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Starting Over

Guest Posts, cancer, Starting Over

27 Stitches

July 27, 2021
surgery

by Lauren Gobell

I got skin cancer for the first time when I was 28. Basal cell carcinoma, right temple, one freeze and burn surgery required. I’ll wear lots of sunscreen, and this won’t happen again. This is my health scare, and now it’s done, I reassured myself. But a year later, at twenty-nine, my white scar that I was painfully self-conscious of became suspiciously pink around the edges. My insides churned in that way that only happens when you know something bigger than you is brewing beneath the surface.

By then, I was four-and-a-half years into my marriage, and it’d been touch and go the entire time. After the diagnosis, I brought my then-husband to a consultation, so a doctor could explain that “basal” is not to be confused with “benign.” This was in fact, cancer, and therefore, it needed to be removed for medical reasons. After confirmation from a medical professional, my then-husband felt reassured that I was not just being dramatic about the whole skin cancer bit. By the time my surgery came in December, we’d separated, but I knew we were most likely headed for a divorce.

Prior to my surgery, I noticed another spot on my center forehead, near the hairline. I call this a, “For Fuck’s Sake” moment. As humans, we’re  all guaranteed 2-3 “For Fuck’s Sake” moments in our lifetime. These are the moments that bring us to our knees. They sometimes make us more resilient in the long run, but, let me abundantly clear, the interim period is extremely unpleasant, and if not handled properly, can really get the better of you.

Two weeks later, that biopsy from my For Fuck’s Sake moment came back positive as well. My one surgery in December would now be a “two for one” surgery. I spent hours bracing for impact before the operation. I scoured the internet for pictures of MOHs surgeries, telling myself it would make it easier post surgery to deal with my own recovery.

I was mistaken.

On December 15, 2016, I had an eight-hour surgery to remove both basal cells which left me with two facial scars. There were twenty-seven external stitches total, and I simply didn’t recognize myself every time I accidentally caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. The pale, terrified, stitched-together girl that gazed warily back at me seemed like an imposter. How could this be my life? How did this happen? It was the first time I’ve ever truly felt unlovable, and that feeling lingered for longer than I care to admit.

I wish I could tell you that going through skin cancer quickly made me realize I was a badass. I wish I could tell you that when I caught people looking at my scars, I came back with some fabulous fictitious tale about a skiing excursion gone awry. I wish I could tell you that I left my toxic marriage right then and there.

But I didn’t feel like a badass; I felt broken. But I couldn’t make a clever joke; I was mortified by my own appearance. As women, we’re told by society both directly and indirectly to be hairless, poreless, blemishless. Most days, I was haunted by an inner voice that hissed,Who would ever want you now?”

Fortunately, as the months crept by, my scars went from bright red, to medium red, to an aggravated pink, and finally a subdued white.

And then, five months after my surgery, my husband did the smartest thing he could have possibly done.

He called me dumb.

He called me dumb one last time.

The specifics of that conversation don’t really matter. My hungover husband who had driven home blitzed the night before, who was so hung over we missed therapy with the Christian marriagie counselor he insisted on seeing, called me dumb because I refused to agree that the Hulu show we were watching at the time was “liberal propaganda.”

Dear reader, sometimes specifics do matter.

Because those lovely specifics converged at just the right moment and created a crescendo, a tidal wave of clarity if you will. And when that wave broke, it allowed me to have another “For Fuck’s Sake” moment when I needed it most.

Dear reader, my hungover, drove-home-drunk husband called me dumb, and suddenly everything within me realigned. All the nuts and bolts came together with a resounding internal click.

This was not, is not, could no longer be my life.

The beauty of a For Fuck’s Sake  moment is that it brings about clarity whiplash. Meaning, the truth comes at you so fast, you’re forced to examine it head-on. And since I’d just dealt with a FFS moments months earlier with my two-for-one basal cell diagnosis, I had a better inkling of how to handle a FFS this time around. That skin cancer FFS had been overwhelming, but this FFS ended up being the compelling kind.

The best way to handle an FFS moment is by taking action while doing everything possible to maintain your sense of humor. I had just handled double skin cancer surgery. Surely, I could handle divorce.

And so, I did it. I finally walked away from a dysfunctional nine-year relationship that frankly, never should have made it past a year. I found a mediator. I filed for divorce. And since I was a teacher at the time, my summer job became “Getting Divorced.”

It turns out, that if you have the luxury of making “Getting Divorced” your sole job, you can actually expedite the whole thing rather quickly. I made a “Getting Divorced” playlist. I did more cardio than most doctors would recommend in a fiscal quarter. I went through a brief, albeit dedicated, house music phase. Please be advised, A For Fuck’s Sake moment requires outside-the-box coping strategies. Green smoothies and an FFS don’t pair well.

