body
i am going to treat my body well. i'm always conscious of how i'm treating my body, and i tend to be better to it than most americans are to theirs. but i feel like i need a full circle right now, which makes honoring my body essential.
my body was catapulted out of control after a day in december 2000, when i suddenly started bleeding at work--at first it was just a heavy period, and then i was changing tampons and pads every twenty minutes, and then a mass of tissue came out and a coworker came into the bathroom and saw me, and then i was packed up in a taxi to the hospital. my cervix had dilated, the test was positive, then the second test was negative and they said there was a mistake, that i wasn't pregnant and i hadn't just had a miscarriage, that it was stress that had landed me at the hospital with my jeans stained through with blood.
the reason for stress of course was a man, which makes the link between my body and men distastefully clear. i found eric during my year 2000 version of today: newly single, job crossroads, lonely. the biggest difference is that i was happy, at least until he dropped his personal bomb on me and made me vomit with his news. that is when my body decided to fail and replace my decisionmaking and intuition with, literally, blood and guts. and of course R was there to bring me flowers after the ordeal, quietly letting me have my space, quietly preparing his space for me. the irony that R was supposed to be the safer choice between the two has not escaped me.
my body was not well then. i have stopped bleeding since, except not really. i do not want to erase the past three and a half years of my life. but i hope that by telling my body that i love it enough to forgive it for its betrayal, i will release parts of the damage from this time. not all of it--i want future lines on my face to be earned--but the parts that paralyze me i am eager to release.
my body was catapulted out of control after a day in december 2000, when i suddenly started bleeding at work--at first it was just a heavy period, and then i was changing tampons and pads every twenty minutes, and then a mass of tissue came out and a coworker came into the bathroom and saw me, and then i was packed up in a taxi to the hospital. my cervix had dilated, the test was positive, then the second test was negative and they said there was a mistake, that i wasn't pregnant and i hadn't just had a miscarriage, that it was stress that had landed me at the hospital with my jeans stained through with blood.
the reason for stress of course was a man, which makes the link between my body and men distastefully clear. i found eric during my year 2000 version of today: newly single, job crossroads, lonely. the biggest difference is that i was happy, at least until he dropped his personal bomb on me and made me vomit with his news. that is when my body decided to fail and replace my decisionmaking and intuition with, literally, blood and guts. and of course R was there to bring me flowers after the ordeal, quietly letting me have my space, quietly preparing his space for me. the irony that R was supposed to be the safer choice between the two has not escaped me.
my body was not well then. i have stopped bleeding since, except not really. i do not want to erase the past three and a half years of my life. but i hope that by telling my body that i love it enough to forgive it for its betrayal, i will release parts of the damage from this time. not all of it--i want future lines on my face to be earned--but the parts that paralyze me i am eager to release.