September 16, 2017
by thebohemianjournalist
1 Comment

diary of a barren woman. october 28, 2015.

The hospital smells of fluorescent lighting and disinfectant and illness. I know there are people who love the white sterility, the aura of duty and miraculous action, the uniformity of the scrubs and the beeping machines and power of practical answers. But this is one of the last places I want to be, just about ever, but especially today: The Day.

When I change into the hospital gown the short round nurse gives me, there’s also a pair of red socks with white no-slip treads on the bottom. I am so grateful for these socks. They are comforting to me.

Someone else comes to take my blood. She has skin like dark chocolate and is stunningly beautiful. Her English is saturated in accent. I like her. But she thieves away three big vials. I feel greedy for it. I want to say, What the heck are you doing! I need that! You are putting my body through too much stress! Isn’t cutting me open enough for it to handle for one day?

While my brain screams silently, I make small talk. Where are you from? Africa. Is it beautiful there? So beautiful. Do you miss it? Every day, but I love my opportunity here. I watch the vials turn black-red, one after another and think, what a world. Nothing feels safe about this, even though they are saving me, fixing me, the paradoxes swirl around me, as one barbaric ritual after another is lined up for me. I think I am a little bit in shock, watching my blood leave my body in plastic tubes and beautiful dark-skinned hands that miss Africa look strange to be handling so much blood as their opportunity.

Jesse is sitting in the chair nearby. I cannot imagine being here without the security of him, the safety of him. I wouldn’t make it. He has been my safety since the day he stepped into my life actually. An anchoring presence. It’s how I knew. It pulls on me and I am aware that he is the only safe thing in this entire place. Except the socks now. I really really like the socks. I already know I will keep them.

I’m so thirsty. So so thirsty. But no water is allowed. Please. Just one sip. I took a sip this morning because I just could not take it. A whiff of emergency kindles. An investigation ensues. Exactly how much? Exactly when? It may affect the anesthesia. This scares me. Just a sip, at five am.

We will ask the doctor. She may send you home and reschedule.

Oh my God. What have I done? I have waited two months for this appointment. I am not sure my body has two more months to hold this malevolent presence within it. It is in revolt against me. It is churning and rebelling.

But soon, the decision is ferried in. We will proceed as planned. It was only a sip and it was many hours ago.

The surgeon, that I have met exactly twice, is in her sixties. A scientific woman with silver grey hair, cut close to her head. She is kind but not warm. I feel safe in her hands to the degree that she is clearly well-skilled and capable. But I can easily see she loves to cut things out of people. She wants more of my stuff.She asks me if I ever want to have more children in the future. I am flummoxed by this question. If only you knew the complexity of this topic! But it is only appropriate to answer: I truly don’t know. She offers me an add-on: three-for-one surgery! While I am in there, she says, I can just take it all. It appears you have predisposition for terrible overgrown things to happen in there. They will likely happen again. Cancer, explosions, putrifying—it would be better to cut it all out now. One fell swoop.

For a brief moment I am tempted. Oh Lord, it would eliminate all the wondering and waiting and all the quesitons and pain and exhaustin hope. To just end it all here. To know for sure. To finally be in control and have the answers.

But no. Of course I can’t. His promise flutters there, in the very back corner of my soul like a trapped butterfly. I am the only one who knows it like a sound, like a feeling… what is that sound? I don’t hear anythnig. That little… fluttering sound? You don’t hear that? At this point no one else hears a thing. They all stopped believing long ago.

But I can’t unknow it.

I refuse to throw away good parts out of fear, I tell her. I refuse to walk out of here in menopause. Final answer: take only the bad parts. Leave everything else.

She says she at least wants my appendix. I feel like I am bartering to keep my body parts. I say no appendix, what is the point of taking that? My appendix is fine. She says, no, if there is tendency toward this kind of thing, if there is a certain kind of fluid inside the bad ovary, your appendix could be next.

I’m having trouble thinking. I do not know what is true and what is her trying to trick me into letting her have more stuff. I ask my husband to decide. He gives her permission to take it only if it appears to be in distress. I like this answer. She does too. She draws huge blue lines on my stomach and then leaves looking satisfied. I feel kind of like I’ve just haggled with a Middle Eastern meat vendor.

The scheduled time for my surgery, ten am, comes and goes. And hours pass. It has been delayed. I stare at my red socks. My doctor is a busy busy lady with many things to cut out of many people. Horrible grotesque overgrown things. I wonder if maybe she is delayed because her other patients took her up on her extra-organs-offer. After hours of sitting in the pre-surgery room in my red no-slip socks, they come. It is just after one pm. It is time.

My husband kisses me goodbye. I try not to cry. My chin wobbles. His eyes are red.

This is it.

I am being wheeled down the hall, flat on my back. The nurses say I smell good. They ask me what it is I smell like. I don’t know what to tell them.

Two giant doors open and I am suddenly Inside. The room is large and pure white. Illuminated to an ethereal brilliance. This is where it is going to happen. This is the room where they will drug me to unconsciousness and cut me open only minutes from now. Part of me will not leave this room. I will leave this room incomplete. Forever changed. My identity will alter here.

There is a business-like bustle Inside that feels like I have entered the engine room of a huge machine: the hospital is a massive machine I see, and this is what powers it. I am here now. Now is the time to allow the fear. They have put something in my IV though, before we left the other room. Something they said would make me unafraid. But I am afraid. I shudder to imagine the full dose of fear, without their drug.

They put my cart up against the surgical table and ask me to slide over. I sit up, though it is not easy, my abdomen as it is, and do as I am told. I lay myself out before them, a sacrifice, onto the butcher’s table.

Half a dozen people are here. My surgeon is here. This is just another day at work for them. They woke up this morning and drank their coffee and put on their uniforms and drove to work. For them today is just Wednesday.

For me, it is one of the most frightening days of my life. I am the specimin.

They are kind and gentle, but they are serious. They have a job to do. And I can tell they take it as seriously as they should. I don’t have to plead for them to take care with me. I know they will. I trust them. It is a powerless and vulnerable moment of need and submission, so potent I lay still with obedience in a moment that the rational mind says no. My trust is laid out before them. And they take it in their latex hands.

