.

Several months ago, I started dating, but also, Republicans and the Supreme Court seem hell-bent on rolling back the right to healthcare for those with vaginas. So I did what any sexually active woman with absolutely no desire to get pregnant would do – I spoke to my doctor about birth control. What followed is a science experiment into HELL that I can’t seem to get out of.

I got a prescription for a combination pill. It’s a combo of estrogen and progestin, which are the hormones that affect a uterus-bearing persons’ reproductive cycle. It was hell from the first go. The first month I was on it, I had breakthrough bleeding for almost the entire month (imagine having a light period almost every day). At the end of the first month, I had a period (barely) and right after, a yeast infection. When I went to the doctor and they tested for a yeast infection, I tested negative and was misdiagnosed, allegedly, with “contact dermatitis” which never seemed to get better and go away – I suffered with uncomfortable itching and discomfort for a month, thinking that it was just some sort of contact dermatitis (skin irritation) that I brought on myself even though I had literally not done anything different in my routine, other than start taking oral birth control. Fun, right? I had a follow up appointment with a specialist and that doctor said that it sounded like a yeast infection and I could take the over the counter medicine for it to see if it cleared it up and if not to come back and see them. Guess what? It cleared up. Did you know that yeast infection tests have a 20% chance of failing? Me neither.

For those who have been lucky enough to never have to deal with this kind of infection: basically everyone has a biome of bacteria in their body, and having a healthy thriving biome of microscopic creatures within you makes you healthier. But sometimes these bacteria get out of balance and when one particular one overgrows, it produces an overabundance of yeast, leading to an infection. The infection produces a really gross discharge that, if it gets bad enough, will look like cottage cheese. It also just makes a person’s sensitive bits red, irritated, sometimes even cracked, and very very itchy. Imagine having an itch so bad, and when you scratch it, it gets SO MUCH WORSE. Sometimes a person’s bacteria goes out of balance because of hormones (like messing with birth control), sometimes it’s poor hygiene (especially not changing out of sweaty or wet clothing), and sometimes it’s eating too much sugar. Who knew?!

So, the second month of birth control was better, but the day after my period ended, I got a yeast infection again. Three weeks after the last cleared up! Since the last yeast infection test failed, I decided to just do the over the counter medicine again, which allowed it to clear up.

And then one month later, it happened again! Another yeast infection! At this point I was back to taking probiotics specifically for people with uteruses and eating greek yogurt every day to try and bolster my good bacteria.

One fateful day, I went to the dentist for some routine work and bless their little hearts, they checked my blood pressure. It was high, even though I didn’t feel stressed out. I do get “white code itis” – basically I get anxious about dentists, or doctors, or most social interactions. After they told me my blood pressure was high, I felt myself get really anxious and have a bit of a panic attack. They waited and talked me through it and I was fine, but every time they checked my blood pressure, even when I was calm, it was high. It could have been anxiety, but my blood pressure persisted at being hypertensive through the next day. I went to the doctor the following afternoon, because I felt weird and I was really anxious. I couldn’t tell if the anxiety was making my blood pressure high or if my blood pressure being high was making me anxious… and she asked if I was still taking the birth control but told me to monitor my blood pressure for a couple of weeks and if it persisted, come back. I checked my blood pressure the next morning, right after I woke up, and it was worse than the night before. I had another panic attack in the shower and almost passed out! I felt okay after some time passed and went about my day, but I was feeling really frustrated that my body was not cooperating with me.

My sister, a nurse, brought up that birth control can raise your blood pressure. Of course it does, I read the entire booklet of side-effects, how could I forget? So I googled my birth control + high blood pressure. The first thing that pops up is that if you are taking that birth control and it raises your blood pressure, to stop taking the birth control immediately. I was a little disappointed (salty) that the doctor didn’t tell me that, but I decided to stop taking the birth control. The science experiment was a colossal failure.

It takes a few months for your body to acclimate to new birth control, but how long does it take for your body to acclimate to being off of birth control?

Well, the jury is still out on that.

After a week of being off birth control, my blood pressure returned to normal and the anxiety completely subsided, which really just showed me that the birth control I was on was just not right for me. I had a follow-up with a different doctor and my blood pressure was completely normal. Halleloo!

I was feeling really good until… the day after my next period. BAM! Yeast infection. I was annoyed, but had some over the counter Miconazole and treated it quickly and it went away quickly.

Then this last month, it happened again, except it was the day BEFORE my period started.

LET ME TELL YOU, dealing with a yeast infection while on your period is a special kind of nightmare. Not only are you dealing with the medicine (the over the counter type is either a cream or a suppository you put directly into your vagina) leaking into your underwear, you are also dealing with menses and all the things that come with a regular period, without being able to wear a tampon. But I made a grave mistake with this particular yeast infection. Let me explain.

So, when you go to the section of the store where the Miconazole yeast infection medicine lives, you will find three flavors. One day, three day or seven day. They all work the same, and it takes the same amount of time for them to work (a week) but the one day is the strongest dose , just one dose and your done. The three day slightly weaker and is one dose for three days in a row, then your done. You get the point. After doing the three day option previously and having good luck with it, I chose to do the one day option. Let me tell you why this was a mistake.

