Friday Tea and a Calming Death

This morning I decided why not have a hot cup of expired tea? I mean it only expired in August and the box was still wrapped in cellophane. As you read on the side of the box, the "Blendmaster's Notes" if you will..."This uplifting blend combines spicy ginger - valued for its piquant taste and reputation as a digestive aid - with a cheerfully bright lemon flavor and aroma. You might say that the pairing of lemon and ginger hits 'just the right note' anytime you need a soothing and rejuvenating cup of tea." This description came right off of the pen of Charlie Baden...a BLENDMASTER. I trusted Charlie.

I said to myself, what do I need for this Friday at work? I NEED to calm my tummy with a digestive aid. Then I said, what way can I do this? My first thought was Tums. Since I did not have that, I looked at this box of expired tea, and saw Charlie's note to me. I thought..."Piquant taste...what the hell is that?" Then I thought..."Charlie is a damn blendmaster...you know what you are NOT, Lori? A blendmaster of tea. Trust Charlie...trust. Put your faith in people Lori, they won't do you wrong. I mean this tea is supposed to "hit the right note" if you know what I mean? I don't know what that means, but a blendmaster does...and I should have faith. I wanted something soothing...the box suggested I would get soothing. Let's do this shit.

I sashayed upstairs, tea bag in hand, grabbed a ginormous mug and hit 12 oz on the Keurig, people...because I am committed to the calmness this tea will not only provide my tummy but to ME...my soul...my heart. My aura even.

As the searing hot water hit the tea bag...an aroma of familiarity wafted to my nostrils. It was one that did not evoke thoughts of peace love and comfort. It was one that left me feeling disturbed. A bit unsettled...but yet I couldn't piece this together. How on earth could this expired tea...this blendmaster's highest accolades be anything but a succulent warm cup of 100% pure happiness?! It can't be the tea making me feel uncomfortable right?

Ah...jolly good right it was. When it finally hit me, I realized I was making a mug of hot mop water. It was like Mr. Clean himself was inside that big mug rolling around, loofah-ing his hairy armpits, farting lemon essence in the hot water, scrubbing ginger crystals off of his pubes and winking at me. It was pure unadulterated poison tea. It was not lemon, it was not ginger...it was CHEMICAL DEATH. I am positive I stopped my own self poisoning today. I mean, I did drink a sip, so IF I croak, please have them test the teabag in the huge mug on my desk. Then have them contact Charlie Baden the blendmaster and ask him what the fuck piquant ginger is, because I think my hubby and son can win some cash in a wrongful death suit. I mean if I am going to pass on, I feel like they deserve some money in place of my glowing personality.

Lizard Lips

       

     

      It has been awhile since I have written about anything.  I was pondering through my mental files about all the ridiculous dates I have been on.  I thought it was time to bust back into 2016 with class and style.  I want to give you a dating story.

            So, back in the day when I used to work at an optical chain as the manager.  There would be certain occasions that I would have to give classes to people regarding how to put in contact lenses.  During these classes I would do such things as instruct the patient on how to properly care for their lenses, ocular health and how to pry their eye open with a tiny little contact lens balanced on the tip of their finger then how to remove that little thin disk from the surface of their slimy eyeball. 

            Normally, women were more skilled at this than men.  I am not saying this to be sexist.  I am simply saying it because women have smaller fingers, and a lot of women are accustomed to applying cosmetics to their eyes.  Thus giving them some amazing prerequisite skills to keeping their eyes open, and inserting the contact lens.  My classes generally took longer when I was teaching a man.  Read into that what you will, whether it be the fat finger thing, or the “I cannot keep my eye open” issue or the “I am alone with a woman in a small room” syndrome. Either way, I knew I was in for a long, tedious trip through hell. 

            On this particular day in question I had a gentleman scheduled for a class that was a dead ringer for Lewis Skolnick from Revenge of the Nerds. His glasses had lenses that could have weighed approximately 10 pounds each, they were the size of small dinner plates and if used to refract sunlight on a bright day odds are it could have caused the crash of a 747 due to the blinding intensity of the rays hurdled at the jet.  His glasses, to be honest, needed to have scaffolding around his face to hold them up.  Not only scaffolding to hold them up, but an entire crew of tiny window washers diligently working on the scaffolding to clean his glasses from the debris that collected on the enormous lenses. (A reference that only my friend Kristin would appreciate.)

