The Un-Brave Girl

A couple of days before we flew out of Michigan, the twins and I stopped by the park in Elk Rapids so they could play at the playground on the beach for a bit. The weather was perfect, even though the breeze from Lake Michigan made it slightly chilly. I brought a new book and read while stealing glances at the water. As nightfall approached, I realized that we were going to have a perfect view of the sunset. I know that the girls did not particularly care, but I wanted to see it, every single second of the beauty of the sun setting over the lake that I have loved for my entire life.

I miss Michigan already. It was really hard to leave my dad this weekend. I worry so much about him, even more now that he is alone. It was time, though, for me to get back to my everyday responsibilities here. I am incredibly blessed to have a wonderful job and an amazing boss who told me to just go the minute I got the call about my grandpa. My team covered the entire schedule and filled in the blanks where I would be absent; I am so grateful to them. Even though I dreaded going back to work on Monday, it had nothing to do with my job and everything to do with the idea that I would be happier as a sloth who never had to leave the comfort of my own home for adult responsibilities. Yesterday, it was nice to have the distraction that my work and coworkers provided after the chaos of the past couple of weeks.

The day that my grandpa died, I had a morning follow up from my first mammogram ever. I expected that the appointment would be quick, maybe 30-45 minutes. A few photos and out the door I would be. But those photos turned into an ultrasound and a meeting with the radiologist who told me that he would be remiss to not complete a biopsy of a few shady spots. Probably nothing to worry about, but this man has never met me. Worrying is a favorite hobby of mine. It is probably the one thing that I do best.

The biopsy was scheduled for this morning. I did not know what to expect, although I had a vision in my mind of what it would entail. I purposely did not google the procedure, and I am honestly glad that I did not because I probably would have cancelled the appointment altogether. I imagined that I would be laying on a table and there would be a needle or two and then I would be well on my way to everything else that I had planned for my day off. That is definitely not what happened. My boob ended up squeezed in the mammogram machine with the intention of finding the exact spots to biopsy, and I had to hold completely still while the doctor and the techs worked. They kept telling me that everything was great and that I was doing exactly what I needed to. The doctor told me that I would hear a pop and to try not to let it startle me. What actually happened was that I heard the pop and then felt the worst pain ever. Apparently I had moved while breathing and the wrong spot was biopsied, a part that the anesthetic had not touched. I thought that I was going to hyperventilate or pass out or maybe both.

The next thing I knew, they were slapping a bandaid on my boob and telling me that they were done, even though only one of the two biopsies had been attempted. The doctor returned a few minutes later and told me that she thought that I was too anxious for the procedure because I was trying to take such deep breaths during everything. I had no idea that I was breathing wrong because they never said a word. In actuality, the way my body was positioned in the mammogram machine made it difficult to breathe comfortably at all, but I kept telling myself that I could stick it out so they could get the samples they needed. I had no idea that I was doing it all wrong and that they were assessing my mental stability instead of simply mentioning it to me. I am sure that nerves are a normal thing during procedures such as this, and even after the pain from the first biopsy, I was willing to suck it up and do it again. But the idea of having to go back another day and start all over again was horrifying. I went to my car and sat there and cried.

I am not a brave girl.

I have felt very lonely lately. I am not a person who is good at making friends; I have plenty of causal acquaintances, but trusting anyone with the dirty details of my existence is not something that comes easily to me. I sometimes go days without anyone asking me how I am doing or what is going on. When things happen, good or bad, I feel sad that I almost never have anyone other than my mom or my daughter to share them with. With the twins, it has always bothered me that their dad was always so absent. I craved having someone to share things about them with, and it felt like I had to force it with him. Now, he is married with an entirely new life, and he wants to interject himself into their world as Super Dad. We are in the middle of a custody and child support battle that is proving to be more taxing than I ever imagined. It simply isn’t fair that someone can decide to reappear after a five year absence and not suffer any consequences. I am resentful and angry and I probably always will be. It would be so much easier to be able to do the coparenting thing without fighting, but it wasn’t my responsibility to make him want to show up. I will never stop being mad about what he has done, regardless of how he tries to make up for it now or in the future. For me, running away was never an option.

Add to this that it is already mid-November. The holidays are always hard for me. I don’t even understand why; there is no weird trauma that I associate with Thanksgiving or Christmas other than the countless years that I spent in retail during this season. I want to put my decorations up because they bring me such joy, but I cannot find the willpower to drag everything out of the basement and go through it. I am currently still looking at pumpkins and spiders and witches because I blinked and Halloween was over. I want to make this a magical time for my girls, especially the youngest because they are growing so fast and the years that they will believe in Santa and the Elf on the Shelf are numbered. I want them to remember that we always draped our Christmas lights on the glass shelves in our living room and that we sprinkled reindeer food on the front steps on Christmas Eve. I don’t want them to know that I am sad or scared or stressed. I want them to look back at this time in their lives and think that their mom seemed to have it all together, that she worked it all out even when it seemed hard. I want them to think of me as brave.

“More often than not, being brave means doing it scared.” -Michael Hyatt