Whatever Will I Ever Do Without Who I Thought I Was?

What life looked like before the journey through the desert, the clues begin to drop. Would I be able to to confront the inevitable? Would you?

For the last two weeks I have shared my story of the Agent of Change – the catalyst to begin what would be a ten-year journey to a truer understanding of my purpose. It’s not that I didn’t know what I was supposed to “do” in my life or what, ultimately, my talents were. For me, they showed up pretty early. But understanding why I was given certain talents, who they were for, and how I would ultimately implement them – that was the journey I was about to take.

I don’t claim – and maybe never will – full understanding even now. But now I know a deepening and a widening and even a piercing - a targeting -  was about to happen. Much of it was joyful, tons of it painful. All of it required a quantum leap of faith and a willingness to lose what I had. Even when I was unwilling. For on the passage through mid-life (well, that’s what it was for me – still passing through) I have learned that whether or not you desire or are willing to undergo the rite – it will undergo you. So, “Yes” is probably the best answer.

You might want to catch up on The Agent of Change Part I and Part II before reading this!

Back to the story. Things were spiraling in (what I assumed was) the wrong direction. Down. And the spiral was elongating itself. The downhill ride gaining speed.

Some context. My life for approximately twenty-five years had been about acting in theatre and film. I was a child actor. Went to University for it. Specialized in it. Went to NYC, LA, London, and various cities regionally achieving a good part of it.

I remember, I had a career coach once who, in a group session, after knowing me for several years, commented about me to the rest of the group. She said that there are certain people who do a lot of creative things within the entertainment industry in addition to acting (stunt work, directing, stage management etc.) But “Fleur is an example of someone who is meant to act. That’s her thing. That’s what she does.” She wasn’t making the point that I could not do other things (here I am, after all, devoted to storytelling, a branch of the acting tree) but she was making the point that without acting, I was the type that would ultimately wither on the vine. She saw that in me. I never forgot that. I also already knew it. But she was claiming it on my behalf in front of colleagues. It was a meaningful moment.

Why do I share this with you? Because my journey through the desert and away from what I would fret over for the worse part of ten years – the loss of my dream of acting – hung on the head of this pin.

Whatever will I ever do without who I thought I was?

My Agent of Change had had its reckoning. Oh boo hoo, I know. But considering what rather than who she represented, this boded much worse than “not well”.

In 2009, I had already departed Los Angeles back to the East Coast after a bushwhacking artistically and bitch-slapping financially following the infamous 2008 crash of just about everything. I took my souped-up leased Jetta to the car dealer, walked in the office, handed over the keys and said I couldn’t afford it anymore. Take it back. The dealer’s response was a classic example of someone not fighting the inevitable. He took them back, no questions asked, no fees, no contracts, no blow-back. It seems many had come before me. I never heard from hi again but before I left, he invited to come back one day to buy a car. True story!

I booked my trip back to NYC in the middle of a blizzard and began to work. It was steadily unsteady for a good three years. Which brings you up to speed on that front.

By now you know I had been not dealing with what was rearing its ugly head(s) as a health issue.

The fibroids.

When you don’t pay attention to fibroids, benign or no, they grow. They had been growing since I’d been twenty-six, the first solitary pebble found in my breast. Ten years later, another doctor had discovered some more. She had me fully checked out in a truly un-fun scanning process. More dime-sized and quarter-sized fibroids were now tracked and mapped by the radiologist around my uterus. You know, just a handful or so. All were diagnosed benign.

Again, I was told not to worry about them “unless they begin to grow and cause problems.”

Okay.

That was in 2006.

Have you ever had something that you knew was going fully but still slightly deniably in the direction of Wrong - that you refused to deal with?

Me, too.

I remember around 2009 as I returned to NYC, I had started going to a gym. Now I knew that the fibroids were there and had gotten a little bigger because my abdomen had started to look, to me, slightly lopsided. No one else could tell – or perhaps in truth I began to get smart about where the waist line of my jeans hit, making sure they covered the tiny new muffin (too low for a true muffin top) from emerging into sight. But here I was on my back; my arms lengthened above my head, legs lengthened below, toes pointed. I gazed downward and that’s when I saw it. The lump had become a bump. Not a pretty bump. Not a baby bump. But a lumpy bump. An uneven protrusion of my lower middle section.

Emphasized by Spandex.

I rolled over.

And that’s when what was denied would no longer go unheard or unseen.

As “small” as that ant hill on my lower stomach seemed at the time, it felt like the Rock of Gibraltar – and as far as I could tell roughly the same shape. That little monster had the strength and solidity to balance my body atop it.

[An emergency announcement interrupts the Zumba tunes suddenly over the speakers]: LET THE WORRY AND PANIC COMMENCE.

I acquiesced. It would be another five years before this saga would end. And during those five years. The fibroids would continue to grow and multiply.

I can’t wait to tell you more of how these impacted king-sized marbles rolled out of my body and life. Get ready for miracles upon miracles. But first, my denial and fear would still have their reign. And during their reign, 2009. 2010, 2011, 2012 (The year of the Agent of Change), 2013…

God would ask more of me than I ever thought I could give. And then more. It would be demanded.

I wouldn’t change a thing.

Stay tuned for why.

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Have you ever found yourself in a place like this? Where you had to stop denying what was in front of you? Share in the comments.