            Anyway…

            Me and Lewis (we are totally calling him Lewis the rest of this story…) are in the tiny room together, alone.  Now, to explain…not only is Lewis a doppelganger for the star of Revenge of the Nerds, he also has the limited social skills of a geek.  As I had to lurk uncomfortably close to him to help him with this torturous contact lens class, I tried to make small talk.  Absolutely any kind of small talk would have made the situation less awkward, but even though I put forth fervent effort, his responses were so brutally dry and uninteresting that I really had to give a Herculean effort to simply stay awake.  During the course of what ended up being a nearly 2 hour attempt due to extreme nervousness, Lewis finally gets both contacts in, takes them out, and puts them back in again.  When he has succeeded at this endeavor, I thought I would boost his self-esteem a little bit with a compliment.  It was not my best idea ever…but then again, I haven’t always been known for my stellar skills of communication with the opposite sex.  

     I said “Lewis!  You look like a totally different man.  You are well on your way to new confidence and adventures.”  Lewis looked at me like a puppy dog that was going to get a peanut butter snack.  He fluttered his eyelashes even.  He said to me “REALLY?  I look like a new man.”  “YES Lewis, you DO!!”  He said to me, “You know, you’re right…I AM feeling more confident…I have never asked a woman on a date before.  I think today is the day!”  Immediately I am filled with a God-awful sense of doom.  

     It felt like those Nano-seconds of silence were days long.  I looked at him like a frightened deer and he looked at me like a hungry bear.  I knew what was coming next.  “SOOOOO….” he said, “would you be interested in going to dinner with me on Saturday?”  In this moment which was also not very long, but felt like six weeks, (cue the crickets chirping and a wayward tumbleweed rolling by) I stood there pensive.  A thousand thoughts filled my head at once.  The most prevalent were “SWEET BABY JESUS!!  I cannot POSSIBLY go on a date with this guy!!!!!  NOOOOOOOOO!!”  AND “You are the world’s biggest douche stick for boosting a man’s confidence enough to ask a woman on a first date only to shoot him down brutally.  You will RUIN his confidence forever!!  YOU MUST TAKE ONE FOR THE TEAM!!!”  

     So, in the 15 seconds that it took me to answer, I stared blankly at him while processing the two distinct choices I had available to me.  It was like the proverbial angel on one shoulder, devil on the other arguing back and forth trying to persuade me to do one thing or the next.  I blurt out “SURE!” in the voice of a crazed psychopath.  “REALLLLLY?!!!!!” he says.  Oh damn it…damn it….DAMN IT ALL TO HELL.  “YES, REALLY!”  I say in an excited flurry without thinking.

Why I am so nice?  Damn angel always wins. 

Anyway….Saturday arrives.  I am at work, so I am dressed up in my work clothes.  Lewis arrives promptly at 6 p.m. He is dressed in jeans, a plaid “cowboy” shirt that had those pearl-ish buttons and cowboy boots.  His hair was greased down.  He WAS wearing his contacts.  He told me he had decided to take me to his favorite eating establishment, which, in an act of pure karma, was my most hated eating establishment.  I yet again did not have the heart to tell him that I would be horrified to go there.  We went there.  The whole date was spent making very odd chit chat.  I was thankful that the service was fairly fast and the date was over.  He asked if I wanted to go sit by the lake, and at this point I finally said “You know, I have to head home.”  I was thinking thank heavens, this is IT…this is the last time I will need to have any more weirdness.

Nope.  Our conversation on the way home was a strange confessional.  He looked at me and said, “You know, there are a FEW things I need to tell you before we continue on with any sort of relationship.”  (WHAT?! Did I miss a discussion about relationships?  Did someone not give me a memo?!) “I want you to know that in times of stress I get a great deal of psoriasis on my scalp…also, just an FYI, I can break out in spontaneous eczema when I am nervous.  Only on and around my lips.”  

(YUCK!!!!)  “Okayyyyyyyyyyyy…………………………………….”  I said, trailing the ‘y’ off as long as I can.  “Why are you telling me this?”

“Well as I said, when I am stressed or nervous I get these conditions…and to be quite frank I am nervous about being with you, and when I try to kiss you I don’t want you to wonder what is wrong with my lips, or see giant flakes in my hair.  At least THIS way you will know the reason.”  He said to me in a brilliantly “matter of fact” sort of way. 

(Someone please cue the sound of awkward silence.  Wait, there is NO reproducing THAT….I guess that I will just symbolically try to create it.)

Silence...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

I am still pondering on how he jumped from barely being able to have a conversation with a gal on a dinner, to a relationship!! 

