this is me: my current theory

On two years of living a queered life.

2024-05-09T11:55:00.000-04:00

Two years ago this week I came out to my husband and, subsequently, blew up my life. There are days when it feels like this JUST happened, and there are other days when it feels like I have been out my whole life. There's something about being oriented to self that's affirming, and addicting, and beautiful. Things are starting to settle now, and so I thought it a good time to give an update on me, and my continued processing of what it means (to me) that I am living a queered life.

AND...

What a fucking learning curve!

Two years ago when I came out, it was as a lesbian. Because I was dating women at the time, this seemed to make sense. I was welcomed and enveloped into the local lesbian community and for quite some time, that label felt comfy.

And then, almost a year later, I started dating someone non-binary and my mind was a little blown as to what that means about my identity. If I date someone who is not a woman, can I still be a lesbian? (Spoiler alert: the answer to this is yes, if I want to, because sexual expression does not always align with sexual orientation.) But it's a bit moot because I don't actually think lesbian is the right label for me.. read on.

And so, that leaves the obvious question-- if I am not a lesbian, I am not bisexual, and I am not straight... what am I? The only answer I have to that question is that I am Gwenn. If a label is needed to orient me in your mind, I guess I would choose "queer." But I also have the opinion that everyone's gender identity/sexual orientation/attraction profile is unique (and also can be fluid) and so is there anyone who is NOT a little bit queer? Aside: Some straight people (read: cis men) right now are reading this and adamantly denying that they could be a little queer. Just kidding. No cis men care about what I write-- ha ha ha.

Here's the takeaway...

Labels work for some people. Some people take great comfort in an identity within a certain subgroup within the LGBTQ+ community. But there are others that don't. I think I am one of the ones that doesn't. Because what does a label really even mean? Labels mean different things to different people-- even people within specific subgroups. I remember when I had a client in therapy once who had self identified as a straight woman. We talked a lot about her boyfriend in several of our sessions. It was a few weeks later that she disclosed he is a trans man. And, due to my personal ideas of what straight means, it threw me for a quick second. Now, hear me on this--this makes sense because trans men are men. Her identifying as straight makes sense. And at the same time, it didn't fit my definition of straight. In my mind, if you're dating someone who is queer, you're probably queer too. But that's not how this woman saw herself. And so it's a good reminder that if you're gonna use a label, it's always good practice to ask someone what that means to them.

So I guess my next question is this-- why does having a label for someone matter? What would it mean if I was dating a cis woman? Or a non-binary person? Or a trans man? Or a cis man, for that matter? Would any of those things invalidate my queerness? I would argue the answer is no. But I get that it's nuanced and doesn't always make sense.

But here's what I can say--it's okay to hold curiosity. And it's okay (sometimes) to ask questions. There are some questions that are off limits, and a good rule of thumb is to only ask questions that you'd be comfortable with someone asking about you in mixed company.

If I know you, I am happy to share information, within reason, if someone has curiosity about what being queer means to me. I am always willing to have a discussion. I may not give you the exact information you're looking for (if it's something private to me or someone else), but let's have a discussion rather than jumping to conclusions or consulting others.

I don't know all the answers about what it means to be queer or to live a queered life. But I know that when I am intellectually honest with myself and others, beautiful things happen. I grow, bloom, and evolve. And I am here for that part of the journey.

With every lesson learned a line upon your beautiful face: A year in review.

2023-12-31T10:18:00.007-05:00

There have been countless moments of 2023 that have gutted me. I was describing 2023 to a friend recently by saying that I feel like it was a year where I was a jellyfish-- just completely blobbing around and where I went was controlled completely by my environment. I can't even explain the grief that I have felt at times. AND, there were also great moments this year that I would be remiss not to mention-- mostly because I had great friends that showed up for me when I thought I would get swept under.

Out of my 31,536,000 seconds in 2023, here are a noteworthy 26.

January

Fancy friend date night so I could wear my sequin dress.

My first new car!

February

After we separated (but before we were estranged) we tried to do the friend thing.
That was nice.

This day, February 26, was the last time my family was all together.
I wish I had known then it would be the last time but I am glad we have this pic.

March

Date night with a lovely human I was seeing at the time. The relationship didn't last, but good memories.
PS- I love getting dressed up-- who is gonna get dressed up with me in 2024?

Megan Day, March edition. This girl is everything.

April

That time I became a poster child for diversity at my university.

Birthday shenanigans with most of my kiddos.

May

A visit from the gorgeous and supportive, Maria.

Grad school graduation with some of my cohorts!

June

Pride with friends. I cried a lot that day, but there were also lots of hugs and support.

Dyke night at Arcana with these two hotties.

July

I bought a kayak as a graduation present to myself and had a few (not that many) paddles.
Hopefully more to come in 2024.

I feel there is no appropriate caption for this photo, or this dear friend.

August

Josiah's football game with my mom

BEAN! (That is all).

September

In September I learned to sit by myself by a fire (a lot) and not hate being alone.
(Well, not hate it THAT much).

This person and their support all year long.

October

That night of my anniversary where we had a wedding dress party because I have the best friends.

Megan day, October edition

Indiana with Lee and his crew. This friend. Gah.

November

Roasting marshmallows with Finn, who happens to be the silver lining of my 2023.

Nothing better than nieces.

December

I am a lucky mom.

I am a lucky friend.

I am a lucky mom.

I learned a lot of lessons (and earned a lot of lines on my face) this year.

But here's the main idea.

I can get through this.

Friends are how I get through this.

(Also, Abilify + Prozac are how I get through this.)

Thank you to everyone who has shown up for me this year. I big love all of you. BIG love.

M' la.

2023-09-12T19:11:00.000-04:00

As the years go by, I forget more and more about what it was like to speak Haitian Kreyol every day. Living and working in Haiti for 6 years taught me a lot about the language, but it’s now been 8 years since I’ve lived there and during that time, I have forgotten much. Any time I try to speak Kreyol now, lang mwen lou (my tongue is heavy).

But when I am around someone who is Haitian, my memory fires a little bit and I start remembering. And then there are phrases and expressions that just have stuck with me because of how much more I prefer them to their English counterpart. An example I have been thinking about a lot lately is how in English, when we greet each other with the phrase, “How are you?”, it’s common to answer with some sort of positive phrase, “I’m great” or “Not too bad!” or (if you’re my dad), “Oh, I’m in pretty good shape for the shape I am in.”

And to be sure, there are affirmative responses to that question in Kreyol too. But one of the common responses is, “M’ la.” (I’m here). I love that response for the absolute simplicity it communicates as well all the different things it could mean.

It could be positional, as in, “I am here, not there.”

It have to do with time, as in, “I am here, present, in this moment.”

Or it could be more of a statement like, “I am not good, I am not bad, I am here.”

I am almost 9 months into my separation and if someone were to ask me how I am doing, the only response that feels appropriate is, “M’ la.” (I’m here).

I am here (at my apartment), not there in my home.

I am here alone in this moment, not there as a part of a whole.

I am not good, not (usually) bad, per se… I am here.

I have learned neither the science nor the art of being a single mom. It’s a very clunky proposition for me. When I have the kids, I have them 100%. Their need for parenting falls on me. When I don’t have the kids, they don’t have a need for my parenting.

It’s very

all or nothing,

feast or famine,

the pendulum swung one direction or the other,

balls to the wall, or staring at the walls.

I often think about full time single parents, or only parents, and what that must feel like day after aching day of having to keep everything running. So in some ways, my gripes and complaints feel small next to the proposition of being an only parent.

But I think it’s the contrast that’s chewing me up--it's hard for me to regulate. Not one thing or the other.

M’la.

I have neither learned the best ways to be a remote worker. My desk is three feet from my bed and I don’t have to be on camera for my job. You would think that would be great— that I could tumble out of bed and right into the chair in my pajamas, get in my 8.5 hours, and then get on with my day. But I can’t do that. I need to get up, have my coffee, eat some food, walk the dog. On good days I get dressed, on great days I shower. My house feels cluttered and messy. It’s not filthy like in Hoarders. But it’s not clean either. There are piles of folded laundry stacked up on the coffee table, something sticky on the counter I keep meaning to wipe up, and an ironing board open in my bathroom since I ironed a shirt two weeks ago. I have no motivation to do what I need to do to to make my space (and, therefore, my mood) shine. Even though I know it will help. But I am taking out my trash, washing my dishes, wearing clean clothes, and occasionally vacuuming— especially when I know the boys are coming over.

I am not succeeding nor am failing at living solo.

M’la.

My diet when I don’t have my boys is very much what the kids these days are calling “girl dinner.” I don’t cook just for myself. I can’t make myself do it. So I have girl dinners like cottage cheese, an apple, and some saltines. Or a pop tart, some leftover greenbeans, and a wedge of cheese. I know I would feel better if I was feeding my body better. And I can make myself do that when the boys are here— I want them to have proper meals. But when it’s just me, well, it doesn’t feel worth it. I am just very much existing.

Food isn’t a pleasure or pain to me anymore. It just is this utilitarian thing I need to do.

M’ la.

I was talking to a friend the other day and I verbalized that I very much feel the absence of being part of a whole— a partner in a marriage, a piece of an intact family puzzle.

Living this way is a brand new set of skills for me. And even though, historically, I have taken on new challenges head on, I can’t seem to take this separation with fervor or vigor. I don’t feel all badass or empowered. But I also don’t feel like I am failing. Flailing, yes, but not failing. I went on to tell my friend, “What I need to do next is decide that I am worth it. That I am worth putting in the time and the energy to invest in me— that it’s worth doing if it’s just for me.”

And, well, I can see that’s where I need to go. But that recognition, that's going to have to be good enough for now— a first step of sorts. Because I am definitely not there yet.

Instead, well,

M’ la.

###

Except for every time I hear that song...

2023-07-05T20:56:00.013-04:00

There’s this Brandi Carlile song, “Every Time I Hear That Song.”

The chorus goes like this--

And by the way, I forgive you
After all, maybe I should thank you
For giving me what I've found
'Cause without you around
I've been doing just fine
Except for every time I hear that song…
---

At this point in my divorce process, I am trying to transition from bitterness to moving on. I have been listening to this song and reminding myself I need to forgive (not there yet), but also that I am doing just fine on my own.

Well, maybe except for every time I hear that song...
---

A couple weeks ago I went to see my favorite group of all time, The Indigo Girls. And while their tight harmonies and acoustic-driven sound is exactly my sweet spot, the thing that takes them over the edge for me is their lyrics.

I have often stated that there is an Indigo Girls song for every occasion. (I'm not wrong).

I bought the tickets to this show when I was dating my last person. (This whole “having tickets for things” and then breaking up is a WHOLE THING!) But I digress. So I went with a friend instead and I issued her a pre-show warning that I was going to be embarrassing with how much I love Amy and Emily, (and, no braggies, but I like to think I delivered on that warning).

It started off strong.

Least Complicated.

Shit Kicking.

But then, the third song…

Power of Two.
---

I would say that I listen to the Indigo Girls several times a week. And for the past 9 months, every time Power of Two has come on, I have forcefully proclaimed, “Alexa, next song.” It’s too much. The lyrics are too much. It was my wedding song.

Now the things that I am afraid of, I’m not afraid to tell. And if we’d ever leave a legacy, it’s that we loved each other well.

At the concert I couldn’t skip to the next song. And it punched me in my gut. I didn’t see it coming and I wasn’t prepared. And hot tears sprung to the corners of my eyes.

It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy the rest of the concert. It was the Indigo Girls, after all. But all night I couldn’t really shake the realization that this was the first IG concert I have been to in over 20 years without Nick. He was my concert buddy, and well, my everything else buddy.

And the truth is that now the things I am afraid of, I am afraid to tell. There was this person who, for decades, chose me unconditionally. And I came to the place where I believed, like the song says, that I was okay, that I was fine, that I had someone to stop my crying, to chase the ghosts from my head, someone who was stronger than the monsters beneath my bed, and smarter than the tricks played on my heart. And I thought that we had created a legacy that we loved each other well.

It took me years, probably 15 or more, to believe in this love. To truly believe in it. To believe it was real and true and lasting. And in many ways, I couldn’t learn to love myself until I realized someone else loved and chose me. That’s not how it should go. But given my Evangelical context, it’s how it happened. And I believe he did love and chose me. And that allowed me to feel safe to explore more of who I am. But then when the real Gwenn surfaced, my worst fears came true. Because then he didn’t.

I felt (and still struggle with feeling) unlovable. Not at the surface— I know that I am truly fortunate to have many people who love me. But there has always been that fear that if someone knew me long enough, or if I expressed who I truly am under all the layers, that I would be rejected. And now, my deepest fear is my lived experience. And I thought it might kill me. But it hasn’t.
---

For my whole life, people have been telling me I am too much. Gwenn, the motor mouth. Gwenn, the generous pour. Gwenn, the one whose opinions are too vocal. And then there are all the Bible verses about women being silent. And Bible verses about how a good wife acts (spoiler alert, not like me).

But recently, two people have challenged me on that “too much” identity.

“Too much for whom?“ one asked.

“Your big personality is not something I tolerate, it’s something I celebrate,” the other said.

These two individuals challenged the idea that I have just accepted and integrated into my personality—this idea that I am too much. And so here’s what I am striving to integrate now. I am a big personality—that part is true. But guess what? That’s not something I am going to see as shameful anymore. In fact, I can see it as a strength. I have learned to use my (loud) voice to stand up for myself, for vulnerable people and populations, and those I love. I have learned to use my big, gregarious, loud personality to create fun, and to spur others on in joy and play. I love big. I nurture big. I really try to show up big for the people I love.

And fair. That might be too much for some people. It has been for a bunch of people. But that’s okay. Those people are not MY people.

I won’t lie. It hurts (a lot) to consider that the person I spent over 24 years loving is not my person. Like sometimes the pain feels like all my bones are breaking.

But the truth is, he’s not anymore.

My therapist and my friends have been trying to get me to accept this for months, but it just really settled into my soul about 3 weeks ago when I was in the hospital-- the person I thought I was married to doesn’t exist, at least not anymore. Months ago when I was still trying to salvage something between us I had these hopes and dreams that we could midwife our relationship into something new and beautiful. But we haven’t. And I don’t see a path to how that happens. And so, the work now is releasing.

And the truth is without him around I’m doing just fine.

Except for every time I hear that song…
###

on one year of living authentically: a reflection on coming out

2023-05-12T07:18:00.002-04:00

One year ago today, I told Nick I was gay.

This news, while not entirely a surprise to him, gutted him immediately.

My experience with being gutted had a late onset, but I've now spent the last six months gutted with no end in sight.

If I could sum up the experience of existing during the past year in one sentence, I would say this--I had no idea how much this would cost me.

I didn't understand grief until I lost my big love—and by that, I mean I lost my life partner and my very, very best friend. One day he was Team Gwenn, and then the next, he decidedly wasn't. I mean, sure, I have been through loss before. But not the kind of loss that takes your breath away for months on end— the kind where there is a pain so deep, and real, and visceral, and physical that it feels like it will never be okay again. And honestly, I don't know if it will. It doesn't feel like it in most moments. I am still unpleasantly surprised every morning when I wake up and remember that my marriage is ending. The life I built with my partner and the family we grew together is unrepairably fractured. I try to hold hope that a certain amount of love will come back around. But sometimes, it's too painful even to hope.

So with all that in mind, do I regret coming out? Hell no. It is not an exaggeration to say that I don't know if I would still be alive today if I hadn't come out. Living an internally fractured existence is toxic to a soul.

The irony is that the rejection and loss involved in coming out almost killed me too. But to be clear, this doesn't indicate that queer people are inherently mentally ill. Rather, this process is dangerous and brutal because we live in a world still characterized by deep homophobia/transphobia, and that leads to internal and external stressors that adversely impact our mental health.

And so, despite all the costs, I wouldn't go back in the closet—even if I could. I might have done some things differently based on what I know now, but you don't know what you don't know, well, until you do. And so I have nothing but grace and compassion for myself as I have stumbled through this first year of being out.

This has been a year of growing pains and making mistakes. But also, it's been a year of authenticity. It's been a year of finally understanding who I am. It's been a year of freedom and triumph. I spent decades fighting against myself and feeling as if I was inherently a broken human being. And for most of those years, I didn't know why. And then I knew. And once everything came into focus, the proverbial sigh of relief in my soul was overwhelming, beautiful, clear, and absolute.

It's also been a year of therapy, reading, and learning. Here's something I learned— the average person usually doesn't begin to fully integrate their queer identity until about 2-3 years after they publicly come out. Before then, it's kind of a shitshow. It's a second adolescence in a lot of ways. And while everyone is an individual, there are definitely trends surrounding behaviors that many newly-out queer people engage in. And while I didn't know about these norms and trends until more recently, I can see in retrospect that my experience is a fucking textbook example of a couple of different theoretical frameworks related to gay identity integration, the patterns following the dissolution of a mixed-orientation marriage, and norms of minority stress theory. (Maybe someday I will explain more of these things because it's pretty interesting).

Here are a few observations/lessons I have learned in my first year of out living.

I don't think "lesbian" is the correct term for me. I mean, I am, FOR SURE, not heterosexual. And I am not bisexual. (Men are a no for me). But in addition to experiencing attraction to women, I am also attracted to some AFAB non-binary/trans folks. And so "gay" just seems more inclusive of a term. Or queer. But honestly, I feel like I shave too often to claim the term queer.
I am a cis woman. This means my natal sex matches my gender. That was never really in question in my mind, but the exploration of sexuality also often involves side-by-side exploration of issues related to gender. That didn't turn up any surprises for me.
Evangelical purity culture and a concept referred to as "compulsory heterosexuality" easily explain how I didn't recognize my actual orientation until later in life. (I want to write about this more someday, too, because I think it's VERY common for people who come out late in life to share specific key experiences— it's fucking fascinating).
I had some really great, supportive reactions from friends and family members when I came out. I also had some very painful, damaging reactions. My advice is this— do a little googling now on how to react when a loved one comes out to you so that your initial response does not cause harm if someone new comes out to you. I think this is crucial for ALL parents to do, especially if you suspect your child might be queer. (Maybe I will write about THAT someday, too--HA!)
There are no shortcuts to integrating this part of your identity. There are no shortcuts around grief. You cannot sidestep the process no matter how type A you are. In the beginning, every single thing in life will seem like it's about your sexual orientation because you're learning how to see and experience the world through a different lens. So in a way, everything IS about your sexual orientation at first. It will take the time it takes, and there's no way to expedite it. It will probably annoy other people sometimes, but everybody that comes out goes through this phase to some extent. So hang in there with your newly-out friends. I cannot explain how freaking desperately they need you.
Learn to invest in "fuck yes" relationships. A few months ago, my friend Emily told me that she is at the point in her life where the only people she really wants to invest in deeply are people for whom she shares "fuck yes" energy. This has been a transformative concept for me. In this process, you will need your friends to be your cheerleader, your therapist, your designated driver, and your sounding board. They will be your sex therapist, your shoulder to cry on, and sometimes, the only thing that's getting you through the night when caught up in a big wave of grief. When you find people willing to show up for you like this, LOVE THEM WELL. Show up for them with the same energy every time you can. You also have the freedom to release relationships, or parts of relationships, that harm you or no longer serve you. I am learning who my "fuck yes" people are. And that's where I am putting my energy.
Dating as a middle-aged person is such a trip. Over the past year, I have dated a few people. I literally have a note on my phone where I keep track of what I have learned from each relationship I had. I have learned some things I really want in future relationships and other things I cannot work with. Connections between two AFAB folks can quickly become super enmeshed and intense (read: codependent). That is something I made progress on over time, but something that I will need to keep working on. I am taking a break from dating here for a little bit to catch my breath. I am exploring this new-to-me idea that platonic friendships can be as close, and intimate, and meaningful as some partnerships. (See item #6- fuck yes people). I want to invest in those platonic relationships for a little bit and learn how to love myself, to heal, and to develop the kind of autonomy I need to show up in healthy ways in the future. So I am not seeking anything out or looking for my next partner. I am just existing and trusting that it will manifest if something is for me.
Living on my own for the first time is a WHOLE THING. I am learning how to do all sorts of new things. Some things I enjoy. Some things I hate. But I am making it. (4+ months and counting!)

I have no idea what the next year will bring.

Literally no idea.

I am scared of the future.

I am hopeful for the future.

But whatever happens, I am pretty sure I will have a gay old time.

grief = malaria

2023-04-26T10:29:00.004-04:00

Living with grief is like having malaria.

I have had malaria a few times in Haiti and it’s pretty freaking miserable. It feels like the flu—headaches, body aches, nausea sometimes. And it gets worse at night when the fevers spike and there are these violent shakes and sweats.