Time to go nighty-night. The anesthesiologist says. These are the best words I have heard in so long.

A nurse places an oxygen mask over my mouth and nose and my next breath takes so much effort, a shot of panic slices through me, I feel like I am being suffocated. But she says, breath deeeeeep, nice deep breaths. I take only two or three breaths and then the brilliant light disappears.

I hear voices. Close but distant. And I am being wheeled again. I cannot open my eyes yet, but I smile because I know it is over. I made it to The Other Side. I made it to After. No more need to have fear, because it is finally After. All that time I had to spend in Before, fighting the dread and the fear away. And now I have made it to the peace and safety of After. The rest of my life can be spent now in the joy of After. I will never have to anticipate this event again. It will never again be ahead; it will forever remain behind.

She’s smiling, I hear Nurse One say. Look, she is smiling.

I can feel that time has passed. It does not feel like an instant since I went out, like I thought it might. I can feel the space between thatmoment and thisone. I can feel that it is later.

I still cannot wake up completely. I cannot open my eyes or move. But I can smile. I drift off again.

I drift back. I am still unable to move or open my eyes. I feel half asleep. I can sense I am in a busy area, like a hallway, but my trolley is parked. Many nurses and other staff move around, walk by. I can sense it is nighttime now. Early to mid evening, it feels like, but I’m not sure where I get this feeling from. I can sense other patients near me, other trolleys, other people in After. I think we are parked in a row. I can hear one of them, a man, moaning as if in distress. I wonder why he is in distress when I feel so amazingly peaceful. Another nurse asks him loudly why he is moaning. He says he is in pain. She says he is heavily dosed and shouldn’t be feeling any pain. He asks for more. She says she will ask the doctor.

I can tell my two nurses are mine. They are assigned to me. They stay near me. She is smiling again, they say and they laugh affectionately. I can tell they are happy they have me and not the moaning guy. I hear Nurse One make a call. She says my name and tells the other end they are waiting for a private recovery room for me. That I just had my left ovary and fallopian tube removed.

Left. The left one. I am so happy to know. It seemed like I should know. And I am stunned. I had believed this whole time it had been the right one. It had been so big, so intrusively dominating my abdomen in the scans that even my doctor had not been able to tell which one it was. And I got to keep my appendix. She didn’t say appendix on the list of my ectomied body parts. That means it wasn’t the worst case scenario my doctor worried about.

I drift in and out. I’m not sure how long passes, but it does not seem to be more than half an hour. And then we are moving again. To my private recovery room. I am so grateful to hear it is private. I keep smiling.

Have you ever seen this before? Nurse One says to Nurse Two. No, says Nurse Two. I’ve never seen someone come out of anesthesia so happy.

After. I made it to After.

I drift away again.

The next time I wake up I am able to move and open my eyes. And there is my husband, sitting in a chair beside me. It looks like he has been waiting for me to wake up. He stands and leans over me and takes my hand. He is trying not to cry. I have never seen him like this. So raw and so… afraid.

How are you doing?

Good… I got to keep my appendix, I say.

His eyes tear up. No, baby. You didn’t.

Oh, I say. I just assumed…

They took it. Things were… worse than we thought.

September 15, 2017
by thebohemianjournalist
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diary of a barren woman. the thing inside me.

It’s not beyond me to contemplate how wickedly funny it would be to stop telling this story right here. Right about now I long to go on one of my walkabouts in which I write nothing for the next several months and feel no guilt about it whatsoever. But alas, I do feel a sense of duty to finish what I’ve started. Though I confess, I’ve been trying to squeeze out this post for days now and just not feeling it. But I can’t put it off any longer, it will just have to be what it is.

There was no denying it anymore. I had to go to a doctor. It wasn’t just a little swelling or a little early-thirties weight gain. There was definitely something in there.

But now, on that August morning, as pain ripped through my middle, it was different. I knew something was very very wrong. Pain is our very clever warning system. It gets our attention. But as this pain announced itself, the roundness of my stomach had changed with it. It had shifted slightly, teetered off to one side, like a muscle contraction was moving something over, almost like a round water balloon being squished into… eggplantness. Almost like something alive trying to adjust and get comfortable in tight quarters. This is when I looked down and saw, where the pain was coming from, in my lower right side, what looked and felt like it may be appendicitis.

By the time I got to the Emergency room, the pain had subsided and my stomach had returned to “normal”. At first, no one took me seriously. They all just thought I was constipated.

So while they quizzed me for the first thirty minutes on my diet and bowel movements, chuckling condescendingly, believing this was all nothing a laxative couldn’t fix, I was growing a bit impatient, but hiding really well.

Finally they said they were going to examine my stomach.

I had been waiting patiently to show them my physical proof. Ha! See? I told you! I laid back on the table and pulled my shirt up. You could see it. The outline of what appeared to be a rounded uterus in my otherwise lean frame.

There was no denying it. It looked like I was in the early stages of a pregnancy. They began to show the first signs of true perplexity.

Huh… Okay… Well…

Something was clearly in there. The question now was just… what?

Now they thought I was pregnant and didn’t know it. They asked questions about my menstruation and they did a pregnancy test, which of course came back negative (though part of me still hoped they were right and I was horribly wrong).

Then they decided to perform an ultrasound to get a look at whatever it was that was deciding to become so rowdy in there.

During the ultrasound, all we could see was a very large fluid filled shape in my lower abdomen. It simply looked like a very full bladder. Only my bladder was empty.

Now they were really listening. Brisk movements began to punctuate things now said in the room. A whiff of duty began to replace the scent of condescension. They were really curious now. And a little concerned. I was both pleased by this and made uncomfortable. Because next came the giant IV in my hand for the purpose of injecting a shitload of dye into my entire bloodstream, that God only knew the toxicity of, as I was inserted into a giant spinning tube (CT I think?). They warned me that the feeling of this dye flooding my system was strange and uncomfortable to most, and that it would make me feel like I was peeing my pants. It did. A hot rush flooded me everywhere and pooled in my lower-midsection.

