Tags
abdominoplasty, abuse, baggage, body, body issues, disgusting, fat, fear, feelings, Graceland, guilt, healing, home, life, My Life, pain, road trip, shame, surgery, swelling, tired, tummy tuck, ugly, unknown
Graceland. Home.
Now that I have been to Graceland and back I have to figure out what (and where) home is.
(All thanks to Road Trip Therapy)
Home is where the heart is. Home sweet home.
Why does it feel like I have been away for no time and for an eternity? It’s hard to figure it out sometimes, and I don’t think this is a phenomena reserved especially for me. (Or maybe it is, but just don’t tell me, ok?)
The calendar says one thing, but my experience says another.
I feel so blank and overwhelmed all at the same time.
I want to be home, but I don’t want to be home.
Home is more complicated. There is everything here I need. I know where things are.
But what about where I live?
***
I feel like my body is one big adhesion. I’m built out of scar tissue on my insides. For real. I had my daughter by unplanned/emergency c-section nearly 9 months ago. But only 4 months after I had her I reopened my soul with a rather planned event. An abdominoplasty. And on top of that…or above, if you will…I had a mastopexy and augmentation.
Before the elective surgeries, I destroyed what was left of my knees while engaging in frantic exercise to rid me of myself.
This story gets complicated and deep pretty quickly. Most people will probably stop at plastic surgery and make their own assumptions.
I don’t really mind that. If you make your own assumptions about me then maybe you’ll never see what’s really bad. And you’ll never know the shame that canvases and binds me like a mummy, preserving all my wounds.
I’ve wanted to get it out about these surgeries. So maybe it’s more like guilt than shame. But I don’t know. I’m usually guessing when it comes to determining what I’m feeling.
I just know that I get dressed everyday and I can’t get away…I can never get away.
On the outside I’m healed. My scar healed nicely, although a bit uneven and not exactly balanced and I feel a bit like Frankenstein (and still fat, too, even though my surgeon is thrilled about my results and wants me back in his office for pictures in his “before and after” showcase book. (but I think I’ve put on 5 pounds since he told me that.)) It’s what I feel on the inside. The restriction. The breathing adhesion that I am. From my pelvis all the way up to my neck and seemingly through my mouth…one long cinch through my being. But it can’t contain me.
I deal with swelling from the surgery still, even though it’s going on 6 months post surgery. The scars, the internal restrictions, the swelling…they all trigger me in this place where I’m supposed to living. My home…
The recent road trip was pretty bad. It made the restrictions worse. It effects my entire body. I did a yoga dvd every morning while I was gone and used my foam roller to try to help the blood flow and for things to release, but it’s like a band-aid.
So I’m dealing with this recovery. I have adhesions and knots throughout my body. It keeps me from feeling, but in pain at the same time.
I’m frustrated. I’m just tired of learning too late about things I do to myself. The ways I make my journey more difficult than it has to be. I’m tired of making mistakes. I’m tired of not treating myself with gentleness and understanding. I’m tired of not caring about what’s going to hurt me.
I’m tired of being an exotic self-harmer.
I find it hard to balance.
I find it hard to know what is too much and what might not be enough.
I’m never finding my middle. My heart. My home. My safe place.
Whenever I do think I’ve maybe found it, it’s barricaded.
When I feel this way it makes me want to just get away forever, you know? Like forever away to who knows where.
Everyday when I see those scars and my bloated abdomen from the swelling (or from fat, it’s hard to tell the difference) I still get and the fat that has accumulated everywhere else because I can’t be active like I want to be in my everyday life because of my knees (which I know have not improved, in part, due to the surgeries to my abdomen and the side effects to the rest of my body-I know about body structure/function and I know it’s at least partly causation of my knee problems) I want to turn away from everything. I’m so disgusted with myself. At this flesh that isn’t even me.
But it is me.
It’s my temple. It’s supposed to be my Graceland (I think?)
I dream about a time it will be gone.
I’m disgusted with my body. With my story. These etchings all across me where people can see…and where they can’t.
I’m desperately trying to put the pieces and parts of me together. I’m trying so hard to get the story out. What makes a woman do this to herself?
But I’m disjointed. My knees don’t work anymore now, and I just want my legs cut off. At least my right one, because it’s the worst. And I’m not kidding.
***
So I’m home. Unpacking some contents of my baggage.