Nine weeks after uttering the words, “I want a divorce,” I walked out of the courthouse with my marriage dissolved. Sometimes we have to leave.

I left a marriage having been brought up in a very strict, conservative household, having been told my whole life that nothing was more important, nothing was more sacred than marriage.

And yet, I was still able to rebuild my life. I was able to regain financial security and independence. I was able to make a career change. I was able to date and form healthyish, (just being honest, some things really take time) romantic relationships again. And so it turns out, there are things more important, more sacred than marriage. Self-worth being one of them.

27 stitches broke my soul, but they forced me to become whole.

Most days, I still wish skin cancer wasn’t part of my vocabulary, but in a strange way it saved me from myself. Because for fuck’s sake, it gave me my moment.

Please Note: In a bizarre twist of fate, I heard from my ex-husband a couple years after I walked out of that courthouse. He got skin cancer. Life is simultaneously strange and simple.

Lauren Gobell is a former middle school English teacher and now works for a digital media company. She is probably running, reading a thriller, or reapplying sunscreen.

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Margaret Attwood swooned over The Child Finder and The Butterfly Girl, but Enchanted is the novel that we keep going back to. The world of Enchanted is magical, mysterious, and perilous. The place itself is an old stone prison and the story is raw and beautiful. We are big fans of Rene Denfeld. Her advocacy and her creativity are inspiring. Check out our Rene Denfeld Archive.

Order the book from Amazon or Bookshop.org

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Anti-racist resources, because silence is not an option

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Guest Posts, Relationships, Starting Over

Turning Around

July 19, 2021
year

by Monica Garry

The other day I was driving down a road by the river that all of a sudden came to a dead end. There was no warning for the road closure until it happened, which was totally fucking inconvenient given that this particular road was one that stretched no wider than 20 feet. I muttered through what must’ve been an entire library of curse words while making an 8 point turn-around, only to find myself facing one of the most stunning views.

The sun, which we don’t get much of in February in Minnesota, was blaring through the trees, just about to set; leaving all of the snow and the big silver buildings that sat just by the waters edge blindingly glistening in its reflection – the sky bluer than I’d seen her in months – and amongst all of the snow and ice, on my right, sat one small patch of rock that the sun had warmed just enough to let water pour down its edge. As I began driving, following the sun blindly, a smile stretched across my face, I realized that this is exactly what life had been doing for the last year. That today wasn’t the first time it had stopped me in my tracks.

I thought about how my three-year relationship had ended, how the pandemic hadn’t allowed me to see my family, how my mom’s relapse had landed her at rock bottom, how I felt burnt out at work. But I thought, really, about how my break up gave me the space, freedom and, frankly, fear, that I needed in order to find myself again. I thought about how even though I couldn’t see my family physically, I’ve spoken to them more in the last year than I had the previous two years combined. How my mom‘s relapse had brought about incredible healing and strength, how I’m closer with her now than I have been in a long time.

I thought about how my burn out at work stemmed from a lack of connection, and how this had allowed me to see how truly accessible connection is, how I just needed to actively seek it; to actively participate in it. I thought about how many new places I had found and felt profound amounts of love.  I thought about how all of these challenges were really just life forcing me to change course. Because left to our own devices, we humans tend to miss out on the really good parts of life – the parts that come from the unknown, the unpredictable, the uncontrollable.

So, here’s my advice: if life turns you around, let it. It’s going to feel like it’s being a bitch, and truthfully, it’s probably going to hurt like one. But once you get there, you’ll realize it’s doing just what it did for me that day, what it did for me that entire year, and what it’ll do for all of us hundreds of more times to come – making sure we don’t miss out on the really good stuff.

Monica is a community mental health worker, currently living and working in Minneapolis. Aside from this work, she has a passion for writing. This past year and a half, with all of it’s tragedies and hopes, have inspired this piece.

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Although each of Jenny Offill’s books is great, this is the one we come back to, both to reread and to gift. Funny and thoughtful and true, this little gem moves through the feelings of a betrayed woman in a series of observations. The writing is beautiful, and the structure is intelligent and moving, and well worth a read.

Order the book from Amazon or Bookshop.org

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Anti-racist resources, because silence is not an option

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Guest Posts, Starting Over, Young Voices

Yellow Bath Towels

December 10, 2019

By McKenzie Fletcher

Sometimes life gets messy. Really really messy. And sometimes you are just tired. Really really tired. And you are sitting on the floor of your childhood bedroom. Bird seed making imprints on the bottoms of your shoeless feet. Your bright yellow towels on the floor next to you, crumpled, damp and in a pile because they’re homeless. They don’t have a consistent place to be. They don’t belong anywhere in this house.And then suddenly as you are sitting on the floor and realizing how badly your back is hurting hunched over, with your arms wrapped against the knees pulled to your chest, you realize you relate to these two, damp, crumpled bright yellow bath towels.  You feel homeless. You feel like you don’t belong. You moved to college half way through the school year, in with five party girls who ran the apartment. You didn’t belong there. You held your stuff in your room and the one cabinet that you bought from target and built late the night you moved in. The rest is theirs. You moved into an apartment you pay way too much for, to feel like a guest living with five strangers who turned out to be some of the most inconsiderate people you’ve ever encountered.