I hate it.

That’s what grief feels like to me. It’s bad overall, but when the fevers spike, the symptoms feel unmanageable.

I was 21 years old, 4 months, and 15 days old the day I met Nick. There was an instant connection and we would be best friends for the next 24 years, 4 months, and 7 days. Not every minute of those days, months, and years were good. But most of them were. We were good together. And that’s not just some hindsight bullshit. We genuinely were. And I think that those who knew us during those decades would agree.

And then that would end.

And I would be alone for the first time in my life.

I have been without my best friend for 4 months and 2 days. That’s 123 days. Or 2,952 hours. Or 177,120 minutes.

Here’s what you need when you have malaria—you need chloroquine (or another anti-malarial medication). You need hydration. You need Tylenol. And you need rest. And also, a fan (and electricity) for those fever sweats.

The only thing that’s going to kill the parasites is the anti-malarial medication. Until that part is done, it doesn’t matter how much Tylonel you take, or how rested/hydrated you are. For sure, it will help the symptoms, but until you take the meds, it’s not going to actually get better.

At the same time, any time someone in our family got malaria, it was sort of a relief because we knew what we were dealing with and how to treat it. And for the most part, it was an easy treatment—psychedelic dreams aside.

The difference between malaria and grief is that there’s no easy fix. There’s no chloroquine for grief. There’s no way to make it stop. Time might make it less acute, but anyone who has been through big grief will remind you that it never leaves.

But sure, there are things you can do to ease the symptoms.

I had the realization this morning that since I have come out, dating for me has sort of been like taking Tylonel when you have malaria. It has eased the symptoms of my grief. It has made the passage of time manageable, and even really enjoyable. And you can give your time and attention and love to someone else. And you can really mean it. And those can be beautiful and real experiences. And you can feel pleasure and feel hope again.

But you still have malaria.

And some nights, the fevers come back. And you’re drenched in sweat and your body is wracked with sobs.

During the last couple of weeks with my most recent dating partner it became clear to me that things would most likely be ending—or at least transitioning from a romantic standpoint. It should not have been surprising, then, that during the past couple of weeks my grief has intensified. But here I am again, somehow surprised by the intensity of my grief, wading through the middle of it and just struggling to keep my head above the water.

People keep telling me to lean into the pain. To make friends with my pain. To stop fighting the pain. And yeah, sure. That sounds like a good idea.

But practically speaking, how?

Tears have taken up permanent residence in the corner of my eyes since December.

How do you stop fighting against the pain? I feel like most moments of my days lately require intense effort and that fighting is how I stay alive. I feel like it’s a fight to get out of bed. I feel like it’s a fight to drive into work. I feel like it’s a fight to try enjoy spending time with my children. It’s a fight to make myself eat. I feel like it’s a fight to make plans with friends because I know I need comfort and support. It’s an even bigger fight to follow through on those plans.

This post is not a cry for help. I am okay. I really am. I have all the tools I need to keep myself safe and a couple of close friends who are walking me through the really rough, moment-by-moment visceral grief. (I joked with them yesterday that I need to start paying them a copay). Rather, this post is just an acknowledgement that there are no shortcuts on the road to becoming. That there are a lot of moments that just fucking suck.

Glennon says, “First the pain, then the rising.”

I hope she’s right.

Well, shit.

2023-01-12T15:15:00.002-05:00

To quote the late, great Leslie Jordan, “Well, shit.”

That’s sort of how I feel about everything these days. It is what it is.

One year ago I could have never imagined that I would be where I am. One year ago I thought I was still kind of straight—well, enough straight that I could keep a husband. But it turns out neither are true. I am not straight at all, and I can’t keep a husband.

I have been writing on this platform for 15+ years. (Although I have since hidden most of my posts because ew… cringe). And some of my readers are just random people that I picked up along the way. Some people joined on when Josiah was born with a heart defect and needed heart surgery on day 3 of life. Others joined when Nico came home from Haiti and we went through that transition. Some followed along for the mom-blog era and Hot Topic Tuesdays back when I was an asshole and thought I knew everything. (Spoiler alert: I am still an asshole, I just hope less of one). Others joined on when our family moved to Haiti. A lot more readers joined when the earthquake happened. Some people from each life stage stayed.

And then blogs became sort of obsolete. But I kept writing. I wrote through our transition back to the States in 2015. I wrote through my de-conversion from Christianity. I wrote through my social awakening regarding Black lives and the many layered, nuanced experiences I have had as the white mother of Black children. I wrote through my journey towards accepting my body as she was—in a state where she weighed 138 lbs. more than she did when I got on the scale this morning. I wrote through my weight loss journey. I wrote through my grad school process. And most recently, I wrote through my coming out.

And throughout all these 15 years, one thing was the same. And that one thing was my absolute assertion that Nick Mangine was the best human alive. When I started writing this blog, Nick and I had been married for 7 years already. When we moved to Haiti, it was 9 years. When the earthquake happened—10 years married. When we came home from Haiti it was 15 years. When I came out, we had been married 21+ years.

And now, while technically still married, everything has changed. Being separated is something I never envisioned I would be. (But does anybody?) I was thinking about that this morning when I was reflecting on today being the 13^th anniversary of the earthquake that changed everything. I was thinking about the current fault lines in my life that have been disrupted and how I am, again, at a place where everything will change. In fact, everything HAS already changed. I am no longer half of Nick and Gwenn. I no longer insist that there is anyone who can hold the title, “the best human.” I now realize that a man is a man, is a man, is a man. And I know more change is inevitable.

So then…

“Whose “fault” (dad-pun intended) is it? “

“Did someone stray from their vows?”

“I thought they said they going to stay together?”

“What are the juicy details of all that?”

“Well, I don’t blame him/her.”

“Good for him/her.”

“I knew this wouldn’t work. I told them it wouldn’t. Called it.”

(Congratulations, by the way, for calling it. What might have been more helpful is support along the way rather than your insistence that we fail. At least we fucking tried).

I have a narrative of how this happened. I know that Nick does too. I think the work we have ahead of us is finding the commonalities between those narratives and the weaving together some semblance of unity for the sake of our kids, and, hopefully, for the sake of a future friendship.

But this is the messy middle.

This is the part no one wants to be in.

This is the ugly part.

This is the fighting part.

This is the misunderstood part.

This is the sad part.

This is my “crying myself to sleep every night” part.

This is the lonely part.

This is the knot-in-my-throat and ache-in-my-chest part.

This is the touch-starved part.

This is the betrayed part.

This is the “I gave my whole life to you and you’re treating me like this?!” part.

And yet, this is where we are.

It’s extremely disorienting to spend your entire adult life as a part of a whole only to be left alone. I find myself, at age 45, feeling emotions I have never experienced. Who knew there were still new things to feel?

And how does one know the right way to move forward alone when they have only ever been a part of a whole?

Some people are insisting that I need to spend time alone to “find myself.” I get that. (Although I think that’s what the last 6 “bisexual” years of my life were about. But I digress). I do see the wisdom in taking time alone to get used to it.

But then, I have other people telling me that I need to live it up. That I need to experience all the things and people that I never got the chance to. That this needs to be the phase where I pursue pleasure and don’t settle for anything less.

I have pondered these two approaches for a while now and here’s my current theory (because you know I always have a current theory)--

I have spent the past several years learning how to trust my body and her intuition. I have spent these years leaning into my “knowing”… into believing that I can trust myself to make good decisions for myself when I am living in line with my own values and when I am prioritizing my physical and emotional health. And so, I think the best thing I can do for me is double down on living a life that is congruent with my values and prioritizes my health. * I genuinely believe that if that’s what I do, it doesn’t matter if I stay single or if I get back into a relationship. It doesn’t matter if I hook up with someone or everyone or stay celibate. It doesn’t matter if I live alone forever or Uhaul with someone tomorrow. (PS- There are no Uhauling plans in my future, this is not an announcement).

What matters is that I am true to myself. That I am true to the things that I want, true to the things that feed me, and true to the things I need. But to REALLY do that, I need to be able to stay intellectually honest about what all of those things are.

So cheers to 2023. Cheers to my pursuit of independence. Of learning. Of pleasure. Of health. Of autonomy. Of intellectual honesty.

Cheers to the last semester of grad school. To the opportunities ahead. To whatever career path I pursue.

Cheers to the friends and lovers—former, current, and future. Cheers to the things you have taught me. Cheers to the things I can take with me and the things I have learned I can leave behind.

But mostly, cheers to me and wherever this all leads.

###

*And of course, my children, which was never something that was on the table to be taken off no matter which path I chose.

grow as we go.

2022-10-13T13:13:00.007-04:00

Last year on our anniversary, I shared this post where I waxed poetic about what was like to be married to someone for 21 years. And the main takeaway of the post was that “happily ever after” is a place we all need to get to within ourselves. And I shared how I could only love my partner after learning how to love myself.

At that time, I didn’t know that would be a precursor to what came next in this post or this post. But I do recognize, in retrospect, how this progression of loving myself led me to the kind of self-discovery that has changed everything about the dynamic of my marriage. And if I am honest, I vacillate between wishing I could go back in time and change my level of awareness about my own identity, and wishing I could jump into the future where I know how things work out (or don’t) for Nick and me.

I am in a space, here on the eve of my 22^nd anniversary, where I have a need to be present in the individual moments where I am, and not stuck in the “what ifs” of the past or the “what ifs” of the future.

When we were in the “crying everyday” part of this transition, Gretchen shared Ben Platt’s song, Grow as We Go with us. It’s become something of an anthem for us. If you have not yet listened to it, I encourage you to stop reading immediately, go listen to it, and then come back. I can’t count the number of tears I shed listening to this song (some days on infinite repeat) over the past few months. It’s a song that provided me with hope and encouragement that while we knew things were going to change between us, we can still be devoted to each other. That we can grow as we go.

Here's what I am learning. We can grow together. We can love one another. We can support each other. We can be partners in parenting. We can share our hearts, and our feelings, and our home.

But we cannot go back to how we were. And we're finding that's more expansive than we had originally anticipated. And on many days, even though we are both happy with our decision for me to come out, the loss we’re both experiencing still pokes at our hearts.

Nick moved into his own bedroom in August. The morning that move happened, Nick said, “How does it feel to have spent the last night together in the same bed?” And I said, “I guarantee that’s not the last night we will sleep together in the same bed.” Although now I am not sure. Maybe it was. For the first few weeks I would go upstairs in the morning every day and check in. Sometimes we would snuggle. Other times we would just talk. But I am straining my memory now, unsuccessfully, to remember the last time we did that. There is something about it that just feels, I don’t know… different. I know that he and I both feel the absence of this connection we had. But I think we also both know that kind of physical closeness wouldn’t feel the same. And so it’s different now. Not bad. Just different.

It’s like we were two plants that were planted so closely to one another that they began to share the same root system. And because we did share everything and it didn’t matter that our roots were entangled.

But now I think we both realize that the next part of this transition is us establishing ourselves as full, whole, individual human beings with our own autonomy and self-determination. In so many ways we can continue to rely on one another. We can keep parts of our root system entangled. But there are other parts we must separate.

And so right now it feels like we are in the painstaking process of sorting out our roots and determining which roots need to belong to which person. And that’s not easy. And there is sometimes tearing. There is sometimes a loss of stability. Sometimes we feel the absence of the nutrients that the entangled roots used to provide us collectively. Other times, we shoot out a new root into unexplored soil and find out there are other beautiful ways to be nourished.

And so it’s like this now—

We continue to love one another. We continue to be devoted to one another. We continue to honor our marriage vows. (And we want to continue to do so). And ALSO, we recognize there have had to be changes. We don’t tell each other everything anymore. We don’t sleep in the same room. We have other people who are important to us in ways that we used to be important to each other. And more changes are undoubtedly coming.

And sometimes that’s hard. And it feels shaky and uncertain. But it’s also good.

And so, as we navigate into our 23^rd year of marriage, we do so with eyes wide open, with hearts believing the best in one another, and with a renewed commitment to finding *OUR* way. Not the way our friends or family members think we should be doing things. But the way WE think we should. And if we do that, wherever that all ends up, I think it’s going to be like that line in the song Gretchen shared with us all those months ago—"we’re gonna see that it was better that we grew up together.”

I love you, Nick Mangine.

Happy anniversary.

Bondye-- mwen pa kapab fè anko!

2022-07-29T18:43:00.000-04:00

I have been at a four births since being in Haiti and without exception, all of these women when they are nearing transition yell out, "Bondye-- mwen pa kapab fè anko!" (God, I can't do this anymore!) Today as I was out checking on Francette (the lady who does laundry for the orphanage), I saw the Haitian Red Cross attempting to rescue someone who was trapped and still alive under a collapsed cement building. (And had been for 2 days.) As I stood there listening, I heard people around me talking. Her first child was taken out from the rubble and was dead and lying in a body bag right in front of me. She wailed and wailed because of the death of her child. But she sat there, clinging to her husband for support because she knew she still had a living child under the rubble. The rescue went on for a while. The smell of death made everyone cover their faces until someone finally brought out a jug of formaldehyde and started splashing it all over the body bag. We waited and waited while people continued to dig. After some time had passed they were passing water in as they'd apparently found the person and were getting them water. More time passed... and while the rescue continued, the child died. When they came out with the news that the child died the mother wailed and wailed and wailed, "Bondye! Mwen pa kapab fè anko!" In my mind, images of women delivering their babies flashed through my mind in a slideshow... "Bondye... Mwen pa kapab fè anko! Mwen pa kapab fè anko! Mwen pa kapab fè anko!" And I realized as I was standing there that every time a woman said that during labor I knew she was wrong. I knew she could. I knew she was in pain but it would pass and it would be totally worth it. Today, my heart sunk as I realized this woman who was in such pain today was in a pain that would never pass...

Where do we go from here?

2022-06-02T10:34:00.001-04:00

(Note from Nick: Though this is written in Gwenn’s voice, we worked together to write this post, and all words and thoughts represent our collective thoughts. We kept it first-person for ease of readability.)

###

Early in our time in Haiti Nick and I learned the necessity (for that line of work) of living a public (within our circles anyway) life. Authenticity and transparency became our “brand,” so to speak. And if I’m honest, we came to love it. When everyone knows everything, there is nothing to hide. There is so much freedom in that. It’s so beautiful to live the same life whether at home, alone, with family, or friends, or in front of a crowd. It’s one of the reasons that we decided to share about my orientation publicly. It allows us to live one life, out in the open, in front of everyone.

There’s a tension that Nick and I are managing right now though because, on the one hand the specifics of our relationship and where we go from here is our business. On the other hand, people talk. People speculate. People judge. People think they know something they do not know. And so, because of our deep desire to live one whole life, out in the open, we have more to share. So, here’s the deal.

At this point, Nick and I are not discussing separation/divorce. We love one another. We hope we can forge a new kind (to us) of marriage as platonic partners and best friends. We believe in and stand by the family we have built. We are proud of it.

We also both understand that (for us) part of embracing this reality means that we will almost certainly desire the kind of companionship that we are not able to offer one another. And so, are leaving space for that and recognizing that as valid, and normal, and good. We are both open to each other exploring that. To be clear, I am okay with Nick pursuing friendships, companionship, and even dating other women, and he is okay with me doing the same.

Some people may think this is sudden. Like we are moving too fast. But remember, my identity is something we have been working on and wrestling through for 5 years. This is not new to us. Sure, being out about it is new to us and new to others. But we’ve been privately holding this for a long time. This kind of arrangement is something we have been open to for quite some time now—probably more than 2 years. We haven’t shared it with too many others (although we have shared it with some people) because, well, it’s nobody’s business and we know that people have lots of opinions about non-traditional arrangements.

So then why are we sharing this now? For the very reason I lay out above. We want to live one life--without fear of being “discovered” or “found out.” We are sharing this now because we don’t ever want people to make assumptions. If someone sees me in public hanging out with a woman, I don’t want people to assume that I am “stepping out” on Nick. And the same goes if someone sees Nick out with a woman. He’s not cheating. It’s not a scandal. Remember that you don’t know what you don’t know.

Nick and I have an extremely close relationship. We tell each other the details of things that many (most?) couples would never discuss. Nothing has transpired (or is transpiring) without the other being fully aware.

We recognize there are other ways to live in a mixed orientation marriage. Some of those ways may be more comfortable for some people. But a guiding principle for us right now is that we want to add and multiply love in our lives, not subtract and divide (isn’t it cute the way Nick turned that into a math equation?). So, the idea of one or both of us living anything less than a fully embodied life is unacceptable. And we have been there—that’s the entire tenant of purity culture—that you ignore and cut off parts of yourself. Nick and I do not see a way forward for our marriage where he can be fully himself and I can be fully myself without also acknowledging our potential desire for romantic companionship within our respective orientations. And we believe that’s something we can navigate.

We know a lot of people are not going to be okay with this. That’s okay with us. We know a lot of people will think, “There’s no way this will work.” And maybe, ultimately, they will be right. Or maybe not. We do not know what the future holds. But when we look ahead, this is the way we believe we can fight FOR our relationship and FOR our family. And we have always believed there are a lot of good, and right, and valid, and honest ways to build a family. This is one of them. And this is how our family is navigating this. Full transparency with one another and with any potential romantic partners. We are adults. No one will be uninformed. No one will be in the dark.

Finally, this is probably the extent of what we will share publicly on this issue. We wanted it out there because we never want assumptions/rumors made about us in the future that we are unfaithful to one another. Because nothing could be farther from the truth. This is how we remain faithful to our very real and true love for one another.

We wanted you to hear this from us.

2022-05-21T10:22:00.000-04:00

Hello friends and family-

Nick and I have some news about our family that we want to share. I am gonna go first, and then he will go second.

(From Gwenn)

Our family has been working through some things the past few years that we have not discussed publicly. Which, if you know us and our desire for transparency, might seem unusual. Our family “brand” (for lack of a better word) has been to process difficult things out in the open in an effort to normalize the fact that everyone deals with shit.

But this is different.

It’s taken us some years to get to the point we are at now.

Now we have more clarity.

And now we feel like it’s the time to share.

I am just gonna say it— I (Gwenn) am gay. I have struggled and grappled with my sexuality for many years. And for a long time I thought I was probably bisexual. But more recently I have had to acknowledge that I am, in fact, actually gay.

The intellectual honesty it required to admit this to myself and then to Nick was grueling. But now that I have gotten to a place of acceptance, I don’t want to spend one more day not accepting or acknowledging this core part of my identity.

This has not been easy and the past weeks have been a whirlwind of coming out one-on-one to a lot of the really important people in my life. It felt important to do that, but so absolutely exhausting and more emotionally draining than anything I can recall. I find that most people have been supportive while also being very concerned about Nick. That’s fair. We have been best friends and partners for almost a quarter of a century--for over half our lives.

First, let me say that none of this has caught Nick by surprise. We have been talking about this openly for at least 5 years. He was the first person I started talking to about this and he has been nothing but supportive— I mean it. He has always expressed his desire for me to be fully who I am, even though he’s been aware that could come at a great personal cost.

So then the logical question we have been getting a lot is this, “So what are you going to do then? Are you splitting up?”

Here’s the honest answer— we have no idea what we are doing or how things will “end up” in the long run. We like the idea of trying to find a way where we can stay partnered in many (most?) ways, while also creating space in our relationship for us to explore this new reality for both of us. That may seem scandalous to some people, but it is not a scandal. It is something we never plan to hide, and yet it is something I anticipate we will keep ENTIRELY private between us. In other words, we are not looking to process that publicly and we aren’t open for suggestions or advice about what we should or should not do unless we specifically ask you. (We are both in therapy and have professionals helping us with that).

Nick and I have been through so much in our lives and 2+ decades of marriage. We got together and married impossibly young before we really had a chance to figure out who we were as individuals. (Because Evangelicalism). I do not regret my marriage or the amazing family Nick and I have built together. I feel proud of it every single day. I think our family is unique in that we have consistently been courageous and creative in our approach to life’s challenges. We have never backed away from hard situations or conversations. Our entire identity as a family has been about always pushing forward for more love, more truth, more growth, and more transparency.

Nick and I grew up together and spent our entire adult life as best friends and partners. Anyone who knows me knows that I am very open that Nick Mangine is the best human being I know, in every way. That’s not something I am willing to just walk away from because that’s not how we do it in our family. (In some ways it would be way easier if he was an asshole, yet, here we are).

And so, while there are definitely very mixed feelings about where we are headed next, I just wanted to say that also, coming to this realization and acknowledging it, and welcoming it into my soul has been healing on a level I cannot even explain. This is who I am. And I know that not everyone is going to be okay with that. But I spent the first half of my 40s learning how to love myself and acknowledge that other people’s feelings about me are none of my business. And I am ready to spend the second half of my 40s liberating everything inside me. I believe the world needs everyone to be authentically themselves. That is how we get through this.

