Thursday, March 31, 2016

Missed Connection: w4confidence

Despite what you might think.  I am shy. Very shy.


Especially in the beginning.


In the last year I have had a complete rollercoaster of self-image.


This is pretty typical because I am a woman and woman generally are:
1. Self-Conscious
2. Absolutely Insane 


That being said every woman in this world has some serious crazy to her, if she says she doesn't; she is a liar.


Lately, I have felt like an absolute crazy person.


Not a "burn your clothes in the street" crazy because frankly, I don't care enough about someone to do that. 
But a "I cannot bring myself to connect with another person" crazy.

Whether that be a friendship or romantically.


And I know it has to do with my lack of confidence since my surgery. 


I am a hit or miss when it comes to confidence. 


I can look in the mirror one day and think
"dang girl you killin' it today with your fine self"
and the next
"Wow you really need to not wear that. Look at your love-handles.  No one wants to handle that love"


It has been a huge struggle to get past this, and I am not even sure I know how.


I have taken my working out to an extreme that I feel guilty if I don't work out for a certain amount of time, or do a certain number of sets.


I feel guilty eating certain things.


I just feel when I look at myself it is a mess, and that if I can't love it how can someone else.
It's getting so out of control that I have been consuming myself with loneliness.


If I focus on everything else it seems to fade away for a little but, it keeps me up at night. I even find myself doing crunches at 2:00 in the morning.


Don't eat that.
One more lap.
Don't do that.
Stop that.


I know I said before I wouldn't be ashamed of this scar but, I am.


I am ashamed of what it stands for.
I am ashamed of how it looks.
I am ashamed of who it has turned me into. 


This doubt-filled loner.


This all being said...


This all could be a spiraling effect of all my stress.  Consuming me into self-doubt and, maybe, if I was less stressed out with graduation, finding a career, somehow getting 15 years of experience in my field before May, all while making 100,000 dollars, then maybe, just maybe I wouldn't lack self-confidence.


Does that go away with time?


How do I make it stop?


I really don't want to feel this way. So why do I.



Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Trip To The Vagina Doctor

In honor of going to see my gynecologist over 15 times in the last 5 months; let's talk about the dreaded adventures to the vagina doctor.

 Going to see your OBGYN is the most terrifying, required adventure on earth.

Once a year, if you are lucky to only go once a year, as a woman, you are required to go see this man, or woman that you pay to violate you.

For science.

I remember my very first adventure to see the gynecologist.  I was 17 years old.  I wanted to start taking birth control because, back when I use to  bleed once a month, it use to be the worst experience of my whole.

It was like a real life murder.  From the inside out. All of my insides hated me and I would have to get into this fetal position and pray to all things that were holy that I was going to go to church more, if Jesus would just take the pain away.

He didn't, so I had to go see this woman about some pills.

I wasn't ready for a man to analyze what I had to work with.
I still didn't exactly know what I was doing with it anyways, so no need for a man to stare at it and professionally tell me about my downstairs business.

I can't for the life of me remember her name, but she was a military doctor.  She was tall, dark, and handsome.  She was my commentator, and coach.  She would tell me what she was doing when she was doing it, and then would tell me how good of a job I was doing.

I wasn't doing anything, other than staring up at this poster of a beach to tell me to escape to somewhere else and to make sure I never made eye contact with her.

It was anything but enjoyable.

Nowadays, I am a lot less awkward about it.

I have since been to multiple doctors to see my business.  
And I love my current one now.  I trust her with all my goods.

I can't say I am still not awkward about it.

How could you not be.

My post-operation meeting was last Tuesday, and it went really well.  Everything is going according to plan.
Minus the whole fact that my scar tissue is not going to go down.  She told me that I could go to a plastic surgeon to fix it.

This news did cause me to go into a full on panic attack because this is my worst nightmare.
She basically told me that this "cliff" I have on my stomach is
PERMANENT.

I would never see a plastic surgeon for my stomach. I would go for some better like boobs or bigger lips, but not a tummy tuck.  They called it a mommy tuck.

A mommy tuck.

What the hell kind of shit is that.  

I guess I am going to start looking for high-waisted bikini bottoms.  This is bullshit.

Cut me some slack body.
Haven't I made enough sacrifices? 

Monday, March 14, 2016

Whiskey on a Patio

There is no real reason for my title to be Whiskey on a Patio, other than the fact that I am drinking whiskey on a patio.  It's such a beautiful evening and I couldn't help but, want to sit out here and write.


