So it turns out all of my guts had grown together, and that had to be all cleaned up during the surgery for my hysterectomy. Aside from taking much longer than had originally been anticipated, the procedure went very well, and I am very pleased with the progress of my recovery. Enough about my guts, though - I mean they are guts, and the surgeon didn't find anything interesting in them (like a twin, or human teeth, or a colony of worms), so that's that.
I apparently prepared for the emotional and psychological aspects of the hysterectomy well. I haven't had any emotional or hormonal fallout at all. It feels a lot like when my dad died, like losing such a significant part of myself would have been devastating if it was happeneing to any one else, but it is happening to me, so it is just a big relief.
I feel good. I am really feeling the symbolic and literal and spiritual parrallels of everything going on in my life. It seriously just feels really good.
One thing that has been on my mind a lot is my mom, and how different the circumstances would have been if she was still a part of my life. I am really relieved I did not have to deal with her making my surgery all about her, or making light of my experience, or judging my decisions about very major things in my life. I also am glad I did not have to keep track of all the people who wished me well and wanted to be a part of the superficial aspects of the healing process, like my brother and sister, and my mom's friends.
I realize how snooty and disaffected that might sound, but it is like when anyone uses the phrase "well, bless her heart!" It is a contrived reaction to something bad happening to someone you don't really give a shit about, but you don't want anyone to know you don't give a shit about the person something bad is happening to. Then there is the obligation on the part of the person whose heart is being blessed to acknowledge how wonderful and thoughtful and gracious the heart-blesser is, or dire social consequences will follow. It is all very old-money and Southern. I hate it.
I also am glad that I don't have to deal with justifying to my mom the validity of my hysterectomy. When I was a kid, one of my aunts had a hysterectomy. Up until then, I had been under the impression that a hysterectomy was something devastasting and terrible, that having one meant you were forever disfigured and marked as "less than," and were one to be pitied. When my aunt had her hysterectomy, though, my mom was really irritated about it all. My mom said that my aunt was making a big deal out of normal things, and that she just wanted the attention a valid hysterectomy may have warranted.
She was the same way about a family that were our close friends, swearing the mom had Munchausen's by proxy, and had imposed imaginary bad things on her daughters so that hysterics and surgeries and conditions and fears of infertility were a constant part of their lives. Now those the daughters are all grown up, and it turns out one of them is not able to have children, and after my own experiences, I really resent my mom's way of invalidating other people's pain and hardship.
So I guess what I learned from my mom is that hysterectomies are horrible and devastating and life changing IF the person having it did not somehow bring it upon herself by pretending to be sicker than she really was. Otherwise, it was just another "bless her heart" on the outside, and then talking shit about feigned symptoms and histrionics behind closed doors. I am glad I didn't have to submit myself as fodder for either of those categories, especially since I was actually really excited about how much better I might feel after a hysterectomy. I mean, I don't feel any need to be pitied or condescended to, and frankly have not been.
My aunt, and our family friend and her daughters, were on the "I'm super crazy, look at me" end of the bless-her-heart spectrum, and I did always view them as being somehow insincere in the way they went about their lives. Like something was wrong with them, like their feelings and thoughts were to all be discounted because somewhere in it all is a big pile of steaming dog shit - pretty much the way my mom presented me to the world.
I did not want to be like those crazy self-absorbed people, even if in reality they were much nicer to me than my mom was, because going to all kinds of different lengths to call attention to yourself was the worst kind of person there was. In hindsight, I would call that a complete absence of compassion, and having no compassion is the lonliest way to live. I wonder how lonely my mom feels on a moment to moment basis.
Before I wrote about my aunt who had a hysterectomy, I thought about how my doing so could be contrived as stiring shit up, "sewing discord among [sisters]," and basically calling my mom out for being such a petulent bitch her whole life. Will my aunt read this post and realize that her pain and trauma were the butt end of my mom's disdain? Maybe. Am I intentionally attempting to interefere with whatever intact relationships my mom has at this time in her sad little life? Maybe. Am I being a spiteful little bitch? Maybe.
But do I give a shit if my motives are insincere and non-therapeutic and simply petulant, like my mom's motives so often are? No.
But if I don't give a shit about that, does that mean I am taking a great risk by leaving my viewpoints and conclusions vulnerable to dismissal by others? If my viewpoints and conclusions are dismissed by others, does that mean they are not valid?
Who gives a fuck?
My mom is a cunt. FYI, that has nothing to do with the topic at hand, but I really just felt like calling her that.
Having the hysterectomy behind me makes me feel clean, and strong, and capable. Perhaps paradoxically, it gives me a keener sense of my femininity, of my place in the world as a woman, and of my ability to know what it is to have respect for myself.
On a different note, I am done with school. I am not officially graduating, but I am done. As disappointing as it was to let that goal of being a college graduate go, especially after all of the time and money and energy I have put into it, I feel really good about this, too. Having the piece of paper does not mean to me now as much as it did when I started school seven years ago. Also, it is very easy for me to see that all of that time and money and effort actually do mean something - my failure to get a diploma does not dismiss the abundance of knowledge and self-worth that I have acquired along the way.
By redefining my perception of what being a college graduate means to me, am I making excuses to justify throwing in the towel? I don't fucking know.
What I do know is that I am tremendously excited about having so much time to write! I am espeially excited about a new project I am doing anonymously, about all of the things I have been scared to reveal in this blog, where people know me, and can use the information I publish here as a means of judging me. Also, where it would be easier for others to be hurt by what I have to say. I am excited to put all of this other stuff out there without the burden of identity.
I don't know if anyone will read my new anonymous blog (I probably won't be advertising it), or if they will believe what I write there. It really is so tremendously fucked up, even more fucked up than what I have revealed in this blog. But I recently found a quote by Maya Angelou: "There is no greater burden than bearing an untold story inside of you." It is so, so, so true, but now I have a means of unburdening myself of those other stories!
Unforunately, I cannot reveal my new anonymous blog here, you know, because it is anonymous. But I am certainly going to continue posting here - writing this blog has been my life blood these past few years, and I have grown accustomed to having life in my blood. So now, while continuing to maintain the strength I have built up for myself, I am starting a new chapter - perhaps even a new life - with my uterus-less body, and enough college credit hours for four different bachelor's degrees (but not even a single actual degree), and with my physical and mental health, and with my beautiful husband and sons, and - miracle of all miracles - with peace of mind.
Seriously, it feels really good.
No comments:
Post a Comment