I used to hate the phrase, “everything happens for a reason.” It always seemed so trite to me, and hearing it spoken to me was like having salt rubbed into a very fresh, still-trying-to-heal wound. It seemed like one of those things you just sort of say to someone when you don’t have anything better to say, when things just can’t be explained. And I often thought to myself, “there is no reason why anyone should ever have to experience the things that I have.” It was painful to even imagine that, and to try to make sense of what sort of “reason” there would be. It made me angry.
I experienced a lot of loss, heart-break, and trauma to my body within the last 7 years. I tried very hard to control everything happening, and trying to control things that are out of your control creates an anxiety-filled roller coaster of emotions, pain, and confusion. Within this downward spiral I was in, I lost myself. I wanted to force change so badly, that it started to change who I was. It started to morph me into another person, and I stopped doing the things I loved, and I had no idea who I was, outside of the pain and confusion and suffering that I was so used to feeling. I began identifying myself as my health problems. I began to wear it like a thick winter jacket in the middle of summer.
Depression is a scary, sneaky little beast. It came in swiftly. I lost my breath. I lost my self-image. I lost my purpose. It hardened me. I became this hollowed-out shell. My physical appearance even changed. I lived in a daydream of “what if’s” and “should-have-been’s”. What if my body worked like it was supposed to? Every other woman I knew could make healthy babies and carry them to full-term, why not me? Everyone else had normal, “boring” bodies. I was always the exception, the 1 out of 500. I sought out every reason, Googled til the sun rose, and even went through surgery to “fix” the problem. Even when that seemed to not make everything “normal”, I began to see my life as this tired, over-played game. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. So, I did something. I stopped. The doctors were so determined, and there was still a chance things could work out, but I made a decision. I stopped forcing it. I stopped trying to change who I was. I stopped letting my anxious-filled thoughts invade my brain. I stopped living in fear.
Life was going well once I released that control. I finally felt the healthiest I had in awhile, for an entire year I did not have one single fear-induced doctor appointment. And then a lump appeared on the inside of my left knee. After some testing, it was determined that it was not the sebaceous cyst my doctor thought it was. It was level one sarcoma.
Well, shit. That was my first thought. And I screamed. And I cried. And I yelled, “WHY” maybe a thousand times until my throat was raw. After that, a little voice spoke from my heart and it said, “you can do this.”
So, I did. I named my tumor Frank. I went through the radiation – five times a week for five weeks. I got the surgery to remove the tumor, and then even after the surgery and I had fluid retention and complications with healing, I kept a positive attitude. And a strange thing happened. I found myself again. Something switched back on for me. When you are confronted with life or death, when your mortality seems to be as fragile as a single thread within a spider’s web, you begin to see life differently. Suddenly, everything you do feels important. I started to write again. I began painting. I dived deeper into my yoga practice. And I made soul-level connections with other people, which was the best part of all. My heart had been closed off for so long, that when it finally opened back up, I felt absolutely radiant.
And now, here I am. It was around two years ago, when that tumor was discovered. When I look back at who I was then, and who I am now, and the transformation is incredible. That experience brought me back down to earth. It taught me that all life is fragile – which I knew from my previous experiences – however, it was on another level. I started to see my life as having so much potential. And I thought about all the things I wanted to do still, and still hadn’t. I thought of all those who had a diagnosis similar to mine, and never got a chance to. So I started to live. I live for myself. I live for the others. I live for the ones who didn’t get a chance to, the ones who wouldn’t. I know that there is something more. That perhaps, there was a reason, after all.
Love & light,
Jen
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