So, generally when a person with a vagina has a yeast infection, the vagina, the labia, and surrounding tissues become irritated and inflamed. The three day dose of Miconazole is gentle enough not to really irritate it too much further. The one day dose on the other hand, which is the dose I took, burned so bad. It is a really strong dose. At the time I thought, “I am so uncomfortable, this may have been a mistake. But also, if it’s burning that means it’s working, right? RIGHT?”

It did work, but it also gave me contact dermatitis. Which means my poor vagina and labia were irritated for days, during my period, an already irritating time. But the yeast infection cleared up really quickly at least…..

Which brings me to now. Two weeks after that yeast infection.

Guess what? I just came back from the seeing the doctor. For what? YOU GUESSED IT, another YEAST INFECTION!

It’s entirely possible that in addition to being caught in a bad hormone cycle due to messing with my hormones (taking birth control SEVERAL MONTHS AGO), eating a bunch of sugar (what? it was the holidays!) can also mess with your body’s natural biome of bacteria.

This is a different doctor than the one I had been seeing, and we have a plan to get me out of this particular circle of hell.

But after spending the last few days being really angry, uncomfortable, and wishing I could just spirit walk out of my meat suit so I didn’t have to deal with the discomfort of meat suit problems… I have some thoughts.

Let’s just acknowledge really quick that women’s reproductive health is understudied and underfunded. Especially birth control. And let me just preface this with: birth control is amazing and is generally safe. I am lucky that 1. I have access to birth control and 2. there are so many birth control options out there! But there are so many birth control options out there… Some are a combination of hormones, some are only one hormone, and that’s not even talking about the different forms – pill, implant, patch, injection, and device! The side-effects aren’t talked about enough or studied enough. It really sucks and I know I can’t be the only one to feel like a human science experiment just trying to figure out whether or not a pharmaceutical product will work without making my life miserable. And I am not sure I have the patience or bandwidth to try and experiment further. This is a lot to ask of those of us with uteruses. Remember when birth control for men came out and it was a colossal failure because of the side-effects? Women were so angry by this because the side-effects were no different from already-existing women’s birth control. A lot of us were salty about it, but also, we should be angry. We should be demanding better options from pharmaceutical companies, rather than just accepting that this is good enough.

I have an anecdote: my mother told me that after I was born, (almost 39 years ago), she had an IUD placed. IUD’s are little t-shaped devices that are placed by a healthcare professional into your cervix to MURDER SPERM so you don’t get pregnant. There are two types- the copper option for those who don’t want to mess with hormones, and the plastic hormone option for those who like the benefit of messing with hormones. And let me be clear, one of the biggest draws of hormonal birth control for me, other than not getting pregnant, obviously, is having better, lighter, easier to deal with periods. My last period on the pill was really easy. It lasted longer, but it was light, the cramps were a fraction of what they are normally… I am actually really disappointed that it didn’t work out. Anyway, 39 years ago, my mother had an IUD placed into her cervix, and I was actually shocked that IUD’s were even a thing back then, considering I didn’t even hear about their existence until maybe a little under a decade ago. My mother told me it fell out of her during a heavy flow period only after having it for a couple of years – they are supposed to last 7 to 10 years. When I was researching for my own information, I remember reading that IUD’s are generally not a good choice for those with bad or heavy periods, among other things, but I am positive this was not information that was known back when my mother had the IUD placed. Or nobody bothered to ask her… It’s wild to me that these things have been around for more than four decades, at least, and haven’t really changed much. This is the state of women’s reproductive healthcare.

I write all this to say that I’ve spent the last few days being angry at my body, and feeling like I’m paying the ridiculous consequences of just trying to feel some joy – overindulging on sweets because it was the holidays, and having a fun and healthy sex life without the worry of a “whoopsie.” It’s so frustrating to feel broken, and unsure of how to fix it. The human body may be a bag of meat and bones, but it’s also a pretty complicated biological system. It is incredibly disconcerting and upsetting to find out that the older we get, the more difficult maintaining a healthy body is. The only advice I can really give is to not be afraid to advocate for yourself, get a second opinion, keep making noise until you get the answers you need to get you on a path to healing/feeling better.

Also, capitalistic healthcare sucks.

That Time I Met an Energy Vampire

I’m the type of person who likes to be open to the possibilities of existence. That is kind of a vague statement. What I mean is, if you tell me something that sounds completely off the wall, but you tell me with sincerity and conviction, I will believe you. I may be skeptical, but I will still believe you. Because I would rather be open to the possibility that you speak to Bigfoot while you go camping in the deep woods or that you’ve been abducted by aliens or that you have chess matches with your ghost roommate than choose not to take someone seriously, whatever their truth may be. Who am I to question someone else’s reality? And also, as long as it’s not hurting anyone… why would I care?

In my new job, a man came in for help, and it is my job to help him, and this man was nice, non-threatening, he was fine. But I am also pretty sure he was an energy vampire.

Anyway…

He started telling me and my co-worker a long story about his problem, and it became evident that he was in a lot of emotional pain that he masks with deadpan humor. Understandable. So, he latched onto me. I started helping him and finding solutions and he starts telling me about the friends in his life who are “healers,” in the Reiki variety. He then asks me if I know what that is and I say yes, to which he shows some surprise. He asks who the healers in my life are. I say “my Auntie.” He asks more questions while I try to find solutions for his actual problem that has nothing to do with healers or Reiki or spirituality.