The results of the scan showed us what was going on in there, a bit more clearly. It was an ovary. A very naughty ovary. Causing a whole bunch of trouble, assumedly due to a cyst contained within it. An ovary so large, and now so out of place, as it tried to find room for itself, that they could not even tell me which one it was.

It had been pressing on my bladder, blocking my urethra at times, pressing on my kidneys, and when I was feeling the pain, it was possibly because it had laid down on something in there like a big fat cat.

It was possible that it could be dealt with non-surgically, they said, but more than likely the thing would need to come out.

Oh yay.

They wanted to keep me overnight to “monitor” me since it was clearly pinching off certain vital organs. But I am not one to get all dramatic.

I’ll come back if I need you, I said over my shoulder. I live six blocks away. I mean, this thing had been in there for months, probably even brewing for years. I was not about to pay thousands of dollars to have a horrendously uncomfortable night a few blocks away from home for no good reason.

Here is the shot my husband got of me fleeing against medical advice.

Anyhoo. I was put in touch with a Gynecological Oncologist. Even she couldn’t tell me which ovary it was. It was simply… Everywhere. Just taking over. After seeing a naturopath as well, and doing online research, it was decided. It would have to be surgically removed. It was just beyond the point of other methods. It measured fourteen cm in diameter, or around five and a half inches. The size of a large grapefruit.

Lovely picture, I know.

And apparently the removal of women’s mutinous reproductive systems was a booming business. I would have to wait six weeks for surgery. I used essential oils and heated castor oil soaked cloths on my stomach at night to help keep inflammation down during that time to keep my organs safe from smothering and so that I was in the best possible state for the surgery. I ate no dairy and took magnesium and other minerals to keep things as chill as possible. And I waited.

I had never broken a bone in my life. Never needed stitches. Never been to the ER. Growing up, I had never had any illness so severe that it required a trip to the doctor let alone the hospital. I was strictly opposed to any medical care that wasn’t necessary. This definitely fell under the category of Necessity. But as a thirty-three year old woman, I had never experienced anything even remotely close the horror of a surgical procedure in my life. I am not the type to become afraid of many things. But this frightened me. I do not believe in entertaining worry though. Worry, to me, is fearing something too soon, before the time has come to actually fear it. I believe this prolongs fear, and gives it a voice outside of the moment in which it is supposed to be experienced. I believe in addressing these things only in their appointed time. So I simply did not think about it. If it came into my mind (which of course it did often) I pushed it aside and meditated on peace and the present moment in which I was safe and sound. I would deal with the fear when it was time to deal with it. Until then, my heart would remain as light as possible to give me the best chance of healing and being ready to face it.

I would face the fear only once I was walking into that hospital.

On the morning of October 28, 2015.

September 11, 2017
by thebohemianjournalist
0 comments

diary of a barren woman. ummm.

During all the years I never got pregnant again I never actually knew why. I had no idea if there was actually a physical reason for it. I knew there were emotional reasons, a trauma-related shutting down of my reproductive system that I had actually felt happen.

I also found out it was not at all uncommon. I met other people over the years who had one child only to never conceive again and they never knew why or sought the reason. I guess it is easier when you have one, to let it go. They all seemed to agree that while it was perplexing and sometimes painful, they were generally okay with it like I was. I imagine it is much harder for those who have had none. This would make the quest for answers a very different sort of affair.

Through it all I never had any problems with menstruation. I had an exact 28-day cycle. And I felt my body ovulate every month right on schedule. I knew that the only reason I would not be getting pregnant was due to some disconnect.

Sometimes I wondered if it was just a quick fix. If there was some obvious and correctable solution. Like some kind of physical blockage. But I just wasn’t the type to seek medical intervention, that isn’t my way. I was happy enough to let it go.

But, soon enough, I would find out exactly what that disconnect was. Exactly why my body had physically shut down. After all the years of knowing I would never seek fertility treatments, I had no idea that one day a doctor was going to have to open my body up and look inside anyway. And she would then tell me exactly what was going on in there. And exactly why.

It all started during the winter of 2014 and into the spring of 2015. My son was fourteen years old. I had been barren for about twelve years. For at least ten of these I actually knew it. I had gained some weight, it seemed. I did not weigh myself but I knew my pants were fitting differently. At yoga class I was aware of my flexibility changing a bit around my midsection. And my belly began protruding strangely. This was a bit odd to see as I had always weighed about 120 pounds so it was noticeable. But I assumed I was just aging and my body was changing. I made several comments to friends that I felt like I was filling out a bit and it actually made me feel a bit more curvy and sexy. It made me walk slightly different.

But it was still weird.

Then in May of 2015 I was laying in the bathtub when I felt a very distinct pressure in my abdomen. It was not a new feeling. I had been feeling it a lot lately. In yoga, yes, and under the waistband of my pants, but also when I would lay on my stomach it felt strange. So here I was in the tub and I looked down and instead of being concave as it usually would be, I could literally see a perfectly round bulge in my lower abdomen about the size of a grapefruit. Exactly what I saw when I was around four or five months pregnant with Jadon.

I felt it with my hands. It was definitely a solid, round presence. Like being pregnant. But I knew, since I had been pregnant before, that in order to be feeling what I was feeling I would have had to have been pregnant for eighteen to twenty weeks. And this was not possible. I had had my period every single month without delay or change. I had had it only a couple weeks prior to this moment. It was strange, but I moved on.

But the strange symptoms continued. I had to pee all the time. Road trips were a nightmare. Every thirty minutes I had to stop to pee and my husband was about to murder me. I could no longer lay on my stomach at all without discomfort, feeling like I was laying on a ball. If I got bloated on top of it or ate a particularly large meal, I could easily look like I was pregnant. I had taken to sucking in my stomach at times like these so as not to alarm people. But sometimes I walked around in public when no one knew me and released my round stomach, breathing a sigh of relief, knowing that people would think I was pregnant, but it didn’t matter because seeing a woman pregnant was not unusual. I made plans on the off chance that someone might ask when are you due? to give some random date in September so they wouldn’t have to feel bad. And then I worried about those people seeing me again and wondering where the heck my baby was. Thank God no one ever asked.

