Loved

June 1, 2019

I’m afraid of the life I lived before my brain surgery. I’m afraid to think about it too much. I’m afraid that if I dwell on it, examine it for what it really was, I’ll see that in many ways, I wasn’t really living.  It’s easier to blame brain surgery for ending the life that I knew than acknowledging the life I lived for the year or so leading up to my brain surgery was painful in some ways, trivial in others. It’s easier to glorify all that I lost than remember the many days I was paralyzed by crippling anxiety and depression. It’s so much easier to cling to the rose-colored glasses shading the reality of the night I spent on the phone with the campus suicide hotline or the next morning of my dad calling incessantly with pain and fear in his voice to see if I made it through.

The brain surgery actually alleviated what caused my anxiety and depression, along with many other symptoms. I was a completely different person post-op. Everyone could see it, could see and feel the lightness around me. But it seems easier to be mad and angry at the life that was stolen from me rather than acknowledge that the brain surgery was a get-out-of-jail-free card, a reset button on the person I didn’t want to be in the life I didn’t want to live. I’ve been holding onto so much resentment toward my own body for ruining everything when, in actuality, it saved my life, both literally and figuratively. It’s very hard to admit that, and even harder to accept it. But I desperately want to.

Brain surgery showed me life didn’t have to be one way. It freed me to live a life above the expectations I forced upon myself, to be the person I am rather than the person I thought I had to be in order to be loved and accepted and valued.

Because while I like to blame brain surgery for driving away all of my friends and the people I thought I was doing life with and for giving me lasting relationship insecurities, it’s a belief that doesn’t hold water.

Sure, before the brain surgery I had a lot of people around me, but we weren’t friends. I was afraid to be myself when I was alone, much less around anyone else. I surrounded myself with people so I didn’t have to be quiet, so I didn’t have to stop and think. I didn’t surround myself with people I knew and liked who knew and liked me, authentically. So I shouldn’t have been surprised when they weren’t there when it mattered most.

The brain surgery was the only real mass exodus of people from my life. After that, I was very isolated and largely alone. So I started selectively making new friends. Not at first, but once I had had enough time to get to know myself. And it didn’t happen quickly. Over several years I acquired just a few friends. I learned how to make friends with my health being such a major part of my life, and I need to stop pretending that I didn’t learn and don’t know.

I learned to start out slowly, to hang out a few times without bringing medical stuff fully into focus in order to see if we both enjoy each other’s company. Then, I start to drop a few comments here and there, light things, about my medical history in order to gauge their response. This has helped me decide if I’m going to leave it right there, as a fun but shallow friendship, or if I’ll share more and build something deeper. And if so, and when they ask for a detail here or more information there, then I’ll share. Not in a deep, dark, bearing-your-soul, tragic kind of way, but in a light and brief, this-is-part-of-who-I-am kind of way.

I’ve found a few gems, excavating this way and sifting that way.  

Erin was my first friend post-op. I was home in Montgomery and commuting two days a week because I couldn’t live alone at school. Erin was in Montgomery getting her master’s degree while her husband was relocated there for work. We both had a lot of time free during the week and we both wanted a friend, so it worked out well.

Haley was my first friend in DC. We work together and are both passionate about stand-up comedy, reality TV shows, and discussing human nature as well as pop culture with equal intensity. We didn’t realize we both needed a friend until we split an entire plate of bread meant for a table of eight people between just the two of us.

Kristen was my first friend at a new church. She had just gotten married and was going to move to Alabama in a few months, I had just arrived at this church, was going to move houses, and had lived in Alabama. We were both going through life changes and realized we needed something like a new friend.

Kandace was my first friend in a new apartment. We were serving on the same team at church when she learned I was moving into her apartment building two days later. She helped me move in and while doing so, I learned she was friends with the guy I’d embarrassed myself in front of during a mortifying story I shared. Kandace and I’s bond was the only good thing to come out of that embarrassing moment that somehow still manages to haunt me.

They’re all four different in so many ways, but they’re all similar in that they’re remarkable human beings and I truly enjoy their company and appreciate their friendships. And what’s magical, that they see as commonplace, is the way that they stay when things get tough.