You are the yellow bath towels.

You travel “home” for the summer to gently land in a soft nest of a home you envisioned had changed since you left. You imagined a place where you felt welcome and safe, but the first night back you were sleeping on a friend’s milk stained, crumb infested couch, being woken up before the sun rose by her five year old jumping on your resting body excited to see you were back.

You hated the way it jolted your body awake but the excitement was enough to get you to get up and get her a bowl of cereal before your messy haired self, plopped back onto the couch. Again, you didn’t belong.

You are the yellow bath towels.

You pulled on the jeans that you tossed on the floor in exchange for your sister’s pajama shorts that you took because everything you owned was still in boxes. Messy boxes.

It was raining as you drove back to your parent’s suburban home.

You pulled up and parked on the street, walked into the garage where your stuff was strewn everywhere from the little hands of younger siblings who were eager to help get you back into the house.
You dug through to find a makeup bag and some clothes to get rid of yesterday’s clothes. You needed a shower and to get to a job interview.

Yellow bath towels.

As you pieced together the best interview outfit you could after having left professional clothes in storage in Denver because you didn’t anticipate this even though you should have, you leave and your mom who you’ve seen all of twice since you’ve been back asks where you are going as she pulls her phone speaker away from her mouth. You smile and answer and walk your way down the driveway in slightly heeled shoes that remind you of the early mornings you dug around in your closet for them as you ran out of the door to student teach.

The interviewer asks where you go to school and you explain your situation. The one you didn’t want to explain because who wants to apply for a job that isn’t just specifically for the summer and say you’re going to be leaving in three months. You didn’t belong here. You wouldn’t be staying.

Yellow bath towels.

And the second night, the one you spend at another friend’s house on the floor that gives the back of your legs rashes because of the dog hair imbedded in the carpet. The friend that will quietly get up early in the morning, tip toe around your sleeping body and get her day going, long before you would naturally wake up. You’re in the way. She will never admit it.

Yellow bath towels.

The third night you fall asleep on your little sister’s bed that has little colorful flowered sheets on them. You’ll grab any pillow you can find and build a soft place to rest your head. In the morning, there’s a naked kid having a mental break down is as severe as you would imagine the average mid-life crisis would be. She can’t find her shirt. And you being in her bed that she doesn’t sleep in is somehow contributing to her shirt being lost.

Yellow bath towels.

You sit at the kitchen table, eating something you found in the fridge. Appreciating the fact that you can now eat food you didn’t pay for. And your dad storms in angry about the boxes in the garage. Why did you bring so much stuff with you? He begs a response that you don’t know how to properly give. You want him to hear what he wants so he will leave you alone. You also want to be hugged. I’m home dad. You call me all the time saying you miss me, and I am finally home. I am back. And my stuff is too. Yes, I am sorry. Okay I’ll move it.

Where to move it though. Because you don’t belong here. Your stuff and your body don’t know where to go. Half welcomed and half feeling like a burden. Like a big elephant that just walked into the middle of time square. You’re in the way of so many lives. People trying to shove past you, not run into you, pick something up under you.

Yellow bath towels.

Your new home is made your parents’ RV in their backyard. Finally. A place for you and your belongings. A place that you can freely be without being in the way. A feeling that you haven’t had in a while. Because you had a roommate for the last five months.

Oh, but now your family is selling the RV. You need to move.

But where. Where can I go this time.

Yellow bath towels.

You make yet another move. It’s been two months. You’re losing count. You move into your childhood bedroom that is recently vacated due to your traveling 12 year old sister. She’s been more places than you and is undoubtedly cooler. Frustrated, you toss your stuff into the room. You don’t care where it lands or what breaks at this moment. All you care about is that it is dark, it’s raining and you’re moving again. You don’t have help. You are alone. You cry, as you pass your mom who is oblivious to the unexplainable feelings pouring onto your cheeks and leaving little familiar stains on your shirt. She yells at you. You and all of your stuff. You being in the way. The inconvenience you are.

Yellow bath towels.

So, you sit on your childhood bedroom floor, leaned against the tall queen-sized bed. The handles from one of the built in drawers is stabbing an uncomfortable place on your spine. You look at the empty blue walls and the floor lined with a few boxes of things that were never gone through after you tossed them during your emotional break down. You try to predict how long it will take you to pack all of this tomorrow for your fourth and hopefully final move into another friend’s house. Because this house is being sold and you need to leave. You’re an added body to the already overpopulated house that is soon not going to be your family’s anymore.

