Beauty out of Brokenness?

25 Jun 2023 Leave a comment

by cindythea in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , ,

Thank you SARA RAMIREZ for your motivation.

” Before we decide anterior or posterior incision, I have to ask, do you sing or speak for a professional living?”

Just as I was about to answer, my emergency significant contact answered for me, “Yes, Both.”

Yes, yes I do sing- and it has taken me DECADES to admit that- you see I was told at a very young age that I was terrible- my mother, who has close to perfect pitch often told me that to be a vocalist, I should be able to imagine middle C and hit the note- perfectly in tune every time I imagined it. I so clammed up every time with abject fear, that I could never hit it and my mother would shake her head in disgust and turn on her heel and mutter about how bad I was. As I aged and my voice finetuned into the 1st soprano that I have always been, I was then told that no one wanted to listen to some dumb soprano (hey wait, my older brother was the male equivalent to those dumb sopranos as a high high tenor-what’s the difference?) In school, I was told that I was worse than terrible and my classmates ridiculed my voice, threw spit wads at me and bribed me to drop out of choir- I even had a vocal teacher my senior year tell me that I would never be a vocalist and it would be best if I stopped trying all together-I went on to score a 1+ on my solo my senior year- “Sento nel Core”, but I held on to those words my whole life–now they come home to reverberate in my mind along with the reason for the original question.

Do I sing or speak professionally for a living—well as much as many people would like me to be quiet- ( and I am positive there are more than a few!~~) I do actually do both- my voice is quite important to the work that I do. Not only do I run a non profit, I also fill pulpit ( and am on the cusp of being Commissioned as a DEACON in the UMC)–(more on that later) and try to use my voice to impact the status quo and change the narratives out there- my words, my voice, are my calling card and I would be lost without either of them. ( I’d be lost without google maps too, but that is a different blog for a different day!) So why would a random question disquiet my soul so much?

Ah, it is anything but random. This question came from a real, live, living and breathing McDreamy– (Grey’s Anatomy fangirl motion here!) My neurosurgeon, a youngish, talented, and wicked smart Dr is planning to make an incision in my neck and move aside my vocal chords (and some other stuff too) and get to the (at least 2) discs that are badly enough damaged that they need replacing. I am actually a candidate for spinal fusion surgery, but I would lose so much movement, that they opted for a double disc replacement at C5-6 & C6-7. They would do more, but those have not been approved by the FDA yet (oh goodie! ). Not only will he replace those discs, and do some shaving and fitting them into my vertebrae, he will then wrap them in a titanium cage! Just exactly what my significant other wanted to hear– “Let’s wrap the titanium girl in ACTUAL titanium!” I am not so silently celebrating this because I take GREAT pride in my titanium ways- I have fostered that bravado & perfected it over decades of experience- I am a MASTER at titanium- and now- now I feel it figuratively crumbling and I don’t know what to do.

My own counselor, who I have been sitting opposite for over 10 years is clapping her hands in a GLEEful joy at what I will be facing in little over a week. (see my GLEE reference there, GLEEKS?) I am not clapping or jumping up and down in glee- I don’t want to do this. I want no part of that which I will embark on in about 10 days from now. You see, the upper cervical area is not the only area of damage- it seems I have the spine of a nearly 80some year old in the body of a 48 year old. Say what? How did this happen?

That is the question that I have been asked at each Xray- CT scan, MRI and nerve block and injection bout. “what happened to you?”

Yeah. What happened……

I could write pages on answering that- but I choose not to at this time. Suffice it to say, lots of damage at really formative times in a child’s life-including birth trauma–and all the way through childhood and adolescence will do a number on a tiny framed girl. It seems that no person should bounce off of a wall, across a room, or down a flight of stairs for any reason. I also discovered that 5 gallon buckets DO NOT in fact weigh only 5 lbs. (who knew?) They actually weigh close to 40 lbs when full and carrying 2 of them at the same time meant a 50lb girl was carrying more than she actually weighed (but damn those saplings got watered multiple times a week for 2 years while they grew.) Those trees- I am totally claiming ownership! Come to find out that being so proud of strength physically and emotionally has sent my body into a state of constant revolt (and I find it rather revolting actually–see what I did there?) I am hella strong and was that way from birth- I withstood a lot- prolly too much and I have been beyond proud of that my whole life. I have forwarded a narrative of “hit me with all ya got, I can take it!” And life often did.

