Exhale: Ode to the Beauty and Necessity of Open Windows

Change, when it comes, cracks everything open.

-- Dorothy Allison

The other day I was celebrating (still and forever) that all of the bologna that is a thyroid related issue (among other things...) that is product of post-cancer-related surgery is over/resolved. When I mentioned this bologna in person to someone recently, the person just said:

Holy fucking shit. The thyroid controls or impacts like...everything. Mood, depression, energy, mental function, your period, weight, ...seriously everything. That must have been absolutely awful.

One of the things that is beautiful about surrounding myself with people who have compassion and understanding are moments like these: Where, instantly, every part of my body feels relief. Comfort. It is almost the feeling of laughter. When you feel so understood or accepted in a moment that you almost want to cry and smile at the same time.

It's a feeling not looking for pity or excuse - but just simply room to be.

If I had worn a hospital gown the entire six months that I knew you, would you have treated me differently? Would I have gotten more compassion? Would I have been treated as human? 

The explanations, the descriptions, and even the test results didn't seem to be enough for you.  

You still interacted with me as if what was happening inside my body wasn't happening.

Even now, looking back, you are still registering it as me doing something "to you" and on purpose.

If I had pushed myself around in a wheelchair from the exhaustion I felt and the pain in my bones, would it have changed how you interacted with me?  Would you have not yelled as much? Would you have not expected as much as you did?

Who knows.

(pause)

It's strange.  I knew you were going through so much with your family. With the death of your mother. With your new job. With your move. When you would black out and put yourself in danger, when you would lose your temper, when you would start crying out of nowhere: It made sense. I understood.  Not from an experiential standpoint. With that, I could never begin to imagine. But my heart went out to you. What you were dealing with and what you continue to deal with leads me to open every door and window for you to breathe. To offer so much compassion. 

Because 

holy fuck. 

(pause)  

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to share the stage with the incredible Dorothy Allison (Lesbian femme identified bad ass writer who wrote Bastard Out of Carolina, Skin, and a number of other books and essays). In front of roughly 300 people, I read a piece about my relationship to my diagnosis and to my doctor.  It talked about essentialist notions of illness.  What people expect from you when you are sick.  What people expect from you if you don't "look sick".

One of the most memorable moments of that night was a Sister of Perpetual Indulgence (http://theabbey.org/about-us/) coming up to me in full drag and a tear-streaked face.  She told me that she was positive and that everything I had said hit her so closely. Everything from ignoring her doctors phone calls in some feeble attempt at wishing the illness away to people expecting or not expecting things from her based on if they knew and what she looked like on a particular day.  

(pause)

A few weeks ago, you made me promise you that I would follow up on an unrelated medical exam.  I found myself thinking “I completely intend to. But, if something comes back cancerous, I’ve felt the level of compassion you offer. You are not who I would go to.”

(pause)


I want to believe it has all just been a matter of timing.

Of your world crashing while mine was just temporarily spun around for a bit. 

This is what I choose to believe.

I've always been a person to assume the best in people.

It is, when it comes down to it, what I believe about people.

(pause)

You were mad that I reached my breaking point and told you that perhaps you should program a robot to date because there would be no humanness to deal with.

About a week ago you emailed me demanding an apology for this being said. And for me implying that your bedside manner sucked. 

Your demand misses the point.

There are a lot of things that are stressful in life.  That are sources of indescribable pressure.

I made room for that with you.

I wish you would have made room for that with me.

It is the difference between the ugly and solitary feeling of building pressure from something you didn't cause

and the potential gloriousness of this form of pressure.

(pause) 

I know that a person's level of compassion can be related to how much compassion they have for themselves.  

I want you to grow all of the compassion in the world toward yourself.  

To be gentle with yourself in these months and years.

I just couldn't do the drag of illness in hopes that a person will believe me when I say that something is wrong. 

I couldn't cart around an unneeded IV on wheels in hopes that you will take my medical situation as real. 

People should be able to express what is going on with them physically and simply 

just 

be 

believed

and

given room

to be.

Be well, be loved,

k.

(image from justinegoestomedicalschool tumblr, but it looks like it originally may be from a things to draw type website)