My coworker has long left the conversation and my boss is on the periphery, watching for if he needs to get involved because my shift ended ten minutes prior…

And this man’s energy is getting a little more manic. I provide him with solutions (products) and he has me set these three items down so that he can pick them up and feel their energy with his hands. He picks one item up, closes his eyes and turns his face towards the ceiling and makes a high pitched “yip” and sets it back down. “I’m not sure,” he says while picking up the next item. His voice gets low and his face casts downwards, “NOOOOO.” He puts that item down, picks up the first item again, closes his eyes and raises his face towards the ceiling, his face scrunching while he makes the “yip” noise again. “Yeah, I think that one is good.” He does this again with the third item while I replace the rejected item with something else.

Listen, if feeling the energy of inanimate objects instead of reading their labels works for you, that is fine. I am not here to judge. It was interesting and a little off the wall, but who am I to say that his method didn’t work?

He then tells me that he has a feeling about me, and asks more questions about my Aunt, like, if she has ever told me that I have special abilities. I say no, but then I think back on it later on and yes, she has told me as such. That I am a “being of light.” So is my sister. So is my niece. My Auntie is a healer of sorts – she is a therapist – but she is genuinely a being who is full of warmth and love and calm. I also learned only a couple of years ago that she can apparently see things before they happen.

What annoyed me about this gentleman is while his energy was getting more and more manic, it felt like he was pushing me. He said, “you have this ability, we need more people like you in this dark world, you should really be doing something with it.” I was just trying to get him out of the store because he was even saying that when his energy gets out of hand he passes out and might end up hospitalized, but also, his energy was getting so manic that he was completely depleting mine. I don’t know how to explain this, but in the 15 minutes he was in the store, he managed to leave me very exhausted. He left, full of gratitude and I was very much out of sorts.

It took me a few days to sort out this whole interaction with this strange man.

First of all, people come up with all sorts of labels for themselves. My friend gets annoyed with every new label she hears and she literally rolls her eyes when she hears people claim to be anything from “empathic” to “Gen Z” to “Sagittarius.” I don’t care if people want to label themselves as anything because people do it for different reasons and honestly it’s none of my business. But my friend and I both agree that labels are not your personality and are not excuses for lack of accountability. For example, if you are late to work, you can’t blame it on being “a Gemini.” I say all this to say that this particular gentleman brought up his healer friends and his “empath” friends and was trying to convince me that I am something special, spiritually, and it rubbed me the wrong way.

You could say that I’m an empath. But I don’t really go around claiming to be one, for two reasons. The first, is that it doesn’t mean anything special. It’s not an award you earn, or a new lifestyle. It’s a trauma response. Empaths are made through trauma. Empaths are hyper sensitive to other people because we had to be in order to survive. I survived my childhood because I learned to read my father’s moods and be silent, be still, be invisible, especially when he was volatile. I can read mood changes, and I can sense a person who wants to do anyone harm from across the room. It makes me great at customer service, and it makes me a survivor. The other reason I don’t go around claiming to be an empath is because it feels self-serving. I don’t need to go around claiming to be a Capricorn, or a Unicorn, or an empath, because it’s not who I am. These things don’t dictate who I am or what I do in the world. I choose to behave in society a certain way, not because I’m an empath, but because I choose kindness and openness. That being said, if you want to wear a t-shirt that says “I’m an Empath,” go right ahead. Do whatever feels right for you. I’m not here to tell anyone what to do with their lives or their wardrobes. But I think this rubs me the wrong way because wearing the word “empath” like a badge feels disingenuous.

But this gentleman really bothered me. I don’t react well when people, especially men, tell me what I should or shouldn’t do. I may be a “being of light,” but that’s only because I survived and clawed my way out of darkness. I am not spiritually enlightened so much as I don’t want other people having to go through the things I went through. I see the humanity in others and I hate when anyone in society is suffering. It doesn’t make me special, it makes me a human being. This emotionally unstable man telling me that I should be doing more with my gifts, while his intentions are not bad, is really just another adult not listening to me when I feel unsafe or unheard. This man told me not to listen with my head but listen with my heart, and he doesn’t understand that the inner child within my heart needs to feel safe and heard. This emotionally unstable man, while growing manic, was very much taking all of my energy. I don’t think he meant to, and I don’t think he was a bad person. I honestly hope I was able to help him and I hope he used my energy and was able to calm himself down after he left.

Energy vampires are real, y’all.

A Reminder: Your Inner Child Needs a Hug

I’ve been dealing with some anxiety lately, and I easily waved it off and blamed it on being worried about my family or THE NEWS… And when I say I have been dealing with anxiety, this is what it looks like – it’s hyper-fixating and staring at the physical things that are making me insecure, like my hair. How my clothes fit. It’s like a scab I have to pick. I also struggle to talk and get agitated and frustrated with myself. It feels like I’ve lost full control of my meatsuit and I just get more and more flustered. Which is GREAT for the self-esteem (sarcasm – HA).

