As We Wait

This was one of those "middle"-ing weeks, a seven-day stretch of less important things between more pressing matters. Last week was brimming with birthday activities for Joey, including a Star Wars marathon and a liquid cheese debacle (his idea, not mine) for the birthday nachos. And next week I have "the doctor's appointment."

I'll admit, it's been a strange and overwhelming week of waiting. I am comforted by long phone conversations and snuggles with my dog. I took one day and went into town while the husband worked so that I could have coffee with friends and browse some craft stores. I have rested my mind with documentaries, a piano app on my phone, and writing and writing and writing. I have done all this, and other meaningless things I can't recall or mention, in order to prepare and try to keep myself calm for the appointment on Tuesday.

But among all those things, attempts to find some sort of peace or at least anxiety-free moments, I found these videos.

The first one includes stories from three women who discovered, at varying stages in life and for various reasons, that they weren't able to have children. I resonated with all three of their stories, the mystery of not knowing why, the struggle of feeling like you can't offer to the world what you want to, and the decision to tell the world.

It's not easy to just come out and say it. I spent nearly a decade thinking I had PCOS, and I didn't say anything most of the time because I was ashamed. I'm sorry I didn't say something sooner, because I feel like it would have been even more of a victory when I finally realized I didn't have it.

In the second video a woman describes her experience with having a miscarriage. I have never been pregnant (yet!), nor have I had a miscarriage, but she also explained that she had a D&C (dilation & curettage). This is the same procedure I had during surgery back in February, and what happened to her only happens to about 1 in 500 women. However, the perspective is helpful--now you know what I was up against. The scarring from a mistake like that (you know, puncturing through someone's body) can lead to infertility.

While both videos were heartbreaking in their own right, and watching them could have led towards a depressed mindset, they were truly more beneficial than harmful. As I prepare for yet another uncomfortable and painful procedure next Tuesday, it is so good... so good to know that there are other people, other woman, with stories like mine.

It seems so odd that the appointment is finally here, and I still feel as if there is not enough time before it happens. It was the beginning of March when I went to see my oncologist for the first time, when I first started the drugs, when I stood in the waiting room and stared in befuddlement at the receptionist who said, "You need an appointment three months from now? Okay, let's see... July 28th." She handed me the little reminder card and I thought, I know I'm an English nerd and not a math genius, but this is almost five months away.

FYI, I just paused my writing to play with bubble wrap. This sort of thing also helps.

Often life hands us situations where we don't know what to expect. However, I find that those situations usually involve a handful of possible outcomes, perhaps a whole list of options for things that may or may not happen. Right now I don't have a handful of outcomes. I have two. I just don't know what they'll lead to.

They're going to do a biopsy. (When I say "a" biopsy, I really mean it's a singular experience, because there are actually about 6 biopsies taken.) I don't need to tell you I'm not looking forward to it, but I'll say it anyways. I'm really not looking forward to it. Once it's done, I'll wait a few days for the results.

Outcome #1: All the cancerous cells are gone!

Outcome #2: The cancerous cells are still here!

There is nothing in my mind or body that knows how to move forward from either of those circumstances. I think I know what the doctor's want, if all the cancer is gone. They want to put me on birth control (barf) for a few months and "see how that works." I am not on board with that plan and if I can conjure the courage I will tell them, with all the fierce facial expressions I can come up with, that I want to skip the birth control and get straight to the fertility drugs, since that's our end goal anyways.

I'm all about efficiency, you know.

But if the cancerous cells are not gone, and I don't know why they wouldn't be, I have absolutely no clue as to what the next step is. More of the same drugs? Higher doses? Different drugs? Something scary, like chemo? Something terrifying, like a hysterectomy?

These aren't things you can prepare for. I can barely prepare myself for the biopsy, something I'm already very familiar with.

So it essentially feels, all the time, like I'm waiting for something in order to wait for the next thing.

I'm waiting for Tuesday so I can go to the doctor and wait in the lobby, then wait uncomfortably on the table with the stupid paper towel blanket, then wait for the procedure to be over, then wait for the doctor to shut up and leave, and then wait for the results. And heaven knows once I get the results I'll have to wait for another appointment to figure out what we'll do next.

And whatever we do next, I'll have to "wait and see" if it works. Or doesn't.

Waiting is hard. Sometimes it's the hardest part of life. Sometimes it's the only thing you can hold on to--I don't know much, except that I'm waiting. I don't have what I want, but I'll keep waiting until I do. And most of the time we wait because we don't have a choice, or because choosing to wait is the right thing to do, even if it's the most difficult.

And while I'm waiting, while we wait together and work long hours and agonize over what will happen, we still have hope. We hope for and imagine the joyful sound of that bursting heartbeat, a reluctant first cry, tiny hands grasping for us, a pair of enormous blue eyes. While we wait, we hope, we walk aimlessly through the baby section at Target and sometimes it makes us sad... and sometimes (like yesterday morning) I walk through, proudly and courageously touching tiny baby shoes and admiring innovative baby toys, because my hope is bigger than my fear.

These are so many hopes and dreams rolled into one and it is the thing we strive for, regardless of how implausible it might seem. I hope for this and ask for what I want. I could simply ask for health. I could be waiting just to "get better." I could hope that my body would be healed and never expect more.