All along I really just thought it was strange weight gain. I was approaching my mid-thirties after all. I thought that maybe as we women age, sometimes weight just goes on in different places than we are used to. I paid little mind and took to wearing loose fitting shirts.

But then, one day in August the pain started.

A sharp overwhelming pain in my right lower abdomen.

It continued all morning.

To the point where I could not move.

It was taking my full concentration to withstand it.

I called my mom, who’s a nurse. We both thought I had appendicitis. She told me to go to the ER.

And what they discovered when I got there shocked everyone.

Especially me.

August 5, 2017
by thebohemianjournalist
1 Comment

if you cry.

I was in Target the other day when a youngish woman pushing a cart passed by the aisle I was in. It soon became clear, though I could not see the offending party, that behind her trailed a two- or three-year-old that was deciding to be awfully upset about something.

First, she ignored him, walked on, pushing her cart. The child still did not materialize, remained only an unpleasant noise. After three steps she threw over her shoulder an exhausted cluster of words containing no ounce of feeling or conviction. I’m just going to keep walking, she said. Poor dear. She really was tired.

The noise carried on.

When it was clear, after a few more moments, that this was not going to sort itself out, she abandoned the cart, went to him, picked him up and said soothingly, how can I help you? What can I do to make you feel better?

Now I saw the child, in her arms. Squealing and resisting, arching his back to try and get away from her. He was even more upset now. Growing louder as she begged and bribed him to feel better.

I fought the urge to chuck my bottle of Yes to Carrots at her.

You are the problem, I thought. How on earth (and when?) did parenting get so bad?

I mean Baaaaaad.

It was somewhere between my generation and my son’s. When parenting suddenly turned into something else entirely. When parents started being afraid of their kids during a tantrum rather than the other way around. When teaching freedom of expression became more important than teaching self-control. When parents became so concerned about harming their children’s self-esteem by being assertive that instead they accidentally robbed them of the confidence and security that is developed when you know your parents are in control and stronger than you are. When parents, while trying to make their kids more emotionally well-rounded, accidentally made them emotionally weak.

A few weeks ago, at a family reunion, I had more opportunity to observe parents in the act of young-child-rearing, while surrounded by clusters of procreating people I am related to. At one point, my little niece ran to my sister-in-law in a panic. She had seen a bird down by the river that absolutely demanded photographing immediately and she came to request her mother’s phone for the task.

My sister-in-law was in the middle of a conversation with another adult and she put out her finger to signal that my neice was to wait a moment. I saw the youngster’s internal struggle from my place a few feet away. I mean, this bird could, at any moment, just fly away. She was in agony. She jittered with the inner conflict and potential loss. She began to beg, Mom, I need it now!

And her face scrunched up in that signature expression. She was gonna squeeze out some tears to be sure her mom knew just how important this all was. In the instant before the tears came my sister-in-law put up one authoritative finger and said “If YOU cry…”

She didn’t even have to finish the sentence. In that second, the face was put to rights. No tears. No scrunching. She pulled herself together immediately. Because in those few words and that one finger, and the tone of her mother’s voice she knew exactly what was expected of her behaviorally.

My niece knew, all of seven green years of age, that there were behavioral expectations that would be enforced. She knew that her mother meant that if she did not wait patiently there would be no phone. There would be no bird. There would be no photograph. Her only chance of getting what she desired was to act in an appropriate and acceptable manner.

This child knew how to control herself better than many teens and adults I’ve seen. She knew that if she didn’t, there would be a loss. She had been trained, molded, shaped into knowing exactly how she was to discipline herself to behave if she wanted to be rewarded in life. The boundaries had been set and she knew exactly where they were.

The woman in Target rewarded her son’s terrible behavior with cooing and bribery and manipulation. The child could probably have been seen moments later holding and gnawing on all manner of bribes in the front seat of that cart. Just to try and brighten his mood, as if that was the only problem: fixing how he felt.

And when he’s ten? What will he do to his teacher? And when he’s sixteen how will he respond to his boss? And when he’s thirty what will he teach his children? And the cycle continues.

My sister-in-law (whom I incidentally decided was my new hero in that moment) was only going to reward appropriate behavior and observance of set boundaries. And her kid knew it.

And that little girl will behave well in school. And one day she will thrive by respecting her boss and the rules of the workplace. And then she will teach her kids to honor authority and to control their behavior. (Thank you, sister-in-law, for contributing something positive to our future society.)

Kids are killing each other and pushing each other to kill themselves at a shockingly sad rate today. Many of these kids are obviously troubled, but a lot of troubled people don’t end up harming others. The difference is, not how they are or even how they feel, but the way they choose to behave as a result.

And many of them are actually not troubled at all. They were totally normal functional kids with great lives that just went with what they were feeling in the moment. And it will cost them for the rest of their lives.

Behavior matters. We need to teach our children that poor behavior gets disciplined and good behavior gets rewarded. It is more important than we could ever know.

Equality should be taught to our kids on a broad spectrum of human decency, but our kids need to understand how to honor people in authority above them and this too is becoming lost in our equality obsessed culture.

This is the message they should still be receiving from us: no we are not all equal in every way. I, your parent, am your authority. And you will respect me. Your teacher is your authority and you will respect her. Your boss is your authority and you must respect him. Your law enforcement is your authority, put in place to protect and serve you. You need to respect them. You are not to cause anyone else harm. You are to behave in a way that uplifts those around you. And if you don’t there is a price to pay. And when your emotions overtake you… grief and loss and fear and rage… this is how you handle it. This is how and where you direct it. This is how and where you do not.

This is emotional intelligence. The ability to control yourself in the waves of emotion. The ability to make a clear and good decision when passion overtakes you. The ability to know exactly where and how to direct strong feelings. And where and how not to. It means the difference between life and death sometimes.