Yellow bath towels.

Your childhood close friend’s grandma. Basically, yours too. You lived with her when your dad kicked you and your siblings and mom out. When you didn’t belong in his eyes, so he threw you to the curb to be crumpled, your shirt damp from tears and snot that you can’t hold in any longer. Crumpled, damp but also bright. Just like the towels. Bright yellow like the sun. Sunflowers. The kind that grow in the midst of weeds. The kind that turn towards the sun to grow.
You are yellow bath towels in all of their crumpled, damp, but bright glory. You are a sun flower that springs up in unlikely places, fixed eyes on the sun, turning and growing towards the warmth, growth, healing, and belonging.

We can sit and wonder why our lonely selves got the life we did. Why we can relate to crumpled homeless bath towels in a grossly depressing way. Why are these the cards life handed me? But, there’s not much of a difference. In a sense, we are all the same. You and your eyeballs and brains and feminism and gender and race and theories. Me and my knee-caps and ideas and fears and religion and writings. We are all cells, and what makes the difference is where our cells end up. We cannot control the crap our cells are born into. We can’t change what our cells have to go through in this life. And even more so, we can’t understand this crap. It’s a lot to comprehend. Too much for the human mind. Too much for our wildest dreams. Too much for logic or our fears. We can come up with theories on why. But we never know why.

McKenzie Fletcher is a nineteen year old college student currently attending a university in Colorado. She is pursuing a degree in Psychology and writing is her passion.

 

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Guest Posts, Starting Over

A Rose by Any Other Name

August 10, 2018
rose

By Dana McKenna

I remember when I decided to do it.

I was going to change my name.

I had just filed for divorce.  It was liberating, knowing I’d done something proactive for my emotional and psychological well-being.  After I gave my (now) ex the ultimatum of ‘me, or everyone else in a skirt’ (guess which he chose?), I hired a lawyer, filed the paperwork, and was on my way (little did I know he would stretch it out over two+ years, quickly making it the Big Bad Awful, but that’s another story).

So, changing my last name.  Not back to my maiden name; no, I hadn’t been that person for nearly 20 years.  And I didn’t want to wait until after the divorce was final, I wanted to do it now.  It was a further step to heal, another step in the direction to reclaim my own life. And it was the right decision.

Now, what name did I want to reflect me?  What name did I want to represent “me” to the outside world?

To be, or not to be, Smith or Jones. That was the question.

I wrote down or typed into my cell phone every name I came across that I liked.  From looking through books on my coffee table, watching TV and movies; perusing magazines, bookshelves at the library, FaceBook, and bookshelves at Barnes & Noble; mulling names over-heard in conversations standing in line; to (more) perusing of used-books store shelves, place names on maps, family trees, cemeteries (really, headstones are a bounty of monikers!), other people’s bookshelves…you get the idea.

My long list devised, now needed some serious weeding.  I would practice introducing myself out loud using the names I’d found.

That lopped off at least 1/3 of the list. Continue Reading…

Guest Posts, Relationships, Starting Over

At the End There Might Just be Peace

November 12, 2017
shame

By Sarah Cannon

Remember the mindfulness training you felt cynical about back when Matt was hurt? It was and was not a long time ago. It’s like a lifetime has been squished into less than a decade. Or how about David, do you remember him? He was the counselor you were seeing before the accident, then again afterward. He had perpetual pit stains on his pastel button-ups and always asked you what you were doing with your anger. This was back when your focus was driving Matt to out-patient rehab sessions twice a day then showing up to feed, clothe, educate your children, and also work for money. You gave David a blank look and said something petty with a hanging question-mark sound at the end, like, “I don’t know, probably running around the block makes me feel better?” Then you didn’t pay him and he had to fire you.

Remember before the accident, when you had that dorky ‘wish’ cork board? You spent a whole Sunday gluing inspirational pictures and words and pinned it to the ceiling above your bed. It had a numerical figure written on a physical dollar in the center to symbolize the salary you wanted in five years. Matt poked good-natured fun at you, and you defended it, saying it was your five-year plan. You liked your poster so much that you called up Hannah and the two of you crafted a woman-specific plan you were convinced Oprah would buy the rights to. Want More, was the theme. You tore the poster down and threw notes for the Want More program into the fire after the accident.

“Isn’t it a miracle?” everyone kept saying after Matt nearly died. Then they began saying, “Things will get bet better,” when they saw you weep. And you wanted to say, “Everyone keeps saying that,” but you mostly smiled your gummy grin and hoped they were right. Continue Reading…