Thanks for listening. We appreciate the support as we try to walk on in love for one another. It is our deepest desire to create stability and consistency for our children, and to embrace the paradoxical elation and grief this kind of journey brings.

(From Nick)

"Life is multiple choice, " this has been my mantra lately, "we don't get to pick the options, we just get to make our choice."

"It changes everything," this has been Gwenn's mantra lately, "and it changes nothing." Then she adds, "but it changes everything."

Gwenn and I find ourselves in an interesting situation lately. No choices were made. No mistakes. Just a new situation. A beautiful one.

Gwenn is gay. And we're married. We're in a mixed orientation marriage.

I am so proud of Gwenn. She has been digging deep for the last few years. Doing really hard. Really scary work. And I am honored that I was part of the process. She left me out of nothing. She did the work, but we did this together.

And I am so happy for Gwenn. Anyone who knows me knows that I adore her. I have never wanted anything but for her to be happy and that has always been a struggle for her. But this new reality has brought her a joy and a comfort and an identity that she has never had before--not before me, not with me. I cannot speak to her inner world, but from the outside looking in, for the first time in our life together, I can see that she is happy. It's what I've always wanted. And I support her 100%. In exploring. In experiencing. In discovering. In becoming. There are no scandals here. I am behind my wife.

And now it gets darker, because I am also devastated for Gwenn. Once you reach a certain age, every great discovery comes with the regret of not having discovered it earlier. And I know Gwenn feels that now. I am devastated that it took 45 years for her to have enough space and support to be who God created her to be, not what other people wanted her to be.

And I am devastated for me. I watched them wheel my 3-day-old son into heart surgery. I experienced a natural disaster that took hundreds of thousands of lives. I have been robbed at gunpoint multiple times. I was there when my wife admitted herself to a psychiatric hospital. Personally, this is harder. Maybe the hardest thing I have ever done. And I wish it was easy.

Yet there's hope. I find myself inspired. The reality is I was a child when I married Gwenn. And the struggle to make everything work, neither of us knowing the reality of that struggle that we now know, caused me to turn off parts of myself that I'm turning back on. I'm looking forward to discovering and growing and becoming. And there is no scandal here. Gwenn is behind me. As for our relationship, I am letting go of the ending. At the same time, there are dreams that are not yet dead--not happily ever after, not in the traditional sense, but dreams nonetheless. We are working to bring the life that we have built and love, our home, our children, our friends, our marriage into this new life that we are, again, building together. One beautiful, messy, loud, crowded, table.

Life is multiple choice, we don't get to pick the options, we just get to make our choice. And in this intensely beautiful, intensely difficult moment we are choosing each other. I choose Gwenn. She chooses me. I choose me. Gwenn chooses her. And we appreciate your love and support.

Love,

Gwenn and Nick

On the good ole days, my best friend(s), and drunk-ordering trophies.

2021-10-25T15:14:00.002-04:00

It’s much easier for most people to recognize “the good ole days” in retrospect. I think that’s human nature. Hindsight gives us the space for emotion to level out and offer a more objective view of what truly were the highs and lows.

On Friday, I made the (impulsive and reckless) decision to fly up to Fort Wayne for one day to see a show my friend Lee had helped facilitate. As per usual, Nick supported this recklessness, because he knows I am a GD cheetah and I need to stretch my legs every so often. When I got to Fort Wayne yesterday, I felt the crispy fall air and I saw the vibrant fall color and I realized, “Hey, I have seen this before.” And it was only then I realized that it was almost exactly a year ago that I visited Fort Wayne for the first time when Lee was relocating there and I came to “help him” (ha!) look at houses and experience this new-to-him city.

I don’t think it’s betraying any confidences to say that this time last year neither of us were in great places. Lee was still in transition from moving back to the States from Haiti after living there for 13 years, following a brief stint in South Dakota, and I was about 3/4 of the way through an identity crisis.

While I am a person who immensely enjoys social interaction, for the majority of my life, most of my closest friendships were with other women. It’s not that I disliked men, but most of my adult life I was devoted to a religion that didn’t believe men and women should be close friends unless they were married to each other because it brought with it too much temptation, and therefore, the risk of sexual sin. And so, other than casual friendships, I’ve never had a super close male friend, other than Nick (obvs). I didn't even know HOW to have a close friendship with a man.

But the day I turned 40, I was on a trip to visit Haiti and I was up in Mizak with Lee and his roommates drinking (lots of) Prestige, and literally, that’s when my mid-life crisis started. I can clearly remember the exact moment and what I was saying at the time. Don’t misunderstand me, it wasn’t that Lee caused my mid-life crisis, it’s that he happened to be the person there when some lightbulbs started going off in my head, and he listened patiently, let me process, and expressed a general attitude of non-judgement. It was exactly what I needed in that moment.

Over the next four years our friendship grew. I would go through periods of great enlightenment followed by periods of great despair. And while I was more likely to send him a message babbling on and on about some great “awakening” I had experienced, I also sent him more than a fair share of videos where I was sobbing and questioning all my life choices.

All that is to say, this time last year, when he was transitioning to life in Fort Wayne, I was at one of my lowest points—I had no clarity. It was probably (in retrospect) my rock bottom on this particular journey. I thought maybe I should leave my husband. I thought maybe I’d made a mistake by getting married so young. I was afraid that the religious context around which I had chosen to orient my life had the kind of negative impact that I would not be able to see past. I think there were a combination of factors that contributed to this, not the least of which was the isolation from the pandemic.

But through all of that, Lee just listened and continued to adopt a stance of non-judgement. He empathized and he let me know that while I had the autonomy to make any decision I wanted to, he also always reminded me how truly remarkable my husband is. There was a night I had too much tequila and was getting sloppy and he tucked me into bed in his guest room and said, “Okay, that’s enough. Go to sleep now.”

Lee is far more private and less outwardly expressive than I am. And while I wouldn’t dare trespass on that by sharing details of his story, I like to think our relationship was not entirely one-sided. The transition from a place like Haiti to a place like America presents a lot of emotional baggage. Having had that experience a few years earlier, I was able to commiserate with the challenge of re-establishing healthy patterns when the entire context around which you built your life no longer applies. I guess what I am saying is that it wasn’t the easiest time for either of us.

But just yesterday I had the realization that both of us are in brand new, thriving places. At the Vodou Unveiled show, I got to see how far Lee has come in the past year. His experience and dedication to community in Haiti has made such a positive impact on his work here in the States. As I sat in a dark theater with low, purply lights and listened to Haitian drummers and watched Haitian (and American) dancers provide a visual representation of not only the spiritual ideas and elements of vodou, but also a story of all of us—our inner desires and cravings and longings and past and present…. Those who proceeded us and those who will go after us. It all fits together. And like Glennon says, “First the pain, and then the rising.” It made me weep--I am not just saying that. I literally wept.

The show visually represented the chaos of that journey and that moment of peace when the pieces all snap together in a way that fits. I liken it the moment of let down when you're breastfeeding--the antsy, hungry, squirmy baby relaxes into a blissed out rhythm sucking and swallowing. She draws deeply from her mother's breast and receives the comfort and nourishment and the sensation of satisfaction and safety. The mother's brain lights up with oxytocin that makes her fall deeply in love with the baby that drives her so very crazy. Both of their eyes roll back and close halfway as the calm takes over the two of them, united as one--acting as one.

The finale of the show was this poignant reminder of the veil between the physical and the spiritual (or one could apply it to the physical and the emotional if they so chose), and how there is vibrant activity on both sides. And sometimes one “side” slips into the other, or is captured by the other, and pieces of ourselves feel unbalanced, but there are also many moments where all of this chaotic activity can swirl around inside of us and it all works.

It all fits. It is all our story. And that’s what make up the good ole days.

Last night after the show and dinner with the Haitian artists and Lee’s (fantastic) friends and co-workers, we sat on his couch in our “soft clothes” and watched Canada’s Drag Race (because duh!), and every time the internet lagged due to the driving rain outdoors, we chatted about life. And at one point, I looked over at Lee and I said, “I am really happy in life. I have finally reached a really good spot.” And with all the context of the past several years, the drunk confessions, the late night sobbing video messages, and the questions I had about how I could possibly find satisfaction in life, he looked at me and said, “I am really happy for you.”

This story has no moral except, perhaps, recognizing that all all need to find “our people.” We can't do this alone. I recognize my privilege in that I am nearly always surrounded by truly wonderful people--I can't live without people. As an extrovert who thrives on relationships, I tend to make “best friends” easily. For me “best friend” is not any one person but a category to describe “my people." In that way, Lee is my best friend*. But also, my best friend is Kris, and Deena, and Stacy, and Laura, and Megan, and Sarah, and Maria, and my sisters, and of course, Nick. And and at least a dozen others depending on the week. **. (And honestly, I want to be best friends with like ALL of Lee’s co-workers I met last night, so cross your fingers for that journey for me).

Okay, so I just reconsidered and figured out that maybe I do have a moral to the story. I think it’s this—

Find your people.

Share yourself.

Stick with them in the pain.

And then enjoy the rising—for these, my friends, are all the good ole days.

###

*Foot note: One time when I was drunk chatting*** with Lee I bought him a“world’s best friend” trophy on Amazon and didn’t remember until the next week when it arrived at his house and was like, “Uh, did you send me a trophy?” And then I remembered and we both had good laugh.

**Footnote: I think I probs need to order some more trophies. Wonder if I can get a bulk discount...

***Foot note to the footnote: While there is a lot of mention of drunkenness in this post, we also have lots of non-drunk stories, so please don't be concerned.

On sex, 21 years of marriage, and happily ever after.

2021-10-14T06:10:00.002-04:00

Today marks 21 years of marriage for Nick and me, and this might sound cliché for someone to say on their anniversary, but I think it was our best year of marriage yet. Before you tune out, let me assure you that the beginning of our 21^st year was kind of a shitshow. But things turned around in the most beautiful way.

This past year was my favorite year of marriage because it’s the year I fell in love with me. That might sound arrogant, but it’s true. Nick has always loved me, and I have always loved Nick, and for the most part (because no marriage is always good), we’ve been each other’s biggest fans since the day we met.

But last year, around this time, I was deeply concerned. As I worked on deconstructing what was (for me) toxic religious belief around sexuality and my body, I was filled with confusion and at one of my lowest points. The isolation from the pandemic didn’t help. And it became the only time I can remember where Nick and I were beginning to discuss separation. I didn’t know what I wanted, but I knew that what we had going on wasn’t working for me. And that wasn’t because of Nick. It was because of me.

It wasn’t working for me because I became a woman who had autonomy and control over her whole body and self. And I did not like the way we had structured our entire lives and relationship together around religious beliefs we no longer shared. So many of the patterns in our marriage (and sexual relationship) were structured around patriarchy, misogyny, and denial of self. There was this weird, inverse relationship with pain and pleasure (because that’s how the moral majority has weaponized Christianity). We were taught from a very young age that we had nothing good inside of us. We were taught that even our most righteous acts were filthy rags. We were taught to consider it pure joy when we face trials. We were taught we were wicked, born in sin, our desires were evil, and nothing good existed in our hearts. We memorized verses like this:

· The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9)

· For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person. (Mark 7:21-23)

· Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. (Psalm 51:5)

· For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. (Matthew 15:19)

· The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (Genesis 6:5)

· For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. (Romans 7:18)

I could keep going, but I think you get my point.

I could not love myself because I believed that I was born so wicked that God had to kill his son for me. My “sin” put Jesus on the cross. Pardon my language, but that is some fucked up shit to teach people. It’s a terrible way to live.

And then there are the systems of patriarchy in the church that denigrate women. And before you tell me that’s not what Christianity is about, this was my lived experience, and no one can argue with my own lived experience. You also cannot argue with accurate historical facts about what has been done by the larger Christian church and the ways that has caused incredibly disparate outcomes for women in pretty much every way. (I will discuss that in detail another day because I have a lot to say about it).

As I began to explore how to be a truly embodied, grown-ass woman, I was not sure I could move past the history upon which Nick and I had built our relationship. Literally, the reason we got married so young is because our college pastor told us we should get married quickly so we didn’t fall into sexual sin. (I have a WHOLE story about that for another time, as well). But just know, this was/IS a THING in evangelicalism.

As I surrendered to my body and deprogrammed my mind, I had so much uncertainty about what I wanted. I was so confused and afraid of my own sexuality. And so, about a year ago, I started sex therapy, and it was, quite literally from the first session, EXACTLY what I needed.

My therapist led me so gingerly through all the pain, confusion, trauma, desire, shame, anger, and sadness, and she helped me embrace who I am as a whole-ass, autonomous human being. She normalized women as sexual beings. She normalized desire as just that, desire. She helped me realize all desire doesn’t need to be categorized or labeled; it can just be. We can be attracted to people other than our spouse and that’s just a normal part of life—we don’t need to “bounce our eyes” and pretend it’s not happening; instead, we get to make decisions about what we do with desire. And that the desire I experience is, well, first and foremost, in service to me. I don’t belong to my husband. (Something else explicitly stated in the Bible—see 1 Corinthians 7:4). She helped me take my body back. She educated me about sex and helped me educate myself about sex in ways that I should have probably been taught three decades ago. Sex education in the Christian community, in my experience, is not a thing that happens, other than to say, “don’t do it” before you are married and then, “don’t ever say no to your husband” after you are married.

Through the course of a year, my therapist helped me prioritize myself and learn who I am. But then she also helped me OWN that and helped me to advocate for myself in my marriage. And honestly, this was not an easy process, and, in many ways, things in our marriage seemed worse before they got better.

But throughout this whole journey, Nick was there. He listened. He empathized. He was patient. He gave me the space I needed to heal. He even gave me permission to imagine a life without him. And it wasn’t that I needed his permission for me to think my own thoughts. Still, he allowed the space in our relationship for me to explore what I wanted and needed, and even though he was terrified, he wanted the best for me, even if that meant we needed to grow in separate directions. He continued to be the truly best human I have ever known because that’s who he is at the very core. He is good at a DNA level.

And after the pain and the hard, here’s the beautiful thing, I found the best person for me, and it wasn’t Nick. It was me. And, bonus, after it was me, it could also be Nick. For the first time, as a grown-ass woman in charge of my mind, and my body, and my sexuality, I could choose Nick. I wanted to choose Nick. And so, I did. But I could only do that because I chose myself first.

And even though it feels like it right now, I would never be so arrogant as to proclaim our relationship “happily ever after.” No one can make that kind of promise to someone else. We can aspire to that and work towards that, but we never know what will happen. And so maybe, “happily ever after” was never meant to be applied to our relationships with other people. Perhaps the best application is to our relationship with ourselves. And so that’s what I am going with.

Well, at least that’s my current theory.

Let's talk about breasts, baby...

2021-04-21T06:10:00.002-04:00

...let’s talk about you and me. Let’s talk about all the good things and the bad things that may be, let’s talk about breasts. Let’s talk about breasts.

(I would now like to offer my formal, written apology to Salt n Pepa for adapting their 1991 hit, “Let’s Talk About Sex” as my blog post title. It was too far, and yet, I couldn’t make myself not do it).

Boobs have been on my mind a lot lately. Specifically, my boobs. (Although the consideration of others’ boobs have also factored in). Believe it or not, today I want to talk about extra skin (surprise, surprise), and my ongoing journey of living in a smaller body than I previously did.

Okay, so here’s the T. With weight loss, my boobs went from a H cup to a D cup. But I am actually pretty sure that it would be a C cup if all the extra skin didn’t exist. That's a 5-6 cup-size difference. Bra sizes go like this: AA, A, B, C, DD, DDD, F, G, H… Don’t ask me why it is this way-- I have no answer. Bra sizes were clearly created by a man.

So, in clothing, here’s the difference (I am giving consent to examine and compare images of my boobs)--

And now here’s a little more up close and personal--

Warning: you’re about to see some wrinkly cleavage (no nip) so stop reading now if you don’t want to see more…

* * * * * * *

* * * *

By wearing a good bra, it's not like I feel deformed in my day-to-day, walking-around-life. And I am sort of leaning forward in these pics to exaggerate the skin wrinkles--they don't like routinely fall out of my bra like pictured--but you get the idea. Frankly speaking, without some serious support, my breasts look like scrotums. My stomach skin, (and my thigh skin, my chin skin, and my upper arm skin) is similar. Probably my ass too, but I can’t see that, so I am just conjecturing on that one. I am basically just a giant walking scrotum these days. Now before you start sending me hate mail for scrotum-shaming, know this--I am sure there is a segment of the population who thinks that scrotums are beautiful. I do not happen to be numbered among that segment of the population and if I had a choice, I would prefer my boobs not resemble them, nor any other place on my body, TBH.

Lately, as I have previously detailed too many times, I find myself feeling a sense of deep dissatisfaction with my body because of my extra skin. This dissatisfaction produces some pretty mind-bending cognitive dissonance for me, as it seems antithetical to everything I know to be the truth. (ie- There are no bad bodies… all bodies are good). Further, when I weighed 130+lbs more than I do now, while I didn’t love the way my body presented, I worked for years on loving her and was making progress. (Again I will bring up my fatkini summer). I didn’t feel the need to be covered up.

But now, after losing all this weight, I would venture to say I feel more dissatisfied with my (naked) appearance than I did before. Clothed I feel mostly fine-- there are lumps and bumps where I wish there wouldn't be, but it's fine.

Before I go any further, I feel like I need to include AGAIN the fact that pain and limitations on mobility were my motivating factors for my bariatric surgery. I worked really hard to make the decision free from the appearance factor. I knew I would probably experience life differently (and in some ways better) in a smaller body based on our American cultural value of women’s thinness, but everything in my soul fought against that. For the past several years I have grown SO FREAKING TIRED of the pressure on women to present a certain, culturally acceptable (thin) way. It’s just not fair. It causes all sorts of disordered eating and body dysmorphia. It’s just a fucking train wreck. As a feminist and believer in body positivity, I just cannot handle it.

And I hate that I care about this-- it makes me feel like a bad feminist.(But hey, Roxane Gay wrote a whole book about being a bad feminist, so it's not like I am in bad company). But I do not like the fact that I now have more of an obsession about my body than I did before. At the risk of being too transparent, I feel like in some ways I swapped an obsession with food for an obsession with my body image. I am working on that in therapy, but it’s not something I had anticipated as a potential outcome of my bariatric surgery.

Yesterday I asked on FB:

“Can you be a feminist and still want a boob job? Serious question. I am very much conflicted in my mind re: this issue. Think about it and get back to me.”

There were 44 comments, all to the effect that you can, indeed, be a feminist and want a boob job. There, essentially, were no dissenting voices on that issue. However, there were a few people that cautioned about the importance of motivation being internal and not based on the gaze of others. (Which, I TOTALLY agree with). In addition to the comments, I also got DMs from three different women who had gotten boob jobs, and even some pretty impressive after pics.

But I feel the question I presented wasn’t clear. I guess I absolutely knew you could be a feminist and want new boobs. I think a more accurate way to describe my internal conflict would have been to ask, “How do you know you have the correct motivation for having a boob job if you’re a feminist? How do you know you are doing it for yourself and not because of the gaze of others, or to conform to some bullshit societal norm?”

Over the past 4 years, I have been on a path of religious deconversion. More recently, the realities of how my election of evangelicalism has impacted my sexuality have been surfacing. In my journey to really live embodied, to really be alive in my own body, I have hit some major stumbling blocks in this area. The many and severe messages I received about sex from the evangelical church absolutely ravaged any healthy views about the issue. And I didn’t even realize it until I turned 40. (But I am getting into a story for another day--but, in short, therapy helps... that's my answer to everything, btw).

As I walk forward in my new truth, I am putting in the work to develop a new ethic for everything in my life. It’s kind of exhausting. Any time I am faced with a decision or a thought, I have to slow down the automatic (evangelical) messages that I pumped into my brain for 40 years, and force myself to sit with how I really, genuinely feel about it. It takes time and effort to determine what my values are and then subsequently make decisions based on those values. I do envision this becoming easier in the future once time has passed and I have made some of these decisions. But even so, I think that having a practice of not just always doing what you’ve always done is a healthy way to live. So I hope that I continue this practice once I sort my values out and not just “change teams,” so to speak.

But back to boobs. Obviously, in our culture, boobs fit into the realm of sexuality. (Which is kind of dumb because they are baby-feeding machines. But I digress). In my new headspace, I hold no judgement towards anyone who has gotten a boob job--for any reason. Whether it’s a reduction, augmentation, reconstructive surgery, literally not my business. You do you. I will do me. Your motivation is your deal--even if it’s for the sex work industry. (And I only include that last sentence because it's been a process for me to understand the predicament sex workers are in).

