You Look MAHVELOUS darling.

And if you LOOK good, you'll FEEL good.  O.K.  What Evah.  This week, since my state of mind seems to be more like a disconnected semi-state, like Samoa, instead of sunny like California, I've been trying to "look good, to feel good."  It's not really workin'...

I did at least stumble upon what's up.  I have cried every damn day for about a week now and could not for the life of me figure out what the hell my problem was.  After some reflection over the weekend, I realized that since my hysterctomy on August 5th, I had concentrated so much on recovering physically, that I had completely put the emotional stuff on a back burner.  Telling everyone I'm fine, thinking that yes, I was fine.  I was finally able to drive and ride my motorcycle and go to work and all of that stuff, so I was doin' great compared to the six weeks of at home recovery that followed the surgery.

The reality is, that I'm not fine.  I have a piece of myself that has been permanently taken away from me.  I still have twinges of physical pain, which are bearable, but my body has changed forever.  My stomach muscle structure has been mangled and strangled and it shows.  I'm wearing longer shirts and lower cut jeans to hide the hideousness (as I see it) that I can barely stand to look at in the mirror.  I'm feeling completely unattractive and unappealing.  Empty.  Gut sad.  Scared and fearful that the "who-who" will never return to any type of "what-what" a partner would want.  Worried that I can't seem to reconcile my feelings on a consistent basis on the absolute fact that I will never have a child.

But, I talked to my sponsor and the people nearest and dearest to me about it over the past few days.  I have all the love and support to get through this anyone could ever wildly dream of and I'm grateful as hell.  I'm not going to quietly suffer through it like I have been.  I'm talking about it.  I'm writing about it.  Hell, I even shared about it in my meeting last night, which was full of men.  It went a little like this:

     "What is [insert 12 step program of choice]? [12 step program of choice] is a place for me to reach out for help when I need it. [12 step program of choice] is full of people asking people how they got through something they've never faced before, like getting and staying clean. All you guys are fine with talkin' about the pussy out in the parking lot, so you need to get fine with knowing that I've never had a damn hysterectomy before and I've got emotions that I don't know what to do with. If you have a wife, girlfriend, mother, sister, whatever that's already been thru this, I need help."

And ya know what, I got 5 different phone numbers for women who've already travelled this road, 2 of which were from men.  And of course a few laughs with the boys about how I'd raised the temperature in there by talking about pussy.  Bunch a pussies!

VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA!   PUSSY PUSSY PUSSY!!!  Get over it!  If I have to, so do you!  ;)