I am on what the youngsters call "Spring Break",  I have never really participated in Spring Break, other than when I was in High School on our Senior trip, where we were kicked out of the town of Gore, and told to never return from the sheriff. 


I did have a little too much fun this weekend with my weekend warrior mentality.  Saturday was a little different because I got to participate in the social activities of a Baby Shower.


One of my dear BudGirls had a baby shower.  Yes, for those who do not know, I was a Bud Light promotional girl.  Which this job pretty much entailed my friends and I getting into all of the best places, meeting famous people, drinking, and handing out free things.  It was very hard work; there were nights when I didn't even want to drink.  But I pushed through for the good-of-the-job. 


Continuing on, while I was finding out I was incapable of having children, my two best friends found out they were pregnant.  The timing almost felt too cruel to be unintentional.   


I love these two girls more than anything, but I had never felt so alone with the idea of my two best friends are now pregnant, and I was left out of the pact.


Not that they made a pregnancy pact, but I have heard about those and they are pretty common, and oh, so strange.


The shower was lovely, someone even brought a live baby for entertainment, but I found myself sitting in the corner, shoveling my body-weight in cold-cut pinwheels down my throat and drinking the alcoholic punch.  I was swimming in sea of pregnant woman, and even 'drinking the water' wouldn't change my fate.


It sure is sounding like a Pregnancy Pact, now.


I spoke a few times with what could be taken as inappropriate comments.  One, of course, asking about birthing techniques.  I am more of a visual learner. 
The patrons were less than pleased with my vaginal birthing hand motions. 


Whenever I feel awkward I say the wrong things, and do the wrong things.
Lucky for me, I didn't make any dead baby jokes, or joke about playing football with the baby as the ball.


Something is very wrong with me.


We did go out to take a picture of my two favorite preggers and I together, and one had asked about my surgery. 
Suddenly everyone got quiet, and I try to light-heartedly tell my impotence of being a woman, with a smile on my face.
It all was seemingly creepy, and forced happiness. 


I love being a part of these monumental times in my friends lives, but it does something to you, where you want to go home and drown your sorrows in a bottle of your finest Pinot Noir.  


Luckily, I do have my 3 week post-operation appointment tomorrow.  I am enlivened because, I am anticipating to get cleared to go back to work. 


I feel more complete when I feel like I am doing something worthwhile with my time. 
I just feel useless and broke.


I just want to get ahead. 
I want to do something crazy. 
I want to live for the story instead of continuously writing the same bullshit over and over again.


When the hell do you get over it?  When does it stop haunting you?
I sound like a broken record.


I am annoyed by my own self.  I have to find my adventure and go. 


Forget all this ever even happened.



Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Oprah in the Spring

Oh the babies are abundant this time of year. 


All the little gremlins are all making their appearances from those steamy summer nights.


I went to see one of my best girl friends brand new baby today.
I was a little apprehensive at first due to my extreme awkwardness around babies to begin with and that this will be the first baby I've actually seen since the surgery. 


I have no idea how I have done it but I have managed to avoid seeing small people until this day. 
Besides social media exposing every single baby bump, new born, and first walks. 


Anyways, I received a message from one of my other dear friends that I hadn't seen since the summer at her baby shower.  I had yet to meet her new baby; not because I didn't want to but because it's honestly really hard to see something so cool and cute and small; and not feel a sense of sadness and jealousy.


I have said it 100 times; I don't want a baby right now, but it begins to haunt your thoughts when you can't. 


Seriously though, this little 7 month old baby was so cool. I, eventually, built up the courage to hold her.  She was like just making all these noises and yelling, but not because she was upset, but she just wanted to make noise.   It was so strange to hold this little human that has thoughts, and facial expressions.  I normally talk to babies like they are just another person.
Baby S and I talked politics, about the time her mom and I did some reckless nonsense, and then I drove her around the hospital room in the baby burrito holder that the new born baby rolled out on..
And of course, I licked her. 


It's my thing.  All of my friends children I have licked.  It's like a good luck thing.


The usual stuff.


I may or may not have had some expression of feelings with saline like forms of water coming from my eyes.


I'm even worse when it comes to new born babies.  I have no idea how to act around them.  Like they are super, duper small and I am not exactly sure what you are suppose to do with them.


Like am I suppose to do something?


These two girls and I use to hang out frequently before our lives all went in different directions.
That being said all of us could go months with out seeing each other and still have a lot of love for each other.  They are very similar to the person that I am.


I  feel like me in a mom form would be very similar to how they are as parents, which is honestly the strangest thing I have ever seen. 
I never pictured either one of these crazy, wild ones as moms but they are, and they are killing it.


