What It’s Like to Really Survive This Shit

I have been doing this yoga training as of late–not because I typically do a lot of yoga, mind you. Lately I’ve been less than stellar with my attendance due to a house guest which takes a lot of my energy and attention to keep sober and entertained. Well, sober is a more relative term sometimes, but let’s just say most of my energy is taken with other people’s struggles. I am the kind of girl to raise her hand to help anyone I can in any way that is beneficial and hopefully life changing even in the tiniest way. I am a big believer in the domino effect, where people come careening and smashing into your line of vision to alter your perspective in some way. I often screw myself in the process since there is no rational way to explain why it’s so easy for me to put myself last.

The yoga training I followed because I thought it was about the best self help program available. It was active, required effort, and would help me understand my body and my breath in a new language I did not know. I still am trying to learn it, though I would love to tell you I was already enlightened, I would be feeding you loads of bullshit. 1995-2007 were me navigating this whole dying thing. I didn’t need to plan for the future as there was none to speak of–it was just a waiting game so I made no plans. It was like I was navigating a terminal illness with no definitive end date–I just knew it was a matter of time before the thing blew and could not be fixed…until it did blow up and was repaired.

It has been helpful, so far, well, as much as I have let it, which is minimal at best. I am going to have to remedy my practice. I have a goal of being able to do the splits again one of these days, and though it’s an almost ridiculous thing to imagine wanting to do, it’s a simple enough challenge for my cut up body to wrangle. Doing it one of these days would be one of those things which would show me progress, which metaphorically probably works as well in terms of the meditation that yoga is.

The question this week is in purpose and vulnerability. I am continuously taken aback by the suggestion that all disease is somehow tied into an action or choice we have made. So I reject that, but in other ways the meaning behind my heart going boom, and losing my voice. I am trying to understand the ways in which my own heart has been broken in the ways we can all empathize with–emotional and intellectual rationalizations which sometimes leave us broken, withered and torn. A tarot card reader once told me my mother had broken my heart–not having seen my scars or asked any questions. And the question I asked then was, “which one?”

So I survive all of these damn surgeries, and then what? You talk of survivor’s guilt, and I can tell you there is something to it sometimes. I am not unhappy I survived, no, but I can also empathize with surviving so many surgeries–and so many with 10% survival chances. For those who might need a math reminder, that actually means a 90% death or mortality rate on those.

I wake up and of course the sky is brighter, of course I don’t sweat the small things. The small things are not things I typically fixate on given their propensity to be the active variable in one’s day. Aside from that I gave up long ago that you can control a whole lot, no matter how hard you try. So I sat in the class last night and kept thinking to myself that my issue is so different than everyone else’s because I have already hit the end of the road, stared death in the face, kicked its ass, and then returned home to my body and my mind. I hated my body for so long for betraying me when I did nothing bad to it. I hated it for throwing massive obstacles in my way which made me jealous and envious of people who simply weren’t sick, who got to travel their paths with little resistance, seemingly oblivious to how wrong it could all go.

And now I am here, and I am grateful. Of course I am grateful. But then the idea of purpose comes in and it’s a fucking pain in the ass to question. People who are important and have physically left their mark on this planet die every day of stupid shit. I survive 2 open heart surgeries and then grafting repairs to my head arteries, arm arteries, my aorta which supplies blood to my entire body. Your aorta runs along your spine, and is protected by your spine all the way down. My entire aorta is candy wrapped in dacron and twisty ties and staples keep it locked in. I lost my literal voice for two years in New York City as a result of these surgeries. I am sure the answer is here staring me in the face, the answer to my purpose, somewhere here, but it is lost on me.

I wasn’t put here to procreate, that’s for sure. I cannot have children due to my knowledge that my body pregnant cannot sustain a child due to my lifelines, my arteries propensity to split like dry and dusty rubber bands when pushed a little bit. I was pregnant once already, and due to some issues I had with some of the medication I was taking at the time I terminated my pregnancy. And not six months later I felt the split and rushed to the ER only to be questioned about my pregnancy which didn’t even exist, being told that my arteries had enlarged as if I was pregnant and had never receded back. So it was time to wrap those guys this time, since they decided to run ahead before confirming the plan.

So it’s not producing another human being like most everybody. I have no degree but an uncanny ability to split myself and peel myself open via the written word for all to see. I have skills, but I look on job boards and nothing is screaming, deanna, this is you. This is you. You were meant to do this. Most things scream–NO.

So here I am struggling for that world-changing earth shattering calling which would make me feel like, yes, you deserved to survive because we need you to do this. My mother always tells me to ask the universe for the sign, and I am pretty sure I have been wandering around asking the universe this question for most of my life. And for whatever reason–it’s not answering…

And this is where I turn the mirror inward, and wonder how it is I can struggle wondering about not feeling complete that way when I am the most half-assed person you have ever met about her own passions. I write. I love to write. But I don’t write like I want to. I paint. I love to paint but I don’t paint like I want to. I have all of these ideas for business and art projects but just beginning is a challenge enough without having to–um, um–FINISH!!! 2012 is about finishing things. Finishing my book I am half-assed about writing, finishing that scarf I started knitting 3 years ago, finish my tshirts I have been just talking about for a year, fixing all my twenties stuff needing repair. Maybe if I can just finish the things I have started, I would be in a better place to make things happen.

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