What I rarely told anyone was that it hurt- more than I wanted or had permission to express. Now at 48, my body is in fight mode all the time- there is no rest. It is prepared to fight any person and sees almost every situation as an attack- whether there is one or not. While I was so proud that I could lift, carry, climb, and work harder than many other little girls my age, my body was storing up all that I was experiencing, readying the fight mode that preserved my life at the time, but is doing me no favors in the present. My spirit, which steeled itself against the names, the accusations, moments or ridicule, and feelings of shame, proved that I had only me to count on for survival. I learned later that there was a Savior looking out for me- but it was years before I discovered what being a beloved child of God looks and feels like (oh, who am I kidding, I am still working on that!)

I was proud to survive on my own- and I didn’t need anyone- or so I told myself. I still do actually and it’s wrong. See, I could write this stuff up, rush to the end of the story, and tie it up with a pretty ribbon and tell you all that it’s perfect and life rights itself and we move on- and….it’s bullshit. It’s all crap. Life sometimes hands us stuff that hurts and sometimes we react to life’s stuff and we hurt ourselves or others….it is human nature to mess up. It’s human nature to be scared- (even when we claim that we are titanium).

One of the lines from the above song, first sung by Brandi Carlile

You see the smile that’s on my mouth
It’s hiding the words that don’t come out
And all of our friends who think that I’m blessed
They don’t know my head is a mess.

No, they don’t know who I really am
And they don’t know what I’ve been through like you do https://genius.com/Brandi-carlile-the-story-lyrics

The smile, – the snark, the professionally polished words that I utter hide all the thoughts that never tumble out of my mouth. They are hidden by a desire to be perfectly put together, to never misstep, to achieve more & push harder than I did yesterday- to never have an off day- to NEVER, above all, show what I deem as weakness. That means, I don’t mention that sitting, standing, laying down, walking, riding a bike, doing dishes, putting away clothes, driving puts such a strain on my back and shoulders that I cannot adequately gauge a pain threshold. I operate out of a 8-9-10 every day from the top of my head to the base of my spine and it sucks! It means that I don’t let the tears fall when I feel scared thinking about 10 days from now as they wheel me to the OR. (McDreamy or not, that shit is scary) It means that I don’t admit that for all my bravado, all the instances that I shake my head and say that I am fine- what I really want to say is…..NO, I am not fine- I don’t want to be alone and for just awhile I’d like to be a little girl who’s scooped up into a strong and gentle embrace and carried to a place that is safe- safe enough to recoup for a bit and for somehow some message gets to the rest of my body saying…..(“sshhhh shhhh, it’s ok, you can rest now. you can let go. we’ve got her.”) Ahhh to let go and release the decades of damage, what would that look like? I have no idea….and it is terrifying to consider that.

Now, what I am facing is rather small peanuts compared to some of the roads that I know others are traveling. I do not want my stuff to downplay some of those situations of which I am aware. The tie that this surgery has to my emotions is one of the heaviest lifts I’ve ever had ahead of me. My radiologist told me after my last MRI this spring, “bones don’t lie- we can see damage that never healed here. there are fractures and bruises in these bones that are decades old- we can see what happened to you- these bones tell their own story” OUCH. That statement hurts in a place I can’t articulate- it means that all the moments of not saying a word did not keep my secret. My body betrayed my silence- it told its own story–a story that I intellectually was aware of, but did not integrate into my being. I swept the damage under the rug and suffered for years in actual pain before the pain got to the point where I could no longer ignore its impact. It is as though my body itself said, “ok enough is enough- we either deal with this and get some relief- or we’re just gonna quit.” I have never been a quitter- so here we are.

