I keep meaning to follow up on some of my older posts, and it just never seems to happen. Today, I have the urge to write – I’ve read several blogs of epic and inspirational proportions (Cold Antler Farm , Carrying Jada), and even though I don’t have anything this eloquent or important to say, I just feel the urge to write. So please bear with me while I ramble.
Many people have asked me how my surgery went. Most of them apologize when they ask – which I understand, but seeing as I posted about it on the internet you don’t need to worry about overstepping… I promise. The surgery went well - at first it was difficult to wear anything with a waist, as I had incisions on either side of my belly button, which is where a short person’s pants tend to sit. Luckily, its summer and I own a lot of dresses. I was back at work in under a week, and was grateful that I was able to attend a friend’s wedding 3 days after surgery (although we didn’t stay late). After the external began to heal, I started to notice that my insides felt a bit off – but all in all, everything healed up really well with minimal discomfort considering the whole being cut into to insert cameras thing…
For me, the strangest thing about surgery is how disorienting it is to wake up afterwards. If you’ve never had surgery, it might be hard to imagine. Close your eyes. Now open them – you are now in a different place surrounded by different people. You are also on drugs.
Ok, so that was the surgery. We’ve also been in for our follow up appointment, and it’s all good news – no endometriosis! We also made a decision that for the remainder of the summer we are taking some time away from this whole process, in so far as that we are not taking any further medical steps regarding fertility drugs, or tracking fertility cycles, or anything else. Basically the fertility conversation is off the table, for now.
The other thing I’ve been dyeing to tell you all about is what has happened since I posted My Body is Freaking Awesome. Fact. I started a Pinterest board call Beauty, and I got in there and started searching for images of non-traditional beauty. I kept thinking of the pop culture beauty myth as a concept that was waging war on my happiness – I needed to reframe my whole state of mind around what was beautiful – what is beauty at all? I realized that beauty is joy – its people taking true joy in the way their body is and saying ‘to hell with the rest of you, and your fucked up notions of what my body and my joy should look like’. So I started posting images that represented this idea for me, that challenged my own fucked up notions about what my beauty should look like… and I waited. I waited for the haters to come out of the woodwork… I waited for someone to dare call these images gross, or unhealthy… I waited, and I waited… and do you know what happened? It never came. I went from having a small group of Pinterest followers who were mainly my friends and acquaintances, to having over a hundred followers – most of whom follow my beauty board. One of my pins from this board has been repined over 800 times (for those of you not on Pinterest, your average pin gets a handful of repins), and has 42 comments – all positive! That is inspiring.
It’s still hard – I can honestly say that I now have a much broader view of what constitutes beauty in a general sense – but in a more specific sense, when it applies to me I still struggle to be as kind as I am with others. I'm putting in the work, and it's paying off - I can see myself growing.
So, aside from baby making and self-love (weird combination of words… I’m going to leave it because I’m totally enjoying the awkwardness of it), what does the summer hold for us? We just returned from a week at one of my favourite Winnipeg summer traditions – Folk Fest. Sean and I met there – we started our relationship there. The year we missed it to travel overseas, we got engaged on a beach in Thailand, on our 3 year anniversary, while all our friends were at the festival. This year we celebrated ten years of being together at the festival. Hell, we even got married in Bird’s Hill Park, where the festival is held. As my friend Tania likes to say – Folk Fest created me. No matter how tired and dirty I am after camping there for nearly a week, it is nearly always the best week of my summer. Wednesday morning, as I contentedly watched the sun come up over the horizon from my car (where I had slept, waiting to get a good spot in the campground), I wondered ‘how old is too old for this shit?’ – and then I spent the next five days with the best friends a girl could ask for, I finally saw Ben Harper, and the Sheep Dogs put on one of the best shows I’ve ever seen – and I still don’t know the answer to my question – but I do know it is not likely any time soon.
Next week we’re road tripping down to North Carolina to see my family, which I’m extremely excited about. I love road trips, and I love my family – so it doesn’t get much better. We’re going to drive along the Mississippi as far as we can, we’ll take a trip into Tennessee to see Ray Lamontagne (assuming we can still get tickets – we’ve been remiss in planning on this one), and then through the Appalachians – which I’ve wanted to see ever since reading Bill Bryson’s “A Walk in the Woods”.
Life is good… and my eyelashes haven’t frozen to my face in about 3 months… so I’m enjoying every minute. Hope all of you are having a summer as lovely and fun as I am.
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