There is therapy in place for people who have trouble controlling their behavior or who engage in harmful behavior toward themselves or others. It is called CBT: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It basically does the job (late and with much greater difficulty and less likely results) that parents are meant to do while we are growing up. By teach people how to have self-control in connection to their feelings. To direct their emotional urges toward different behaviors. People who self harm, road-ragers, people who abuse or assault other people, are often court ordered to undergo this therapy. It couldn’t be more clear. These people were not taught what is and is not appropriate behavior in response to powerful feelings. They lose themselves in an adult tantrum.

When you discipline your kids for bad behavior you teach them self control. You engrain in them from birth a priceless value system. There are certain things that become a part of their automatic response and belief system. They become emotionally strong and self-controlled. Isn’t that what all parents want for their kids? I know it is. I know we have just lost the ability to see the cause and effect of what present day parenting is actually robbing our kids of.

The message should be clear and enforced from birth.

This is how you act. No matter how you feel.

This how you do not act. No matter how you may feel.

No matter how you feel, it is not okay to hurt someone else.

No matter how you feel it is not okay to disrespect authority.

If you act in certain ways, there will be consequences. There will be loss.

… I’d better not do that. I don’t want to get in trouble.

I’d better not say that, because it is unkind and might harm this person.

I’d better listen to my teacher because if I don’t my mom will ground me.

Isn’t this what we all want for our children? Yes, I believe it is.

July 24, 2017
by thebohemianjournalist
0 comments

the tale of the very sick princess.

Once upon a time there was a princess who lived in a glorious castle. She was lovely and fair. She spent her days wandering the castle and being dressed and fed by servants. When she got bored she sat by the high windows and stared out over the kingdom. Or wandered in the back garden. But she was never allowed to do much else for fear she might get dirty or lost or injured.

When she was around twelve years old, she began to grow weak and sad. Soon she stopped eating and then she stopped getting out of bed entirely. She grew very ill. A heaviness had come upon her and she lay beneath it. In her large golden bed, she lay, day in and day out. The king and queen were very worried. And they sent for the doctor.

The doctor came and looked over her frail little body, her empty eyes. After he had assessed her condition he gave the king and queen the news. She had a terrible disease, he said. Incurable.

They were overcome with grief. “What can we do?“ they asked. The doctor gave them some medicine for her and instructed that they give it to her every day. The queen placed the potion on the night table beside her bed and dutifully obeyed.

Months passed. The princess did not get better. In fact, it seemed as though she got worse. Day after day she continued to lay in the bed, not moving, not speaking.

One day a maid approached the queen.

“I beg your pardon, my lady, but I know someone who may be able to help the princess.” The maid told the queen about a healer woman who lived way out on the edge of the kingdom. This woman was known to have great wisdom.

The queen was so filled with hope that she sent for the woman immediately. And the woman came without hesitation.

When she strode into the castle, in came with her a wave of intense peace. She carried a confidence that was seductive and powerful. The queen began to lead her up to see the princess, but the woman stopped her.

“I must first meet everyone that works in the castle,” she said.

The queen was taken aback, but there was a sense that she should trust this woman. A sense that she should not deny her. She called all of the staff and all of the servants to the front hall and lined them up. The woman introduced herself to them one by one, took their hand as she spoke to them and looked them deeply in the eyes. She asked them varied questions, such as their role in the castle, how long they had been there, and strangely, one last question that she asked each and every one of them. Do you love the king? Every one of them answered this last question piously and without hesitation that yes, they did.

Once the introductions were complete she finally asked to see the princess and she was led up to the room where the young girl lay.

The woman went straight to girl’s bedside and knelt. She took the girl’s hand and held it. The girl looked at her with blank tired eyes. The queen then expected the woman to ask her questions about her condition, how she felt and so forth, as the doctor had. But she did no such thing. After a long silence, the woman finally spoke.

“Darling, girl,” she said, “I am in great need of your help.”

The queen was stunned. She had called this woman here to help her daughter, and the woman wanted her daughter to help her? She began to step forward to intervene when suddenly her daughter’s expression changed, a tiny flicker of concern crossed her eyes. The queen paused and watched.

The princess shifted slightly, turned toward the woman just a fraction more.

“You see,” continued the woman, “I have a lamb who has lost its mother. It is not doing well. I fear it will die. I wonder if you would come with me to my cottage and help me care for it until it is strong enough to make it on its own.”

The eyes of the princess grew more and more lucid as the woman spoke. She grew concerned and started to lift her head, then laid it back down, the exhaustion overtaking her.

“I see you are very tired,” said the woman. “I have a carriage outside. If you are willing to help me save the life of this lamb, I will help you to the carriage and bring you to my cottage. Once you are there, you can lay down with the lamb to rest and the two of you will be comforted.”

The queen was appalled. The audacity! How could this woman assume she was going to take her daughter anywhere, and in her precarious state! But again, just as she was about to intervene, her daughter began to shift in the bed, struggling to sit up. The woman helped her.

Then the voice of the princess came, weak at first, then a bit stronger. She said, “Mother, this member of our kingdom needs my help. I will go with her.”

The queen wanted to refuse. Everything maternal in her cried out for her ill daughter to lay back down, to remain safe in her bed. But there was another voice in the very back of her mind. This was the first time in weeks that her daughter had moved or even spoken. The spark of light in her eyes was the first she had seen in perhaps months. Though the queen was afraid and pained, she simply nodded her head.

She watched as the woman helped the princess out of the bed and, supporting her, helped her walk toward the door.

“But she needs to get dressed!” the queen squealed desperately. The princess was wearing only a nightgown.

“No need,” said the woman, confidently. She will be more comfortable in this for a bit longer. And I have something she can wear once it is necessary.

“Her medicine!” The queen shouted. She ran to the night table and pressed the vial into the woman’s hand. Without a word the woman slipped the vial into her dress and led the princess away. The queen watched and followed helplessly, tears in her eyes. Once the carriage was out of sight she collapsed onto the ground and wept.

The carriage ride was long and bumpy. The princess lay in a pile of straw in the back. She watched the sky and the clouds overhead as the carriage jostled and lurched along. The fresh air and the sunlight and the sounds of people and animals and activities all around felt so wonderful after being closed up in the castle for so long, especially after being closed up in that stuffy sick room. The princess began taking deep breaths and she felt her lips curl into a tiny smile. This woman needed her help. And she was outside. She was on an adventure. She was going to help save a life. She was feeling delight in the newness of it all, and in the feeling of purpose she suddenly had.