Yeah.  SO…the time has come for me to break it to him…WHAT I am gonna break to him, I don’t know…but I need to say SOMETHING before he lurches in for a kiss!

I quickly blabber “YOU KNOW….just so you you’re aware, I am really not attracted to men physically.”   You see, these are the things I pull out of my hat in a pinch...you know, when I don't want to hurt feelings.

There was another brief yet longer than life uncomfortable reprieve of all talking.

He looked at me and said “So you are a….”

I said “I am just not sexually attracted to men.  Not looking for a relationship…but I enjoyed our time hanging out!”  (Here I see that karma perhaps punishes my white lie by not giving me sex on a regular basis now...I SWEAR, I was trying to spare his feelings!!)

He nicely agreed with me and we drove back to my workplace to my car.  I do want you to know that all went well for this dude, he went on to be in a happy relationship.  Apparently, she understood the scaly lips and flaky scalp issue.  If just being AROUND me made him nervous, and we didn't even touch...can you imagine what things looked like when he had SEX for the first time?  Ewwwww…..I envision some sort of crazy skin confetti everywhere.  Like a lizard shedding skin, but in some blizzard like flurry.  Ugh!!  Yes…that is the vision I am leaving you with.  You’re welcome.

Fresh as a Summer's Eve.

So I am going to go ahead and divulge something to all of my friends, since it is Monday, what I have to say is funny and I also have not had enough caffeine to stop me.  Also, I have not had a blog offering in some time.  Since it is summer and I sweat like a dirty hairy man that is laying on an asphalt driveway wearing long underwear and a parka, I thought it would be prudent to try and deodorize and be proactive in stopping sweat on every single part of my sweaty self.  So, that said I bought some Summer’s Eve Tahitian Sunset deodorant spray for the nether regions.  I really pondered on the scent, thinking:

1.     I have never been to Tahiti.

2.     I bet a sunset on a Tahitian beach would be beautiful.

3.     I think tropical flowers, citrus fruit and the fresh breeze of the ocean would smell delightful.

4.     Men could surely overlook a glistening sweaty crotchular area when it smells as amazing as a Tahitian Sunset.  I mean, how ROMANTIC, right?

5.     Most definitely a man would HAVE to be drawn to sopping wet, perspiration drenched jeans and underwear , if the prize underneath smelled like a fresh sliced pineapple fruit salad?

So, here is the reality of what happened with my glorious summer’s eve.

1.     During the one of the hottest, most dank, humid and sweltering days of the summer I choose to go to a concert that has a PACKED house.

2.     I chose to puff on some Tahitian Breeze post shower, to keep me feeling like I have pineapple, coconut and tropical wildflowers blooming in my groinial region.

3.     I liberally apply said deodorant without testing the scent first.

4.     I was “iffy” about the smell…questioning whether or not, in fact, that it had ANYTHING to do with Tahiti at ALL.

5.     Once the tight black jeans were on and I was all decked out, I stepped out into Satan’s LAIR outdoors, and then into a sub-par air-conditioned facility with shoulder to shoulder people.  Let’s just say that my lady parts staged a protest, along with every other part of my body…I sprouted a sweat mustache, back sweat and of course we cannot forget the armpits.  (I LOVE feeling like a sexy beast…and by beast I mean a Sasquatch trapped on a sandbar in the South Pacific…) 

6.     Once the lady bits were sufficiently roasting; I noticed that instead of pineapple on the grill…I smelled what I liken to the Glade bathroom spray that our Grandmothers all collectively had in their bathrooms circa 1978.  (Maybe even one of those melty gelatinous masses, the Glade solid air fresheners that you lift the lid on and it slowly dissolves into a massive goo pile stuck to the stick in the middle, you know the ones I mean?) 

7.     Every time I moved my legs I could catch a drift of what seemed like the equivalent of the Glade factory malfunctioning and shooting out vapors of dead lilacs, banana peels and freshly mowed grass clippings.  This scent was neither appealing to me, nor do I believe that any man on the planet would be magnetically drawn to my vagina via this scent.  (Envision Pepe LePew and how he used to magically float over to the one he chose for his affection…yeah, not happening.)  There would be no one magically drifting on a scent cloud to my loins.

8.     I spent the entire rest of the concert, trying to keep my legs plastered together so I wouldn’t attract some wayward raccoons thinking that I had a compost bin of overheated banana peels and dead lilacs in my pants.