I do feel like my situation is a blessing with in itself.  I have no idea what my plan is in life and that's fine. 


Perhaps, I wasn't meant to be a mom. I am kind of uncomfortable when I am around them.


Which is so strange because I am a woman.  I have the parts of being a woman. I just can't do what women do.


Am I like that Britney Spears song, "I'm Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman"? 


My older sister use to sing that song to my younger sister, until she started her period..  Then she would tell her she upgraded to a woman. 


I don't even have a period any more.
I mean that's super tight.
But, what does it mean for me?
I am 25 years old.


It's all very perplexing to think about.


And I do think about all these things. More than I should.


It's all so conflicting when I get caught up in my own mind on decisions I will eventually have to make. 


Will I ever even be able to be with someone long enough to be like will you be my baby daddy, or will  I decide to just not do that?


Will I adopt?


Will I try and go through IVF and have a baby?


Will I ask my sister to be my sister wife and carry my baby, and be a surrogate but have the baby call her Aunt-Mom?


Will I say screw it and never have kids?


I mean they are like a lot of responsibility, and I can barely take care of myself.


This is overwhelming.


I really shouldn't write at night.



Monday, March 7, 2016

Fauxgasm: Faking It

Little Baby Update: Pun intended,  It has been officially two weeks since the expulsion of my fallopian tubes. 
Naturally, I have some major discomfort from the actual incision, but the never-ending pain that I was experiencing since late September is absent.
I never thought I would feel better.

It makes all those sleepless nights on the brink of death, worth it.

The sleeping has definitely gotten worse, but right now, I am content with life.

 I even tore it up a little this weekend.  Don't be alarmed, no pills were involved.

My relationship status is still nonexistent due to multiple factor.
I will say it has most to deal with my inability to put up with nonsense, but that is neither here nor there. 
And also, realizing that my options are more than limited due to the factor that I am not looking for a licentious relationship. 

I, also, believe timing is a factor.

The point that I am in my life is that I would like to travel the world with my own personal Casanova, that seduces me with intellect, creativity, and passion rather than with his baby-making banana bazooka. 

That every trip we take together will be named, like a hurricane or a child, so that when we look back, and reminisce on life, we can smile and say, "Remember Larry?"
How could I forget.

I know he exists; I'm sure he is just 1,328 miles away.

Just a little patience and things will all fall into place.

I am facing a lot right now, which is helping occupy my time.
Two months until I graduate and then, I can begin to pull-out my eyelashes due to a stress-filled panic to starting "real life".
I have tried to stay in college as long as possible because the thought of growing up is the most terrifying thing I could think of.
Well that, and dying alone.
 I'm not exactly out of the woods yet on either, so you can see my predicament.

But I feel like no one is really prepared for anything, or has it together; they are just good at faking it until they make it. 

We are all kind of just stumbling around wondering if we are going to make it out alive this week.

I have to start preparing for what feels like the beginning of a new chapter, and then perhaps I will find some clarity in my disheartening thoughts.

Yet, I am having a case of writers-block and, I have no idea how to even begin to write my next portion in my sci-fi romantic novel.

I can only assume that my next chapter is filled with unicorns, and happy-endings due to my anticlimactic storyline thus far.

I feel the need for adventure.
Due to all of my "medical bullshit", I have really decided that my 20's have been the worst era for myself.  I just need to grow a pair and start saying yes to life, rather than being scared of a risk.

I told my mother the other day that I couldn't really see myself getting old.  Not in the aspects of like being an older person, but in living that long.  I have always had some eerie suspicion that I won't live to be a grandparent.  Which, I guess, could be true because I would have to be able to have children in order for them to have children.

I guess, my sub-conscious has a sick way of making my suspicions more of a livable reality, rather than a capital punishment.

I know that all sounds super morbid, but I have a feeling that, that could be more of an unspeakable common-thought rather than, a far-fetched notion.  

I have remained extremely positive though, at least in my opinion, which is also the only one in this situation that really matters.

I just have to continue to remind myself of the 5 most important things:

1.  I am a champion.  In all senses of the word. I have overcome a lot and, I am not letting a single thing stand in my way, nor despair me.

2. I am a beautiful person.  Not because of my exterior shell, but because my heart is good.  I genuinely care, despite whether a person is "deserving" or not because, in my eyes, everyone is deserving. 

3.  I am valuable.  It has taken me a long time to understand my self-worth. But now, I know what I am capable of .  I know what I can offer, and that is half of the battle.