I had a mini-epiphany today – I realized today that I have been looking at all the wrong things and I found the true culprit of the anxiety. My inner child is scared, and the anxiety is literally my inner child trying to get my attention.

How did I get into this position where my inner child, and myself are scared of being loved? The bigger, the deeper the feelings get, the more terrified my inner child, and myself become. I can’t believe after all the progess I’ve made, I can still feel like I’m not enough.

I am constantly being reminded that even though I’ve grown so much, I’ve learned so much, and I have healed so much, there are still open wounds that I haven’t even found yet. It’s frustrating. Especially when they bubble up from the depths of my heart and I struggle to unravel where they came from.

Obviously, I know the answers. I’m a cycle breaker and I’ve been untangling my trauma for several years now…. if you’re new here, the basic, glossed over answer is that I was neglected but also my father was mentally and sometimes physically abusive and home was not safe. ANYWAY… So of course there is a part of me that is terrified to let someone in. Because with letting someone in, there is always the possibility that they will leave someday. But stupid me, it’s too late. They’ve already taken up space in my heart.

It feels like I’m standing on the precipice with newly mended wings, scared to let go because I’m terrified my wings won’t carry me.

I realize that I need to keep my heart open, to let go of the things I can’t control and live in the now. I also need to remind my inner child that I see her, I love her more than anyone and she is and always has been enough.

In the meantime, my inner child is going to wrap herself in music…

The Rage II

I am full of anger. I am full of despair. Fear. Hopelessness. Frustration and a sort of…. powerlessness. Like my hands are tied behind my back and I’m just screaming but no one can hear me.

Obviously this has been a really shitty week in a really shitty several years in America. I am desperately trying not to be cynical so pardon me if some cynicism slips out – I am still processing all of it. I am angry that the minority rules the majority and that 6 people (out of 9), 5 of whom were put in their positions of power on the Supreme Court by presidents who lost the popular vote, were able to undo protections that – let’s be real- were barely hanging on by a thread anyway. I am so angry that this happened, I am even angrier that we knew this was going to happen. They told us they were going to do this. We knew. And what really makes me so angry is all of the people who are JUST NOW joining the conversation. I am trying to have grace and understanding for people. But in half of the country, abortion rights were already a joke, already incredibly undermined by lawmakers who made sure that clinics that performed abortion procedures were underfunded until they were shuttered and whatever clinics still managed to be open and practically impossible to get to were put under so many outlandish and unnecessary regulations that it made it impossible for them to operate. I am SO ANGRY that when it disproportionately affected the poor and people of color in these states for years, it didn’t fucking matter but now that the protection is officially dismantled for the entire country, now that it affects you, you care? The thing that frustrates me so much about this country, and maybe it’s not just America, maybe it’s human nature, is that so many of us don’t give a shit until it affects us. We don’t care about our neighbors’ struggles. We have no empathy for other people. This can’t be true, can it? There are more good people than I think there are, right?

The really incredibly frustrating thing is that it feels like I’m screaming into a void. This is a “woman’s” issue so men will not hear about it, they won’t care about it, they won’t talk to their friends about it. I am begging men to PLEASE talk to your friends. Talk to the women in your lives about things that might be uncomfortable for you or you might not understand, and PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE talk to the men in your lives about these things. I woke up yesterday sad and angry, and hopeless, and the first thing I thought of was that moment way back in 2016 when Hilary Clinton and He Who Shall Not Be Named (hint: he is very orange) had their big televised presidential debate. That moment where he loomed behind her while she spoke, turned away from him, he was angry, big and puffed up, too close for comfort, trying to intimidate her in the way that predators do when they are trying to make a person feel small. So many of us watching had a collective moment of fear and worry, a visceral anxiety that swelled inside of us. I can’t think of that moment without wanting to cry. And then I think of that moment where future Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh sat at his nomination hearing, angrily spittling and crying his angry white male tears because a woman he terrorized in his younger days chose to put herself in the spotlight (and in real danger of harm) and tell us exactly who he is…. he showed us exactly who he is then, he showed us many times since then, and he showed us this week. I thought of every time I saw Joe Biden touch a female colleague’s shoulders or kiss her inappropriately and that awkward uncomfortable nauseous feeling I get in my stomach. I am not surprised by this week. Not at all. Not when we let monsters, abusers, assaulters and those complicit in their behavior run the country and decide the laws.

I mean, I voted. (Eye roll)

Then there is the anger I have for elected officials. It’s not even about “us versus them.” You can blame Republicans all you want, they are unified and have perfected their propaganda machine. They do not fight fair and they are winning. Their white supremacist agenda has been clear to see for decades. And they are winning. The Democratic party is just as much to blame. They uphold systems of white supremacy while being a completely disorganized mess and when shit like this happens, they tell us to fucking vote. Literally. President Joe Biden just said it this morning about the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. Nancy Pelosi as well. They tell us to fucking vote. We voted, we voted for YOU. Voting is not enough. Get your fucking shit together and do your fucking jobs and stop passing the buck. You are all complicit in this. I am so tired. We are so tired. I am so sick and tired of these old career politicians who have been doing it for too long that they are so fucking out of touch. Term limits. Term limits on everyone. A pox on all your houses! J/k.