I know that having plastic surgery would likely make me feel more confident. I am just trying to honestly determine why that is. I want to own feeling good in my body. But I also don’t want to make decisions based on cultural norms or vanity. And that’s my #1 holdup right now. (#2 would be that figuring out how to afford plastic surgery would be a whole thing).

And my last concern has to do with long term satisfaction. Have you ever read the children’s book If You Give a Pig a Pancake? The premise is that if you give a pig a pancake, she’s going to want some syrup to go with it, and so on. Everything you give the pig will only lead to the pig asking for something else, or produce some sort of a bigger headache. So maybe it’s better to not give a pig a pancake. As I detailed before, there are several areas of my body where I am struggling with excess skin. It’s not just my boobs. And so let’s say that I make a choice to get reconstructive surgery done on my boobs. How, then, am I gonna feel about my stomach, which is as deformed as my boobs? So then maybe I go the “mommy makeover” route instead (you can google it, it also takes care of the belly situation). But then what about my thighs? And what about my batwing arms? So then a “whole body lift” (again, google it). But then what about my neck? Do you see what I am getting at? I am worried about giving a pig a pancake. There’s always going to be something else I am unhappy with. And I don’t want to live there. (And I can’t afford all that shit anyway). But then I also wonder if part of being sexually empowered is taking a step towards doing something that will just make me feel good just because I want to feel good in my own skin.

By the way, not that you asked, but Nick is Switzerland on the issue. He is neutral on the boob situation. He continues to not shame me for my body even though he’s now married to a scrotum. He would support me if this is what I decided, but he has offered no sway one way or another.

Anyway, I have no where to land on all of this. It’s not like I am going to tie all this up with a neat bow and a profound closing line. It’s just a peek into my head, and a further explanation as to my current churnings on feminism and boob jobs.

The end. (That’s my profound closing line).

My body claps for me, and I clap back.

2021-03-13T22:41:00.001-05:00

Last month I hit the one-year mark since my weight loss surgery. I am down a total of 130 lbs. +/- 2-3 lbs on any given day. I am pretty sure my weight loss has stopped, and it seems (though I can’t be sure) that my body has found a new home at around 180 pounds. While still 5 pounds into the category of clinically obese (based on the junk science of BMI), I am learning to be great with that number.

Could I fight for more weight loss and try to get lower? Almost definitely.

Am I interested in that? Not even a little bit.

I am no longer interested in fighting with my body. We are on a path to making peace with each other after over 4 decades of war. This new truce feels like the warmth of a spring after a long winter. But it also feels very new and fragile-- like an eggshell, the neck of a newborn baby, or an iPhone screen. Like the slightest jostling or careless movement could have ruinous results.

When you live in a fat body, your curves bounce when you move. It's the proverbial Claus-ian belly “that shook when he laughed like a bowl full of jelly.” (By the way, I made up the word Claus-ian). When you lose a large amount of weight after having lived in a fat body, as the curves disappear, your body doesn’t really bounce anymore—the skin just sort of slides, jiggles, and slaps around. It’s not something that exercise can get rid of. It’s like a balloon that you overinflate and then let slowly deflate as it sits under the table 4 days after a birthday party. It’s thin and misshapen and not smooth like it used to be when it was new. I have an abundance of this kind of skin, and when I am moving, it’s like there is the slightest, split-second lag between the time when I stop moving and when my skin stops moving and comes to a full stop.

I want to acknowledge that the that visual I just described in the past paragraph is probably grossing some of you out right now because, well, for a long time my body grossed me out too. We all have these ideas of what’s beautiful and what is not. But what I described, dear reader, is what normal bodies do. This is what happens when bodies expand, and contract, and age, and live. And so, I detail these things (the things we like to hide under compression garments, or under a t-shirt over our bathing suit at the pool) because as a society we need to normalize normal bodies.

My body is normal. And these days I refuse to get mad at my body for how she presents. She doesn’t owe anyone anything—not even me. She can exist as is and that’s enough.

I am privileged in that I can move. I can dance. I can play. I can walk. I can run. (Although don’t sign me up for running. I am definitely not down for that). But even if I could do zero of these things, I would still be enough.

That doesn’t mean this is easy concept to accept. This week was a bitch for me where my relationship with my body was concerned. This week online bathing suit shopping gave me a literal panic attack. This week I had a meltdown and contemplated whether it was traitorous to be happier or feel a sense of pride in a smaller body. This week I felt stress knowing that as lockdowns are being lifted I will once again see people in person that I haven’t seen in a year—and I will have to find a way to not feel awkward when they almost all inevitably say (with the very most loving intent) something like, “You look great,” because it's automatic for me to hear this as a judgement of my previous body size. And this week I went through a period of almost unbearable worry about how being restricted from exercise for a month or more because of my gallbladder surgery might make me gain weight, as if that would somehow be the worst thing. I have made so much progress, but these thoughts and reactions are signs of a disordered relationship with my body. I have made a ton of progress, but growth is a direction, not a destination.

Sitting in all of that is uncomfortable and for my entire life my tendency has always been to quickly mitigate pain—to find a way to dull it or to stuff it down so I don’t have to feel it. But I am learning that part of being a grownup is embodying everything— the pleasure AND the pain, the exhale of relaxation AND the stress of anxiety, the joy when beautiful things happen AND the sadness when things go wrong. Lately, I am working on allowing myself to feel those things in my body and to let those feelings wash over me even as remind myself of what’s true. When that’s too hard, I reach out to vent to a friend or I take some time to go be intentional about relaxation or other healthy things I know will help soothe me and downregulate these intense sensations. I actually did both of those things this week.

And so, when I see my puckered skin bulging out in clothing in a way that I know is not conventionally attractive, I remind myself that I don’t owe anyone anything in terms of appearance. That bulge is just fine right there.

When my skin overhangs the waistband of my awesome new expensive underwear (shout out Tomboy X), I thank it for expanding the way it has in the past for such a beautiful reason--to make room for the amazing babies THAT MY LITERAL BODY LITERALLY MADE.

When I de-bra (also a made up word) in the evening and feel a sense of sadness at the way my breasts fall against my chest and upper abdomen, I remember the feeling of closeness I felt when I nursed my babies, or the ways these same body parts have brought pleasure to my partner.

When my thighs jiggle or my first reaction is a sense of shame when I catch sight of their dimpling, I bring to mind the time that these same legs trained for months (at around 275 lbs) to be able to complete a marathon and a half over two days. Epic.

And when the loose of skin of my upper arms hits my torso with an audible clap, I clap back (dual meaning intended) and I reframe it as if my body giving me a round of applause—a standing ovation even--for all the remarkable shit I’ve done.

Patricia's story

2021-01-12T08:14:00.005-05:00

Preface (preface was written in April 2017)

This story occurred in March 2010, about 2 months after the earthquake. At that point, our family had only been living in Haiti for about 11 months. We got involved in relief efforts because, well, we were there. And it just seemed the thing to do. In retrospect, there were things I would have done differently in a post-quake reality. The passage of time brought with it an increased understanding of Haitian culture, as well as foreign aid. Simply put, at the time, we did the best we could. And when we knew better, we did better. That’s all we could do.

I originally wrote down this story in chapters, and shared each chapter on my blog over a couple of weeks at the end of March and beginning of April 2010. It was an attempt to process and understand the things I saw that day. But the events of the day weren’t the only things that weighed into how this experience felt for me. This was a time where every single thing we experienced was horrific. We coped the best we could at the time. We drank more. We pulled in with other ex-pats and aid workers in the evenings to try to process. We tried to share funny stories about our lives to distract us, but it wasn’t enough.

The thing I realized on this most recent trip to Haiti is that the way I deal with the trauma I experienced during that time is to simply not think about it. It’s unexplainable to someone who wasn’t there. And so then when I get the chance to discuss it with someone who was, well, it lingers in my soul for a few weeks until I can forget again.

Please hear me, I GET that this story is not about me. While it’s written from my point of view, this story is about a beautiful baby girl named Patricia and her young mother, Babette.

This past week, after visiting Haiti and reviving tales of douz janvye, I revisited this story on my blog. I did a bit of editing for grammar, language, and clarity, and am now presenting it as one story.

One final note, the gourdes/US dollar amounts I share in the story are no longer the same as they were when I wrote the story. The devaluation of the Haitian gourde has been dramatic in the previous few years, but I kept the amounts the same in the story, as that’s what they were at the time.

March 22, 2010

Chapter 1: This is Hell

Yesterday it was raining. It had actually been raining on and off for two days. Our trash pile was starting to fester and so I asked Hugues to pack it up so we could go to dump it. He did so and we left for the dump, which is incidentally right next to Pinchinat, the big camp in Jacmel, where 6000 homeless souls now reside in tents.

I happened to have some diapers in my backpack and looked down into Pinchinat, which was a mud hole and thought, “With all this rain and mud, I should make sure Babette has diapers for Patricia.” Patricia was a baby that I was working with in the camp. She was just a few months old and she had some special needs. There was some sort of a neurological thing going on with her, and she had high muscle tone, as if she had Cerebral Palsy, and although she was never given a formal diagnosis, we had a team of doctors in a few weeks earlier, and that was their best guess. Because of Patricia’s special needs, she was a baby that I visited more often than the others. One day in February when we went to the camp she was ill-- listless and dry. We brought her to the hospital where, after much waiting and drama, she was given an IV to rehydrate her and some medication to take home. After a few weeks, she started to get better, but I still liked to keep a close eye on her.

It started raining harder and I almost reconsidered. The mud was thick but I reasoned I would just go and drop some diapers off with just her and then head out quickly. I told Hugues he could wait in the car if he wanted, but he said he’d like to come because he hadn’t seen Patricia in a while.

We walked through the mud and it was so thick it was the kind that swallowed your shoes and pulled them off your feet. We marched onward and headed down the row to Babette’s tent. Weaving our way through ropes and tent stakes we heard a horrific wailing. Someone was screaming. Loudly. As we approached, I realized it was Patricia’s mother, Babette. She was sitting on a cot outside of her tent in the pouring rain. She was wearing no shoes and was covered in mud halfway up to her knees. Her eyes were so puffy from crying that they were almost swollen shut. Her wailing was loud and intense. And I knew right away that something terrible had happened.

“Babette! Sa’w genyen?” (What’s wrong?) She didn’t answer me but kept crying, almost in a trance. I had to kind of shake her to wake her from her wailing.

“Babette, si vou ple, di’m sa’w genyen?” (Babette, please tell me what’s wrong.)

Her eyes focused on me as if she’d just seen me. Between sobs she gasped, “Li mouri, li mouri, li mouri!” (She’s dead, she’s dead, she’s dead!)

Already knowing the answer I asked, “Kimoun te mouri?” (Who is dead?)

“Pitit mwen. Patricia mouri.” (My child. Patricia is dead.)

Tears sprung to my eyes and I just held her. It was pouring rain all around us and I just held her and she cried and I cried. Someone ushered us into a tent. We sat on a cot and I held her for a while as she wailed. And then, as if a switch was flipped in my mind, my brain started processing all of the next steps. I have this tendency to do that. To just explode with emotion during trying times and then, unable to cry anymore I switch into “action mode.” It’s very American of me.

“Babette,” I asked her, “Kibo Patricia kounye a?” (Where is Patricia right now?)

“Li andann tant mwen.” (She’s in my tent.)

“A kile li te mouri?” (What time did she die?)

“Twa ze de maten.” (3AM.)

I looked at my phone. It was about 10:30AM. Seven and half hours. Patricia had been lying there in the tent dead for seven and a half hours. With the rain and mud and all of children and babies running around, I knew she couldn’t stay there. I wasn't sure what to do. But I knew she couldn't stay there.

I asked her if I could take the baby to the morgue while we figure out what to do next. She seemed hesitant at first as she’d already called a bos to start making a coffin, but she had no idea when it would be done or how she would pay for it. I asked her to please let me find a place outside of Pinchinat to keep Patricia until she could be buried. She agreed that was best. I asked her if she wanted to come with me and everyone around me started screaming, “No! No! No! Li pa kapab ale avek you. Sa pa responsibilte li!” (No, she can’t go with you. That’s not her responsibility.) This was the first of MANY cultural things I didn’t understand that were about to happen. Babette’s sister, her brother, her neighbor in the camp, and Patricia’s godmother also came along.

I asked Hugues if he would please carry the baby. He agreed and we entered the tent. Patricia was lying on the ground wrapped in towels. Hugues picked her up and we started our journey back through the mud. As we were walking the rain was pelting us. The mud was so thick that after a minute, Hugues just took off his shoes and walked through it barefoot so he wouldn’t lose his step. As we dodged the ropes and tent stakes, trying to keep our balance in the slippery mud, I heard Babette wailing off in the distance again. And my tears mixed with the rain. There was only one thought running through my mind. It cycled through my brain over and over again until I had no choice but to mutter the words out loud...

“I am in hell. This is hell. I am in hell.”

###

Chapter 2: The Morgue

We started out on the short trip to St. Michel, the local public hospital. Ironically, (and you'll see what I mean in a second,) the hospital is nicknamed by locals, "the morgue" because of the horrific conditions. On the way I called Nick to tell him what had happened. We was in the US for a Board Meeting and we'd had a big fight a few minutes earlier. Suddenly our problems didn't seem so big.

I started off the conversation by apologizing for our argument and then started sobbing and said, "Anyway, it doesn't matter because I am driving Patricia's dead body to the morgue." It wasn’t a tactful way to share this information, but I wasn't really in a good state of mind. And besides, Nick is a person with whom I can cut to the chase. I can just be me. That was a very good thing for me at this point. He knew how much Patricia meant to me. I remember trying to talk to him on the phone, cry, shift the car, clear the fog from the windshield, and wipe my glasses dry. I had nothing dry to dry them on--so they just stayed all steamy and streaky. “Of all the days I didn’t wear contacts,” I thought.

We arrived at St. Michel and the whole group of us paraded in shoeless and walked around trying to find someone to talk to. Hugues was still carrying Patricia. Lots of patients were there but we didn't see any doctors or administrators. This hospital had been taken over by Doctors Without Borders last month. I was so pissed off when I couldn't find anyone to talk to. I muttered out loud again. This time I said, "Doctors Without Borders my ass!" I thought back to when I was here with Patricia just a few weeks earlier and all I could think about was how they didn't care well for Patricia when she was brought there alive, why would I expect more in her death? I realize in retrospect that everyone was just doing the best they could. But at the moment, it felt helpless. We finally headed over to the pharmacy to try to get more information. They looked at us as if we were crazy when we walked in there with a dead baby. They said it had nothing to do with them and that we’d need to talk to the hospital administration. So we headed over to administration.

Hugues passed Patricia off to a family member and went in to talk to them. I followed. Hugues told me to wait outside but I didn't listen to him. I knew that we had a better chance of being listened to if a white person came in. It sounds ridiculous to say that, but it's true. But it turned out that it didn’t matter because they didn’t have any place to put her. We were told that ever since the earthquake the morgue there was not operational, so bodies were the responsibility of the family. Remember, this is the only public hospital in Jacmel. And there were lots of bodies since the quake. The UN estimates that there were 3,000 or so dead in Jacmel.

I couldn’t send Patricia back to the mud hell of Pinchinat so I asked which private morgue we should use. I told the family I would take care of paying for it, but I wasn’t sending her back to Pinchinat no matter what. But the family refused. They insisted that she should not be brought to the morgue. She was too little of a baby for that kind of cost. Instead they asked if I would help pay for the coffin, which they had already commissioned and then we would just get her buried. Of course I said yes. We piled back in the truck and were off to check on the progress of the coffin.

###

Chapter 3: The Coffin

We drove through crowded and rubble-filled streets, having to back up several times upon discovering roads were newly impassable. With all the demolition happening in Jacmel this was an increasingly common problem—there’s just wasn’t a convenient place to put all the rubble. I think the theory behind it all was that if they pile it in the streets, eventually heavy machinery could come through, scoop it up, and clear the streets. It's a good idea in theory. Some of the rubble IS eventually getting to the dump at the riverbed. I've seen it there. But theory and practice don't always mesh well. In practice it's... well, heartbreaking. And inconvenient. And then, of course, this is Haiti after the earthquake. So it's not just the piles of rubble. They are rubble mixed in with trash, people’s broken memories, food scraps as people walk by, and even sometimes, dried blood. Not a pretty sight.

We ended up parking about 4 blocks away from where we were headed. At this point I entered this zone where I had no situational awareness. I don't think I could get back there even if I wanted to. Actually, I feel pretty sure I could not. We walked past a bunch of half-broken buildings, down an alley and into someone’s back yard. It was a covered with a tin roof, but open on all sides, except where it connected to the house.

And there he was--the man making the coffin. It was so small. There's always something unnerving and kind of creepy to me about seeing a coffin. I found this to be even more true with a baby's coffin. It was just so small. Made from salvaged scrap wood, the pieces were neatly nailed together but didn't match one another. Therefore, the coffin-maker was tack-nailing some lightly stained, old, tattered white fabric-- an old sheet I think, over the wood. He worked slowly and paid a lot of attention to detail. The nails were evenly spaced and the fabric was pulled taut. When he was almost done, he realized he lacked the final bit of fabric to finish covering the coffin. He asked us for money so he could "buy" more fabric. I had no cash on me, but Hugues did and he handed it over. After which, his wife went into their house and brought out a white pillowcase which they cut up to finish the project.

At some point while I sat there watching him work, I asked the neighbor if I could hold Patricia. She quickly went to hand me the baby and then stopped mid-pass and asked me, “W pa ansent, non?” “You're not pregnant, are you?" I remembered the being told about this superstition-- if you look at or hold a dead child while you're pregnant, your baby will die. I told her I was not pregnant so she unwrapped Patricia and handed her over to me.

She still looked beautiful-- her head all wrapped up in green bandanna. Her mother, Babette, was pretty particular about usually keeping her head covered, whether by a bandanna or a little hat. It was adorable. Her eyes were not quite closed and they had the haziness of death present in them, but she was still beautiful. She was still round and pudgy (well, pudgy for a Haitian kid).

At some point I looked up and one of my teammates had walked in. As I mentioned earlier, Nick was in the States when all this was happening. After we talked, he called my teammate, who then tried to call me several times. My phone was in the car, so I didn't hear it. So she went to Pinchinat looking for me. And to St. Michel. Then she tracked down Hugues and therefore, me. She saw me holding Patricia and asked if she could hold her. I am pretty sure she knew I was at my breaking point and wanted to help. She told me she'd brought a bunch of money because she'd been in Haiti long enough to realize how these things work.

We just sat there. We sat and sat and waited for the coffin to be finished. Once it was, we paid the bos $200 HD ($25 US) and waited some more as a neighbor went to fetch some clean clothes and someone they'd hired to bathe Patricia's body.

###

Chapter 4: The Bath

As my teammate and I sat there waiting/talking/reflecting, the same thought over and over kept coming to my mind, "Is this really happening?" I remember saying that or some variation of that out loud. "Is this really happening?" "Am I REALLY sitting here right now doing this?" "Is this really my life?" We discussed our lives since the quake. We talked about Patricia. We talked about our husbands. We just talked and waited.

Finally a woman arrived. The family said she was here to bathe the baby. I looked her up and down. She was thin. She was wearing a very low-cut tank top with a push-up bra that VERY much enhanced her assets. Her hair was in shoulder-length braids and she had a short, crude manner about her. Her eyes were wild and she was one of those people who spoke just a few decibels louder than is necessary. She started gathering supplies for the bath and my teammate said, "Can you imagine if that was your job?" I couldn't.

The woman (I never got her name) set right to work. She bossed people around. She them bring her various things. We were held up for a bit while someone located a bar of soap and a bucket of water. Someone finally brought the soap and water. Someone else brought her a cup of clarin (moonshine) and a cigarette. She poured three small dashes out on the ground in a triangular shape and lit the cigarette which just sort of laid there, hanging from her bottom lip the whole time she worked. She didn’t really inhale it. It just sat there.

She unwrapped Patricia, took off her clothes, and started scrubbing her body. First her legs and rear end. Then her torso and arms. Interestingly, I wanted to watch all of this. In fact, I stood up, turned around and rearranged myself so I could watch her being bathed. I don't know why I wanted to watch, but it wasn't that I just wanted to, I needed to. Interestingly, she didn't take Patricia's green bandanna off. But she did scrub her face all over. Hard. With soap. There were suds all over her eyes and mouth and nose. I felt all sorts of indignation well up inside of me. It felt so disrespectful, but I knew this is probably a cultural thing that I didn’t understand. Still, I was mad that she was being so rough with Patricia. And while I know that Patricia's body was dead, I was still mad that she got soap in her eyes. But I kept my mouth shut. And then just like that it was over. The whole thing probably took no more than 2 minutes.