The burst of excitement it all caused even gave her enough strength to sit up eventually, and leaning on the side of the carriage, look out over the land as they rode. She saw farmers and cattle, dogs and pigs and horses, children playing and women washing laundry in big tubs of water. She saw men tilling fields, hot and red and sweaty. She saw flowers and trees and birds and even a fox. She was still very weak, but she couldn’t remember how long it had been since she had felt this good. The woman, as she drove the horse from the front, glanced over her shoulder and smiled warmly upon seeing her upright.

Finally, after what felt like hours, the carriage pulled to a stop and the woman dismounted the front and helped her down from the back. The cottage was small and lovely. There were flowers in pots all around and a curvy stone path and a nice little bench out front. The front door was painted green and the windows were all open. There was a garden just beside the little house, where vegetables grew behind a little fence. And there was a well with a bucket sitting beside it.

The woman led her into the house. The princess felt a fair bit stronger walking in than she had walking to the carriage from the castle. She was amazed at the power the trip had had to energize her.

Inside, over by the hearth, just as the woman had said, there was a tiny lamb curled up in a blanket. It lay still and did not get up when it heard them enter. The woman brought the princess over to the lamb immediately. She made a larger bed with more blankets and the princess lay down and curled her body around the small creature. The lamb shifted and nuzzled into her. Then the woman set to work making a bottle of milk that she brought to the princess.

The lamb took the nipple in its mouth and began sucking immediately. It was very hungry. She giggled as the lamb butted the bottle with its head and she had to use all her strength to hold it steady. The lamb drained the bottle and wanted more. The princess handed the bottle over to the woman, and told her the lamb was still hungry.

“A lamb will always be hungry,” she said. “He will have to wait a couple hours and then he can have more. Otherwise he will eat until he dies.”

The princess was shocked. She hadn’t known this. “How does a lamb keep from eating too much when he is always with his mother?”

“His mother only makes as much milk as he needs,” said the woman. “Not too much.”

The princess cuddled and fed and played with the lamb for the rest of the day. That night they slept curled up together by the fire.

The next day, the two woke up and started the process over again but by mid-morning they were both getting a bit antsy. The woman led them outside onto the grass where they could lay and play. The lamb got up on its wobbly legs and tried to run around and the princess laughed. Soon she was up too and they were rolling and playing in the grass, chasing each other around as the lamb made happy little noises and the princess laughed. She got tired very quickly, however, and collapsed again soon, the lamb nuzzling into her for another nap. The two slept.

The woman worked in her garden and brought water up from the well for her vegetables and flowers. She sat on the bench and sewed for awhile. But all the time she kept watch over the girl and the lamb. When it was time for the lamb to eat again, this time she showed the girl how to make the bottle and said, “Now this is your job. Every two hours you will make him one and feed him without me telling you.”

The princess swelled with responsibility. And she did it. Every two hours she made the lamb a new bottle and fed him. And the two bonded so that the lamb never left her side, just followed her everywhere she went. By the evening of the second day, when the girl was making the lamb his bottle, she realized she felt something unusual. It took her a moment to pinpoint the feeling.

“Excuse me,” she said to the woman.

“Yes?” the woman said. She was sitting in her rocking chair, sewing again.

“I have a request, but first, what is your name?” She felt horribly selfish and rude for not asking sooner. But the woman seemed not to care one bit.

“Asa,” she said. “And my dear girl, what is your name?”

The princess was a little taken aback. She had not realized the woman didn’t know her name either.

“Antoinette,” she replied.

“It’s lovely to meet you Antoinette,” said Asa.

“It’s lovely to meet you too,” she said.

“And what is your request?”

“I am feeling a bit hungry,” she said. “Might I have some food please?”

“Of course my dear, but we must start slowly, your body is not used to eating much anymore.”

She prepared some squash with nuts and dried fruit and cinnamon sprinkled on top. It was exquisite. The Princess hadn’t eaten much for a long time, and even that, for a while now, had been only broth which tasted bitter to her.

As the days stretched out and became blurry, each one blending into the other, she lost track of how long she had been in the cottage with Asa. Asa had taken to calling her Nettie which she loved. She had never had a special nickname before. And Nettie started calling the lamb Butterbean. Butterbean was getting stronger and bigger and eating more and more. She too, was getting stronger and eating more and more. Soon she had enough strength to begin helping Asa in the garden, watering the plants, feeding the chickens and gathering eggs.

One morning Asa announced that she was finished with her sewing and presented a lovely blue dress to Nettie that she immediately put on, happy to be rid of that old nightgown from her sick bed. Asa washed the gown and hung it to dry on the clothes line. Now the three of them started taking walks together every day down to the river where they threw stones and walked in up to their ankles and splashed each other and took turns making up stories about faraway lands and magical creatures. For meals they ate nuts and fruit and cheeses, eggs, and vegetables, and big heads of green lettuce and kale. The princess grew healthier and healthier, though she did not realize it, for it happened so gradually and she was too busy to notice.

One day it suddenly occurred to the princess that she wasn’t sick anymore. It hit her like a shock and she almost began to cry.

“Asa,” she said, her chin wobbling a little bit. They were sitting beside the creek and Butterbean lay in the shade nearby having a little nap.

“Yes, darling.”

“Am I healed?”

“Yes, my girl, I believe you are.”

“But… how?”

“There are a lot of reasons you were sick. And we reversed them all. So you got better. No one is sick for no reason.”

“Why was I sick?”

“There were things you needed that you didn’t have and things you had that you needed to be rid of. But you have to take great care. Once a sickness knows you it does not forget you. You will have to be vigilant not to let it return.”

After a few months, the wise healer brought the girl back to the castle. The queen ran to her, shocked. Unbelieving. She burst into tears at the sight of her daughter, unrecognizable. The girl was strong and her skin was tanned. Traces of muscle showed on her arms and her cheeks glowed pink and full. Most of all there was light in her eyes. She ran to her mother, strong and joyful and they embraced. When the half-grown sheep ran in behind her, the queen just about fainted.