My advice to you:  Stick with baby powder…at least we all can grasp what that smells like.  I mean, at the worst it might conjure itself up into some really strange paste down there, but it will still smell like baby fresh paste.  Also, do not buy into any commercial lie that tells you that they know what a Tahitian Sunset smells like.  They don’t.  I have never been to Tahiti, and I can STILL unequivocally tell you that it does NOT smell like the product in that tiny aerosol can.

In closing, I want to remind each and every one of you to stay fresh the best way you know how…and may you be forever blessed with genes that don’t cause you to sweat profusely.  Go forth, and may you find only the smell of pineapple birthing from your undercarriage! 

Just Another Brick

Life is beautiful.  Every single day I see my broken pieces having more meaning.  All the cracks in my surface are there for a purpose.  I am starting to see a cohesiveness that I had never seen before.  For whatever reason, I am seeing things with a new vision and under a different light…I am thankful for this blessing.  Life is starting to happen.

 

 

Literally, my stomach is covered in scars.  I have been cut open more times than I can count.   Until recently, I saw my scars as ugly.  They were a reminder of things that I had lost.  They were a reminder of things that were taken from me against my will.  All of those nasty looking wounds that had healed over were simply the marks of the tools that had been used against me to open me up and take out parts of my body.

 The scars symbolically are the wounds that have been left by those that have harmed me.  They are the reminders that people have taken things from me that I cannot ever have returned.  They are the marks that have been left behind from people that hurt me.  The wounds that were there were sometimes visible to the world but sometimes those wounds were hidden and deep.  Sometimes those wounds were covered with a mask that displayed an illuminated smile.  The confidence that I falsely exhibited was simply a device I used to keep people from getting inside.  It was masterfully executed and it was also very effective.  I truly think my epic performance was worthy of an academy award nomination.

 

I took pride in the walls that I had built to protect myself.   In all honesty, I had built a formidable fortress.  I spent a great deal of time crafting some beautiful bricks.  My bricks were so artistic.  I felt as if the partitions I had created around my heart were so simply lovely that no one would notice that they were there.  I was pretty certain that everything would, by all accounts, find that I was normal.  My barricade successfully kept most people out.  Here and there, I had chosen to let a select few inside my barriers, but I was extremely picky.  Not everyone is worthy to being exposed to my weaknesses and vulnerability.  If I let just anyone in, I might be destroyed.  I had turned this game of life into a virtual blockbuster mini-series of WAR.  I safely guarded myself from all opponents.  I was in lock down mode.  My guns were loaded and I was fully prepared to kill knowing that I would rather have it be HIM or me.  It was rarely me.  Now, the few times I had managed to let someone sneak by the artillery I have to say that mistakenly I was injured.  I was foolish only a few times.  I ended up wounded.  I bandaged myself right quick, and then assisted my adversary in making more bricks.  My enemies were more than cordial with lending a helpful hand slapping down another piece of well crafted stone while I mixed up the mortar and spread it on thicker and thicker.  I really wanted to make sure those impediments surrounding my heart and frailties stayed nice and sturdy, and it is always better to work as a team when creating buffers to reality.

Regarding the scars; I am beginning to view them differently, though.  Recently I have begun, with the help of what I will call the whirlwind, to find that these defenses of mine are not permanent.   To be honest, when this whirlwind swept through, I was clinging with all my might to every possible weapon I had in my cache.  I needed the reinforcements.  I felt as if right away, I KNEW this would bring my utter destruction.  I absolutely positively KNEW that whirlwind was certainly going to destroy my life as I knew it.  I needed to hang on to safety.  I truly needed to grasp all that I had that kept me in the realm of the familiar.  The familiar for me was being suspicious that my heart would inevitably break when I made myself vulnerable.  The whirlwind has lessons for me to learn.  I decided to give this sweeping change a chance because there is something so compelling when you absolutely know that something HAS to just BE in your life.  There was no denying that my destiny was to take this course regardless of the outcome.  I embarked on my journey and let fate take its course.

 