It’s hard for me to feel like things aren’t hopeless. And don’t get me wrong, I will support others however I can and I will fight like hell, but I have to be honest. We surpassed over a million dead from COVID recently and this just feels like that. We didn’t care and didn’t do enough and allowed a million + people to die, isn’t it folly to think that we will care about all the people with uteruses who will die because a zygote has more bodily autonomy than they do?

Side bar: I am not entertaining anyone who dares to tell a person with a uterus that they “should just not have sex then” or whatever nonsense. First, what a person does in private is none of your fucking business. IT IS ESPECIALLY NOT THE GOVERNMENT’S BUSINESS. Also, why are some people (those with uteruses) demonized for having sex while those without uteruses are not? The thing is, the person with the uterus is 100% responsible for the pregnancy/fetus/baby. The sperm donor is not. The sperm donor gets to fucking walk away without repercussions and responsibilities and sure, you can get a paternity test and have Maury Povich tell a guy that he is in fact “the Father” but unless you can afford a lawyer and a paternity test and whatever else it takes, that person doesn’t have to be responsible if they don’t want to. The burden falls to the person with the womb. Not a single person should be demonized for having consensual sex and not a single person should be FORCED to carry a baby they don’t want/can’t have.

By the way, abortion bans are not about saving lives. “Pro-life” is a misnomer. It’s about control. It’s about controlling the population. If these people actually cared about lives, they would protect our right to choose whether or not to have children. They would care about the unhoused population. No, they want us to birth babies into poverty without access to good education, an easy work-force to control and exploit, and more soldiers for future wars. And they do not care about the body count – those who die in childbirth, those who die homeless, those who are murdered by police, those who die in detention centers at the border. They do not care. As long as their pockets keep getting filled off of our blood, sweat, and tears, they do not care about us. And they never did. It’s the dragon sickness. (Hobbit reference y’all!)

And then there’s the fear. I think if anything, this week has proved to a lot of people that absolutely nothing is guaranteed. Our rights are not guaranteed. Democracy is not guaranteed and honestly, the very little that is left of it is very much in danger. We have to fight for it and right now, for the last few years, I feel like we’ve just been watching it slowly slip through our fingers like sand. As American citizens our rights to privacy have been eroded so much over the last several years. The NSA has been surveilling us for decades, corporations created algorithms that track our every move and sell our data to other companies so that they can do the same, and now the minority rule is chipping away at our right to make decisions about our very lives. They have been chipping away at our right to bodily autonomy and just took a major step. If you aren’t worried about the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and 50 years of precedent, you should be. Your freedom is not guaranteed. Your constitutional right to life, liberty and justice has been eroded so badly without you even realizing it.

So when you celebrate American independence in a week, I want you to really think about what you’re celebrating. Freedom is a lie, unless you are a cis white man in America (and even then, it’s still a fallacy).

Be kind to yourselves, hug your friends, support your sisters, and make a ton of fucking noise.

Too soon?

Dating Sux II

Dating with anxiety is so lame. The lamest. I know most people probably get nervous when meeting a new person for the first time, but holy shit.

So, I mentioned before, I didn’t date a whole ton in my youth – too much self-doubt, not enough confidence in myself – being an invisible person was just easier. It wasn’t a good way to go about life, but it was the only way I knew how to survive in the world. Now I feel like I’m learning how to date in my late 30’s while trying to come out of my shell of invisibility and I am already SO tired.

So, I matched with a new person over a week ago on a dating app. I think I was already in a period of self-doubt when his profile popped up. He was pretty cute and his selfies were incredibly awkward which made me laugh and his profile was interesting and intriguing and just enough out of my comfort zone that I was a bit intimidated and terrified to hit the “like” button or… “swipe right” as the kids say. But I swallowed my fears and did it after meticulously staring at his profile for hours. We texted back and forth a little and he wanted to meet a couple days later.

I warn all my dates (like there are so many HA) ahead of time that I am awkward and deal with social anxiety because what more could a guy want than a date who comes with a disclaimer? I do a lot to try to manage my social anxiety. First and foremost I’m always early. Nothing makes my anxiety worse than being late or WORSE – being on time. If I don’t know the place I will look it up, get a feel for the layout, figure out parking and pray that I don’t have to worry about crazy busy street parking because parallel parking is my nightmare. And lastly, I will listen to music along the way. I chose Iron Maiden (for the POWER) and it actually did help. When I showed up (so early) I was able to hang out in my car, listen to more Iron Maiden, and chill out while doing the exercises I learned in therapy to ground myself.

Until he showed up DARING to be cuter than his profile photos. So unfair. I turned into the human version of one of those teacup-sized chihuahuas that shake all of the time. I was doing okay, even though I was shaking violently, and was able to make conversation and I was still having a good time, but I also found myself apologizing because the inevitable happened – I got awkward. I became hyperaware of myself, tried to shrink and stop being able to maintain eye contact. Then I suddenly couldn’t pronounce words. I felt like such a disaster. One of my good friends would tell me (and has told me) that I am “the kind of disaster anyone would want to be struck by.” Thanks, babe, all I’m hoping for is that someone finds this disaster cute and charming.