in 10 days I will undergo a double disc replacement, with other work to be done close by on the backburner after we see how I recoup from this. I have a spine Dr., a neurologist, a PA, 2 counselors, and other medical professionals cheering me on and pleased for this moment in my journey. My Board of Directors, my staff, and loved ones are telling me to take the time needed to heal “if you don’t take the time to heal the first time, your body will make sure you take it the second time–isn’t it easier to take it now when you can make the time?” ARG!!! I am battling the feelings of guilt, shame (oh the shame), narratives of weakness that tell me I shouldn’t be doing this in the first place- that I need to be healed as quickly as possible. Then the words of my chiro come into play, “And just remember how long it took your body to get to this point.” CRAP—why do they have to speak with such incredible logic that I can’t argue back at them?

My counselor and I talked about this juncture as a closing of the chapters on the first part of my story- I can see that. I mean I have had other surgeries before and fought through them and pushed myself harder than I prolly should have. ( I AM titanium after all) This one feels different somehow- the stakes feel higher-or more is at stake- almost like more of me is at stake-I am not sure I am unpacking that the way I want- This one feels heavier- like a much bigger lift. But I can see where my counselor is saying this is the closure to part 1 and “wow, now you get to write part 2!!!! I am so excited to see how you write this- YOU get to CHOOSE this time.” I think that is what is at the core- the damage that has been caused -(by numerous sources) I did not have a choice–I had to accept and put up with other people’s actions-actions that equates so much damage that it makes a radiologist raise their eyebrows. I heard another counselor the other day talk about dependency (that’s one of my swear words- you know, like moist)- they said that allowing ourselves to be dependent on others actually honors their love for us. WHAT!?!?!?! Then they had to correlate that dependency to being a child of God– that we are to come to the throne as little children, expecting to be picked up and held close- cuddled, safe in the embrace that provides warmth and love unconditional. Crap!!! They weren’t supposed to see through my caged emotions and speak the words I crave- I thought I had hid my desire to be all wrapped up in a blanket, wheeled to the OR and to hear, ” I love you my sweet girl– let them do their work-all you need to do is close your eyes and let them take care of you- I’ll be here when you wake- and I, along with many others, can’t wait to take care of you when the surgeons are done with their work.”

How I yearn to lean into those arms-and yet, I am not there yet. I have been so conditioned to fight and to fear anyone coming too close, that I can’t even entertain a moment like that. I can’t understand people wanting to come alongside and making room in their basement- or giving me a comfy bed to sleep in right after surgery. I can’t conceive that being treated like that actually happens-it feels like a dream too good to be true and I am terrified to accept it. So I am fighting- clawing to remain stubborn, independent, strong and capable so I don’t wake up disappointed- Then again, I know in my heart that the curtain is about to close on Act 1 and I get to choose the narrative for Act 2. I get to choose???? wow. What do I do with that?

So, the song I chose to share is a massive risk- I did not pretty sing- I sang from the heart, there are few missed notes- a moment where a voice shakes and I am not perfect- but the lyrics sing to me. I figured that while I was risking emotionally- I would risk a little more and for all those in my class who thought and told me I sucked- yeah that may have been true then- but then again, maybe I didn’t. Maybe if the narrative had been re-written then I would not have battled decades of demons each time I take the mic. You see, both my boys have loved hearing my voice since they were babies and my oldest looks at me often and marvels- “mom, how come you don’t let anyone hear how good you actually are?” cause I don’t believe I am….. “Then my sig other will gently chastise me. ” hmmmmm why don’t you use your big girl voice- why are you hiding behind this little girl voice that carries no power? USE your BIG GIRL VOICE!” OOOKKKKAY, I used my big girl voice- and incidentally, that voice carries the chance of going hoarse permanently…..that’s another area of terror that my friend, Amy, a phenom vocal teacher is well aquainted and understands-sooooo yeah.

What does part 2 look like? Who knows, we got McDreamy first~ scalpel!

To BE…..Healed

11 Dec 2012 Leave a comment

by cindythea in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Wow, I can hardly believe the road has taken me this far.  After 38 years and a constant battle up the hill and fighting, it appears I may have reached the summit and I hardly know how to react or what to do.