So far, I have been awakened to many things.  The first is that I have been undoubtedly the cause of most of my own suffering.  All in simple acts of protecting myself unnecessarily, I have caused myself profound grief.  I mistakenly have fallen back on the notion that all outcomes will be the same as they always have been.  I have fruitlessly been defending a heart that can no longer be hurt, because in reality there is no such thing for myself unless I am the one that created it.  There are beautiful people out there, in fact there are those that want nothing more than to put on their hard hats and their gloves and take sledgehammers and break down all of the blockades I have created.  For the first time in as long as I have a memory, I have recently felt like I could really breathe.  I felt like I could relax…almost as if I had melted.  How or why is this so profound?  Well, I actually have had physicians touch my muscles and say they know I must be constantly in ‘fight or flight’ because I am physically unable to relax my muscles.  I didn’t know what it felt like to have peace.  I didn’t know what it felt like not to be used.  I didn’t know what it felt like to be loved by a man without conditions.  I have learned to breathe.  The breath I have taken is slow and deep and immensely cleansing.  I have felt things shatter piece by piece inside of me.  It is terrifying…Oh my God is it terrifying for me!  I am learning that so many of my beliefs about reality have all been created out of my self-protective illusions.  Waking up can be hard…but I have a feeling it is worth it.  The Whirlwind has created something amazing with the force of change.  I promise to embrace it fully.  Always.  As well as count my blessings every single day.  Those scars I have, they are proof that something tried to hurt me and I was stronger.  Those scars remind me of everything I was, everything I needed to heal the wounds and all that I have been through.  Those things are also things that no longer serve me the remainder of this journey.  I am clearing out the warehouse of my arsenal, I am going to break up the bricks and mortar and I shall forsake all that no longer suits my purpose.  I will love.  Nothing will stop me.  The journey has begun. 

ANGRY lady parts!!

            I thought I would put out a timely blog post regarding the recent op-ed announcement Angelina Jolie wrote for the New York Times regarding her surgery to remove her ovaries and fallopian tubes.  You know that I of course have something to say.

            Ever since I was approximately 25 years old my sexual reproductive system had been actively plotting to kill me.  I am not sure if anyone knows what it feels like to be basically “living with” a hit man that is trying to snuff you, but it is awkward to say the least.  There is nothing more unsettling than knowing that lurking within your groinial (YES, I know it is not a word…) cavity lays a beast awaiting you.  I mean, I had, over the years grown fond of my internal organs.  There was a point in which I pondered deeply what I had done that pissed off my uterus, cervix, fallopian tubes and ovaries.  How on earth did I end up with these little sociopathic rogues stewing inside of me?  Was it me?  What the hell? 

 

            Don’t get me wrong, I had an iffy relationship with my lady parts anyway.  Love/hate kind of thing, you know what I mean.  I was only 11 years old when I got my period.  Oh joy.  At first I was tickled that the next year in middle school I would be able to miss swimming class on occasion with a valid excuse.  (I was terrified of water.)  Little did I know that this beast of a period would plague me with the kind of pain that only Satan himself enjoys inflicting?  It was BRUTAL.  There were days where I had to be home from school that it was so bad.  There were many days during the menstruation years that I literally wished I could ceremoniously rip out my organs, toss them upon the ground and do a ritualistic dance upon them prior to throwing them in a fire.  Yes, that is the truth.  I was in pain for a good portion of my youth and adulthood because of these organs.

            On the plus side, I was somehow blessed with an amazing son.  This is actually nothing short of a miracle for me, as I view it in hindsight.  I had no clue how severe my issues really were.  I consider myself blessed for my arch nemeses being so gracious as to allow my boy to incubate in their malevolent domain for nine months, so for that alone I am thankful beyond belief.

            Shortly after the birth of my son, I found out that I had severe cervical dysplasia.  I was just months short of having cervical cancer.  I was terrified.  How on earth could it possibly be that I could have such a tiny part of my body masterminding a ploy to bring about my demise?  I first had to have a procedure done called a colposcopy and subsequently a biopsy.  This process is not done under any sort of anesthetic.  I will reiterate this several times whilst discussing this portion, so imagine if you will your OWN tender nether regions so to put yourself in the shoes of someone having this done.  After the biopsy and the confirmation of severity, I had to undergo what is called a LEEP procedure (loop electrosurgical excision procedure), which uses electricity to remove abnormal tissue.  Basically, it cauterizes the cervix or burns it.  FYI, this procedure also is not performed with anesthetic, local or otherwise.  It was extremely painful.  If you can imagine having your body cavity invades by a giant electrical wand and having it zap your sensitive body parts while making the sound of a thousand flies meeting their demise in a bug zapper, you can pretty much sum up the uneasy state of panic I was in.  It did not help matters any that my then husband refused to come with me for said procedures and I was alone and nervous.  I waited for the allotted period of time, went back in for a repeat pap, and once again found that my dysplasia had not gotten better even after the LEEP procedure.  It was now time for the crew to break out the big guns.  (I hope you can read into that all of my sarcastic excitement.)    The next game plan required me to have what is called Cryosurgery.  By surgery I was assuming, much to my relief that I would be ‘put under.’  I was hoping that I would be, so that I would not have to feel the pain yet again.  Wrongo, bucko.  This procedure Cryosurgery works by taking advantage of the destructive force of freezing temperatures on cells. When their temperature sinks beyond a certain level ice crystals begin forming inside the cells and, because of their lower density, eventually tear apart those cells. Further harm to malignant growth will result once the blood vessels supplying the affected tissue begin to freeze.  How do they freeze it you ask?  Liquid nitrogen.  Yep, liquid nitrogen ‘torch’ stuck up there and they went to town…freezing all of those cancer cells.  Now, if you have never had such a treat as this, you don’t know that again; you are awake for the procedure, you cannot deaden the cervix in preparation and the act of freezing the cervix causes the uterus to cramp up at the level of childbirth strength.  Again, I was alone for this…however I was BLESSED to have a wonderful doctor and amazing nurses that held my hand as tears rolled down my face.  Anyone who knows me knows it takes a LOT for me to express pain, but this one really got to me.  It was worse than childbirth for me, to be honest.  After this was over, I had to wear pads for a week while my lady bits unthawed.  I felt super sexy.  That one seemed to do the trick for awhile, and I was all clear for the time being.