This man took pity on this poor human sized shaky chihuahua sitting across from him in this weird empty diner and decided to get up and sit next to me instead in an attempt to be comforting and sweet which… I’m honestly not sure if it made it better or worse. He was in my bubble suddenly and I was having to fight through the anxiety wall just to figure out if I was okay with him being there. And thankfully, after a few minutes, I was fine. I was okay. The shaking stopped and I was able to be a bit more normal. Whatever “normal” means.

The anxiety wall is so frustrating to deal with in these situations. We left the diner and went for a walk and my date was very affectionate. Each time he would show me affection, hold my hand, put his arm around my waist, I would have to fight through the anxiety and self-doubt to try and figure out how I truly felt about this person while he pushed things forward and I tried to fight my way out of my head just to try to be in the moment and enjoy it for what it was – a date with an actual human man. And just to be clear, I was enjoying myself. It was just taking me awhile to catch up to my date who I felt was working way harder at pulling me out of my shell than he should have had to. Which is a frustrating feeling. Not great for the high level of self-doubt I was already feeling.

Essentially, I was fighting my anxiety and self-doubt for an entire date and had a really hard time being in the moment. Once I could get through the haze of self-doubt I could listen to my gut which told me that I was okay and that I was actually enjoying the affection that was being shown to me.

I left the date feeling unsure. I didn’t know him well enough so I was reading into whatever details I could glean in the few hours we were together, but unfortunately most of those details were through a weird lens of self-doubt. I didn’t reply back to his sweet messages for over a day and when I finally did, I said “I don’t think it’s going to work out. Good luck.”

I totally threw a wrench at him, but I regretted it almost as soon as I did it. He responded the next morning with a long and sweet message, and I was so glad he did. I messaged him with how I was feeling about the date and why I threw a wrench at him and he told me that he wanted to chat with me. I was so nervous. I got a second chance to talk to him and I was scared I was going to fuck it up. Then we returned to a flirty banter which was really surprising. We texted a bit more and he asked to meet up in person. Let me tell you, the second date was an entirely different experience and so much better than the first. I was much more relaxed, the conversation was fun and flirty, and we were just much more in sync, yet still figuring things out.

And as of this writing I haven’t managed to scare him away yet so……………..

Dating really does suck. But this experience has shown me that it actually can be fun too, and I’m doing my best to navigate it while remembering that good things will only happen if I am open to it. But now I’m dealing with the absolute terror that is the growth of feelings and beginning to feel like I’m about to fall off a cliff. Oh boy. Anyway, why Sean Connery? My date brought up Sean Connery and I said “even his accent has a beard!” It made him laugh. I am fucking hilarious.

All media is property of original owners (although I did turn them into gifs myself)

2021 is OVER

QUEEN

While I sit here trying to process the news of Betty the White’s death, I thought maybe I should just try to sum up the year while I’m at it.

We lost Betty White today. She was an absolute legend in entertainment. She was hilarious, groundbreaking, and all in unassuming sweet packaging. That was part of her charm. She was 99, set to turn 100 years old next week. Betty White has seen some shit. Now she gets to rest while the rest of us mourn her and miss her. Rest in peace, Queen.

So while none of us want to claim 2022 as “our year” because the last few years have been… well… I’m going to look back on what 2021 has been for me.

2021 has been my year of rest and trying to find peace. I have been coming to terms with what had actually happened. I was so stressed out due to work/pandemic that I actually made myself physically sick and I am still dealing with the aftermath of that. I had bad stress related acid reflux that affected my ability to eat food and changed my relationship with food so that I actually became malnourished a few times. The lasting affects of which actually caused my hair to thin a lot. Turns out after a visit to the doctor and extensive bloodwork, that while I am NOT anemic, I do have an iron deficiency. Nutrition is so important. We often think we are invincible in our youth and for some reason many of us will sacrifice our health for our families or our jobs or even because we were never taught the right way to be healthy. Maybe it’s a combination of all of that. The good news is that I quit my job last February, and while I do miss aspects of it, I am so glad I am privileged and lucky enough to be able to afford a break and also to lean on family. Because while I needed this break to heal my body and breathe, I also got to spend real quality time with my sister and niece, and that has been everything. It’s also allowed me to reprioritize myself, and I think that’s what a lot of people are doing right now. Nothing like a pandemic to make us realize that we actually deserve better. Now if we can just overthrow our corporate overlords……

My fam and our matching Ted Lasso holiday sweatshirts

I really leaned into my fangirl nerdiness this year by doing something I’ve wanted to learn how to do for ages. I learned how to make gifs in photoshop. See, there are lots of fandoms on Tumblr, you know, social media for nerds. And in these fandoms are creators. Some write fanfiction, some create fanart, and some take scenes or shots of their favorite actors and make them into moving gifs. I’ve always wanted to learn how to make beautiful gifs in Photoshop. And I did that this year. And it’s one of those things where you learn how to do it, but you have to practice and get better. I’m pretty good at it now, but I’m still learning. I’m also learning how to do regular stuff in photoshop but I’m just sooooooo not good at any of that yet. I am super grateful for the internet and all of the blogs and experts who have come before me. Also, my birthday is coming up and so is my Photoshop subscription renewal. *hint*

I MADE THIS! (also, John Cho is perfect, and he is a perfect Spike Spiegel, and Cowboy Bebop live action was GREAT)

And through fandom I’ve actually made a couple of friends. Very sweet people who live in faraway and exciting places. No matter how big the world is, we can connect with anyone anywhere.