I sit here on a Tuesday night, I  can see the small string of lights attached to my house, i am seated right next to the Christmas tree and its lit branches, I can hear my oldest son play Star Wars Battlefront and narrate the scenario as my youngest plays on my Nook.  Most electronics make their way to my sons’ hands before I get a chance to get used to them.  It is the cost of having boys it seems.  If it were girls, they would be in my jewelry and make up and asking to borrow my clothes…I will content myself with the onslaught of noise and boisterous play.  My pug is seated on the floor, gazing at me with forlorn eyes, knowing that she would like to lay claim to my lap, but the square typey thing I call a laptop has taken that honor.  She sighs and snorts at me, then fixes her eyes back on the floor.  Maybe, she figures, the more pathetic and uninterested she looks, the more pity I will have on her.  She is right.  An invite to her, a call of her name and I have a 20lb, fawn colored, fur child resting her head on my typey thing.  She sighs a deep moan of contentment and settles herself into the crook between me and the chair.  All is well in her world.

She has not left me alone much in the last couple of weeks.  She has been my constant companion as I make multiple trips to the bathroom, grimacing in pain and logging them for a drug test diary.  The day before Thanksgiving, I was given the news that the last set of polyps I had were stage 2 and that due to the major damage done to my gastrointestinal system many parts had been compromised, including the pancreas.  GREAT.

Back up, did this just occur?  Heavens no.  My adopted family will even tell you, that while I am prone to moments of dramatic fancy, my stomach issues have been present my whole life.  I kid you not.  There has never been a day that I have not had a stomach ache, wondered where the closest bathroom was, or how quickly I would lose what I had eaten. As a young child, there were lists and lists of items that I could not eat…never knowing if I was simply allergic to everything under the sun or my system was that sensitive.  No sugar, milk, citrus, or dark-colored pop could I ingest.  This is not to say that I did not do a fair share of sneaking contraband articles, but I paid for it dearly later that day.

When I received my full adoption file a little over a year ago, many questions were answered.  Many I will not reveal at this time, but from a physical standpoint, many murky moments were made more clear.  I was well over 6 weeks premature, and weighed less than 4 lbs at birth.  Born in a rural and predominantly Native American town, the likelihood of good prenatal care is questionable.  I was born the beginning of Sept and was released from the NICU at the end of Sept– over 20 days in intensive care.  Already narratives talked about my inability to keep formula down and their concern about what would happen when I went home surfaced.  They were right to worry.

Within the first 14 days, social services had been contacted 3 separate times by my biological family to have me removed.  When the social worker made the first visit she wrote about the confusion in the house, the lack of care I was receiving, and the total disregard family members seemed to have for my welfare.  Of great concern were the stomach issues I had already experienced and the care that I required being a premie and of low birth weight, there seemed to be either too much frantic questions or not enough attention being paid to me and the social worker was already concerned.  Too little attention paid to a 4 lb baby?  How could you pay too little attention?

After I was removed the first time, I was placed back in the hospital where it was determined that I was not being fed, had not been taking in calories, and had in fact, lost weight.  I had none to spare.  The long spiral of stomach concerns began and were exacerbated by lack of care, my biological mother never did get it together and overcome her fear of dealing with one with such stomach problems.  It seems that much of the fine-tuning of system growth that happens in the last month in utero did not take place, coupled with poor natal care, and it is a miracle I survived birth….literally.  Yet, I did.  I survived bottles of beer being fed to me so that I would stop crying, and I survived enough to be adopted into a new home before I was a year old.  For that I am thankful.  Given the track record and the narrative I have, I would not have lived much longer in that environment.  I was delivered–again.

The stomach issues have continued to plague my life ever since I can remember.  There is no consistent behavior, nothing sets it off, nothing makes it worse, and yet, everything does.  I can be going along fine, eating a wonderful meal and 20 minutes later, am miserable.  I have been tested for every allergy–none appear.  I have undergone colonoscopies and endoscopes since I was 25, I am and old hat at the game, with more barium enema and radioactive eggs consumed that I can count.  Yesterday I underwent another set of scopes and found out for the first time in years that I had a clean one.  While there is much inflammation and scarring, I had no polyps to speak of and no reason to take tissue samples.  The dr even told me that I had beat the colon cancer for the 5th time, and he has not a clue how I have done it.  Neither do I, other than the host of angels and prayers covering me in the last weeks.