            My lady parts were now armed with the knowledge that their plot to destroy me had been thwarted by the physicians; thus, my body starting cooking up another plan to kill me slowly.  As the years went by, I developed various oddities.  I had a bizarre twisted cyst that hung off of my fallopian tube, I had nearly constant cysts on my ovaries, ruptured cysts on my ovaries, I developed Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome and I developed Endometriosis. 

 

            I pretty much had a frequent customer punch card for ultrasounds.  (Good governor, the transvaginal ultrasound, the enormous “magic wand.”) What a treat.  Also I think about how many times my abdomen has been cut into for surgeries…my poor belly. 

            This brings me to current times, just a year and a half ago, to be exact.  I had another surgery because I was having trouble sitting without pain, and knew that my endometriosis was back again.  They did an ultrasound and found out that I had a polyp inside my uterus also, so we elected to surgically treat both issues.  The doctor cleaned up my endometriosis and removed the polyp.  Post surgery she told me she did not like the looks of my ovaries, and she also sent the polyp to the lab to analyze it.  When I came to my two week post-op she told me that the growth in my uterus was pre-cancerous, that my entire uterine lining was pre-cancerous and that the recommendation was to either have uterine biopsies 4 times a year, again under no anesthetic, OR to get a complete hysterectomy before things developed into cancer.

            Immediately I was PISSED!!  Really, lady parts?  CANCER AGAIN?  F-YOU.  Honestly, you can’t get any more creative than that?  You fall back on the easiest excuse to attempt to slay me yet again.  Not only that, but now you have left me no choice but to come to terms with a few things that I had not been letting go of for reasons….the reasons were perhaps unreasonable, but they were reasons!  I wanted to have more children…yeah, I KNOW…I was 41…probably not a good idea anyway…but damn, it was my PLAN, and you took it away.  PLUS, I had these unreasonable notions that if you took away my parts that made me female, that I would suddenly lose my femininity.  Would I grow a beard?  God forbid, a penis shoots outta me suddenly.  Damn.  What the HELL, life?  Thanks for continuing to NOT follow MY blueprint on how things are SUPPOSED to go.  Anyway, I decided after much mourning and deliberation that I needed to remove everything.  Given the fact that my ovaries were cloaked in a veil of suspicion, they had to vamoose as well…and even my cervix…BE GONE, ALL OF YOU!  Lori spoke, and it was done.  Second surgery in 2 months scheduled.

 

            The surgery went smoothly, and I woke up without facial hair and male genitalia.  Two weeks post op I returned to find out that my ovaries had been sent to pathology lab and that they too were pre-cancerous.  I am thankful that all of them are rotting away in a landfill somewhere…or I have visions of some diabolical mad scientist having all of my disfigured parts floating in Mason jars of liquid on shelves in his work space.  I hope that created a nice vision for you. 