She was asking around to see if there was any cream to rub over her skin. I dug through my bag to see if I had any. I didn't have any skin cream. I did however have anti-fungal cream, antibacterial cream, scabies cream, rubber gloves, alcohol wipes, gauze, and a rectal thermometer. My teammate gave me a puzzled look and asked, "Do you often walk around with these things in your bag?"

I kind of shrugged, "Yeah."

In my head it made perfect sense. Often while walking through the camp distributing diapers, I'd run into a baby or child that had really bad scabies, a fungal infection, an infected wound or was burning with fever. Carrying these things with me just seemed to make sense and would save a car ride back to my house to fetch the supplies I needed. Another one of those thoughts passed my mind, "Wow, is this REALLY my life?"

I told the woman I didn't have any cream and she shrugged. She demanded a clean diaper and clean clothes. I dug down into my bag, grabbed a diaper and handed it over. I thought back to how I was just stopping in real quick at the camp to drop off these very diapers for Patricia when I stumbled upon this tragedy. The only thing the neighbor had in the bag of clean clothes for Patricia to wear was a white onesie. My teammate and I talked amongst ourselves and wondered if we needed to buy a dress. I piped up and asked if they'd like he me to go get a dress for her to be buried in. The question was dismissed with a “Non. Li byen konsa.” (No. She's fine in this.) I didn't want her buried in a onesie. I wanted her all dressed up in a dress. A beautiful dress. But I wasn't the mom. And I wasn't a relative. I was just this white person who was there. So again, I shut up.

Here's where things got interesting.

The woman who had dressed Patricia and then picked up her body, and walked over to place her in the coffin. This started the wails. First from her, then the grandma, then the neighbor. Everyone started wailing. Patricia was placed in the coffin. Finally her green bandanna was removed. Her hair was smoothed and they kept pinching her half-opened eyes shut. Before the coffin-maker closed the coffin everyone started coming forward with their cell phones and taking pictures on their phones. I sat there and remember opening my eyes really wide as if somehow opening my eyes wide would keep my mouth shut. Taking pictures? Really? And not just the family. Everyone who was standing around who had a cell phone. They looked over at me and asked, "W pa genyen kamera?" (You don’t have a camera?)

I was all, “Non. Non. M pa vle fè foto.” (No, no. I don't want a picture.)

And coffin-maker said, “Fok’w fè foto. Pou manman’l. W pa genyen kamera?” (You need to take a picture. For her mom. You don’t have a camera?)

I did a quick mental inventory of what was in my backpack as I searched through it for the cream. I had my little video camera with me. It takes marginal still shots. But it was something. But knowing the stereotypes about "camera-toting" Americans, I was pretty adamant that I didn't want to take a picture.

I remember asking the guy over and over again, thinking there was just a miscommunication with my marginal Creole. “W vle m fè foto? W vle sa, wi? Se sa w’ vle?” (You WANT me to take a picture? Right? This is something you want?)

I looked at my teammate and she told me to go ahead and take a picture, saying it was customary to take pictures of dead people in their coffin. Like one of those flip-books that make animated images when you turn the pages quickly, I remembered downloading some pictures for one of my staff members onto my computer from her digital camera. And I remembered several pictures of dead people in their coffins were among them. That produced in me another cultural twang. Reluctantly, I went over and took a few pictures.

The bather said she was done and wanted to be paid. We asked her how much. I dreaded this part. Because I was there, I knew the price would be higher. But I wasn't interested in haggling over prices. Not at all. Not at a time like this.

"200," she said.

"Dola?" (Dollars), I asked. I wasn't sure if she was speaking in dollars or gourdes. This was a question that could multiply the amount we were paying by 5. Always best to clarify.

"Wi." (Yes.) Crud, I was hoping for gourdes.

"Ayisyen ou byen American?" (Haitian or American?) I asked.

"Ayisyen." (Haitian.) That was better news. But still. That was the amount we paid for the coffin. And that took supplies and a few hours. I sort of just sighed. I didn't want to argue. I just wasn't up for it. We handed the money over. She tucked the money in her bra. The coffin was closed. I lowered my head and closed my eyes. I heard more wailing and some weird percussion type noise. I felt a little unsettled in my spirit. I looked up and saw that a couple of people were chanting and shaking some beaded gourds.

“Oh,” I thought, “This is a vodou thing.”

Immediately my situational awareness returned. I looked around. Holy crap. I was in a vodou peristyle (temple.) Until that moment, I honestly didn't notice this. There was a small tomb off to the left. There were skulls and crossbones painted all over the place. The center pole of the structure came down into a big cement circular altar. I realized that until I had turned around to watch Patricia be bathed, I'd been sitting on it. Weird that I didn't notice that earlier.

I whispered to my teammate. "Were totally in a vodou peristyle right now."

She looked at me and whispered back, "Yeah, I just noticed that now."

I had always knew that Patricia's family practiced vodou. Often times when I would come over to visit, she'd had some leaves poking out of her head wrap. When I asked what they were for, they said that someone who was like a doctor gave her this to use as a kind of medicine. Just the week before she'd died I went over with Sarah to visit and there was a cord tied around her neck with some sort of stuff cloth sack with something tied onto it. I was worried that the cord would choke her in her sleep so I asked about it. Again, we were told it was "medicine" and it would make her stomach better. Sarah looked over and said, "Yeah, it actually won't. The problem she has with her stomach is something inside of her. Tying something outside of her body isn't going to help her." But we left it at that.

I was ready to get out of there. Patricia's dad showed up. I didn't even know he was in the picture. We made some preliminary plans to get her buried and carried the coffin the 4 blocks back to the truck.

###

Chapter 5: Burying Patricia

I asked about what was next. Patricia's dad said it was the burial. He wanted to bury her up in a small, private cemetery in a village right passed the river on the road to Basin Bleu.

Hating to be "that person" I asked how much more money we'd need. It's not that I begrudged paying the money, I just needed to make sure we had it with us. The dad told us that we could finish everything for another $400 HD ($50US). Then he tried to talk me into not going along for the burial. He said the river was high and it would be too difficult to cross in the truck. He asked me for the money and then said he would take care of getting her buried. I wasn't excited about that thought. It's not that I didn't trust the dad… Well, actually, that was the situation. I guess I didn't trust him to do the right thing. I didn't know him and, therefore, had no reason to trust him. Well, that and the fact that he hasn't been involved in Patricia's life until now. I'd visited Patricia and Babette many, many times in the past two and a half months-- at all times of the day, and he was never there. When Patricia was in the hospital I asked Babette if she was still together with Patricia’s father. She said no. Now, here he was. In front of me. He was asking for the money to get her buried and basically asking me to trust him with the money and Patricia's body. I finally explained that if I was going to pay for the burial, I wanted to see it happen with my own eyes. I get that was super American of me, but yeah, that's where I was.

We arrived at the river and it was pretty high. But it was passable. Even so, we asked a random person to walk through ahead of us to show us the best place to pass. He did and he noticed we had a coffin in the back and asked if we needed someone to dig the grave. Patricia's dad told him to hop in. We passed the river with no problem. I will admit that it was higher than it had been recently, but still, we crossed with no problem. I have no idea what time of day this was. Around 1 or 2 is my best guess. As I was driving, I again had that thought, "Is this really happening?"

I also thought about our truck. Man, what a great truck. Purchased for us brand new a year earlier with funds donated from our home church, this truck has been so instrumental in so many medical emergencies. We’d been able to use it to bring numerous people to the hospital even before January 12-- both people we knew and people we didn’t. It was crucial in the moments and days after the earthquake. First surveying the situation. Then robbing our team housing of all it’s beds, all its sheets, all its towels to bring to the hospital for the wounded. It was loaned to the Canadian military when they took over the airport in Jacmel. It brought people to search for their families that were unaccounted for since the quake. It was our transport vehicle when we did a medical clinic at Pinchinat, an ambulance of sorts, carrying a woman in heart failure, a child with a severely abscessed wound, a baby with a major infection, amongst others. It had also carried Patricia to the hospital that day a few weeks earlier. That day she didn’t die of dehydration. And not just dramatic stuff, but it regularly carried our kids to school or our family to church. It drove us into Port Au Prince to pick up visitors, do legal paperwork, and buy groceries. And now it was playing the role of a hearse. I don't know why I mention that except to say that when you're fundraising to be a missionary, sometimes something like a vehicle is not an easy sell because it’s super expensive. And in a place like Haiti where there is adequate public transportation, it seems like a luxury even though in the States few people outside big cities go without their own vehicle. In the States, people knows it's important to have a reliable vehicle, but somehow when you’re living in a materially poor place, people want to give money to save starving children. They want their name on a number of lives saved. At that moment I was thinking about how this specific vehicle had been involved in so many important things.

We arrived up in the village. I don't even know the village name. It was pretty broken up. Piles of rubble were everywhere. We stopped while the workers rounded up some tools for digging. They found a shovel with no handle and a pick ax. We walked down a dirt road and quickly arrived at the cemetery. It was in a field with a giant mango tree. There were only a handful of graves in the field, maybe a 1/2 dozen or so. They picked a spot and started digging. After a few moments a large crowd had gathered and there was some "discussion" as to where the grave should be located. Soon they moved and started digging in a new location.

It worked like this-- one man would dig and dig and dig with the pick ax to loosen up the soil, and then he'd get out of the hole and the other man would shovel (remember, no handle on the shovel, just the head) all the loose soil out. Over and over. 5 minutes or so each. Then they would switch. I learned a lot about Haitian burial that day. If it wasn't so darn depressing of a situation, it would have been really interesting. For example, in the US, they dig a big, deep hole and just lower the coffin in, re-cover the hole with dirt and plant grass. Well, at least that's what I assume they do. Not so much in Haiti. They dig a deep hole and then they line it with rock. And cement. And tin. And more rocks, more cement, more metal. The coffin is not just buried in the ground, it's cemented in on all sides. I heard several people that day say that they were afraid if they didn't do that the dogs would dig her up, or the spirits would come eat her. Anyway, it's a pretty labor-intensive process.

That was the cause of the next conflict that arose. We had already agreed with the dad that we would pay $400HD ($50US). The mason came along and said that he wanted $600HD ($75US). He wasn't willing to negotiate. The dad came back to me and told me that we were going to need more money. I told him that I couldn't pay any more that day and that he had told me a price and we needed to stick to it. I felt like a big jerk haggling over money with this guy. I still don't know why I just didn't agree to pay more. Plus the dad was kind of not in a great state of mind. He ended up convincing the bos to do it for the $400 HD. And then he drank a whole bottle of whiskey and passed out and slept through the rest. I didn't blame him. Although, I did internally reason that if he had the money to buy whiskey, he could pay for the rest of the burial. But then I remembered that his baby had just died. And so I went back to not blaming him.

The men worked on and on. Other men came along. They were carrying rocks, bags of cement, buckets of water and buckets of sand.

We sat and sat. More time passed. It was a long and intense afternoon. Once we saw how much work went into the grave, we felt bad about sticking to the $400 HD. At one point, a random person nearby opened the coffin to take a look at Patricia. We saw from across the field and yelled at them to close the box telling them that this was not television. I asked them to please have respect and close the box. They all laughed at us. I remember having A LOT of judgmental thoughts in that moment. But I kept my mouth shut.

Finally, as it was getting dark, they lowered the coffin in. They cemented it in and covered it with metal. Then it was layer after layer after layer of rock and cement. Rock and cement. Rock and cement. And then more cement. Once the hole was cemented so it was level with the ground, we prepared to leave. The bos said he's work on the "tomb" part the next morning, that he couldn't work anymore because it was too dark.

We loaded back into the truck. The dad woke up and a bunch of people hitched a ride down the mountain with us. At this point it was only the godmother that was there left with us as the rest of the neighbors and the family had already left. They had kids to get back to and life to resume.

We rode back the mountain and crossed the river. It had gone down a bit. And while I really wanted to stop in at Pinchinat and let Babette know that Patricia had been buried well and with dignity, I was just too tired. I couldn't do it. I dropped the godmother and the father off at the road to the camp and went on my way home.

When I arrived at home, I realized that I hadn't so much as washed my hands all day. I hadn't eaten. I had drank only one sip of water all day long. My kids came running up to me and I forcefully pushed them all off, telling them bluntly, "I've been touching dead people, don't touch me until I shower and change." I honestly was just over it at that point. I was over everything. I was completely and totally over it. Everything. The earthquake, the camp. Patricia. Burying a baby. It ALL washed over me. I realized I was mentally unstable and I just sort of surrendered to not feeling anything. I remember showering-- my body trembling the whole time, not because the water was cold (although it was) but because my body literally could not handle the adrenaline rushing through it. There have been a few times in my life where I have described myself as having adrenaline poisoning. This was one of them.

I got out of the shower. I got dressed and humored my kids for a while. I apologized to my staff for being gone all day. I kind of explained what had happened, but just didn't have the energy to tell the story well, however, I did debrief with my friend Sarah a little later. And then I counted the minutes until I could put my kids down and collapse into bed. I laid there shaking and trembling, willing myself not to feel anything. I would have given anything for Nick to be there alongside of me, to just have someone to hold. But he was several thousands of miles a way dealing with his own drama. I took an Ambien and surrendered to sleep. Finally my day was over. But because this is Haiti, the story wasn't done yet.

###

Chapter 6: The Tomb

The next morning I tried to get some sort of normalcy back in place. I did homeschooled Nia and then left the kids to play while I drove over to Pinchinat to visit Babette. She wasn't crying anymore but she had that puffy appearance of someone who had recently had been crying. She was just sort of sitting there. She got up to hug me and then we both just sit there next to each other.

"Babette, kijan ou ye?" (How are you?) Dumb question. How did I THINK she was?

"Mwen la." (I'm here.) It was a pretty standard Haitian answer to the question-- an answer I really liked. In the US when people ask us how we are, we say, "I'm fine" or "I'm okay" even when we're not. "I'm here" is a much more honest answer.

"E ou mem?" (And you?) she asked.

"Mwen la."

We just sat there in silence for a while. I didn't know what to say. I felt like I had nothing to say that would be in ANY way useful. Finally I asked her if there was anything I could do that would be helpful to her. She said that she would love it if I could hire someone to come over and clean out her tent. To wash all her clothes and sheets and blankets and towels. She hadn't gone in the tent since Patricia died and she wanted to go back in but she wanted it cleaned out first.

"Of course." I told her. I was glad to have something I could do to help. I honestly don't remember how much it was, but it was a nominal amount. Maybe $20HD (less than $2.50US). I asked her if she had soap. She said no. I asked her if she needed soap for the washing, she said yes. We walked over together to the little market that was set up in the middle of the camp. We bought a baggie of soap flakes and a long bar of laundry soap for $7HD (less than $1).

We returned back to her tent. I visited a little while longer and then, having run out of things to say, I told her I was going to be on my way. I asked her if she wanted to go see the grave the next day. She said no, the day after. I told her okay. She asked if I could get some flowers for when we go and then we'd place them together.

I headed home and sort of ran into "life" that afternoon. I arrived back home and learned that my sister in the States had fallen very sick and was being brought by helicopter from one hospital to another. It was serious. I cried for a minute only. And as quickly as it started I shut off the tears. A week passed before I cried again. My sister got sicker and sicker. She was put on a ventilator in a medically induced coma. She nearly died. And yet I didn't cry. But I am getting ahead of myself again.

The next day Nick returned. Together we drove up to visit Patricia's grave. I wanted to make sure everything was in place before Patricia went up the next day. We drove up, parked the car and walked to the cemetery. As we approached, my heart dropped. Things were exactly as they'd been the moment we left. Well, not exactly. The cement had dried. But there was no tomb marking the grave. The promised work that was going to be done the day before had not been done.

I saw someone standing there and I asked where the bos was. He arrived a few minutes later and, again, as always, I was arguing with someone over money. I asked where the tomb was. He acted like he didn't know what I was talking about. I told him that I had paid for a small tomb to be built. He said that I hadn't, that I had only paid for the burying. I was certain that we'd agreed on this but then I just wasn't sure. Maybe there was a miscommunication. So I called Hugues. I asked him what we'd agreed on with the bos and he said yes, the tomb was supposed to be done the day before. This is Haiti.

I asked Hugues to talk to the bos. He did. It was a feisty conversation but in the end it didn't matter. He'd used all the money for what he'd done up until then, which, admittedly, was a lot of work. He explained all he used it for-- hiring people to carry rock, water, sand. Buying cement. Paying another boss to help him. I was over caring at this point. I didn't want to give him more money, but I knew Babette was headed up there the next day. I just wanted it done. I asked him how much. He said another $400 HD ($50US) more.

Whatever.

I paid him. We left. He made the tomb marker.

Because I had to leave for the US I knew I wouldn't be able to take Babette up. I asked Hugues to bring her up there to place the flowers the next day. I stopped to see her and told her I had to leave to go see my sister and that I wasn't returning for a few weeks. I told her that I would be thinking about her and praying for her. I bought flowers and she agreed to be there ready and waiting for Hugues the next day at 2 PM. When he went to pick her up, she'd sent someone else in her place. I don't know if she's ever been up there. Initially I was kind of sad that she didn't show up, but then I remembered that it's not for me to decide when she goes to Patricia's grave. Who am I to decide how she should grieve?

A few days later Nick he a bunch of our kids to go visit Patricia's grave and take a picture for me so he could show me the work had been done. I got a little bit of satisfaction looking at the grave knowing that Patricia had been laid to rest. She had a respectable resting place. I added up the total cost of everything and it came to just under $200US dollars. Seemed like a lot more at the time. I got a little frustrated when I thought about how frustrated I got with various people for "overcharging" us. But then I reasoned that frustration over frustration probably isn't helpful.

Since her death, as I've talked about Patricia with other people, I've had more than one person say some version of "she's better off where she is." I don't know. Patricia’s special needs meant that she had a long, bumpy road ahead of her. Still, it sucks. No mother should have to deal with that. And it's not fair. Not at all. Don't try to convince me of that.

I've also realized that the death of Patricia was much harder on me than it should have been. I really didn't know her that well. It's not like Babette was my best friend. She was a 17-year-old single Haitian mom. We had very little in common. I've really only known her for a few months. But she was a good mom. She loved Patricia and though life had thrown her a bunch of curve balls, she wanted to be a good parent to her daughter.

But still I've been having a hard time. I can't figure it out. I am not a therapist, but I am sure this is a much bigger thing. I am sure it is all wrapped up in the death and horror I've witnessed with the earthquake and my ability (or inability) to do anything. My inability to save anyone. Simply put, I can't do it. I can't save anyone. I can't redeem anything. The good news is that's not my job. The better news is that I serve a God who not only can redeem, but does.

I am not ready to say that there was a silver lining in Patricia's death. As long as I live I don't know if I will ever see anything "good" that came from this. But I guess it doesn't matter much if I ever see the answers this side of heaven. Because death is not the end.

Internalized fatphobia and the stories our bodies tell.

2021-01-10T09:09:00.003-05:00

In my social work class last semester, I remember reading about the concept of internalized racism. An over simplified explanation is that because we live in a place with inherently racist systems, structures, and messages, sometimes (often?) marginalized racial populations begin to internalize negative messages, societal beliefs, and stereotypes that are present in mainstream society. Because of the never-ending nature of these assaults, as individuals begin to take on those racist ideals, it begins to push against their sense of self, even when they want to be proud of who they are. It’s very unfortunate, and lately, for me in a weird way, relatable.

Now before I ruffle any feathers, I will freely admit that I do not know what it is like to live as a racially marginalized person. But I do have experience with the ways that the dominant messages of society push against someone’s sense of self.

Today, again, (surprise, surprise), I am going to talk about weight and body. I have made it clear over the past several years in my writing about body that our society hates fat people. I do think we are *starting* to make some progress in terms of representation but we’ve not even begun to really unpack the many vicious and violent ways that fatphobia poisons our society.

I had a realization last month that I still have a ton of internalized fatphobia. And this was a bit of a surprise to me because I have been working on this concept for YEARS. I have embraced the body positivity movement. I have read all the books and articles. I watched all the videos. I have done hundreds (literally) of sessions with nutritionists/therapists. While the word “woke” is beyond played out, I feel like I am woke to so many of the issues of body, disordered eating, intuitive eating, body shame… all of it.