4.  I am smart.  I have never made the grades, but because I had this preconceived notion that I was in a competition of my siblings.  I am not in a competition with them; I am in a competition with the person I was a year ago.  And, I am sure as hell surpassing every expectation of myself that I had.  I am very knowledgeable in the strangest ways, but that's what leads me to my final point.

5. I am not like anyone else.  Everyone in this world is like a finger print.  We have similarities.  But we are all different.  I have so much to offer, but so do you.  No person in this world is better than anyone else.
I am so strange, but that's the best part about me.

As long as I remind myself of these things, I am going to eventually believe them and that's the best thing about the mind.
If you truly believe it; that makes it true.
Right?

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

No Body Left But Me

Every evening I conduct a similar routine.
I come up to my room lay in bed with my extra large heating pad, watching as many episodes of NCIS to become a real Naval Crime Investigator, as possible.
Then, I take a break and take a shower.
I take all of my clothes off and, on a good night, put them in  my dirty-laundry basket.

And then I stare at my body.

It's not an awful body.  I've definitely seen worse at Night Trips, or on PornHub, yet I have, also, seen better. 

I have a proportional body.
If my boobs were any bigger, I wouldn't complain, but I would say I wouldn't be as proportionate.
I have a "athletic" body type.

I had to work to get it there, so I wouldn't be considered fat-skinny anymore.

It's a real thing. Fat-skinny.  It's when you aren't exactly skinny, but too small to call "fat".
It's a weird awkward stage one gets in when they are on the verge of being "unhealthily" large.

I look at every part of my naked body.  The way you study your notes before your mid-term, going over it with a fine-tooth comb.

I have for years, like most girl, tried to come to terms that this is what I have to work with.

I am short, 5'3, which I actually like, shorter than most guys, which weirdly I have something against dating guys shorter than me, it just doesn't do anything for me.

My skin is flawed but, in a way that I can cover if I feel the need.
I have scarring all over from an accident when I was 10.
I fell face-first off a see-saw, while camping in Switzerland, 5 feet in the air and a boulder caught my fall.
I wish I made that up.

My hair grows in thick which at a young age caused me to shave my arms from the bullying of being called "gorilla arms". It doesn't grow back thick, yet I will shave them until the end of time to never have to hear that again.

My muscles have been improving in my legs but, every time I shave my legs I get razor burn.  My legs get so irritated that I try and wait to put lotion on to some how hide it, but it always seems to show. I have tried everything from waiting to shave them, to conditioner, to switching to every type of razor.  I have yet to figure out how but like all things in life, it's a process.

My body is covered in tattoos to try and distract from my imperfection.   And even I get distracted by them sometimes, so they must help.

My neck is long, my mother use to tell me it was like a dancers neck, which helped me with thinking it was weird for my figure.

My stomach will never be flat due to my love of beer, and soda. But the Abs have been trying to come through. I just have to give up the things I love most like: Red Candy. Red Velvet Cake. Cream Cheese.  I can't do it.

I am so distracted by my stomach, as I stare at myself complete exposed.

Each and every scar tells a story; the same story.

I know it's still healing.  But I can't help but stare at this 3 inch line, surrounded by a rainbow of bruising;  the swelling, and protruding lump of stitch, is anything but sexy. 
It mocks me as I stare at it.  Reminding me of what is gone, and what I am left with.

I get in the shower and use my Irish Spring: Signature for Men, Cool Spring.
I have always found that men's body wash smells the best, after as a child using all of my fathers Oak, body wash by Bath and Body Works, when he was deployed.
It, also helps as a good cover up from seeing multiple men at the same time.

That last parts a joke.  I can't even see one person right now, let alone multiple. Let's be real. But, you are welcome for the future cover up, my lady friends.

I get out of the shower and look at myself one more time.
 It always looks a little better wet and bright red, from the scolding showers I take. And , also, with my head tilted, and one eye closed, like I am trying to drunk text.

I need to give this more time, but I can't help but think of how far I have tried to come and that this is what I have to show. 
My rawest form makes me cry.

I feel for the most part I have been so strong about all of this dealing with everything.
And I have never 100% felt comfortable in my own skin.

But my self-esteem and self-confidence has never been to this level. Even when I have been turned down, after asking a guy out, this is a new low. 

I joke about everything all the time. It really does make things easier, less real, less dramatic, and emotional.  I hate being upset.  And I hate worrying about shit I can't control, so why not make light of it and move on.

But deep down, I am heart-broken.
It might have been easier to loose a finger.
Yet, I think I'd miss my finger too.