Tomorrow I walk into my Dr’s office and receive a drug (or placebo) which should start to calm down the constant spasm of my intestinal system, taking some of the pressure off the pancreas.  There is great concern about this as it has thrown off all my metabolic.  There could be an end to pain, an end to the constant worry and stress over how I feel and why.  An end may be near for the feeling of punishment that I have felt my body to have undergone my entire life.  You see, I believed wholeheartedly that much of what I was experiencing was a way to punish me for my existence.  If I had been born into a different set of circumstances, I would not feel this way.  Had I been a more docile baby, more adaptable, I would not have annoyed my parents….UH DUH!!!! I did nothing wrong.  Repeat, I did nothing wrong and I am not being punished.

Tomorrow could give me the permission I have sought my whole life–permission to feel and be pain free.  I have no idea what this looks like, I have no idea how to embrace this concept, parts of me have no clue what to do.  This is a gift, a wonderful chance to experience something I do not know.  There is fear.  What do I do when there is no pain?  How do I function if there is no reason to worry and carry a secret of inner turmoil?  Even the alcoholic will tell you they would give their right arm to be done, but the fear of the unknown, no matter how enticing is almost paralyzing.  That lifestyle is all they know, this pain is what I have known for 38 years.  38 years could be over in a manner of days—it has taken this long to get here.

38 years of tears, anger, humiliation, and hurt come together in a chance at something new, and here I sit scared out of my mind.  I am terrified to walk into that DR office, terrified to take the med (or placebo), terrified to think my journey down this road may be over and a new order will replace what i have known for 38 years.  The status quo is comfortable even in its dysfunction, but it is time for a change, a shift in the continuum.  I pray for the courage to move forward, to embrace this, to rejoice.  To LIVE.  I ask from you the permission to speak freely, to express my thoughts, and the space to work through some of what this calls me into exploring.

Let’s do this?

Shalom and healing to you!

cahl.

What FOOLS we MORTALS be!

24 Jun 2012 2 Comments

by cindythea in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , ,

Thank you Shakespeare for providing part of the motivation for this blog….I am not as happy about the reason I am so inspired to write on this one.  Since April, there have been 11 deaths of wonderful and giving people, I have a relationship with each person affected by these deaths…to watch them journey through that has been a learning experience for me.  Last night, the last death came the closest to my own home and family.  Oddly enough, each person who has passed, has been male…weird.

The last person was a wonderful man….a director and artist, a mentor and teacher.  He gave me a safe place to wander during study halls and lunch, spewed sound advice and good humor, and challenged my voice my senior year.  I remember the moment he called me out specifically.  I was auditioning  for my last high school play and it was a musical…”The Cotton Patch Gospel”  I was terrified to sing, I loved to sing, but i had received such ridicule from my classmates early in my hs career that to open my mouth to sing for others inspired gut wrenching illness.  Comments of how bad I was banged through my mind as I recall classmates chanting how terrible I was and how I did not belong in choir..”who is the worst of them all, cindy is.”  I can still hear them.  I remember my choir teacher telling me I would never be a vocalist, never carry the beautiful tone that so many of my classmates did…I fulfilled her prophecy by scoring at 1+ on my senior solo at contest…BOO YAH!  The night that I auditioned, the vocal portion came and I simply opened my mouth and sang.  This man, a director I had known as a friend for years looked at me in amazement…and said “where has this voice been hiding all these years.  how come no one told me you could sing, with a natural vibrato most girls would kill to have.  you have a beautiful voice, cindy.”  He called me by name, he asked, and then he complimented.  He gave me the chance to sing my senior year…a soprano..a first soprano allowed to to sing in my last production.  I fought him and the rest of the cast who also had solos during that production.  I sang with his son….and my best friend and his son’s girlfriend.  I loved him for that compliment, and I have never forgotten it.  He was good to me.