What you may not know is there are factions within the body positivity movement and some of them wouldn’t like me because I had weight loss surgery. I get it. It seems to be a giant contradiction of what I say I believe-- weight is morally neutral, it’s okay to exist in ANY body, you can embrace yourself where you are and that’s good, but still make a decision to surgically alter my body. At the same time, I am okay with those criticisms because I know I really, truly believe all those things (and only Judy can judge me).

For me, my decision was based mostly on pain. I feel as if I truly had conquered many of my food demons in therapy and nutritionist appointments long before I decided to have surgery. But after being in back pain for over a year, I started to consider how I might alleviate it. Losing weight seemed to be a really promising option. However, as a result of all the therapy/nutrition education, I was (am) fully convinced that diets don’t work. At least not long term. Remember, diets have a 95% chance of failure. And that cycle of restriction/binging is why so many of us ended up severely overweight without success in reducing our weight. (Remember set point theory? I was a walking example).

But let me be clear on this-- even though my decision for surgery was based largely on the pain I was in, who cares? We all have the autonomy to make decisions for our bodies. And so even if it was that I wanted to be a more socially acceptable version of attractive, that is also my prerogative. I AM A GROWN ASS LADY AND I CAN DO WHAT I WANT. So I have no shade for people who have different motivations for surgery than I did. You do (or don’t do) what is best for you. I stand with you in that decision, I support you, I applaud you. You own your body and you get to make choices for her (or him).

All of this is to say, that even as someone who was (is) very invested in the idea of body positivity, I didn’t realize until recently how terribly internalized my fatphobia was/is. It was Christmas day a couple of weeks ago, and I was looking at my timehop of photos of the previous Christmas (2019). I saw pictures of myself weighing about 125+lbs more than I did in that current moment, and I felt a deep sense of embarrassment and disgust. That feeling surprised me. Because friends, if my motivation for surgery was not about appearance, where the hell did that feeling come from? Why did I feel disgusted with the images I was seeing? I will tell you exactly where it came from-- internalized fatphobia. I spent 40+ years hearing from our society how being fat is wrong. It is in the media we consume, the jokes/memes we share, and it is deeply ingrained in the medical industry. Fat people are not taken seriously or treated compassionately or with dignity by the majority of doctors. (Again, another topic on which I could write extensively, but I will move on).

But there I was looking at these photos and feeling ashamed. But it doesn’t stop there. Because now, even though a lot of the weight is gone, I still feel ashamed of my body and all my loose skin bearing witness to how my body used to present. I don’t want to be ashamed. I want to be a feminist about it. I remind myself that appearance is a morally neutral thing. I tell myself that attraction/attractiveness is based on specific points in time in specific cultural settings. But I still feel shame.

Despite 20+ years being married to a completely evolved man who has never once body shamed me and has always given me positive body feedback, I can’t get the shame messages out of my head. This man worships my body and ravishes me as often as I will allow. But I can’t get the shame to go away. In fact the other day I was at work and looking at the Valentine’s section and I again remembered Valentine’s day of freshman year in high school when this kid Matt gave everyone conversation hearts in one of my classes. Except for mine he rubbed off whatever phrase was stamped on it and wrote “prize pig.” And yes, let’s just all acknowledge that was super douchey. But it’s also pretty par for the course. Kids get teased in school. That’s what happens. But why, almost 30 years later, can I still remember the feeling in the pit of my stomach when I looked at the heart and then immediately made the choice to laugh along with “the joke” so I didn’t reveal my shame? Why does this happen? Why do these negative memories have such a hold on us? I think it happens because deep down we believe, or at least worry, that they are true. And so we cover them up. But that’s not served me well.

And so this is what I want from life now-- to stop covering up my shame. To reveal it. To live in it and just exist. To stop letting it control me. To try to embody the things I know to be true. To be a feminist. To be as evolved about my body as my husband is about my body. To appreciate the marks that tell the story of where I have been. I mean, that’s why people get tattoos, right? To tell their stories? But my body also tells other stories. And these are good stories, even though some of them have been a challenge.

And so, even though I said I would never share “before and after” photos because I didn’t want appearance to be the focus, I am about to do it. But not the braggy kind. Because the truth is I have plenty of both before and after photos of myself I love and ones I don’t love. And so usually the goal is to find the worst before pic and the best after pic and put them side by side to show how truly remarkable you are. I am not going to do that. Instead, I want to show the real pics-- the ones where you can see my body clearly and it’s not hidden by slimming black, draping fabrics or cinched in with smart foundation garments.

This, my friends, is the change my body underwent in 2020. Dec 2019- December 2020.

If these photos make you feel any sort of way-- disgusted or embarrassed for me-- well I guess that's not any of my business, is it? That's your issue. My body is not an apology (to quote Sonya Renee Taylor).

I get that in both photos there are things that are not considered conventionally attractive within our specific time and cultural context.

But this is my body.

This is a woman who has birthed children.

This is a woman who has experienced adventure.

This is a woman who is thoughtful and tries to be a good friend.

This is a woman who is so well loved by her partner.

This is a woman who has existed in a body that has presented many different iterations of herself.

She’s had long hair, short hair, and Kim Jong Un hair.

Sometimes she’s wearing a full face of makeup befitting a drag queen, sometimes she wears none. -----

She’s always been short and curvy with a full, round face.

She is someone who likes to have fun and be ridiculous.

This body previously carried 311 lbs. around with her everywhere she went. Sometimes she felt confident in that, but mostly not. Now she carries 181 and still feels mostly not confident, but she’s working on it.

God only knows how many pounds she will carry going forward and intellectually she knows it doesn’t matter at all because her body will tell these stories too. And she suspects she still has a lot of stories left in her. So here’s to 2021 and radical acceptance of all of the stories our bodies tell.

The Brown Christmas: An original from Stephen F. Goodale

2020-12-26T14:11:00.003-05:00

My father, Steve, for years has been regaling our children (his grandchildren) with made up stories of a fictional character named Angelina Goodwin. He is, without a doubt, the best story-teller I have every listened to, and his propensity towards including the occasional well-placed swear word and frank discussion of taboo subjects always kept us clutching our sides with laughter and crossing our legs so that we didn't pee ourselves a little. Grandfathers, in my opinion, can get away with this kind of naughtiness even around tender ears.

This year, as a labor of love, he took the proverbial pen to paper to write down some of the favorite Angelina stories for his beloved grandchildren and (less) beloved children as a Christmas gift. My mother had it self-published and now we have a 15 chapter anthology entitled, "The Life and Times of Angelina F. Goodwin." This is quite literally, the best gift I could imagine. He is such a fantastic writer and I convinced him to let me share my very favorite chapter of the book. So without further ado, please enjoy--

Chapter Two: The Brown Christmas

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Angelina, and this is a story about something that happened to Angelina at Christmas time when she was nine years old.

All holidays were special to the Goodwin family, but Christmas was Angelina's favorite. It always began with the putting up of the outdoor lights and decorations, which was usually done (weather permitting) the second weekend after Thanksgiving and left intact until the Feast of the Epiphany. Mr. Goodwin was mostly in charge outside, and usually created a holiday display that was both tasteful and elaborate. He was very proud of the fact that on one Christmas occasion, his

creation had won a small award in a neighborhood contest, and he never failed to mention it whenever complimented on the scope of his home holiday decor.

Inside the house, however, was a completely different story. Angelina's mother planned and enacted the interior decorating and holiday events with an intensity that rivaled General Eisenhower's oversight of D-day. Angelina was a useful and cheerful helper in all of this, and their days were busy with baking, shopping, cooking, visiting and church activities that made the days pass as if in a whirlwind.

The apex of all this was on Christmas eve. It was a long-standing family tradition on that day to attend midnight mass at Mrs. Goodwin's home church. Prior to this, they usually visited their neighbors and then drove around the town looking at Christmas lights. Following the mass, the Goodwin's hosted a small dinner party in their home; Freddie Conway Sr. was a regular attendee as was his teen-age son, whom Angelina was a little sweet on. A few others came as circumstances would warrant.

Now one of the holiday treats that Angelina especially enjoyed was gorp. For those of you who do not know, gorp is a type of trail mix made with equal amounts of unsalted peanuts, raisins and semi-sweet chocolate chips. Mrs. Goodwin made copious amounts of the treat, and Angelina was allowed, within reason, ready access to the supply. She usually kept a stash of it in her bedroom in a bowl on her nightstand, and this is where our tale begins to unfold.

Angelina's dog, Skippy, was a champion beggar and snatcher. When ever he was left alone, all food had to be put away up out of his reach as he once was caught upon the kitchen table licking the butter dish clean, and another time managed to jump up on the counter to eat left-over scrambled eggs. Although Angelina was certainly concerned about the health of her dog, (she knew not to give a dog chocolate), she often would slip him a nibble of whatever she was snacking on. This attention, though kindly intentioned, only served to make a bad habit worse. At any rate, the time had arrived for the family to leave for their Christmas light exploration and then the mass. Mrs. Goodwin had put the dinner, an excellent home-made lasagna, in the warming oven, the table and all other preparations already being made ready. The family was all dressed up for the event, and even Mr. Goodwin, who was not a regular churchgoer, showing up as he said, at "all the big ones", was wearing his new suit and looked quite handsome. Angelina was the last person to leave, and failed to notice that her bedroom door did not latch completely as she pulled it shut.

As soon as all his humans were gone, Skippy went on the prowl for eats, his olfactory senses being stimulated by the food in the oven. After examining the kitchen and living room, he saw that anything edible was out of his reach, and so, having the run of the rest of the house, he pressed with his paw against the door of Angelina's bedroom, where he had previously caught a whiff of the gm). In a trice, he jumped up on the bed, got at the nightstand and began to wolf down the contents of the bowl of gorp, eating most of it in less than a minute.

It did not take long for the chocolate to make him sick, the immediate symptom being a liquifying effect on his bowels.

Skippy was well house trained, and knew not to ever relieve himself inside. He made a run for the back door in the kitchen, getting only to the threshold before he began voiding the contents of his intestines on the clean floor, making piles and smears of loose and smelly dog shit. In between his rectal expulsions, he would squat in the sitting position, and propel himself forward with his front paws, dragging his anus on the cool linoleum in a vain effort to relieve the pain and burning therein.

Finally, he had emptied the most of the mess, and began dry heaving. Exhausted and cramping in the stomach, he collapsed in a forlorn heap behind the living room sofa.

Not long after, the Goodwin family returned home, Mrs. Goodwin being in a huffy to ready the meal for her guests. Coming in the front door, she removed her high heeled shoes, advancing to the kitchen in her stocking feet. Getting a scent of the dog shit, she swore to herself and moved across the kitchen to the light switch, and stepping in oozing puddles of the slippery and stinking mess, she lost her footing and fell down sideways, coating her stocking feet and a lot of her dress with the contents of Skippy's intestines.

"Aaaah! Bitch-bastard!" she screamed. "Frank! Angelina! Get in here! The damned dog is ruining Christmas!"

Angelina and her father burst in, and taking stock of the situation, Angelina put her hand to her face and began to cry, but the sight of his wife getting to her feet covered in dog mess on Christmas eve with company expected in fifteen minutes was too much for him, and he began to laugh hysterically.

This did not help matters at all, but after a few more curses and insults, everybody calmed down and began to frantically put things to rights. Mr. Goodwin wiped and scrubbed the floor, while his wife changed her clothes. Angelina gave Skippy a quick cleaning and shut him in the upstairs bathroom. Mrs. Goodwin lit several scented candles and said a silent prayer. She was proud of her home and was embarrassed by what had happened, and now hoped for the best. Although the kitchen did not smell like dog shit, it carried an antiseptic, hospital smell, but there was nothing more to be done.

In all, the dinner went well, the food being delicious and the guests pleasant and polite. If they noticed anything untoward, they said nothing about it. After their company left, Angelina was allowed to open one of her gifts, and went to bed. Mr. and Mrs. Goodwin set out the rest of the presents under their tree, and they headed for their own bed, exhausted.

No sooner had they got under the covers when the car horn went off outside, the switch being stuck in the cold. Skippy, rallying at the noise, thought someone was at the door, and started in with his shrill, yappy bark. He got so excited, guess what he did? He peed on the rug! Mr. Goodwin stepped in the little puddle on his way out to disable the car horn, thus ending the events of what would later be known as "The Brown Christmas."

On food: Part 9- Taking up space, the male gaze, and flying while fat

2020-11-16T21:37:00.002-05:00

I am noticing a weird thing. As my body shrinks, I find I am able to take up more space in the world. I got on the scale this week after not weighing for a while-- I am trying to not weigh more than once every week or two these days. The numbers I see still hold too much power over me. So far I have lost 120 lbs. That feels like a lot of weight. Like, it’s almost 20 pounds more than my 16 year old son weighs. I am also 9 pounds into the 100s. By that, I mean that when I step on a scale, the first number is a 1. Considering it used to be a 3, that’s bizarre.

I flew on an airplane three times last month. It was the first time I’ve flown since losing significant weight. And it was the first time in I-don’t-know-how-long where I didn’t experience massive stress about the flight. Have you ever considered what it would be like to be a large person in a tiny airplane seat? I mean, no one likes being in tiny airplane seats. But it’s worse when you’re fat. Because in addition to it not being comfortable, no one wants to sit next to the fat person. And so, for a long time, I didn’t travel by air by myself. I needed someone I knew sitting next to me, so I didn’t have to worry about feeling like I was encroaching on a stranger’s already-limited space. I didn’t want to have to feel guilty that I was so big. And the last few years before my surgery, I even bought an airline seatbelt extender so I didn’t have to ask for one. It happened once where I had to ask, and I was not okay after that. Nick was the only one who ever knew my absolute phobia of flying while fat-- I would literally make myself sick leading up to flying.

When I was on my first flight, I looked down, saw all the extra seatbelt, and took this picture to send to Nick.

But it’s not just airplanes. It’s everything. It’s how much space is in a booth in a restaurant. It’s concert venues and sports stadiums. (Not that we go to those anymore). It’s worrying that you will be too fat for an amusement park ride or over the weight limit for a waterslide. It’s wondering if a lifejacket is going to fit over your size H boobs or if wondering if that trendy-looking chair is up to supporting your heft. It’s constant. Our society lets all fat people know that they are not okay to exist as is-- that they are not welcome to take up space-- that their size will not be accommodated. Which, when you think about it, is PRETTY FUCKED UP.

Fat people don’t talk about these things. We can’t because it brings with it a feeling of shame because this world was not created with us in mind. And so we are quiet about it, hot-faced and ashamed, and we try to draw as little attention to our situation and make ourselves as small as possible as we squeeze our bodies into too-tight spaces.

And here’s something I want you to consider. I weighed 311 lbs. And yes, that was a lot. But that was a size 24. That isn’t the biggest size. I was still well within the range of what Roxane Gaye calls “Lane Bryant Fat.” (Lane Bryant is a store that sells women’s plus size clothing). On a podcast on NPR once, I heard her use that term as a measure of how fat someone was because, at that point, she was larger than “Lane Bryant fat” and had to special-order clothing. She talked about how much she longed to just be “Lane Bryant fat” so that life would be easier.

But since losing the weight I have so far, I am finding that there is so much more that is open and free to me. I don’t have to spend time planning ahead for what I will do or say if I don’t fit. While I am still medically overweight, I am now in straight-sizes and don’t have to shop in plus size stores. In fact, almost every day, Lane Bryant sends me some sort of ad in my email and I find myself going to the website over and over to see what’s on sale before I remember that their clothes are too big for me now. I bought a size 12 pair of jeans the other day at Old Navy, and on the rack, they looked tiny to me. How could this really be my size? It doesn’t fit with what’s going on in my head.

Here’s another thing to consider. Read this tweet:

People feel the need to congratulate me a lot on my ongoing weight loss. And intellectually, I KNOW that they have great intentions and really are trying to make me feel good. But guys, that’s hard for me because when someone says, “Wow, you look great, you’ve lost a lot of weight,” the message I hear is, “You used to look real bad.” And the reason I hear that is because over and over, cultural messages have taught and reinforced to me that fat = bad. Intellectually, I know this is not true and weight/size hold no moral value. But try telling that to the brain of someone who has a history of disordered eating. I don’t need any reminders that I had to physically alter my body surgically to be able to live a full life.

But here’s the hardest part for me-- I want to believe that I was as beautiful as a size 24 as I am at a size 12 because, intellectually, I know that beauty is not contingent upon size. Some of the women I consider to be super sexy are plus sized (I’m looking at you Ashley Graham). And while I want to be able to live a full life not limited by my size, I also want to stay as curvy as I can because I think curves are hot. But it’s been so ingrained in me by our society that thinner = better that I hate myself when I feel satisfied with a lower number on the scale, a smaller size clothing, or see myself in a picture looking smaller than I feel. It’s constantly reminding myself that whatever number shows up on the scale, or whatever size my clothing pronounces, whatever I look like in pictures, my body is good.

One outcome of the surgery I did not really think about or anticipate is the way men would come to look at me. When I lived in a larger body, I rarely felt uncomfortable around random men because, well, they weren’t checking me out. And it’s not like I think they are really checking me out now, it’s just that often I notice their eyes don’t stay locked on mine anymore, they roam up and down my body. It feels, well, real gross. I don’t want their gaze on me. I don’t like knowing that there is a judgement of my body happening in real time. Are they assigning me a number or trying to figure out whether I am fuckable? Which isn’t to say that there weren’t judgements before, but my size prevented these longer looks.

In her breathtaking memoir, Hunger, Roxane Gay talks about how after being raped as young girl, she ate and ate to put a cage of safety around her. This book impacted me in ways I can’t explain. I sobbed reading it-- it felt like my own story. I wonder how much of my weight was an attempt at self-protection. Noticing this change in the way I perceive that I am being perceived by men feels unsafe--even if I am not truly unsafe.

Whatever the reason, I continue to always feel safe with Nick. He rolls with whatever I look like-- always has. He has worshipped my body since day one in all her iterations. Lately, I notice that when he spoons me, he always places his hand on this bone that juts on my hip. That bone was never out there in the open before. And I said, “You like putting your hand there lately.” And he said, “I love that it’s a new part of you to touch.” He also doesn’t flinch at my loose-skinned midsection, my puckering surgery scars, or my super-deflated boobs, arms, or ass. He is there when the bra comes off and sees what a challenging job that garment really has.

Lately, my weight loss has slowed down pretty dramatically. Because I continue to work an intuitive eating plan and regularly (still!) meet with my nutritionist twice a month, in a lot of ways, where my weight “ends up” is not really up to me-- it’s up to my body and I know that if I am loving her, she won’t steer me wrong. I will keep following hunger and fullness cues, and my weight will be what it will be. And even though I am still considered obese by medical charts (my god, I hate that word), I would prefer to stay around where I am now, or at least not lose more than another 10-15 lbs max. I feel good at the size I am. I would be lying if I said that I love the way my body looks. I wish I could redistribute some of my barrel-chested, wide-shouldered girth to other places, I wish my face wasn't so round, and sweet Jesus, I would punch a baby for some tighter skin. But that’s not how it works.

And so, I will continue to do the work to accept my body as perfect because she is. And I will fly by myself on airplanes, and I will walk 19,000 steps during a shift at work, and I will dance with my kids, and wear ridiculously high heels to make dinner if I want to BECAUSE I CAN. But I will also grieve all the things I missed during the decades I was at war with my body. And I will work to make our society more inclusive for every size body so that people can just be people--so that we can all have access to fulfilling life experiences. But until size equality happens, just know that if you’re fat and you want to fly somewhere and feel nervous, let me know. I will happily squeeze into that middle seat and be your buffer-- and I will even bring along my seatbelt extender so you don't have to ask.

On food: Part 8. What constitutes a good body?

2020-08-28T12:37:00.003-04:00

A few weeks ago I hit a big milestone in my weight loss journey. I hit a weight loss total of 100 lbs. I told a couple of people about it (like my sisters-- we are always talking about shit like this), but it also seems weird to “celebrate” something like this. So mostly, it was just another day. I try to remind myself every day that weight is just a number that holds no moral value.

I feel like transitioning to living in a different kind of body brings with it a whole range of mental adjustments. On the one hand, there’s all this freedom of movement that I didn’t have in a larger body. My body likes movement now, whereas before it did not because of my chronic back pain. I don’t have the back pain I had before. These are super-welcomed results. These were the two stated outcomes I was looking for from this surgery. And so if my weight loss stopped now and I didn’t lose a pound more, I would feel like I made a great choice for my life. Now mind you, I still weigh just a tick over 200 lbs-- 208.4 as of this morning to be precise. Yes, I just admitted to the public that I weighed over 300 lbs. Actually, 311 to be precise-- and it was probs actually a little higher, I could ask my nutritionist if I wanted to-- she weighed me regularly but did not tell me what it was because of my eating disorder. There was a time I couldn't handle that information. While some people will undoubtedly think “My gosh, she’s so brave to admit that number,” I think my response would be, “Nope. Get over it. It’s just a number that holds no moral value.” We are shamed into thinking that we can’t admit our weight or that certain benchmarks mean certain things. The only thing it is is a measurement. Zero moral value.