I'm scared, but not so scared that I'll hope for the lesser things. I'm brave enough to know what I want, and to ask for it, to really beg for it, brave enough to hope for it... because it makes the waiting easier.

NPM: Taking Hold, Etc. (Part 2)

Here is the promised post with more poems, to make up for the extreme lack of them. I thought I would only need 7 to compensate, but I'll need 8. Because it's a new day, which means a new poem.

But don't worry. I've got plenty to spare. Although, watch out for the last one. There's a "swear" in there. So if you read these to children... um, don't. That's weird.

1. Little Red Boat - July 9, 2014

In this story there’s a girl
sleeping in a little red boat.
I could get her into the boat
but not into the water.
I got her into the water
but couldn't make her cross.
She has strong arms
but a tired heart
and she asks me
which is better.
Sleep, or row?
Sleep, row, sleep, row.
So when she closed her eyes
I pushed her into the lake
and the little red boat
drifted away from me.
I got her through the night,
I got her here to the morning,
but I still can’t make her
reach the other side.


2, Fearless v. 4 - July 26, 2014

I will fold and refold
my paper lantern heart,
I will gather a string of lights
around me like a cape,
dancing to the edges
of our shadows,
I will shine in the places
we have made dark
with words of ash.
I will fold
and refold
and mend
and remend
until there is nothing left
but a spark.


3. Fearless v. 10 - August 22, 2014 [edited April 27, 2015]

There is no shame in the truth.
I knew it in the morning, but
didn't feel it until the afternoon
sitting in that somehow desolate office
which smelled of black coffee.
There were droplets of rain
making my bespectacled vision
bleary and more sordid
than could possibly be appropriate.
I did the right thing for everyone,
because it’s what I always do.
There is no shame in the truth
and so I gave it away.
It’s still true
even if I don’t hold it.


4. Fearless v. 11 - August 30, 2014

Post-proclamation, I estimate that
it would be efficient to embrace
facing this. But before I even speak
I've started to lie, because it’s improper
to claim I am even minutely able
to face this. Already my body
clenches, anxiety blossoms
like a fanged flower, its petals
fierce and beautiful and scarlet
like flushed skin. I am petrified.
As the leaves of the white birch
turn upward and wait for rain
so my sight ascends to prepare
to face this, as if I could
possibly know what’s coming.


5. The Choice - September 5, 2014

She said yes, all those many years ago.
She said it, not in so many words,
but enough to know she’d chosen.
But in the middle. There, that spot,
blackened and bruised from
careless words, thoughtlessness.
That’s the one held up in the mirror,
that’s the question echoing back.
If she had somehow known then
what she’d be looking at now
would she have chosen differently?


6. Paper - December 9, 2014 [This is one of my favorite poems ever!!!]

There are no sequins.
There is no splendor.
No lace, no ribbons,
just our sense of wonder.
This was the year
it was supposed to be all right.
We wouldn't suffer or struggle,
or give up the good fight.
We would find sparkle
in shadows and dust,
doing what’s pleasing
and not what we must.
But nothing glimmers
or outshines the heartache
of old pain in a place
we thought couldn't break.
There is nothing gold
to give worth to our blunder
except for this space
where we find ourselves tender.
Here we will make glitter
in the darkness and night.
We’ll take a year made of paper
and burn it for light.


7. Settled - April 18, 2015

There is a truth, settled into,
founded by the precedents
our life has handed over.
We believe it like a memory,
like a debt to be repaid
or a curse we wait to feel
unless we're lucky–
then it’s a dream we hope to know.
Like fools we believe and hold
the promises or evidence
until the world shifts around us;
every wall ascends or crumbles,
the ground disturbed and broken,
And in the tumult we must decide
to alter our perception,
to force our feet into new paths,
to stumble along new halls,
to adapt to a new truth
or close our eyes
and just go on believing.


8. Best - April 27, 2015

The blackest heart loves best
because it can't forget a thing,
because it holds, because it holds,
because it holds on and never lets go.
And that isn't charcoal
or an unrepentant life
or a curse, or a curse,
or a curse that cannot be cured.
Those are the colors of memories,
of regretting what's been lost,
of loving too, of loving too,
of loving too damn much.
And if you paint a pure heart
with a color for every breath
you'll have a heart, you'll have a heart,
you'll have a heart that's black that loves best.

NPM: Fearless v. 1 (Day 2)

I know, I'm cutting it close. 11:50! But I wanted to add some art, and you have to understand I spent the last 48 hours feeling nauseated and dizzy and... losing everything I ate. (Except that 8 ounces of applesauce yesterday.) So, the art was my therapy. Anyways, to the point.

On my other secret poetry blog I wrote, almost a year ago now, a handful of poems on being fearless. A thought struck me at some point about how we view fearlessness, how we express it or feign it. This poem is the first of many (I think I wrote upwards of a dozen) and it is the most tame. I tend to avoid rhyming poetry, but as this first 'fearless' poem just begins to touch on the subject you'll have to be patient. I won't be sharing all of the 'fearless' poems here, but I hope you/someone will appreciate them.

Fearless v. 1 - July 23, 2014

If you want to be fearless
you don’t have to tell anyone.
Just come out and take it
like it’s already been won.
Let your heart be a mountain
and your love be a fountain.
Then if you want to be fearless
you've already begun.