Erin drove me 100 miles roundtrip to the doctor's appointment that would mean my rib would be removed. She sat with me in the waiting room. She had lunch with me after while we discussed the last Gilmore Girls episode we’d watched and Newk’s take on a Greek salad, and anything else I needed at the moment. She’s done the same and more many times on the phone over the years and the consistency, the stability of her friendship has proven more to me than anything else really could.

Haley got me a kitten card for my CAT scan and set it on my desk with chocolate so I wouldn’t be nervous about my test. When I told her about the tumor and that I wouldn’t be leaving my bed for a while she told me that I could stay there for the night, but I couldn’t stay there forever, because I was a force for good in this world. And she won’t know how much her words helped me to keep getting out of bed. 

Kristen sent me flowers on the fourth anniversary of my brain surgery with a card I still keep visible. When I found out that my medical stuff wasn’t going to end when I thought it was, Kristen sat with me. She talked about work and her move and offered me her company and her strength. She just sat and weathered the storm of life with me.

Kandace didn’t push. She was the first friend I made after I learned there are some people who won’t see past the illness in me, once I learned I could observe and decide who to let into that part of my life. There aren’t words to capture all of the quiet ways she continually affirmed she saw the whole of me, never pushed across the boundaries I had for my illness. Her friendship has been healing, her friendship gives me hope.

I can’t say I’m not enough when I have friends who aren’t asking for anything more. Even if I couldn’t give in return, and the times when I can’t give in return, they don’t ask for more and they continue to stay. I am loved for exactly who I am and I don’t need to be anything else or anyone more.

Sure, not everyone is going to be Erin or Haley or Kristen or Kandace. That’s kind of the point though. I don’t have to be close, intimate friends with everyone. That’s not feasible. And yes, some people won’t be able to be my friend for one reason or another, whether because of the illness or the mundanity of life. It is okay to grieve the loss that leaves if it does. And it’s okay to be sad that my life circumstances make some things harder, but it’s not okay to blame myself for not being everyone’s favorite flavor of ice cream. I’m authentic and genuine in relationships, and I have friends who will be there whether the medical stuff is part of my life or not.

I’ve found what so many people are looking for - deep and meaningful relationships with people I can cry and laugh with, celebrate, and grieve with. It’s a truly beautiful thing. And I’m almost…grateful to my illness for providing me with the guidelines that help me to find what I’m looking for a lot more efficiently and reliably.

As far as dating and marriage go, I think the same principle applies.

My illness is an incredibly effective tool for cutting through other people’s bull. It’s like a lens that helps to magnify a person’s red flags. Once, I was flirting with a guy and he was talking about how he wants someone to be adventurous. Okay, fair enough. He then goes on to say that he wants someone who will go on hikes with him that he doesn’t have to keep stopping for. And he wants someone to go on long sailing trips with him and not complain about going back to shore frequently. Okay…. Well I’m generally game for anything, and I love hiking, but I do have to take breaks, maybe a few more than most people, because of my body. And I need access to medical care, it would be irresponsible for me to go on a boat for two weeks with one other person who doesn’t even know first aid and is kind of squeamish to begin with. I could have crossed it off right there as we were incompatible. But as I thought deeper about it, I saw that he wasn’t looking for someone who is adventurous in her own right, he’s looking for someone to go on his adventures with him and not complain or hold him back. And that’s not a perspective that I want in a future partner. I want something a little more collaborative. Illness let me hear what he was saying more clearly, see a little more clearly what was being said to me without learning the hard way. Because at first blush, I’d love it. I enjoy hiking and sailing, sorry, I mean, sitting on a boat while other people do work and I get to eat/relax. But I for sure don’t love his self-centered version of hiking and sailing.

I’ve been thinking of my illness as a limiting factor when it comes to men. Maybe it’s just the opposite though. Maybe it’s a resource that saves me a lot of time and wasted effort and heartbreak. It’s going to take a different level of maturity and compassion, patience, and empathy to be my partner and that’s okay because it’s what I’d be looking for anyway. Illness doesn’t change that. 

Maybe my illness isn’t as much of a detriment to relationships as I thought. Maybe I need to reframe what I define as a successful relational life. Maybe I’m living it. Maybe.

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