As much as I enjoy the benefits of this surgery, not all of the outcomes from the surgery are as welcomed as pain relief and increased mobility. One of the things that this surgery brings with it, especially if you are 40+, is extra skin. It’s just a thing. My skin grew and expanded to accommodate the extra weight I had on my body. That skin doesn’t go away because some of the fat underneath it went away. What that looks like for me is that in a lot of places, my skin is loose, wrinkly, uneven, and jiggly. And so, despite no longer being morbidly obese (what a terrible term, btw), I am now just regular obese and wrinkly. Still fat. Just not as fat. And probably a little more of a socially-acceptable version of fat. (Please remember, I do not consider the word fat to be a pejorative term-- it is simply a descriptor).

With all of this brewing in my mind, a couple of weeks ago, I reached out to a message board for people who have undergone weight loss surgery to help with the mental adjustment I would need to feel comfortable and confident in a new kind of body that also does not fit the societal mold of being a “good” body (ie- with extra skin). There is something comforting about shared experiences.

This was what I posted along with my weight stats (which is a thing on these boards):

"Hi guys. Before surgery I promised myself that I was not gonna get bent out of shape because of loose skin. However, now that I am here experiencing it-- I am feeling a real lack of confidence because of it. My husband is a champ. He’s the most evolved human being ever and has never been critical of my body in our almost 20 years of marriage. (He is an average weight individual and he is happy with me whatever I weigh.) But my self confidence has taken a dive. Especially because of my boobs. (So far down from an H cup to DD. They look like 80 year old boobs and I still have a way to go in terms of weight loss.) Have you guys dealt with this feeling? How do you guys try to re-frame this negativity in yourself? Thanks!"

Within a few minutes I had these three responses:

"Have you considered just a lift/reduction. And then implants when you're ready to do more plastics?"

"I'm dealing with that now with the same exact cup sizes! I feel weird and now my DD cups are getting flappy. I'm trying to be patient and saving for a breast lift but it is hard."

"I am in the same boat 4 months out-- almost same loss and for a year before surgery I said loose skin wouldn't bother me. I still have another 70 or 80 to lose. I'm already afraid to wave because of arm skin. I'm thinking skin removal will be added to my to do list."

Did you catch that? I asked for some help re-framing negativity I was feeling about my body, and all three of them essentially suggested I have plastic surgery. Actually, the first person suggested I have plastic surgery now AND later. Let me make something very clear-- I do not have a problem if people want to have plastic surgery. You do you, boo. I mean that. If that’s what you choose for yourself, that’s great. But that is not what I was asking for. I was asking for ways to help myself feel comfortable in my current (baggy) skin.

And that’s when I realized that body positivity is the ability to feel positively about your body no matter what your body looks like or is able to “accomplish.” I put accomplish in quotes because I recognize that the things we all accomplish within our own contexts may not look like accomplishments to others. For example, when I was very large and had back pain, it was painful to bend over to tie my own shoes. If you’ve never been fairly fat (or pregnant), I don’t expect you to understand this. But being able to bend and move freely, to tie my shoes without experiencing pain, that was an accomplishment for me. Many straight-sized people wouldn’t look at being able to tie their own shoes as an accomplishment, but others, who have experienced this context, will be able to see it that way.

Body positivity is celebrating all that your body can do, even when it can’t do the things another person might be able to do. Body positivity is being able to feel good about my body despite it not being what society tells us is a good body. My body can do the things it needs to do to be a human, and a woman, and a thinker, and a student, and a mother, and a wife, and a lover, and a friend. But my body could also do all those things before I lost 100+ lbs.

A couple weeks ago I got dressed up for the first time since Covid. A friend was hosting an online gala to raise funds to combat human trafficking. It was supposed to be an in-person event with cocktail attire, but Covid. I already had the dress, and so I got dressed up anyway because I wanted to feel pretty and sexy, and like I had a reason to get glammed up. I asked Nick to take a few pictures. And he did. And then I realized I hated the way my stomach looked, and so I adjusted the dress and asked him to take some more. And he did. And then I realized you could see my extra arm skin real bad and asked him to take more. This happened a few more times until I finally found one that I felt okay about and then I posted it on social media. Isn’t that what social media is for? It’s where we present the best, usually-filtered version of ourselves.

And so, in the interest of full disclosure, I would like to present a photo that accurately portrays the current state of my wobbly arms.

There is no moral value to arms. They just are what they are. But here’s why I love this picture (that I am tempted to hate) of my arms-- do you see that baby muscle starting to grow? I am starting to get stronger. I am starting to work my muscles more and I am providing them with the protein they need to get bigger and to support my body, to regulate my metabolism, to protect my bone health, and be useful to others when they need help. These are GREAT arms. They may not look like the societal standard of the quintessentially-perfect arms (ie- the flawless Michelle Obama), but they are GOOD ARMS. And yes, they jiggle all about and wave like a flag in the breeze. But they also embrace the people that I love the most. And the people who love me, who truly love me, they love me, Gwenn Mangine--- not my body. They don’t give a shit what my arms look like. So you know what I decided? Neither do I. Know what constitutes a good body? Having one.

My second act.

2020-07-28T12:14:00.001-04:00

After years of frustration and a sense of feeling unsettled and unsatisfied, I *think* I have decided on my second act.

A few months ago I read the book Untamed by Glennon Doyle. I devoured it actually. It's the kind of book I didn't want to put down and it was the perfect point in my life to read this book. Untamed met me where I know so many of us 40-something women are at--especially moms who identify as formerly-evangelical. It's only been during the past few years that I have found myself in a club of women who, after years of being raised in, and eventually self-selecting the norms of evangelical culture, are at a moment of rebirth. We are trying to figure out what faith looks like when it is stripped of the dangerous patterns of patriarchy, homophobia, racism, political affiliation, xenophobia, and misogyny* that have defined the movement, and in which we have willingly participated. What I don't think we fully understood, however, is the extent to which we were groomed and coerced to be willing participants.

Untamed is the story of Glennon rebuilding herself after the dissolution of her marriage. It's made up of short stories and essays, all wrapped up in an overall memoir arc. The message of the book, in my opinion, it that we all have a deep "knowing" inside ourselves. We all have things that we know and feel to be true. And sometimes, those "knowings" butt up against other parts of our life or societal expectations of what what women "should" be like. That's okay--we should follow our "knowing" anyway. Hers is a story of giving space to her "knowing" and making difficult choices to follow it to freedom.

As soon as I read the book, ideas started to churn in my own head about my own "knowing." I wrestled with these ideas, but kept them to myself for a while. A couple weeks later, I asked Nick to read the book. I said, "I mean, it's a book for women, but I want you to read it too because I have some thoughts I'd like to discuss." Nick, being the evolved human being he is, read it at my request. (For what it's worth, he devoured it too-- it's really an easy read).

After he read it the first thing he said was, "I think it's funny that you described the book as a book for women. There was nothing explicitly said about it being for women. But I understand what you mean. In the book, Glennon basically gives the reader permission to feel what they feel and want what they want. Men don't need that permission. We already do that." (Exactly! Well said, Nick.).

"So," I said to him, "After reading this book, I think I want to go back to school. I feel like I have a million reasons why that won't work, but I want to have a career and the education I have now isn't going to provide me with a career I would love."

Nick's response, without hesitation, was, "Great! Let's do this!"

And I said, "I don't know where we would find the money. I don't know how we could afford to have me in college AND Nia in college and me not working. The numbers don't add up."

And Nick's response was, "We can do this. Let's do this!"

I brought up concern after concern. All the reasons why it wouldn't work--why it would be "selfish" for me at this time--how the kids would suffer. (Do you see my evangelical history coming through here?) But Nick's response was unwavering, "This book was about choosing do do hard things and how the example of living authentically is the most important example you can provide your kids. You can do this. We can do this. Let's do this." And while I didn't NEED Nick's affirmation to start on a journey like this, having him parrot back to me all the things I felt while I read Glennon's words was really nice.

I have always been deeply passionate about children and families getting the support they need to succeed. And so in January, I am going to start applying to grad schools to get a Master's in Social Work. But I am actually starting school as a Non Degree-Seeking student THIS semester. I am going to be taking some prerequisite classes online at our local community college as well as a couple of undergraduate level Social Work classes just to make sure this is really what I want to do. Kind of like a soft commitment before I dive in with both feet. Yesterday I registered for 3 classes and I am hoping to get off the wait list for one more. These four classes would be 13 credit hours, and *technically* full-time-- but a light full-time load.

I feel excited and nervous. There have been so many reasons to say no to this. We absolutely cannot afford this, especially with Nia starting college at the same time next year. And then there is the concern as to whether I really have the brain elasticity to START working on a new degree at 44 years old with the pressure of 4 kids? But I already know I can do hard things.

I felt very motivated to listen to my "knowing" and really consider who I am at the core, and how that could correspond to a career that would bring me a sense of purpose. As Nick and I hammered out some details, we came to some conclusions. If I graduate at 46 years old, I would still be able to have a 20-30 year career before it's time for Nick to retire-- there's a benefit of marrying a younger man (Rawr!). That's plenty of time to pay back student loans. Plus, I feel like I am too young to give up on myself and think my most valuable years have already been used up.

One of the things that upsets me about being an evangelical for most of my life is the realization that women were very much shepherded into desiring the career of being a wife/ stay-at-home mom. And while I don't regret my choice of partner, and while I wouldn't say regret is the right word for how I feel about getting to spend quality time with my kids when they were young, I also definitely am seeing it through a different lens now. I didn't realize how the decision we made for me to stay home would negatively impact MY career choices later. At first, I thought of this as an unintended consequence--that it was this thing that (male) evangelical leadership hadn't thought through all the way. The more I think about it though, the more sinister I feel like the reality actually is. I think they ABSOLUTELY knew the professional consequences this type of persuasion would have on women. I think they knew how it would lead to women being financially dependent upon their husbands-- after all, by taking care of the children and the house, women were freeing their men up for an unimpeded climb up the career ladder. Again, let me be clear that this is not about Nick Mangine, but about the idea of women sacrificing their future choices in the name of following God. I am super thankful that I am not married to an asshole who lords my financial dependence on him over me. But dear God, convincing women that their highest calling should be to their husbands and children places them in situations that are difficult to get out of, should that become necessary.

I am encouraged that I see a lot of people (women and men) trying to forge a different path forward. I see a lot of husbands/partners/dads who are much more involved in parenting and the work of running a home, keeping the family fed, the house clean, etc. than in previous decades. But please note, while I appreciate this, I also don't feel like men deserve any special awards or medals for helping to care for their own children and their own home and their own stuff. It's time for more of this kind of change-- the kind that expects more of men in terms of balancing out the emotional and physical workload of being a part of a family.

But at the same time as I am encouraged about these kinds of changes, I am also discouraged because I see a lot of people (both women and men) content with the status quo who think that feminism is destroying families. They think it comes from a place of arrogance or selfishness. They think that it's anti-man. They think that women are saying they want to be better than men. But I don't think that's what it is. I actually think that patriarchy is a far greater risk to families than feminism.

Think about last week, we had a male member of congress refer to his female colleague as "a f*cking b*tch" and then have the audacity to defend himself by saying, "I cannot apologize for my passion, or for loving my God, my family, and my country." Guys. This literally happened. And there are people (even women) still defending him and will, undoubtedly, vote for him in the future. I think that wanting this (and things like this) to be unacceptable is not an issue of man-hating. I think it's more like that famous quote says, "your liberation is bound up with mine." There's a limit to how free someone can be while someone else is not.

So I have a message for all you 40ish women out there who feel dried up-- to those women who, like me, are feeling like we gave our best years away and now have little to show for it. We can pivot. We can do hard things. We can change the course of our own lives. We can embrace our own "knowing." We have the permission to want the things we want. We deserve to feel satisfied and accomplished. We deserve to feel smart. We belong in all the places. Our contributions are important. So here's to us. Yeah, 2020 sucks. But let's let that suck motivate us towards something new that doesn't.

And, as always, this is only my current theory. So if I pivot again in what I need or want, I also have permission for that, because to quote Glennon Doyle in Untamed (as she quoted Alicia Keys), "I do what the f*ck I want."

###

*please note: This list of isms is not, in any way, comprehensive... these are just a few off the top of my head.

On food. 3 months post surgery update.

2020-05-13T07:04:00.000-04:00

It's been just over 3 months since I've had my surgery. And I thought I'd give a little update. This process is exactly that-- a process... a journey. And with so many people offering feedback after my last update, it feels genuine to keep sharing-- both the positive and the negative.

Okay, I am going to offer some numbers, not as a statement of worth or value, but as a reflection of my process. The end of September 2019 is when I consider my process as having started. Prior to the actual date of my surgery (Feb 5 , 2020) I lost 22 lbs. The majority of that (12 lbs) happened during the two week prep diet immediately before surgery. In the past 12 weeks, I have lost an additional 50.6 for a total of 72.6 lbs since I started the process. My average weekly loss since surgery is about 3.6 lbs per week. But it's not a linear process. Weight loss after bariatric surgery is more like a stair pattern. Lose a bunch, stay there for a week or more, lose another bunch, stay there for another week or so. I don't know why this is, but they told me that's what I should expect and, well, they were right. For what it's worth, I don't have a goal weight. My doctor never assigned me one and I don't really have an idea of what it will look like when I stop losing. I want my body to land where it feels like it needs to land.

I try every day to make scale numbers feel neutral. I mean yes, I have lost a significant amount of weight. But I am trying to avoid tying my worth to the scale. I feel like I am so much more than what my body weighs. And, incidentally, I don't really see this loss in the mirror much. Sometimes I can see it in pictures. But more often than not, I still see the same body as pre-surgery. It's hard to see the changes on a day-by-day basis. Clothes fits very differently and I really need some new clothes, but stores are closed (thanks Covid) and I have no idea what size to get. I have shared a few pics with a couple of friends/family members, but I don't know that I will ever really feel comfortable sharing before/after pics online. It's this really weird space of acknowledging that my body is changing but not wanting to play into the narrative that thinner is somehow better. It's a pervasive and dangerous ideal that causes so much pain and strife for so many people who struggle with body image.

The important part for me is that I feel so much better. My back pain is gone. Totally. I am able to move so much more. I have a lot more energy (although moving these past few weeks has used most of that up). I can cross my legs again. Listen, if you've never been a fat person, you don't realize that's a thing. All of these changes are welcomed and feel so good. And I would consider them positive-- especially the pain relief. It's a whole new world when I am not hurting anymore after a year of pain.

But not everything about the aftermath feels positive. Some of it is really tough. Namely, food doesn't feel cozy anymore. There's this feeling I had (pre-surgery) after eating a great meal-- all full and fat and happy. I am not talking stuffed to the gills full where it's miserable. But that feeling of eating something truly delicious-- something rich, or fresh, or flavorful, or elevated. Food was not only a source of fuel, it was a source of pleasure. Eating a great meal with great friends was just my idea of the perfect night. But now, food doesn't feel cozy anymore. They told us in our pre-surgery classes that our taste buds would change and it's so true. My new stomach can't tolerate (at all) some of what it used to be able to tolerate. And even the things it can tolerate, doesn't bring that same feeling of pleasure. I have followed enough stories of people who have had this surgery to know that this may be a "honeymoon" phase and that some of that will come back. But for now, it's almost a feeling of loneliness. Food isn't something I can turn to for comfort. It just doesn't work. And that is weird to cope with. On the one hand it's a relief. It's a total relief. I don't feel the same kind of hunger anymore. But I feel unsatisfied by food and empty.

Roxane Gay is one of my favorite writers and she wrote a piece in 2018 following her bariatric surgery entitled, "What Fullness Is." I would highly recommend you read it. She discusses this concept (and many others) in her piece.

"I still have that yawning cavern inside of me that I want to fill with food, only now I cannot fill it with food. I’m rarely hungry, but I am ravenous. Want continues to rage desperately beneath the surface of my skin. I turned to food when I was sad and happy and lonely and scared and anxious. I turned to food, and away from everything else; it was my comfort and my friend. Food helped me survive something I did not think I would survive. Food numbed the uncomfortable feelings I very much did not want to feel. And then, that comfort was gone."
That is the exact feeling I am feeling. My anxiety has increased (especially in these weird Corona-times) and I feel I have no source of reliable comfort. And so, like Gay, I have also returned to therapy. It's work.

In a lot of ways, I feel my surgery was textbook. I had no real complications. The surgery is "working" in terms of weight loss. I am able to eat normal food again, albeit REALLY small portions-- usually just about 5 bites of something before I am full. So far, I haven't experienced hair loss. I haven't experienced any deficiencies that I know of. (And I did have some bloodwork done a few weeks ago when I had a kidney stone, but I will have more monitoring in a couple weeks).

My skin (and boobs) definitely feel loose and seem more old-ladyish. I had a friend tell me (based on her experience), "You won't look good naked when all this is said and done." But again, I am trying really hard to see this as something that has nothing to do with appearance as I genuinely believe that the size/appearance of a body has nothing to do with the worth of its owner. And I recognize this is easier to negotiate because I am fortunate to have an evolved partner who has never made me feel shame over the state/size of my body. Never. If he wasn't as supportive, it might be more difficult to deal with these changes.

As of now, I am feeling good. I feel like this surgery gave me my life back in a lot of ways. I still don't think it's the option everyone should turn to, but for me, for now, I feel very fortunate that I had this option available to me. And I am currently feeling like this was a really good choice for me.

I will keep you posted as the journey continues as I learn more about where this goes...

A cover is nice, but a cover is not a book.

2020-02-23T12:38:00.000-05:00

I grew up LOVING the movie Mary Poppins. I knew every song because I had the Mary Poppins soundtrack on vinyl so I could sing along with all the songs. (Although we called them RECORDS back then). And you better believe I spun that bad boy on my Fisher Price record player. Other favorites from my ~~vinyl~~ record collection included John Denver singing with the Muppets, and Paula and Carol from the Garden of Make Believe. I guess you could say I had pretty diversified tastes in music back then.

And so, because of my love of Mary Poppins, when Mary Poppins Returns came out, I went to the theater to see it. I went alone, and as soon as I saw it I wanted to see it again. I thought Emily Blount was every bit as good as Julie Andrews, and that's saying a lot. As soon as it came out digitally, I bought it and had an immediate family campout and made my whole family watch it with me. It was such a great sequel because while the plot line was (kind of) new, the music was new, and there were new characters, it very much had the feel of the old one. To me it was just as magical and you could draw a direct correlation between the songs from the old movie and their sequel counterparts. Plus it has Lin-Manuel Miranda in it. (Hot damn!).

The song I like the most from the sequel is the what "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" was to the old one called, "A Cover is Not a Book." Ya boy Lin is featured in the song and it's so fun, and catchy, and silly, and great. The premise of the song, of course, is the age old saying, "don't judge a book by its cover"-- what's on the outside may not be reflective of what's inside.

When Nick and I were in college, we spent a summer in Myrtle Beach at this program called Leadership Training. It was through our campus church, and the point was to train college students in sharing the gospel. As an adult, I have a lot of negative feelings about that program and feel like it was ultimately spiritually coercive. And by coercive, I am using the most conservative and kind descriptor. It was probably (in retrospect) spiritually abusive. But Nick and I have a lot of memories from that time-- some good, some bad. And we seem to have this memory lodged into our psyche about a sermon this pastor preached called, "It's all just a costume." His point was that everything we wear, how we take care of our bodies and hygiene, how we present to others is just a costume. I agree with that part. The part that came next was a little more problematic-- that we should consider how to create costumes so that we could make friends and in order to win them to Christ. And it was more than just our outward appearance-- it was a whole strategy of life. Find any way in so you can win them to Christ.

And as calculated and manipulative as that sounds to me now, I don't think that strategy is foreign in our society. It may not (or may) have the end goal of "winning souls to Christ," but we all use costumes to portray how we would like to be seen. Maybe we want to be seen as classy. Or quirky. Or preppy. (Is that still a thing? I think so-- like Vineyard Vines and all that, right?) Or even perhaps we want to be seen as a non conformist, which, ironically has its own costume. Maybe we identify as an artist or a musician. Maybe a soccer mom or a yoga mom. Or clergy. Or missionaries. Or executives. Or computer programmers.