His passing makes me think tonight.  I know each of his family members and they reflected his set of values and connections.  I watched and listened to him talk of his children and I was jealous of how he spoke of them with such pride.  Although his sons were vastly different people, he treated them with grace and compassion and let them be individuals.  I like that.    His sons remain connected today…that is the mark of a good father.  Well done, my friend,

This latest event has me thinking of my own family.  They are not without their shortcomings and assets.  I wish so much for them, so much that I will never be able to say to them.  Most of the time I wish I could zap them into something they can never be.  I wish we were so much more to one another….I am not sure we will ever be.  The last couple months I have watched the families wracked with loss pull together and support one another…I have also heard the heart cries over family dynamics.  I fear what will happen when one of my parents passes.

We are not connected…I know what it is like to go decades without speaking to a member of my family.  I know what it is to spew words of hate and anger and hurt and hear them spewed back at me.  I know what it feels like to have a connection with a member of the family and then to lose it and try even harder to repair the damage…to no avail.  I look at other families and hear of their escapades, their love for one another…it tears my heart out each time.  It has been years since I celebrated a holiday with my family, years since we have sat at one table and talked with one another.  Years since I have talked to my niece…years since I have looked in the face of brothers that I have and seen them as people, much less my brothers.  I want to scream at them….I want to rant and rail and wave my arms at them, to make them see.  I cannot.  I cannot force them into a mold in which they cannot conceive.  I cannot force them to like me, I cannot force them to love me.    I wish i could.

I wish I could tell them how much I miss them, how much I wish it were different, how sorry I am for what we have done to one another.  I can’t, the damage has been done.  Angry words, violent tempers, fear, and stubbornness have driven wedges between us that even close friends can’t overcome.  I wish I could tell them how much I need them.  I want a mother who is proud of me, who would hang with me even if she were not related to me.  I yearn for a dad…a daddy who would talk with me, tell me that no matter what, he is proud of the woman I have become and that there is a part of me that will always be his daughter.  I wish my brothers and I could talk to each other and knew what we were doing apart from the snippets of conversation we overhear.  I do not know them anymore, except what I may read on a blog, see on tv, or hear from someone else.  Likewise, they do not know me.    In my gut, I shoulder much of the blame, feel most responsible for the discord, this I must let go.  I fear the time we have to plan for a funeral, the thought keeps me awake at night–knowing we will likely tear each other apart–irreperably.  We have done a disservice to each other and our children.  Would that I could repair that.  I cannot.

So many people have told me to let them go, move on, get over what cannot be and be content with what is–to make my own family and my own traditions.  Would that I knew how to do that, I don’t.  What is more, I am terrified to try.  I do not know what it means to plan a vacation and go on it.  I do not know how to plan a family gathering and have people actually show up to it.  I do not know what it looks like to partner with my brothers and their families and do something together, or to take their kids with me and my boys to do something fun.  We are nothing more than strangers that happened to live under one roof at one time.  What have we done?  How do I fix this?  I don’t.

What’s more, I have no idea how to do it differently and it scares the dickens out of me.  What does that mean, anyway..to scare the Dickens?  I know I must do it differently, that I owe it to my children and their children, but at the end of the day, I owe it to myself.  I owe myself the chance to embrace an alternate reality–now how in the world do I do that?  I have no clue.  Family systems theory calls each person to a self-differentiation–an understanding of oneself apart from the system or the status quo.  I know in my mind and in my gut what needs to happen, I have no idea how to accomplish it.  I know I want something different and that may be the biggest admission of all.  For the first time in my life, I want something different–I want more than stunted conversation, past regrets, and anger.  I want a family.  I deserve a family and they deserve me–plain and simple.

This has gone on longer than I intended and I have a big day tomorrow…I have interviews and meetings and opportunities to expand my training and education.  I must needs be present to that.  My redefinition of family will have to wait another night….Unless of course, you have input….I welcome it, more than you know.

Shalom dear ones….

cahl.