Me and lots of other people got vaccinated for COVID (I also just got my booster, thanks) which helped us to feel a little more comfortable and normal, for like, a week. That was fun. In all seriousness though, getting vaccinated did take a lot of the edge off of the pandemic anxiety.

I went on a hike by myself, on a rainy day, which is why I look sarcastic!

My sister and I spent the night in Spokane to see Hasan Minhaj, look at her pose next to a thing in a park at 20 degrees F!

I don’t even feel like it’s New Years Eve. It just feels like another day, and in a way it is. With the Omicron variant complicating everything, there are no celebrations to go to. Nothing to mark the passage of time. Except maybe a neighbor setting off fireworks and making me very, very grumpy at midnight. Curse the lack of rain today! The only thing I want to take with me into 2022 is that I am still a priority. I plan to keep growing and pushing out of my comfort zone and making things happen.

So, let us all wave goodbye to 2021. Bye, fuck off, whatever. I’m not entering 2022 with much optimism for the world, but maybe a little for myself. I aim to be healthier and happier because while I cannot control the world, I can control what I do and who I am in the world. So, cheers to those we’ve lost, and cheers to those of us who have survived. To growing stronger and better next year!

Just gonna leave one of my favorite songs right here….

Media that is not mine is property of original owners

Dating Sux

The Starfish

Hi, I’m in my late 30’s and I just joined the world of online dating for the first time ever. Some things about me: I’m am painfully introverted and meeting people is hard. Thanks, I hate it. I haven’t dated a lot. Dating was a disaster in my early 20’s and then I was in a long term loving relationship for almost a decade before breaking up and then PANDEMIC. So, here I am, opening myself up to not being lonely anymore while the Omicron variant of COVID-19 is growing exponentially. *sigh*

I started with Hinge, and I got so overwhelmed I deleted my profile immediately. I found Hinge incredibly intimidating. Also, I’m not ready to pay for anything yet – and it seemed like the only way I could do ANYTHING was to shell out $30. I understand fully why you pay for these things, I’m not throwing shade at anyone who does, I just don’t want to right now. I’m just dipping my toe into the water, getting a feel for the process. And trying my darnedest to be open to the process even if it terrifies the hell out of me. I then tried out Coffee Meets Bagel and it is a much less overwhelming app to look at. And I had a match almost right away. I will call him “A.”

A was cute. His pictures were cute and his profile had answers that were similar to mine – we shared similar values and were in similar places in our lives. He stood out because his profile pictures were fun and goofy, he really liked to clean, and most importantly, he was a cat dad. I like that I’m talking about him in past tense like he’s dead or something. He is fine. I think. Anyway, we started chatting and we were hitting it off. He was nice, sweet, funny, vaccinated and we found lots of things to chat about. He wanted to have a virtual date but couldn’t get a video chat thing to work on his end, so he bought my mother and I Thai food from a local place (I had to go pick it up-he does not have my address-I’m not an idiot) and then we ended up chatting on the phone for 4.5 hours. His sense of humor was fun, but a little impish. He liked to tease but only had fun if everyone was having fun.

We chatted again the next night, more briefly, but texted a lot. We had decent chemistry in our conversations and I was getting really excited to meet him, and he seemed really excited to meet me too. I think we were both catching feelings, but at the same time, I was preparing for possible disappointment. I was starting to get tired of not knowing when he was joking or being serious and gave up on worrying about it because we were going to meet in person and I would be able to assess it all better during our date.

Date day: I was feeling comfortable and good. We met halfway between us at a coffee shop I hadn’t been to in ages. When he got out of his car, I was no longer excited. Whatever attraction I was feeling via text/phone was now absent. There was nothing. We hugged awkwardly and we chatted and the awkwardness didn’t leave. We chatted over hot chocolate and half-eaten sandwiches and I tried to take in all his features while he rambled awkwardly and I tried to figure out what was wrong.

We ended the date in disappointment and on the drive home I analyzed all of our previous conversations and what the heck just happened.

A’s crime was using old photos on his profile and on his Instagram. I fully understand the insecurity one has in putting your pictures to have them judged in a snap via dating apps. But the person I was expecting was not the person that showed up and I felt a betrayal. It made my gut instinct just immediately say “no.” I could not go forward. Not even a little. Not one bit. I thought back to all the times he joked about catfishing, then in a text conversation the night before our date he told me his photos were two years old (I think they were actually older than that), then he followed it with a joke and I didn’t know what information to take seriously. But when he showed up, I understood. In hindsight, the humor about catfishing seemed like a cover for his insecurities, so that when he actually showed up, I felt catfished* (*I realize that this is actually a bit of an exaggeration and not really catfishing but UGH regardless), and it’s not like I wasn’t technically warned. *sigh*

So, my first date via online dating ended in a big letdown. Why does anybody do this to themselves? This really sucks! I know the answer to this – in order to make meaningful connections and relationships, you have to open yourself up and be vulnerable. It just really sucks when it doesn’t work out. I’ve learned a lot from this experience, and I am really happy to know that my instincts still work. So for now, I will take a breath, and I will try again another day (not today).