***Allow me a quick diversion here-- Programmers DEFINITELY have their own costume-- right Nick? Think polos and khakis and athletic shoes as a fashion choice. Cargo shorts. So many pairs of cargo shorts. Lots of t-shirts with a conference slogan such as "What color is your pod?" (Sorry Jason, I had to borrow that slogan). Digression over.***

No where are our costumes more on display than social media. We present the most costume-y version of ourselves there. Carefully curated photos when we are looking the most like we want to look, or sometimes, in a reverse psychology move, the LEAST like we want to look to show how "real" we are. But it's all just a costume. It's the cover and not the book.

And so, making the decision to have something as drastic as bariatric surgery is tricky-- especially when you are public about it. Because the outside changes dramatically over a relatively short period of time. And so there is this internal battle about how to acknowledge that, how to internalize that, and how to respond to comments about it.

I strive to be the kind of person that does not think that fat is synonymous with unattractive. I find myself having to actively challenge myself to believe this because the societal pressure is so aggressive in the opposite direction. I have really done a lot of work in the past few years to come to a place of peace with the way my body looks and takes up space. But even that confidence (genuine or contrived) can be a costume I put on-- something to portray.

So how then, does one who has made peace with the dignity and value and place for large bodies to enjoy the world, begin to embrace a shrinking body-- a body that takes up LESS space? (Note: this is mostly hypothetical at this point when it comes to me, I have a long journey ahead. But it is safe to assume I will look different a year from now).

This morning I was chatting with a friend who was telling me that she came from a very weight-centered home and that a family member had recently had the same surgery that I had. She said those around her are very focused on the numbers. I have been in that spot. And I actually really am prone to obsessiveness about it. So much so that recently I had to put away my scale again for a while. Because even as I want to not equate a loss with being good, I still struggle with this concept. My friend told me that she likes to talk to her family member about what she feels like, rather than focusing on a smaller body. Friends, that is a great reaction.

It is not wrong to take pride in your appearance. It's not wrong to change your costume as you lose weight. It's not wrong to feel a sense of accomplishment after a big change in appearance. But that's just the cover. And a cover is nice but the cover is not the book. The problem with congratulating someone on their appearance after weight loss is that it has the potential to send unintended messages as well. When you say, "Gosh! You look great-- you've lost a ton of weight!" That can be heard as, "Good to know I looked so terrible when I was larger." It also sends a message to other people in earshot that there is something unattractive about them if they live in a larger body.

And even trying to make it more about health and saying, "You look so healthy now!" perpetuates the stereotype, "Fat=unhealthy." And that is NOT true in all cases. People can be healthy at any size. For all of us, we are on a journey to figure out how to live our best selves. Sometimes that includes weight loss, sometimes it does not and that is completely appropriate to live either reality. And further, it's nobody's business but their own. My biggest motivator for having the surgery was not health per se, but the ability to do more of the things I want to do as my body limited me in many ways. But I didn't/don't have things like diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol. Could this surgery help prevent some of those things because I have a family history of these conditions? Yes, perhaps. But it wasn't my driving force. And you can never know what motivates someone to lose weight. It could be appearance. It could be health. It could be that they have an illness you know nothing about that is causing them to lose weight. It's safest not to make assumptions.

And so, the question becomes-- what do you say to someone who has had a significant change in their body after something like weight loss surgery? I think the easiest default answer, for the average person, is not to bring it up unless they bring it up with you. Would you make a comment to someone who had gained 50 lbs? Probably (hopefully) not. So then it's probably wisest to not mention when someone loses weight.

Now, there are some exceptions to this. Let's say this person is one of your family members or a good friend. Or, maybe they have invited comments or have initiated a conversation about it. I think then, questions are better than statements. Questions that might be appropriate in this context:

In what ways do you feel different as a result of this surgery/transformation?
What are some of the challenges you're facing?
What's been the best/worst thing about this process?
Has the process been what you imagined? If so, how? If not, why not?
What advice would you give to someone starting this process?
What do you wish someone would have told you ahead of time?

Keep in mind, some people will offer a lot of details and some people will not want to talk about it at all. Observe the social cues the person is giving you and respect that. If they express that they are feeling proud of themselves, I think it's great to say, "I am so glad you are feeling that!" If they say they are struggling, I think it's appropriate to say, "This seems like big change--what you're experiencing seems understandable." If they ask how they look, I would say, "You look great-- but you've always looked great to me." Like in every other part of life, it's great to celebrate with people who are happy, and to be a support for people who are experiencing a struggle. It's okay to dive deep when people want to make a deep dive. It's also great to keep it on the surface if that seems appropriate.

People are so much more than their appearance. And just like we're often cautioned against saying things like, "I don't see color," in regards to race relations, it is obvious when people have lost a significant amount of weight and so pretending it's not noticeable is likewise ignorant. But their appearance does not dictate what kind of person they are. It does not tell us what they care about, and dream about, and in what they have hope. It does not tell us the story of their insecurities and their failures. And, hear this, it also does not tells us the story of the things they love about themselves and their successes. It's ALL just a costume. And a cover is nice, but a cover is not a book.

On food. Again. Part 6. Tribe.

2020-02-13T10:19:00.000-05:00

I told you in one of my last posts that my theme for 2020 is, "I can do hard things." (Which, by the way, if you read that and automatically mentally inserted an inappropriate comment, congratulations, we're both basically middle school boys.) But really, double entendre aside, this surgery journey is a conscious process to choose hard things-- to challenge myself in ways I haven't challenged myself before in order to (hopefully) see a new outcome. I mentioned it before, but it bears repeating, one of the perceptions of this surgery is that this is the "easy way out" or it's "cheating" in some way. My experiences so far couldn't be farther from that sentiment. I am just over a week out of surgery now, and have finally had some clarity to process some ideas I'd like to share.

The last time I wrote about this journey, I was smack dab in the middle of my pre-op liver shrinking diet. This diet is prescribed about two weeks before surgery in order to shrink your liver to make the surgery safer. It's a highly regulated and very low-fat, low-carb, low-calorie diet-- approximately 700 calories per day for 14 days. It is followed by a day of only clear liquids right before surgery. Everyone has a different basal metabolic rate, which means that at rest, simply to exist, we all require a certain amount of calories to run our body and maintain a steady weight. And there are a lot of factors that contribute to that metabolic rate, but suffice to say, 700 calories is not that many calories. And it means feeling hungry. Not just head hungry, actual stomach-growling physical hunger. Basically all the time.

For anyone, being hungry all the time is no fun. For someone who has issues with food and tendencies towards using food for things like comfort, solace, protection (just to name a few), it's really where the rubber meets the road. Now, if you've been following along for a while, you know these are the very things I have been working on for the past year and a half. But even as I've tried to overcome these emotional eating behaviors, intuitive eating allows for the freedom to enjoy the foods you love in moderation and without shame. But this sudden, dramatic restriction is a process of coming face to face with using food only as a source of fuel to survive. The cozy, full-bellied feelings that a great meal can provide are gone all at once. In its place, all that is there is emptiness. Physical emptiness and emotional emptiness too. And this, my friends, is is why you need a tribe. There was a gap in what needed to be done and what I felt I was able to handle.

The process of telling people that you're having this surgery is kind of intimidating. There is a definite stigma surrounding it, because we all feel like it is something we should be able to handle. And let's just face it -- our society hates fat people. There are SO many reasons why 40% of Americans are obese and 70% of Americans are overweight. It's about the kind of food we eat. It's about why we eat. It's about the quantity we eat. But it's also about privilege and lack thereof. It's about movement and trauma and, yes, genetics. We're the fattest country in the world. And yet, in spite of 70% of us being overweight or obese, it's still a stigma.

I feel I must mention this every time I write on the issue, if there is one thing I have learned in this journey of self-discovery and weight it is this-- being fat is not a moral issue. Thin does not equal good. And fat does not equal bad. Let me say that again. Thin does not equal good. And fat does not equal bad. But yet, our society rewards thinness and punishes fatness in our advertising, in our insurance rates, the availability of bridesmaid dresses, and in our airplane seats. (Just to name a few). And so it is hard to be a big person and constantly receive this kind of reinforcement, EVEN WHEN YOU'RE AWAKE TO THE SCAM! It is a constant feeling that everyone is pushing you to be something different and smaller than you are. And so, there was almost a feeling of betrayal that I experienced when I decided to have this surgery. As if I was pandering to some vain societal pull. But like most things, there isn't a single answer that will serve everyone.

My desire for a physically smaller body was rooted in my desire to live my best life-- to be able to participate more fully than I am currently able, and to experience pleasure in things that are ahead of me in the various life stages I anticipate when I play the story forward. But no other person (with the exception of possibly Nick), can understand that nuance. Everyone, based on their own lived experiences, will have a different point of view about why I made that decision. And that is okay. To loosely quote my friend Charles, "What other people think about me is none of my business." But knowing that and living in that are two different things. And as independent as we would like to all think ourselves to be, we all need a tribe.

When I "came out" to my closest friends and family (ie-- my tribe) about the upcoming surgery, I tried to do so in a way that let them know that this was a decision that I had already made. I was (and am) open to questions, but not really to persuasion in the "I don't think you should do this" direction. And this was not because I didn't/don't value their lived experiences. It's because this was a decision I made (with Nick) over a period of time and with the assistance of medical professionals who are keyed in to very personal, private, medical information about me. To my great relief, my tribe has been amazing. Let me share a few ways my tribe has been invaluable to me.

During this liver shrinking diet scenario, my number one supporter, Nick, assumed all of the food-related household chores. He did the food shopping. He helped me prep my (pathetic) "meals." He prepared the actual meals for the rest of the family while I went up to my bedroom and binged on Netflix. He has communicated to me that my sole "job" during this process, is working that process to the best of my ability. He has 100% put his money where his mouth is.

But food is more than what we feed ourselves (or our family) daily X 3. For me, anyway, food is community. It's a big piece of my social life. People, I am in a COOKING club. Or as Nick calls it, "an eating club." (He's not wrong, although we do cook as well). We have weekly date nights with our BFFs and try new restaurants all over the Triangle. Food has been an integral part of my social life. And that is okay. That is something great. Breaking bread together is a tradition like no other, and something I do not want to stop. But practically speaking, there are some logistical challenges.

For cooking club, I knew I'd miss at least one of our monthly meetings. Just practically, I knew that it would be dumb to go spend a night preparing delectable and perfect recipes (yes, we ARE that good) and not be able to meet them. Enter Marco Polo. For all of you boomers who aren't up on the technology (*cough* kinda me), there is this video chat app that is the perfect friendship app called Marco Polo. We started using it as a cooking club over a month ago and it's a way for us to keep up with the day to day of each others' lives. We've been meeting for like 7 years now and honestly, I have never felt closer to these girls than I have in the past month. It's met a social need that I have had. The girls have checked in with me several times a week, and I've had a place to just sort of vent some of the struggles and frustrations I've been experiencing in real time. I love them.

Next, our regular date night partners, Deena and Jason. From day one, they were 100% on my team. They started coming up with non-food date nights that we could do in lieu of eating out during the liver shrinking diet so that we could still be together and enjoy the spirit of what date night is all about-- having fun with our spouses and best friends. We took one week and went to see the Frida Khalo exhibit at the art museum. The next week we hit the Collegiate Accapella Quarter Finals at the Carolina Theater. It was like real life Pitch Perfect. SO. FUN. Jason and Deena have been diligent in checking in on me, and Deena even gave up a whole day of work to sit in the waiting room with Nick the day of my surgery. These people get me.

And then finally, the other superhero who helped save the day was my mother-in-law, Bev, who flew in from NY for a week for my surgery. I adore my mother-in-law. Having her here to help with the kids, the house, the meals-- it was a game-changer. With her here, Nick was able to fully engage with the things I needed in the immediate before, during, and after surgery. He was there to help me out of bed to pee and make a schedule for my meds, fluids, and protein. Bev took care of everything at home and just let me recover. She even made her famous "Long Island Penicillin" chicken broth. She left at one week post-op (yesterday) and I really believe that one of the reasons that my recovery has been so good was because of her care.

There were so many others too. People who were texting me, calling me, encouraging me, praying for me. My dad sent me a letter in the mail to encourage me. A girl I met in my nutrition class had a surgery day one day after me, and so I had a texting buddy to sympathize with during the past three weeks. It felt so good to be considered and supported by so many people. Because the emptiness was (and still is) real. The first week post-op was not my favorite time period of my life. There was a lot of pain, nausea, grogginess, aversion to the protein drinks I rely on for sustenance, and oh my word, I can't even explain the constipation. I could (but will not, *you're welcome*) write an entire post about that trauma. But aside from the physical, I couldn't imagine a better tribe to support my recovery. In some ways, there is still emptiness. Most of that is physical-- I am still on a liquid diet and struggling to get in 500 calories per day. But three weeks into not being able to use food at all for things like comfort, solace, and protection (just to name a few), I don't feel the emotional emptiness I imagined I would.

On the bariatric forums I am a part of, there's a constant debate as to whether or not you tell your people that you're having surgery. There are some people who literally tell no one. They Uber home from the hospital and go through it completely alone with the exception of their online forum friends. There are others who have told people and have gotten really negative feedback. There are some people who are married who get the surgery despite the fact that their spouse does not approve and, in fact, tries to sabotage their progress. It makes me realize how very fortunate I am. I had/have enough self awareness to realize I am not the kind of person who was going to be able to keep this on the DL. One of my greatest strengths in life is not actually something inside of me-- it's the strength of my tribe. It's the people around me who encourage me, who challenge me, who stand in the gap for me, and who want the best for me. They are the people who see me at my emptiest, and fill me with what I need. There is a lot of this journey still ahead of me. (Stay tuned for that). But in this particular moment, after three weeks of emotional upheaval and a roller coaster of feelings, I am having a moment of clarity and feeling so grateful for my tribe.

Thank you.

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On Food. Again. Part 5: What to expect when you're expecting (bariatric surgery)

2020-01-30T11:54:00.002-05:00

During the past couple weeks, I have had 4 dreams that I was having a baby. After the first one, I awoke with a start-- practically hyperventilating. Don't get me wrong. I love babies. I love my babies. I love other people's babies. Rubbing my lips over their perfectly soft baby hair on their sweet-smelling baby heads. Man. It's the best. But I can love all of those things and at the same time be at the place in my life where I know that my own personal having babies stage is over. Thus, the night terror of being pregnant. But the dreams have persisted. And so, I looked online to see what dreams about pregnancy mean. (Because, you know, the internet is full of reliable scientific information about things like dream interpretation). I found this article that talks about what pregnancy dreams could mean and this paragraph stuck out to me.

"Dreams about being pregnant might be about a different kind of birth, so to speak. “Pregnancy can be a metaphor for other kinds of creativity,” says Deirdre Barrett, a psychologist... Pregnancy dreams may represent your excitement around a creative project in your home or at work, she says. You’re “giving birth” to this project, in a sense, and that could show up in your dreams as a bump or baby."

That made sense to me immediately. I am now in the home stretch of the prep for my bariatric surgery and it's something that is occupying a lot of my time and attention these days.

Since there is pervasive misinformation about bariatric surgery, and since I am a big believer in sharing information and story, I thought I'd share a little about my process. I got numerous messages and comments and questions after my last post. Some people are considering the process for themselves, some people have already been through the process, some people had questions or suggestions. But most people just wanted to be supportive. I think I got more comments and messages on that post than I ever have on anything else I've written. I thought that by sharing my experiences people might be able to see what it's like for someone going through this process. Obviously, this is just MY story. I don't speak for anyone else. Your mileage may vary.

Today's post is pretty ~~informational in nature~~ boring and has very little about the emotional journey that is the biggest piece of the puzzle-- rather, today I am talking about the process leading up to surgery. One piece of misinformation is that bariatric surgery is "taking the easy way out." I used to think that. Now, I don't agree. No one considers bariatric surgery as their first thought when considering weight loss. In fact, most of us see is as a "last hope." Even the process of even being approved for weight loss surgery is a lot of work. It's more than just someone desiring to have the surgery and popping in to have it done. It's a long process, and that length is mostly determined by your insurance requirements. If you are self-pay, you can get through the process in about 2.5-3 months. But most insurance companies have a prerequisite of being a certain BMI and require a certain amount of months of medically supervised weight loss before they approve a surgery. And this is where things get tricky-- because two people can have the same insurance company and yet have different coverage. The reason for this is because bariatric surgery is apparently a rider that employers need to add onto their insurance offerings. Essentially, a company can decide that bariatric surgery is too expensive and decide not to cover it. There are no appeals. There are no options other than self-pay if that's you. And so many people in that situation travel to Mexico to have their surgery there, where it is much less expensive-- about 1/10th of the price of the US. Crazy, right? And while I have been tempted to judge that as an unwise choice, many people on the bariatric forums I've been following have had great experiences in Mexico. So what do I know? (Incidentally, with the amount that my insurance company is covering, my payments will end up being almost exactly what people pay to go to Mexico for the surgery).

My insurance policy requires 12 months of supervised weight loss visits before approval. (Which seems to be the highest requirement I have seen-- most of them are about 6 months). That is frustrating to a lot of people, but there really are good reasons for it. This surgery is a tool that helps people lose excess weight. But there is still work required, and there is even more work required in order to maintain weight loss. It's best to begin work towards these goals pre-surgery in order to maximize weight loss after surgery, since the biggest benefit from the surgery in terms of rapid weight loss will be in the first 9 months or so.

For me, since I'd been meeting with my nutritionist for a year and a half before I started seriously thinking about the surgery, the important work that helped me the most had to do with my mindset. I was able to overcome a lot of the shame I felt about my weight and size. This was important because for so long, I felt like my weight was sinful. It's just the culture I was a part of in evangelical life. I even did a few "Christian" weight loss programs that basically asserted that extra weight was a heart not fully devoted to God. (*cough* spiritual abuse *cough.*) The first part of all of this for me was adjusting how I felt about being fat. That was even before my nutritionist appointments. Once I started those, I became able to understand hunger and fullness. I became able to stop turning to food as my first coping mechanism. I learned about how to properly nourish my body in ways that weren't just low-calorie/low-fat/low-carb diets. I learned what a body needs for fuel and how to provide that with food. It helped me develop the most healthy mindset about food that I have ever had. Additionally, one silver lining for me, was that it also counted towards my insurance requirements-- so I went in with that requirement already met.

In addition to the insurance requirements, there are also surgical requirements. (And each practice is different in what they require, but they are all similar). You have to have extensive blood work to check all the things-- CBC, vitamin and nutrient levels, cholesterol, blood sugar-related things, lipids, and they also test for illicit substances, pregnancy, and nicotine. Nicotine use is not recommended for patients that have this surgery and so one of the requirements is quitting smoking before surgery. Apparently they test you on the morning of surgery and if there is any nicotine in your blood, they will cancel your surgery. You also have to do an EKG to check your heart, a chest x-ray to look at your lungs, and an EGD to look at your esophagus, stomach, and duodenum (the first part of your small intestine). Another qualifying test is a psychological evaluation. You take about an hour of psychological tests and then meet with a psychologist for another hour to go over your results to make sure that you're emotionally stable enough for the surgery. Finally, you need to go to a bunch of classes and nutrition seminars to learn about the different diet changes to anticipate at each step in the process, and the vitamin regimen you need to follow. You then have to follow a pre-surgery diet in the months leading up to surgery and turn in your food log to the nutritionist to approve. She is looking to see that you understand the nutrition piece well enough to proceed. And then there are also conversations with the financial counselors to discuss the costs and how/when to pay each one. It's a lot. But it's really thorough.

Once you've met all your requirements and gotten clearance on all of the various tests, your case is sent to the insurance company for final approval, and a surgery date is set. But keep in mind that the results of these tests can necessitate other necessary pre-op steps. For instance, my vitamin D was low and so I had to do an 8 week course of prescription-strength vitamin D to normalize that level before surgery. Some people discover a heart condition and have to have further cardiac evaluation. If you have sleep apnea, you have to do a sleep study, etc. The average amount of time this all takes is usually about 6 months it seems from the forums I am on.

Once the surgery date is set, you come back in for another education/nutrition appointment about two weeks before surgery to learn about the pre-surgical diet and process, learn about all the risks, sign all the forms and releases, and learn about the post-surgery requirements for staying nourished on a liquid diet for the first 2-3 weeks after the surgery when you have a stomach the size of an egg, and you go to the hospital for all the pre-op things you need done.

After that, you go home to start your pre-op diet, which is two weeks long and basically at least the first two levels of hell. (That's where I am. I am on day 9 (of 14) of my liver shrinking diet and surgery is coming up next week).

While that's the particulars of the process, there is also a huge emotional and psychological component. Stay tuned for more on that.

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