An Orchid in my living room. Remember to bring the outside in...
Well it is Friday, thank goodness… We made it…
Jeff had a business trip. (He got home as I’m typing…my heart still leaps when he walks through the door… after 20yrs, it still leaps. He crossed the room and gave me a sweet kiss and I yelped, not with passion, nope with cold… dog gone, his nose is freezing…)
We were loved and cared for by the best, the loving ones who carry us every time… Flower Girl brought communion, and took care of ground transportation… Mini-A’s Godmother and my Fairy Godmother drove up from Norfolk and fed, hugged and loved us all week. Life is better when she is with us. My favorite memory of this trip is all four of us watching a Lego Star Wars movie together and I look over and my Fairy Godmother is laughing as hard as the peeps. How amazing, just to be surrounded by that unconditional love…
Fairy Godmother and I had a few moments of just the two of us, time that was so precious… At one point, she looked over at me, I was in pain, felt the cough waiting to break-free, I had taken my bra-off my ribs hurt so bad, my oxygen levels sucked and it sounded like I was breathing through a straw, it happens… And she looked at me and said, ”Kathryn I have known you for over 20 yrs., I know all of you… from, bartender, to professional rock star at Starbucks, to today… I know you… You have nothing to prove to me.”
Hammer moment, you know when you get hit over the head when you are not expecting it, she was right! It got me thinking; how many of us have that…. That kind of truth… Thank you Fairy Godmother…
We think that we go through life as impostors, actors playing parts, the good girl, the bad, the sinner, the saint…. But when it gets right down to it, how many of us really know ourselves, know our truth… and seriously, what truth are we perpetuating, that we are successful, pulled together, sick, happy…. When we are not… and how flipping foolish. When we stop and really look at the people who love us, faults and all, they get us, they know our truth… Why waste the energy, trying to put it over on our peeps….
So it made me ask myself that uncomfortable question, what was I trying to prove this week? That I was strong enough?, brave enough?, that I don’t have abandonment issues?, that every time he leaves, I worry that he won’t come back, liked Dad and my Step-Dad?
But, instead of all the uncomfortable questions, the truth is that I can be fine when my Love goes away. And he always comes back. Why do I try so hard, instead of just being honest…
So this week sucked, and it was really hard, but it also held tons of beauty and its share of exquisite moments.
Jeff has a yearly trip in January, and every January it kills me. January is always fraught with health issues, the cold, cough, chronic bronchitis… It is a hard month, filled with joy and pain, Mini-A’s birthday, pure joy, but four days later it’s a lot of pain, it’s the anniversary of the pulmonary embolism…
Four days after she was born, I almost died, and instead of it being a celebration of her life, my life, our life, it’s a painful reminder of what I have lost… My health, my independence, and maybe a part of myself...
It was the beginning of this journey, so every year… I have that moment… Maybe it’s a minute, an hour, a day… it just shows up… This year by coincidence, I had a doctor’s appointment and saw Harvard, the guy who admitted me way back then, and cares for this beautiful broken body, and back then he promised me, that I was going to make it through… and he kept his promise.
I distinctly remember being in the Catholic Hospital, looking at both Harvard and Jeff and saying, “I’m afraid”, still bleeding from baby girl’s birth, worrying that I may hemorrhage, or die from the legions of blood clots in my lungs and saying, “I just want to see my baby roll over” and I couldn’t even think about that precious two-year old, blue-eyed wonder at home, who’s chubby hand held mine… And then Harvard said the line I will never forget, “you will see her roll over and so much more…“ And he was right; he has kept me alive, and living… So in my best sparkly voice, I thanked him again, seven years later, but he turned his back for a second… I think it gets him… No one chooses medicine to just duct tape people together. They chose medicine to make people well, not just to keep them living.
And while I don’t wish this life on anyone… What I do wish; is that everyone could put on my glasses and see how clear life can be… Don’t get me wrong, I still really don’t like some people, I call people out… But, I do it with intention, with clarity…. I see the world as it is… I’m the girl who’s heels clicked the floors and took names, told executives how it was gonna be, and I’m the girl now who tells her Doctors how it needs to be…
I’m the wife, mother, sister, daughter, friend and (I hope to someone) a Fairy Godmother….
I am a woman that could never have dreamed this would be my life…
But, it’s mine and I have much to be grateful for…
Namaste… The divine in me bows to the divine in you … The Pilgrimage Gal….
If you would like to join me on this pilgrimage, filled with my bad spelling, self-invented grammar, and over all foolishness… Click on the web version of this post and look for the “GET PILGRIMAGEGAL UPDATES VIA EMAIL” option at the top of the right border.