Epilogue: I had some weird dreams the night after the date. First starting out with an intergalactic adventure or battle, nothing out of the ordinary, except I picked up a starfish. No matter where I was going, or what adventure I was on, every once in awhile, I’d look down and see that I was holding onto a starfish. There was even a point where one of it’s little suction cup grippers were reaching out and I placed it in my palm so it could grip me fully.

When I woke up I immediately googled dreaming about starfish (if you believe in that kind of thing) and the gist is, seeing a starfish has a lot to do with making sure you are listening to your gut instincts. It is also a symbol meaning regeneration and healing – the starfish itself felt like it was telling me I was going to be okay, like it was my talisman. It felt sorrowful (I still actually want to cry) but it was also a reminder that I did the right thing by listening to my heart.

Home

It’s probably obvious if you know me or have been following up with me for a bit that I am in a phase of transition and have been for a few years. There are growing pains for sure, but I am a caterpillar who is trying to claw and wiggle my way out of a very thick, dark, heavy cocoon. One that I’ve been shrouded in for my entire life. It’s heavy and filled with sadness and pain, it’s a place that is comfortable because it is what I’ve known my entire life – it feels safe – but it is actually none of those things. It isn’t comfortable, it hurts. It is far from safe, it’s dragging me down and threatening to drown me with it.

Whew, that was a fun paragraph.

I was driving back to my mother’s house from my sister’s house last night, and I was caught in a moment of stillness. Part memory, part mindfulness. The moon was shining down on me in between rain clouds, traffic just kept on rolling in the darkness. I remembered my favorite times as a child – in the backseat of the car, listening to music, staring out the window and letting my imagination run wild. It was a peaceful sadness washing over me.

I haven’t felt like I’ve had a home for a few years. Maybe not ever. Home for me is never really a place. It isn’t an address. It’s where love is. That can mean anything to anyone. But this place I am in now is not my home – it never has been. When we moved in my mother even said we were disrupting her life. I have not forgotten it, or that feeling that came with it. My mother is a facade. On the outside, she looks like a mother, a grandma, and her house is filled with charming knick-knacks, the fridge is filled with food and the garden is thriving. But it’s all pretend. This is not a home, it’s a house filled with poison. Every step I take is carefully trying to avoid landmines of trauma that threaten to trigger a response and send me further down into the void that threatens to swallow me up.

I sound so melodramatic. Jeez.

I write all this to say that my mind has shifted in an unexpected way.

It has been a long week at my sister’s house. Not to say that there’s been anything daunting, but I came to her house depressed. My anxiety has caused me to overthink and make me awkward and I’m so grateful for the kindness and patience of others who are obviously filled with more positivity than I expect out of anyone…. It’s been a long week of uncertainty, of trying to put some puzzle pieces of my self together, of more uncertainty, and of definitely feeling like an outsider who belongs nowhere.

*sigh* I am so tired of me.

But last night while I was driving back to my mother’s house in the moonlight, letting sadness wash over me, I realized something. It felt like I was leaving home.

Imposter Syndrome

My inner saboteur is louder than anything else right now. I was in a room full of people and she had me convinced that I am an imposter, a fraud. I don’t belong there. I am unworthy. No one wants to know this person (me). I don’t even want to know her. She belongs no where and she is no good at anything and she is useless.

Logically speaking, I know that my inner saboteur is wrong. But my heart is refusing to listen to logic. This overwhelming sense of worthlessness is incredibly familiar to me, like a warm old coat I forgot about and found again in the back of the closet. I am trying to give myself space to grieve while I process and untangle my heart. I don’t want to feel like I’m drowning in this anymore.

I shouldn’t compare myself to others, but it’s so hard sometimes. My mother and my relatives compared me, taught us to compare ourselves, to each other and everyone else all the time. I was regarded with disdain by aunts and other relatives when asked that dreaded question at Thanksgiving – “where are you working?” Then I would be regaled by how amazing and successful their own children are and how they are thriving, in a way that made me feel like I had chosen poorly. How my entire family ended up hating each other and playing this weird game of “my child is better than your child” I will never understand. It’s a game no one can win. But it’s also a knee-jerk default and so hard to unlearn.

It’s hard to let go of all this shame I have carried for so long. The shame my mother gave me. The shame society gave me for not following the template (you know, the one that says you have to go to college, have a career, get married, own a home, have babies, even though I don’t want to do most of that and it is also completely unaffordable). Other people seem to be thriving, and I can’t seem to make that happen for myself. Is it because my inner child still feels unworthy, even after all this time?

How do I convince my inner child that she is worthy of love? How do I convince her that she is worthy of the life she wants? How do I convince her that so many of the things she is worried about don’t actually fucking matter in the end? How do I tell her it’s going to be okay when nothing is?

Anyway, thanks for reading. I’m fine. I had a good ugly cry – the kind that makes your head hurt and you panic because you can’t breathe and you think “did I get COVID?” but then you remember to breathe through your mouth because your sinuses are angry (the ugly crying, remember?) and your lungs are working just fine.

Today’s post has been brought to you by Trauma – it’s a trap!

You know she’s depressed when she is listening to Radiohead………..

I solemnly swear my next blog post will not be like this.