            So, what I am simply trying to convey in the form of a long-winded story, is that MANY women face decisions that are life and death.  They do it on a daily basis.  They do it as quiet heroes.  They do it without the need to write an op-ed in the New York Times; without the media jumping to grab a microphone and do an interview.  Just because Angelina Jolie is a celebrity, it does not make her special.  It does not make her struggles any different from that of the rest of the women that battle with issues exclusive to females.  It simply means one thing; she has the financial means to take care of her medical bills better than the rest of us.  Otherwise, we are all the same.   We all are faced with thoughts that plague us; are we making the right decision?  We are all faced with sadness that we cannot bear any children, or any more children.  We are all faced with the fact that we have to mourn the loss of parts of our body that make us feminine.  We all have to face the fear that cancer will yet again rear its ugly head somewhere else in our bodies.  We are the same.  Just not all of us get to tell our stories.  I get to tell mine today, but millions of readers won’t see it.  None the less, the freedom of telling a story is bliss.  I am thankful that I am alive, and I pray that my body stops trying to throw a coup.  Damn rebels trying to overthrow me, anyhow!!

            As always, hugs and such.  Lori

Sand, Rocks, Beauty and Life...YES it really makes sense.

      Beautiful, is a word that conjures up many meanings for many different people. The definition of the word means to please the senses or the mind aesthetically.  It is something that I have been chasing since I was a young girl.  I have pursued all things that are beautiful.

 

          I used to be fascinated for hours and hours when I was little girl sitting in a pile of sand, sorting out the tiny rocks into different colors.  There were pinks, yellows, reds, crystal clear and even  jade green little bitty rocks inside of that giant pile of sand.  Some people might have looked at the way I spent my time as a waste.  Other people might have looked at that pile of sand and saw just that…sand.  I looked at that mound of petite rocks as an adventure.  When I saw it, I saw the potential for hidden treasure.  I saw it as an opportunity to dig deeper.  I absolutely KNEW that inside of that pile of bland tan gritty mass were little specks of phenomenal beauty.  Sometimes I sat down and found an agate right away!  Other times I had to search awhile for something pretty, digging and sorting until something stood out.  Then there were times that there were things that may not seem very striking at all, but rather it was more of a uniqueness.  Perhaps I found rocks with tiny holes in them, maybe a little fossil or an exceptional shape.  There were times I would find tiny pieces of clay, sometimes deep shades of terra cotta or bright golden yellows.  I would then take the time to make the mark of the clay color on my notebook to remember it by.

 

          Honestly, as I sit here reflecting on myself mining through the sand for treasure, an immense feeling of peace and calm overwhelms me.  I can easily discern that in my often chaotic childhood that this act of seeking was therapeutic to me.  To this day, there is nothing more serene to me than to sit on a picturesque beach by a lake looking for rocks.  Listening to the waves lapping on the shore, the simple repetitive movement of water brings serenity and finding rocks and holding them in my hands grounds me.  It is a little known fact that I collect rocks even today.  Simply putting these words out there gives me that same sensation of joy and silence.  I love that I can generate this kind of absolute stillness within myself by just ruminating about the subject.

 

          So, while pondering on this topic today, I realized how applicable this search for minute specks of splendor is SO important to our lives.  The ability to see beyond the surface of the people in our lives is the difference between simply passing someone by because of their exterior and creating deep and meaningful relationships with a person as we have taken the time to excavate beyond the surface.  Sometimes you sit down with somebody and right away you find this glimmer and spark inside of them that immediately got your attention.  Other times you have to burrow a bit a more, take some time, wait and then linger even more before you find the treasure.  Then there are those moments where it may be hard to find the riches that lie within the person in front of you.  Perhaps this person has lived a lifetime of painful experiences, perhaps this person is not ready to reveal that which makes them feel vulnerable.  However, I assure you that it is THERE.  It may be in the form of that rock with holes in it.  Their treasure may be the fact that they are imperfect with the anguish in which they have suffered.  Their inner beauty may be the fact that they have survived, despite the holes.  Conceivably, it could be that their inner gifts may be like that fossil that has hardened over time.  Their blessings to the world were once alive and vibrant, but over time and disappointment a shell, tough as nails, formed over the surface.  Can we help them dust off those dreams again?  Maybe their treasure is like the clay, making a mark where ever they go leaving an impression for us to learn from?  There is something.  We ALL have SOMETHING. 

 

          Beauty is in the eye of the beholder; however we need to peel back the layers sometimes to discover it.  Today, may you take that time to really process your surroundings.  Find the beauty in the crisp air, the snow, the sparrows and the frozen water.  Also take the time to dig a little deeper and make some marvelous connections to the fellow human beings we share our space with.  Look at everyone with new eyes.  See an adventure that you are willing and able to invest in.  Your life will be renewed and I can guarantee you that you will learn a staggering amount about YOURSELF.  We have the capacity to not only ignite and refurbish the flames within someone else, but this act of discovering the blessings others have to offer will in turn repair our own souls.  Like the child in the sandbox searching for tiny rocks, you will find it rejuvenates you and brings you harmony and freedom. 

          I love you all.  Unearth some treasures today.

 

I was pondering about some things the other day.  Mostly the fact that throughout my lifetime I have had words burned into my memory.  Envision my brain waiting inside some stockade gates and a searing red hot metal rod with some nasty term scorches itself onto my gooey gray matter.  This is obviously the vision my over-active imagination paints, however for me it has really been so remarkably true.

            Regardless of how I tried in the past to focus on the positive, it did not come easily to me.  I grew up around fairly constant put-downs.  I learned I was a loser, a ‘lifer’ in this town, my interests weren’t something to be commended, my good grades were insignificant because I would never go to college, that I would never make it as an artist, that no matter how hard I tried my efforts were futile.  My heart of hearts told me that was SO wrong, but eventually I came to doubt myself.  I started feeling like maybe those words were correct.  I literally heard them every day in SOME form.  It was truly agonizing, and I HATE to admit it but those things really beat me down.  I was worn out by the words; they sucked the life out of me.

 

            As time went on, and I became interested in boys the words I heard at home made it all too acceptable to involve myself with the same type of people.  I remember every cruel remark that guys ever made to me.  I was frequently called ugly.  My facial features picked over as if I was not even REAL…saying things in front of me that I dare say were so mean that it would cut to the soul of even the most hardened heart.  I had been told to feel LUCKY by certain people I dated; because surely they were doing me a favor…no one else would date someone so unattractive.  At 110 pounds I had been called fat several times actually.  They would poke my runner’s thighs and say I could stand to lose some.  My arms were too hairy, my nose too big…and my lips…well those got made fun of all the time.  I recall one time that I came out of the bathroom at a fellow’s house that I was dating to have him say “Jesus Christ, go back in the bathroom and fix yourself up…you look like a pile of shit.”  In front of my friends and his friends he said this, and for a young lady that was a deeply traumatic moment. 

            The way the girls treated me in school was far worse on a level of the brutality scale.  Although a virgin, I was a slut and a whore according to them.  I was also the ugliest creature on the planet, and heard that daily.  If I didn’t hear it verbally nearly every hour at school every day, they were very kind as to give me written reminders; all over the walls in the bathroom…all over my locker…all over my car.  Not to mention the vandalism to my property, and the theft of things that were important to me that went along with this. 

            I think about all of this now and wonder how it was that I was so fragile that I believed them?  I think that truly this is a testament to the power that we all throw forth on a daily basis with what we say.  Our words and intentions can be a formidable force for all that is good, beautiful, inspiring and joyful.  Our words and intentions can be an astounding and malevolent beast for all that is wicked, foul, vile and malicious as well.  Our words have the capacity to uplift and sustain someone that is suffering, and by the same token our words can injure and weaken the same person.

            In my lifetime I had been conditioned to believe that which was spoken to me, and subsequently surrounded myself with the only kind of people I thought I was worthy of…and unfortunately my expectations were not that high.  I look back and think of the opportunities I may have missed because I thought that I wasn’t good enough for so many people.  I am certainly thankful for being able to clearly see that so often mean and judgmental words are truly the feelings and inner workings of the person who is saying them regarding their beliefs about THEMSELVES.  It has nothing to do with me; I am simply the trigger that enacted such feelings.  I know I pushed a few buttons back in my school days by simply being myself.  I wore band shirts and miniskirts with Chuck Taylor high tops.  My eyeliner was too dark, my leather hat was ‘weird’, my laugh was too loud and I was a nerd.  I think that maybe because I was authentic to myself, that this caused stress in others.  At least I am proud that I stuck with my guns and remained who I was despite the fact that it was not well received.

            So, today I ask you to be mindful of what you say.  Remember that those that surround you on a daily basis in your family listen to every word you say.  Please, make sure you are lifting them up with your words.  In your relationships, be aware that you have the capacity to bring someone the greatest gifts with what you say to them…be kind, be passionate, be a loving person…see them with eyes that are full of love every single day.  We deserve that much.  In your friendships, remember to value those that have chosen to remain with you and by your side.  Be sure to honor them, treasure them and tell them how awesome they are.  Finally, in our everyday life we have the power to make an impact on other people by simply being kind.  We can SMILE.  We can send out a random compliment to a stranger.  We can build up our communities with love…that not only includes in person, but also our activity online.  Be nice.  You may make a new friend…and at the very least, you won’t be the cause of a nasty burn in someone else’s brain.

            I love you all!!  XO  Lori