“Mama, this is Butterbean. He’s my friend and he’s going to stay here with me.”

The Queen led Asa out behind the castle for a stroll. The princess and Butterbean ran around playing and laughing and bleating.

“I owe you so much, how can I repay you for this? You saved my daughter’s life.”

“Let her visit me, as often as she likes, this is all I ask.”

“Done,” said the queen. “I trust you more with her now than I even trust myself. Please tell me. What did she have and how did you heal her?”

“First, she had a broken spirit. She had no purpose and no work to bring her satisfaction. She had no one to serve and nothing that looked to her for help.”

The queen flushed with embarrassment.

“Second, the idea that she was sick became a sickness itself. She needed to forget it. She needed to get away and become distracted by a new place and new tasks.”

And now the queen felt ashamed. Upon hearing it she knew it was true. She hadn’t meant to, but yes, she could see how she had encouraged her daughter to remain sick, rather than encouraging her to get better.

“And third, she was being poisoned.”

The queen gasped. Who? How? her mind flashed to the cook, the scullery maid, the servants. Panic overtaking her.

“Do not worry, your staff is innocent,” Asa said, seeming to read her mind. “I checked them all over closely. They are pure of heart and devoted to His Majesty. The poison was coming from the doctor. The medicine he gave you to give to her was a carelessly concocted potion. It was harming her inside more than it was helping anything. She was already weak. The last thing she needed was more toxicity to bear.”

The queen was shocked. How could she have allowed this to happen? How had she been so negligent? To give her that potion without even knowing what it was? Or what it did?

Suddenly the queen understood exactly how she had gone wrong. Her daughter had needed sunshine and fresh air, but she was trapped inside a stuffy room. She had needed purpose and responsibility but she was bored and unutilized. She needed adventure and thrill, but her life had just grown emptier as she became sadder. She needed good food, but she wasn’t eating, she was starving. She needed exercise and to play and to work. She needed to be needed.

The queen felt like a terrible mother. This life of ease and privilege. She had felt it was a great honor to give her daughter luxury and comfort and spare her responsibility. But now she saw it made her weak and purposeless. It took away her reason for existing, for thriving.

“I feel so foolish,” the queen said as she fought back tears.

“Do not look behind you unless it is to remind you of where you must go from here. Give her purpose. Give her responsibility. Let her eat robustly, lots of food that comes from the ground. Let her run and play wildly in the sun. Let her get dirty and plant a garden. Teach her to help her people. Teach her to serve more than be served. To think of others more than herself. These things will keep her body and soul strong and free from illness.”

“Thank you,” said the queen. “I promise I will.”

The two women looked on as the princess tumbled into the fountain with Butterbean and the two splashed water everywhere, soaking each other. The queen winced. It would take time for her to fully accept this messier version of her daughter. But she intended to. Because it was the healthiest she had ever seen her.

“I am forever in your debt,” said the queen.

“I did very little, actually,” said Asa. “I just placed her in the right environment.” She nodded toward the girl and the lamb. “And then those two saved each other.”

March 20, 2017
by thebohemianjournalist
1 Comment

trapped grief. purifying the soul.

I was screaming and screaming. My husband was trying to restrain me, hold me, comfort me in some way. It was almost no use. My body was thrashing with white-hot agony that threatened to rip me down the middle and kill me kill me kill me

It could be anything that triggered it. Anything at all. A tiny whisper of an idea that I was not worth loving would set it off and I would feel it rise in me like a creature waking. A large violent creature. And I would begin to shake and I would start backing away, running away from my husband, the one who implied I was unlovable by saying that thing

I couldn’t reach you today, why do you always lose your phone?

…You have disappointed me

Wow the house is a mess today.

…You are incapable of functioning properly

Dinner still isn’t ready yet?

…You are a failure. You are unlovable. You are worthless.

These simple innocent things he said translated wrong in my soul. I heard something else entirely. I heard I had no value.

And sometimes this thing would inflate so great inside of me, rise up and awaken so terribly, I would begin to cry as I backed away, trying to get far away from the retranslated accusation that I was not good, and then I would be screaming. Not like screaming in horror. Not like screaming in defiance or anger. This was the mournful banshee sound of a soul ripped in two. Of a mother holding a dead child.

I would try to elude him but he would get hold of me. He would wrap his large strong arms around me and try to hold me tight. And I would welcome it, like a tourniquet. As I bled and bled from the inside of a soul so damaged, so filled with grief it simply had to come out. It had to.

Afterward I was a zombie. The exhaustion was what follows in the wake of a terrible trauma. The kind you see in people as they wander stoically out of a hospital waiting room after spending the night in a vinyl chair drinking ditchwater coffee while someone they loved slowly slipped away.

This went on for years.

What was happening to me is what I call soul detox. I had known so much trauma. So much loss. So much pain. And it was trapped. Lodged inside of my soul. It had collected in there. Hundreds of nights waiting for a wandering drunken husband to return. The first boy I loved who simply disappeared one day and never came back. A baby boy ripped from my arms. Many many months of the complete and total ostracizing that followed. My husband saying I want a divorce. So much trauma. So much loss. And my soul had learned one horrible idea by bearing it all…

You

simply

aren’t

good

This grief has to come out. If it does not detox from the soul you will become very ill. Very ill indeed. And I was very ill. It manifests differently in everyone. For me it was depression. Social anxiety. Digestion issues and food sensitivities. Sudden unexplained infertility. And then there was the screaming. The outbursts of a soul on fire.

For others it is back pain.

Headaches.

Insomnia.

Skin problems.

Anxiety.

Addiction.

Anger.

Agression.

Fear.

One way or another grief with no outlet will take over the human body and soul and wreak havoc.

It took years and years of detoxing for me, there was so much grief lodged inside. Years of letting myself scream it out. Cry. Sit and shake. Write. Journal. Paint. Talk. Pray.

