The Phrase That Changed Everything

How do you take your denial? I'll have mine with half 'n' half. Then we'll say things we're not supposed to.

I would love to begin this continuation of the impacted jar of pebbles story that was infiltrating my uterus by telling you that as I balanced on them, a belly-fulcrum on the gym floor, that I immediately got up, made an appointment with my doctor and got this burgeoning mountain obliterated.

I’ve made some adjustments to give you a better idea. I’m also a redhead and don’t have tattoos.

Yep, wish I could say that. But then this, though a story, would turn fiction. And I’m sticking with the hard cold facts, Ma’am.

My first thought was no thought. It was more bottled-up worry. Worry in a bottle. Swallowed. Driving the blood through my veins into the new daily capillaries being built by those Little Shop of Horror man-eating bulbs. I could hear them: FEED ME.

As I worried, I stressed. As I stressed, they grew. Because, Friend, that’s how they do.

I think I just started channeling Dr. Seuss.

But they do. Fibroids love your blood. And they’re out for it. As I stuffed it down, down I began to grow more tired. At the time I worked many hours teaching families with toddlers music making. It’s a job that takes a lot of energy as you might imagine. I had that energy. Everyday I spent the breadth of it.

Then I’d go home and sleep for roughly three hours. Around three or four o’clock.

I wasn’t on some self-help love me kick. I wasn’t being “good” to myself. I wasn’t doing research on the art of Siesta.

I was sucked dry of the blood of life. I soon learned this basketful of undigested fruit taking up oblong space in my lower stomach (rapidly aiming northward) was literally sucking out all of the blood I had to live.

Vampires.

They are hard to hide. They are hard to hide in an audition. They are hard to hide in a wrap-dress in an audition. They are hard to hide in a wrap-dress in an audition standing a mere five feet from the production team who couldn’t afford more square footage for the audition space.

Granted, no one ever said anything. (And if you’ve started with me on this journey with my agent at the time, you’d believe me when I say, if she had heard anything she would have said something. Probably after not having eaten for ten hours and then finding out she was overdrawn in her checking account. Then she would have told me that I looked like I was about to birth something from Alien.)

No, but really, I have forgiven her. Really. REALLY!

I recently posted on Instagram “Face your Dragon – or it will grow bigger.” I meant it figuratively, of course. But in this case, the Dragon was physical and filled to the brim with reality. One could argue that the time had long passed to face it. And that, yes, Dragon had grown bigger and was gaining steam drinking my blood like a fourteen year old adolescent boy inhaling every last item in the fridge.

By the way, I am searching for photo proof of all this. I think I may have a total of two. For the evidence has probably been burned, or worse, located on the hard drive of a 2011 Dell lap top. Perhaps by the time I’m finished with this saga it’ll have booted up.

I think of instances where I’ve read a story of someone not “getting it” in their life challenges when it’s so patently clear what must be done. I think, “What are you doing?!” I yell to the story or screen all of my suggestions. Suggestions sooo terrrribly obvious that your pug dog could do it.

Yeah. Other people. They’re just so dumb. Those other people. But me? I have a process.

I’m the only one I realize. I’m just obtuse that way.

Dragons are scary. So one can shrink back or fight back (another Instagram post). I was shrinking back. I felt frightened, alone, unable to scale this Everest. Also, I was a self-employed actress and part-time music teacher. How was I going to pay out of pocket for what I knew in the depths of my soul would amount to surgery? Surgery that, when I allowed a cricket chirp of truth to disrupt my denial, amounted to a deluge of reproductive imagery gone wrong that I was not ready to face. Did I mention I was around 42 by then? Talk about dragons… infertile-breathing.

Yeah. Better just to ignore it all!

And then.

One night, as I stared up at the ceiling, (for I could still see past the belly-mount in my lower periphery), I thought something I’d never thought before.

I thought something dangerous.

I thought something that my then present new-age-tarot-card-reading-pendulum-swinging-aura-seeing-affirmation-screaming-religion-fearing self would never have dared consider in her alert, lucid, and right mind.

I thought of Jesus.

Desperate fear. Desperate measures. For me this would be a call for fantasy. Bible thumpin’ disdaining unbelievable sheer symbolism. Psssh! I’m thinking, Don’t tell anyone you just did that. They’ll take you back to that Maui Guru who tried to hit on you.

I didn’t just think of Jesus. I “spoke” to him. I didn’t just speak to him. I spoke aloud to him. With hubris. Here I was, desperate, alone, afraid and yet had the energy for the eye-roll of pomposity. You would think… you would think I’d approach this… this… person - spirit? …with a little humility. Nope. I lay there sprawled as a fried egg, yolk protruding heavenward where he was supposed to be living and I said:

“Okay, Jesus. Show yourself.”

Followed by a small battalion of phrases like “if you’re real”, “if you are who you say you are,” and maybe a “whatever.” And probably because of the ancestral Catholicism that was buried deep within my DNA of nucleoli, I think I tossed in a shallow yelp toward Mary for good measure.

And such.

I mean, really. What kind of God would help that?

What kind of God would help that.

To be continued….

---

I’d love to hear from you….