A couple years ago a friend was telling me about a type of therapy called TRE (Trauma Releasing Exercises) in which you allow your body to shake and it releases trapped trauma. He said that it was noticed that animals in the wild who experience fear or trauma run until they are safe and then stop and shake. After a period of shaking is complete, they move on as if nothing had happened. They started using this concept on PTSD victims with great success.

I found it very interesting because for years I had gone through this instinctively. Many times when I was detoxing trauma from my soul my body would shake and I could feel the toxin leave my body. One time I was doing yoga at home with a DVD instructor and I was in a supported bridge position and the instructor said, now give your hips a little shake to remove anything trapped in there. As I did so, I felt something dislodge in my soul, and tears sprang to my eyes and I silently wept for no particular reason at all for a few moments. Then it was gone. I never knew what I had detoxed at that moment but it was some small bit of trauma or grief. When my friend told me about the therapy years later and I saw it in action, I was very interested to see that this exact position is one of the main ones used.

Here is a link to a short video about this type of therapy:

I do not scream anymore.

The bulk of the grief is gone now.

After twelve years of screaming, finally one day it just stopped. That was about four years ago now.

Sometimes I feel the sting. Sometimes I still get angry and slam a door. But I do not scream. And that is a huge huge thing. Cleaning out my soul was a very long very arduous process. It was a very dirty place. But it is one of my greatest victories. One of my most life changing accomplishments. I would do it all again. It was worth every moment of effort and pain.

Now when he says

I couldn’t reach you today, why do you always lose your phone? That is all I hear. I laugh and see that he finds my lack of interest in technology cute and endearing.

Wow the house is a mess today. I look around and say, you’re right. I was writing all day. And then he smiles and kisses my cheek and adores me because I am a quirky bohemian that scrubs the entire house with a toothbrush one day and then gets swept into a writing world the next and forgets to eat.

Dinner still isn’t ready yet? I say, No I got home late. Or I say, Just give me thirty minutes. And he happily goes to tinker in the garage.

There is no more pain. Just peace. Our lives are transformed. And happy.

If you want to heal, it is vital that you start digging around in there. Start uncovering your grief. Start facing it. Start poking at it, let it rise up in you and then let yourself express it in whatever way you need to (but hopefully in a way that is safe for you and others around you). Like a giant tree stump, it may take a lot of twisting and pushing. It may take many years to dislodge completely, but you cannot leave it in there or you will always be under the weight of it in some way. It is toxic. It will make your body and mind very sick.

One thing that is absolutely vital, you have to stop medicating it to sleep. This is what we are taught to do in this terribly unwise and misguided society. We are told to keep it quiet, keep it asleep. With drugs and food and TV and busyness and pills and drink. But if we do this then we will never be free. Never.

Step 1: We must first stop sedating it.

Step 2: We must get into a quiet place. Perhaps alone, perhaps with a trusted person or counselor.

Step 3: And then we must begin to dig around. And start unearthing this dark malevolent toxin.

Step 4: We must make it a life mission to clean house. And never give up until every breath we take is filled with peace and freedom.

March 9, 2017
by thebohemianjournalist
0 comments

why won’t god fix me. purifying the mind.

If God had decided my healing would be different

If he had waved the magic wand

If he had decided to wipe my slate clean for me

I would be a very weak,

undeveloped,

and unknowledgeable

person.

I would not be writing any of this.

I would never have learned the secrets

of wisdom and prosperity.

I remember the day he told me how he intended for me to heal. And that was the day everything in my mind changed about healing. The day I started looking in the right places.

Ten years ago. I was in church. I was very unwell. My soul was twisted in knots and every day I felt the agony of my current state. My body, though healthy by American standards, was anything but. True health was not a model I had ever seen or felt before.

I was standing in the back of the church. And she approached. A woman who means well. She really does. You know her too, I’m sure. Your version of her.

She said God wants you to know that you can be healed right this minute. You just have to claim it.

That icky feeling. That mild state of wrongness that alerts us: God did not really say that.

She kept talking but her words suddenly faded out of my hearing.

God actually cut her off.

don’t listen to her

Her mouth kept moving but I only heard him in my consciousness.

don’t pay attention to those words right now

only my words.

I am not going to heal you all at once

I am going to take you on a journey

and show you many great mysteries

I am going to teach you how to heal

and then you are going to show many more

I understood in an instant that simply taking away an effect, leaves the cause never discovered

never understood

never conquered.

I was unwell for a reason.

How would I benefit if I did not find out how to reverse my own mistakes?

Slipping in and cleaning your child’s bedroom gives him no experience in how to keep his room clean. In fact, when it is done for him, he will appreciate it much less. He will be more careless, toss things about. Because he does not have to put any thought or effort into the cleanliness of his own room. It is done for him. When he is on his own and you are no longer there, his home will either be a horrifying hazardous wasteland or else he will have to struggle to learn late a lesson he should have been building since he could walk. Pick up after yourself. Put garbage in the waste bin. If you take it out, later you must put it back. These simple guidelines of cleanliness, ingrained into the mind, a habit that allows for healthier living.

God would never deprive us of this route. Not if he is good.

Our lives are meant to be a journey of growth, maturity, building character: a journey of gaining wisdom. The ability to make choices toward good and prosperity and health. And moving away from foolishness: the choices that lead toward the opposite of these things. The choices that harm us and rob us.

Simple guidelines for health that all of us should have been raised knowing got lost and left behind several generations ago when our culture decided to move into the modern age of medical absurdities

Idiotically altered non-food

the technological age of laziness, and the indoor lifestyle of suburbia.

Just to name a few.

Lost is the wisdom of what affects us positively and negatively and how to choose for health.

We don’t connect our lifestyle choices with our lack of health anymore. For too many generations the medical viewpoint has told us that our health is simply a hand we are dealt, luck of the draw. We see it like a deformity in our genetics that requires medicine to control. Instead of the truth: most of us are simply suffering the effects of the way we are living and if we change these causes, the effects will minimize or go away completely.

I am speaking to the ones who have spent hours crying out to a God you want to believe is merciful and wondering why, year after year, you are still suffering.

The answer is this: