So You’ve Decided to Have a Hysterectomy

Two boxes of tampons stacked with blue packages of panty liners in front of them — Anybody want these? Also, why do they insist on using words like “radiant” and “pearl” for tampons? How about “period plugs?”

“We can just scrape off all the endometriosis and see if that helps with the pain, but it’s probably inside the walls of your uterus, too. The only way to get it all is to do a hysterectomy.”
my gynecologist (who is awesome, by the way)

My breath caught in my throat at the word hysterectomy.

Though an estimated one in nine women will have a hysterectomy at some point, this is not what I was expecting. I’d been having pain — cramps, really — every month just before my period started, and they’d gotten increasingly worse. They didn’t respond to any of the over-the-counter medication I threw at them, and I spent a lot of those several days each month on the couch with the heating pad. I thought I might need a procedure but evicting my uterus hadn’t occurred to me.

I told my gynecologist I’d have to think about it, hustled past reception and dove into the safety of my car. As I made the 30-minute drive home, I thought…

I don’t want a hysterectomy.

Why not?

Well, it just seems so major, so drastic.

But it’s the best bet to take care of the pain and, side bonus, no more periods!

I know, but I don’t want to.

Why?

Cuz.

Free association link to a story about dead crickets and my kid’s pet lizard

Yes, I have progressed past talking to myself. These days, when there’s a big decision to be made, I have full-on conversations with all the versions of me in my head – the child, the rational adult, my lizard brain.

It was habit.

I was used to protecting my uterus. It has required a lot of unique care over the years to get it to house babies, and it seemed wrong to just yank it out. Besides, what would fill that space? Would my other organs slosh around without it? What would my ovaries be attached to; would they just float around in there, maybe migrate into my chest or left leg? (Spoiler: No, they are attached to my pelvis with ligaments.)

Sidebar: If you like ovarian humor, check out this McSweeney’s article, Thank You for Calling the Perimenopause Hotline. I giggle every time I think the phrase “pelvis chickens.” You’re welcome.

Then, I remembered an article I read about a comedian (whose name I have now forgotten) who said there was no reason not to have a hysterectomy if you’re not planning on having (more) kids. “Take it out,” she said. “You’re not using it anymore.”

It occurred to me that at 46, my uterus was much like an appendix.

It was just sitting in there, making trouble and threatening to get infected. It wasn’t doing anything for me. It had been a problem child most of my adult life, and it was starting to make me miserable yet again. I could try medication or something else that would likely not fix my pain to the extent I’d like. OR I could have a hysterectomy, throw out my box of tampons and not worry about getting screened for uterine cancer ever again. When you put it that way, it sounded like a no-brainer.

But I forgot to tell Jason. Or anyone else for that matter.

I mean, I mentioned it to him, and I told my mom in a brief conversation. But I pretty much put it on my calendar for three months down the road and then put it out of my head. Until a couple of weeks out when I realized I had accidentally scheduled meetings and social events later the same week of the surgery. Maybe it was my brain’s way of coping with something I couldn’t really wrap my head around — ignore it, and it’ll go away — but it wasn’t until several days before that I began to get freaked out that they were going to remove an organ from my body.

My boss was weirded out that I didn’t tell her until like a week before. She is the kind of person you can tell these kinds of things. I found myself telling friends — close friends — just the day before it happened: “Oh, yeah, I’d love to go to lunch, but I’m having my uterus out tomorrow.” Jason wondered out loud at one point, “Why have you not talked about this at all?”

I didn’t know. Apparently, I am not as emotionally self-aware as I thought I was. My best guess is… avoidance.

So it happened. I had a hysterectomy.

The day of, we got up before it was light, and Jason and I drove to the hospital. The surgery went swimmingly, and I was headed home on pain meds by 1pm. I slept on and off on the couch the rest of the day. After that, physically, I felt pretty good. The sore throat from being intubated faded quickly. The four laparoscopic incisions in a wonky horseshoe shape across my abdomen looked gruesome but were only a little sore. The biggest thing was my digestion, which is still not fully recovered. (Apparently, this is normal.) But all in all, everyone was amazed at how well I was doing. Physically.

Then, two days after the surgery, I cried.

I was sad, I was lonely on the couch all by myself, and I was bored. I am not accustomed to wanting people to talk to me and keep me company; I usually have more conversation in this house full of four people than I know what to do with. The last time I was bored was 1996, so it took me a while to figure out why I felt so morose.

A week after surgery, I was deeply depressed for 24 hours before setting upon a perky and productive twelve hours. The next day, I took a four-hour nap. I had post-surgical temporary bipolar disorder.

I had anticipated physical pain and fatigue after the hysterectomy. I did not consider that the wild mood swings of my earlier adult life would return for an encore. Turns out depression is a common side effect of surgery, but I didn’t know that.

What I Didn’t Feel

Eventually, I started googling “hysterectomy” and “depression” together instead of just focusing on endometriosis stats. I came across some things written by women who’d had hysterectomies, and two weeks post-op, I didn’t identify with any of it. I didn’t feel sad about not being able to have any more babies, but I get that this is a thing you can mourn even if you weren’t planning on having any more kids. I didn’t feel like less of a woman. I also didn’t feel gleeful and like “it was the best thing I’ve ever done for myself,” as a lot of people said.

I felt sad.

Chemically sad. The kind of depression you wake up with and can’t attach to any identifiable source. It’s just there, and then, throughout the day, it tries to glom onto any event that will feed it. Last week, I cried once because I can’t get myself to finish editing my book, twice because the kids are growing up and once because I was watching a J Lo documentary that was just so damned sweet and empowering. I felt sad, and I felt ridiculous.

Today, I’m better.

I was finally able to do some exercise a couple of days ago — light walking — and that helped my mental game a lot. Then, I found my spare tampon stash in my purse while I was rifling around in it, looking for something else. They were squashed, having lived in my little emergency zipper pouch for so long, and the wrappers had come open. I THREW THEM AWAY AND IT FELT AWESOME. I am finally getting a little bit of that “best thing I ever did” feeling. (I suspect the people who said that weren’t writing two weeks post-op.) I had my last period in mid-July, and it feels so damned great to know I’ll never have another one. I am recovering; I’m just extremely impatient about it.

Why I Wrote This

One of my caveats for sharing something I write is that it can’t just be self-indulgent nonsense; that’s what my journal is for. There has to be a point to sending it out in the digital universe for other people to read.

Here, I want to add my experience to the small pool of recorded hysterectomy anecdotes to provide a unique perspective. I know there are other people out there who had one, are thinking about having one or are living with someone who has had one. In those cases, other people’s stories can be an invaluable life raft.

So, if you have hysterectomy experience, let’s hear it via comments. I’m sure the stories are as varied as the people who will tell them.

Right Back Where I Started (but better)

an alpaca in a field by a fence — Alpaca on an adventure! (not really)

I took a break from posting here.

For once, it didn’t fall through the cracks; it was an intentional hiatus. I found myself floundering for the direction of this blog. I felt like I was all over the map: politics, mental health, how hard it is to write a novel, a story from my childhood about bricks. Why am I doing this? I wondered. What is this blog’s purpose? I was craving a more direct path but also resisting one; focusing on just one thing always gets old for me.

As I thought about it over the months I haven’t written here, I wandered far and wide. As G.K. Chesterton once wrote:

There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there. The other is to walk round the whole world till we come back to the same place …

This blog has never had a theme.

But in moseying around out in the world, I recalled that was intentional — those stories, challenges, politics and pressures are all tied together by something. I remembered that when I started this blog, I had a goal beyond spewing my brain antics du jour.

The point was to connect with other people, to talk about the things we don’t discuss when we run into each other in the frozen food section of the grocery store and chat about the kids and how hot it (still) is. Sometimes those things are funny stories that take more than thirty seconds to tell. Sometimes it’s racism, depression or perimenopause.

I tell everything through a personal lens because I want people to feel less alone in their struggles.

I want to feel less alone. And one thing I’ve finally learned as an adult is if I feel something, am sad, angry or confused about something, then there are ALWAYS other people out there feeling it, too.

I wandered out the front door of this blog several months ago in a quest to find a more cohesive theme for it, and having explored, I’ve marched in the back door with renewed dedication and conviction to the original purpose: to be honest about the things we tend to gloss over, to help all of us realize we’re not alone in our feelings. AND those feelings are worth examining sometimes.

Feelings are not good or bad. They are signposts for the things we care about.
?

I’m back.

It’s a blog about feelings and why we feel them. It’s a blog about the stories that take time to tell. It’s a blog about facing the uncomfortable things in life and using them to learn and grow. So stay tuned because I’m doubling down on honesty. My next post (and possibly several, since it feels like a huge topic) is going to be about the hysterectomy I had a week ago.

See you soon,

April

Editing my Book is Scrambling my Brain (and other terrible metaphors)

skeleton with hand up to mouth as if thinking — Photo by Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash

I’ve never thrown a boomerang before, but I understand, when you do, it’s supposed to come back, at least according to the cartoons I watched in the 80s. What it’s not supposed to do?

Let’s say I pull my arm back across my body and enthusiastically whip that boomerang into the air. It starts off at great speed, hurling through the atmosphere as I grin at its agency. Then, my smile falters as the boomerang does the same. It’s not turning as I’d expected. It’s slowing down, slowing down, drifting. Soon, it starts to break apart and the pieces fall away from each other in a lovely example of entropy.

It’s like throwing a boomerang on the moon, I assume, as a person more in love with astrophysics than comprehending it.

The point is, you start off feeling perfectly assured your toy will return to you, neatly falling into your grasp but instead, it escapes and disassembles itself, lost.

This is what happens with some ideas. I sit my coffee on my desk, pull my hair back, stretch my arms and flex my fingers. I go to town on that brilliant idea about parenting or privilege or where all the socks go — whatever. I create confident, directed prose for a few paragraphs. Then, it happens. I digress into eight different free-associative ideas, going from tulips to gender norms to the heat death of the universe. I type slower, there are long pauses. I wonder….

Where was I going with this?

I had a point, didn’t I?

Is this blog post turning into a book?

Oh, god, what is happening….

I stop typing, I stare, I get up to pour more coffee and never come back. It’s the heat death of an idea.

Heat death, as I loosely understand it, is not about a fireball explosion, ending all that we know, it’s about a slow dissipation of the universe’s heat so that all is evenly distributed — no clusters of temperature or particles remain to form galaxies, planets, atoms or anything interesting.

I, morbidly, find the idea of the heat death of the universe somewhat comforting. It seems like a really calm, zenlike state, not that any of us will be around to appreciate it. However, when it happens to ideas I’m trying to wrangle into engaging essay form, I find it really fucking annoying.

(This is a really good book on the heat death of the universe and more by Katie Mack — well written, in engaging non-jargony terms. She is an astrophysicist and a fabulous writer; I am super jealous. Please do NOT rely on my interpretation of her science, in any way, as fact. )

This happens to me a LOT lately.

Thoughts that seem so meaty at first, get flung forward in the name of progress and fall apart like a raw burger patty tossed carelessly across the backyard, missing the grill and falling into ground-chuck crumbles in the grass. (How many more completely unrelated metaphors do you think I can cram into one post?)

Why?

It’s May, and there are too many end-of-the-school-year activities going on to allow me to focus.
I cull an income from several different sources, which lends itself not to focus but to constant shifting.
I have a book to edit that I am avoiding because going through a manuscript you wrote and have now read 106 times is as much fun as going to the dentist. (Don’t click on that link unless you want to see exactly how long I’ve been running away from this.)
I have SO MANY IDEAS in my head right now, it feels impossible to choose one to sit with. Also, I am going through a bit of an existential writing crisis in which I’m not sure I can write well, and I’m not even confident I know what good writing IS.
There are flies in my house, and no matter how hard I try to be cool with it (What are they really hurting?) their incessant buzzing and purposeless zooming around my office is making me feel murderous.

Have you enjoyed my long-winded explanation for why I haven’t published a post in four months? Because I have (for the too busy and also existential crisis reasons) been having a hard time making myself throw the boomerang. And when I do, it often doesn’t come back. It just hovers out there before disintegrating and becoming a general part of the microwave background of space.

This is terrible writing.

I’ve just taken up your time complaining and making excuses for not working whilst dressing it up in at least three disparate, messy metaphors, two of which I tried to tie together (a boomerang and the heat death of the universe, really??). The third burger-in-the-backyard clunkiness I just left dangling out there by itself.

You can tell by now, this little scrap of text is not going to have a neat ending. It is not calm or zenlike; it doesn’t feel anything like heat death. (Heat death is good? Bad? I don’t even know.) Editing my own book in May has turned my brain into an exploded file cabinet, with documents as disparate as tax forms and half-written poems mingling together in chaos on the floor, filling the room so you can’t even get in the door…

Shit, I’m doing it again.

7 Healthy Habits Worth Creating in 2022

Have you grown tired of making impractical New Year’s resolutions? Are you looking for a new strategy this time around—one that allows you to develop good habits without forcing you to transform your entire lifestyle in one day?

You’ve come to the right place. Through Riding the Wave, I strive to inspire others to get the most out of life. I’ve listed seven healthy, practical habits that you can start implementing in the new year.

1. Leave Town

If it has been a while since you have left your hometown, now could be an excellent opportunity to do so. Not only can taking a vacation do wonders for your mental health, but the process of planning a trip can boost your happiness. Plus, when you return from your vacation, you will be recharged and more productive and creative.

2. Stay Put

If you want a break but don’t really want to leave town, opt for a staycation. Austin is one of the best cities in the country for staycations because there is so much to do, and it has a plethora of nice vacation rentals to choose from. Book an Austin rental that has a full kitchen so you can cook healthy meals, which will save you money and ensure you get the nutrition you need.

Whether you choose to stay in a trendy district like Rainey Street or near top-notch outdoor activities in the Reserve at Lake Travis, you should have no trouble finding a vacation rental that allows you to unwind and stay healthy.

3. Shape Up Your Diet

Too many people start the new year by trying to implement a strict diet plan. A more practical way to go about it is to make simple changes to your eating habits that allow you to gradually improve your long-term health. Focus on eating for energy and full-body health. Moderate your sugar, salt, and fat intake, and eat more lean proteins, healthy fats, whole grains, fruits, and vegetables.

4. Find Your Fitness Rhythm

If you are like many other people, you struggle to exercise consistently. Maybe you are busy, or perhaps you have not found a physical activity you don’t despise. Whatever the case, there are plenty of ways to get the endorphins flowing and benefit your overall health and wellbeing.

Resolve that you will try out however many activities as it takes this year. Go for runs or brisk walks, try a few HIIT workouts, go for a swim, try your hand at cycling; once you find something you enjoy, you can get into a rhythm of doing it four or five days a week.

5. Do a Digital Detox

We encounter so much stimulation on any given day. By unplugging from your electronic devices periodically, you can help reset your mind and foster your mental health.

Choose at least one moment each day to put your devices away and focus on the present. And consider unplugging entirely for one full day each week.

6. Limit Your Commitments

When you commit to everyone and everything, it increases the stress in your life and leaves you less time to do things that bring you health and joy. Clarify your priorities, learn your limits, and take a moment before saying yes.

7. Take On a New Hobby

Finally, add an activity to your routine that simply brings you joy. Maybe you can pick up figure drawing, painting, or sculpting. Perhaps you should try your hand at photography, gardening, or crafting model rockets. Whatever it is, start a hobby that you can look forward to during a stressful week.

Developing good habits can transform your life. And it is typically the small-but-significant habits that end up having a lasting impact. Consider the tips above for beginning the new year with practical changes to take your overall health and wellbeing to the next level.

Ode to an Elementary School

It was winter break 2013.

We were enjoying a relaxing time at the grandparents’ house with our kindergartener and 2-year-old when Jason’s phone rang. It was the school. We couldn’t fathom why they’d be calling over break when the faculty and staff, ostensibly, would be relaxing at home as we were.

It was the unthinkable. Jack’s teacher had been killed by a drunk driver in a tragic car accident. When we told Jack, who was a kid intensely attached to routines, his main concern was, “But I’m supposed to be Outrider when we go back.”

The Outrider brought in an “All About Me” poster and got various privileges. He was worried the substitute wouldn’t know this, that she wouldn’t know that lunch was at 11:15 or that the folders got passed out at 2:30. That 1:20 was storytime. His anxiety about the schedule added to my own anxiety and grief over the loss of a kind and knowledgeable kindergarten teacher.

The school stayed in close contact with us.

Almost as soon as I’d wonder something (Who would be the sub? Would they be permanent? What would the school do to ease the transition and help all those 5-year-old kids understand what had happened?), then I would get a message or phone call addressing that concern, before I even asked.

Parents were invited to walk their kids to class that first day after the break. As soon as we walked in the door, the sub, a seasoned teacher, greeted us. When I said, “This is Jack,” she said, “Oh hi, Jack! You’re Outrider this week, aren’t you?” I could feel his anxiety melt away. I felt relieved and so very grateful.

The school provided counseling for both the kids and the parents. We had extra parent meetings to allow us to discuss what had happened and what would happen next. It felt real — not like they were just checking a box. Everyone — the substitute, other teachers, school counselor, principal and assistant principal — cared, and they wanted these kids and these parents to be okay.

My youngest kiddo is in 5th grade, now.

The past nine years have held a lot of joy and fun, but the real test is always when the going gets tough. In our time at this elementary school, I have seen the staff handle many crises, big and small, with grace, humor, empathy and steadfastness. Whether it’s nefarious critters on the playground, a flooded first floor or a possible threat to safety in the immediate area, they always communicate with families in a thorough and timely manner. Even when the community could, at times, be less than supportive, I never saw bitterness or defensiveness, only a dedication to meeting the needs of their students the best they could.

The pandemic has challenged educators like never before.

This has not been an isolated incident in which they’ve had to fix things, manage fallout and pick up the pieces. It’s a large-scale crisis punctuated by smaller, related ones. In March of 2020, they scraped together online learning in a week and continued to improve it as it became clear video conference classes would be here a while. They managed the constant flux of in-person and virtual school while coping with their own pandemic stress. It had to be hard, but they never seemed defeated. The going did get tough, but they proved they were tough enough to keep going and to do so with care in their hearts.

The schools were a significant part of why we moved here ten years ago. I had taught in the district and knew our kids would get a quality academic education. But I underestimated the genuine attention to their social-emotional growth and the dedication to the community. It’s admirable to be the kind of teacher who constantly asks yourself, How can I do better? What do the kids in my class need? What can I do for their families? It’s impressive to be the principal who stays close to what’s happening in the classroom and the community. It is awe-inspiring to be the kind of educator who does that during the tragedy of a suddenly-lost kindergarten teacher or during the stress of a pandemic that is constantly morphing but refuses to go away.

I taught school for 10 years, and I’m not sure I could’ve done it.

I don’t know that I could have handled the fraught emotional landscape of death, the constant pressure from the community, the wearing down of a pandemic. So when I think about the people we’ve known who work there, when I contemplate the elementary school that’s felt like a second home for almost a decade, I feel the purest sense of gratitude.

You guys are not my family. You don’t live in my house. You didn’t have to care about my kids in the sea of hundreds that traverse the halls each day, but you always did. (And now I’m bawling, which is why I write these things instead of saying them in person.) From the bottom of my aching, swelling heart, thank you.

10 Tips for Feeling Refreshed at Any Time of Day

This article was written by Justin Bennett. When Justin contacted me about guest blogging, I was skeptical, because I’m always skeptical. But his article on feeling refreshed lines up with some of the things I do to reduce stress throughout the day. And it’s well written, which is also refreshing. So here are a few truly easy tips from Justin about how to relax here and there, just in time for the holidays:

Does your life feel hectic and overwhelming? If so, it’s time to evaluate your daily schedule and start creating opportunities to slow down and relax.

Here are a few suggestions that can help you feel refreshed and recharged throughout the day.

Enjoy Your Morning

Start your day off right by incorporating these ideas into your morning routine

Create an upbeat morning playlist so that you’ll feel energized and motivated when you get out of bed.
Approach your typical morning cup of coffee as a soothing ritual to get centered.
Leave time for a few minutes of meditation before you get to work.

Take an Afternoon Break

If you tend to experience a mid-day energy slump, these tips can help you stay focused during the afternoon.

To shrink your to-do list, hire a freelancer to tackle administrative tasks or content creation for you.
If you can’t get away from your desk, do a few yoga poses to stretch out and relieve any strain in your back and shoulders.
Do you balance running a home-based business with watching your kids? Zenbusiness.com recommends strategies, like delegating important chores, to help you create a little more “you” time!

Relax in the Evening

Don’t go to bed feeling frazzled – instead, try these techniques to wind down in the evening.

Make sure you’re not staring at screens before bedtime. Follow these tactics for cutting down on your screen time.
Write in a journal to get any lingering stress off of your mind before you head to bed.
Want to treat yourself? Take a luxurious bubble bath to let go of the day.
Finally, sneak in a little reading time before you go to sleep and chill out with your favorite book.

When your schedule is packed, it’s not easy to find moments of calm. But you would be surprised by the small changes you can make that will lift your mood. With these tips, you’ll find that you can take on each day with plenty of energy.

Want to run your business more efficiently? Fill out the contact form on our website so we can discuss your content needs.

How Many Activities is Too Many?

We have a child who likes to do ALL THE THINGS. I’m not sure where he comes from, except Jason and I were both there when he entered this world, so we’re fairly certain he’s ours. When he was younger, he would bound downstairs like a ten-ton gazelle, leaping but somehow thundering with each step as if he were fifty times his 30-pound frame. It would be Saturday morning, and I would be settling into the couch to enjoy my coffee, staring out the window, and the quiet beginnings of a blissfully unscheduled day. Jack would ask, impatient with expectation…

“So what are we doing today?”
“Well, *yawn* I’m going to sit here and drink my coffee.”
“Then what?”
“I’m gonna read some.”
“For how long?”
“Until I feel like being done.”
“But what are we going to DO today?”
“I don’t know! Sheesh, I’m not the activities director.”

All the Activities

Jack wanted a SCHEDULE. Not a suggestion, not a list, but activity bullet points complete with times down to the minute. Now in 8th grade, he has manifested this desire in diving headlong into 80 percent of the extracurricular activities offered to him. He sometimes starts the day at 7am with clarinet sectionals and schleps home at 9pm after school, football and soccer.

That amount of activity for me would, at any point in my life, have quickly sent me into an overwhelmed tearful meltdown. But as much as he looks like me, he isn’t a clone. He thrives on his busy schedule. He revels in the challenge and the physical activity. I am amazed.

One of the Activities

Our younger kiddo is in his last year of elementary school, and he hesitatingly committed to play select soccer this year. It is his only activity besides school. It is enough, and occasionally, even that one thing feels like too much. I don’t know what Gage will decide to do when he gets to middle school, but it’s hard to imagine him reveling in a fourteen-hour day the way his older brother does. Gage comes home from soccer in an upbeat mood. Then, he disappears into his room for several hours to rest, watch videos and play with his bearded dragon.

What I Thought I Knew

I had these ideas about parenting before I had kids (oh, didn’t we all) — about what the “right” amount of activities was. I never would’ve approved of Jack’s dizzying schedule. But I also thought that, in order to show support for my kids’ interests, I should sign them up for classes or clubs related to their fascinations with sports or lizards or art. Both of these ideas are valid. There is such a thing as too much or too little structure in a kids’ life. And signing a kid up for a pottery class if they’re interested can be a good thing.

What I Learned After Becoming a Parent

There is a wide range of “the right amount of activities,” and it is largely dictated by the kiddo’s personality.
That right amount will change from year to year.
It’s possible to ruin a kid’s interest in something by turning it into an “activity.”

Why Those Three Things Are Important

I’m a firm believer that all kids (and adults) need SOME free time — to rest, reflect, let their mind wander, discover what happens when they get bored. But maybe one person needs a few minutes while the other needs days.

Age matters, of course. It’s never a good idea to fill a three-year-old’s day, from waking to sleeping, with adult-directed activities. The older kids are, the more they can handle…if they want to.

There are other ways to support a kid’s interests than signing them up for classes. This is one I am working on now. I recently saw Jack dribbling a ball in the driveway and asked,

“Do you want me to sign you up for basketball camp?”
“No, Mom. I just wanna shoot hoops on my own.”

Even Jack has a limit. Turns out, he uses driveway basketball to wind down after a long day; it’s meditative to him — the rhythmic sound of rubber bouncing on cement, the clang and swoosh of the hoop. I support that interest by moving the car out of the way and hanging out on the driveway with him. He’ll occasionally tell me about school or friends as he shoots, or he’ll throw me the ball so I can bounce it off the rim into the neighbor’s yard. Basketball doesn’t need to be an organized social activity. Thank god.

Gage is in love with snorkeling right now. He talks about our trip to Belize two years ago almost daily. This is a hard thing to turn into a regular activity in Central Texas. So I order him books about it and, more importantly, listen to him talk about diving and practicing holding his breath. I respect his interest, letting him know that being a snorkel guide and living a simple life by the sea would be awesome if it makes him happy. Gage mostly prefers to explore his interests on his own, outside a scheduled, directed class. And he has come to know himself:

Mom, I really don’t want to do any activity that’s gonna go on for more than two hours.

It’s Their Path to Walk.

Above all, I try not to compare my kids to each other. (Though sometimes it’s hard — they live in the same house, attend the same schools and have had some of the same teachers and coaches.) I tell myself daily, each of them is walking his own path. No matter what characteristics they share with each other or with us, their parents, they will not make the same choices. I can’t choose for them any more than I can save them from the heartache they’ll experience along the way (much as I’d be tempted to if it were possible).

More and more, as the kids get older, I find myself not in the driver’s seat but simply along for the ride. I follow their curiosities, their interests. I support, I mentor, I listen, I comfort. I sign them up for the things they ask for and allow them to move on if that interest proves fleeting. I offer advice sparingly. More often than not, at this point, the world provides consequences for their actions, and I don’t need to. I don’t know exactly who they will become as adults, what their roads will look like. I’m just happy to be a part of the journey.

WHO Are YOU?

Who Are YOU?

That’s what the owl said to me, in the voice of the hookah-smoking caterpillar from the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland. However, unlike the caterpillar, it delivered the question without disdain, and the owl was not expecting an answer.

We were walking around Town Lake for my birthday, moseying northwest under the high leafy canopy of pecan trees just before the Lamar Street Bridge when I spied a fluttering of wings out of the corner of my eye. I stopped, looked up and saw a giant barred owl staring at me from a tree branch above. “Look!” I said with awe, and Gage followed my pointing finger to the owl. His eyes grew big and he grinned.

“I’ll go get Dad and Jack!” He raced off ahead, his sneakered feet pounding the packed gravel. Owl’s head turned and followed Gage’s progress with mild interest. Then it turned back to me. Eyes big and round, calm, attentive, curious.

Who ARE you?

I watched and snapped pictures as Owl stared, turned its head to survey the surroundings, adjusted its stance in the tree, and stared again. Owl glided to another branch facing the water, then swiveled its head in that impossible, 180-degree way and made eye contact again.

Who are you?

As I watched Owl, a calm resoluteness came over me. I was not intended to answer the question. I was meant to be it, go out and find it, in the world and inside myself. Owl’s was not so much a question as an invitation, one posed without judgment or attachment. Then, Owl soared away.

Days later, an owl landed in my inbox. A raku potter I follow, the Alchemist, had made some. I picked one who spoke to me, and my very own owl arrived, carefully wrapped, in my mailbox a short while later, all the way from Canada. It was addressed by hand.

Now Owl sits on my desk. I smile when I see her. She watches me type, and she is always asking….

Well, who ARE you?

And I am always answering. There I am.

Getting Lost

I am really good at getting lost. As I’ve mentioned, I’m also not a very good driver, so maybe don’t get in the car with me. Ever.

Young and Lost

When I was a wee thing, younger than five, my parents sat on the sands of Galveston, Texas, and watched me frolic in the surf and dig holes in the sand with my chubby hands. They saw me collect shells that only a child of that young age would find remarkable. Then, they watched me walk off down the beach in the wrong direction, away from them. They waited for me to realize my mistake, but when mom began to lose sight of me, she hustled down the hot sand to retrieve me. I had no idea. Ah well, she’s young, they thought.

When I was thirteen, my friend, Cindy, and I liked to be dropped off all the mall where we would revel in our independence and spend all our babysitting money on nail polish and cheap earrings at Claire’s. One of the first times I was allowed this freedom, I got lost. We’d agreed Mom would retrieve us from the very same Sanger-Harris entrance where she’d dropped us off. We waited, and Mom didn’t show. Mom waited, and we didn’t show. After a lot of driving/walking around and missing each other in that pre-cell-phone era, we realized we’d been waiting at the wrong entrance. At thirteen, Mom decided a little advice was warranted:

“April, when you walk in the mall, look at where you are. Are you by women’s shoes? Luggage? Furniture? What floor are you on?”

Most people don’t need to be told this, but I did, and I still forget to pay attention to it sometimes.

Drunk and Lost

In my late 20’s, I attended a gathering at a close family friend’s new condo in East Austin, about the time the gentrification in that area was really picking up momentum. We were scarcely out of earshot of I35, but I still turned the wrong way out of the complex and ended up driving around two-lane roads bordered only by tall grass and trees in the dark for the next two hours. I had a cell phone by then. I called my then-husband, Javier.

“We’re lost!”

“Where are you?!”

“That’s the problem, dummy. I DON’T KNOW!”

I don’t know what I expected him to do. You couldn’t track phones back then, and he, stupidly, did not have the magical ability to divine where I was. I gave up, hung up, then I put my little red Dodge Stratus in a ditch. I rolled right off the gravel side of the road into a small depression in the earth that was not exactly a gully but trapped my car nonetheless. We may have been a little drunk.

Miraculously, after driving around for over an hour on unlabeled roads without seeing another vehicle, a car came by, and the group of guys inside helped us push the car back onto the road. About fifteen minutes and several more random-guess turns later, I saw a road sign:

“Ed Bluestein!” I yelled.

One of the special and maddening things about Austin is how half the streets have more than one name. Start driving down Bullick Hollow at one end, for example, and it’ll turn into RM 2222, Northland Drive, Alandale, then Koenig before it sputters out at I35. Ed Bluestein happens to be what Highway 183 is called at one of its more easterly sections. 183 would take us home.

Married and Lost

Once, when Jason and I first started dating, his cousin was giving me directions over the phone. Mike said, “April, you’re going to have to be the direction person in that relationship because Jason has no sense of it.”

Uh oh.

Jason and I have spent a lot of time driving around, missing exits and asking each other, “Where are we? I thought the restaurant was right here.”

Engaged and shopping for wedding bands, we drove all over the city looking for a Jared’s we swore we’d seen on Brodie. Or was it on William Cannon? Maybe the other side of 71? We finally gave up and went home only to find the Jared’s within spitting distance of our apartment.

Soccer Mom Lost

The advent of Google Maps on our phones changed our lives. We reduced our driving-around-in-circles-lost minutes by 60 percent. I still sometimes manage to get myself and my family spectacularly misplaced. A couple of weekends ago, I was responsible for all the driving for the soccer tournament because Jason was sick.

I carefully mapped out each location, saved them in Maps, checked traffic well in advance and left extra time for parking and finding, say, field 17 out of 35 when nothing is labeled. (Seriously, have you ever tried to find one field in a park/event center/soccer complex? It’s a Where’s Waldo? sea of numbers, nets, cleats and umbrella chairs.)

Saturday afternoon, Jack and I departed Gage’s game early to get to his, leaving my mom to ferry Gage home. My phone battery was dying, so I asked Jack to navigate us, ensuring he typed the address correctly. We’d been at the same exact location earlier that day for his morning game.

We took a lot of weird turns and ended up at the address on Pecan Street, where we intended, but somehow, it was a gas station now. There were TWO addresses that were THE EXACT SAME on that street. It makes a big difference if you leave the “East” off “Pecan Street” apparently. When I squealed up on two tires, delivering Jack to his game minutes before the start time, I was full of apologies, explaining we got lost then ran into horrible traffic. A friend teased,

“You know they didn’t move it after this morning, right?”

There you have it. I can get lost at age three on the beach within sight of my parents, and I can get disoriented in a brightly lit, well-labeled mall. I can misremember what is outside the home I’ve lived in for two years, and I can take a wrong turn while driving to a place I’d been THREE HOURS AGO. With GPS! It’s one of my many talents, so friends, if you ever find yourself just a little too well located, a little too sure of where you are in the world, hop in the car with me. Let’s go on an adventure.

“My Vagina’s Falling Out”

It’s not mine, actually. It’s a friend of mine; the title is a direct quote from the text she sent me. And I don’t mean “friend.” If you’ve read some of my other posts, you know I’d tell you if it were my vagina that was falling out. I once typed out several frank paragraphs about the time I lost a tampon in my hoohah for months and the ensuing odor. I almost wish it were my vagina falling out, just for the material.

No, no, not really, vagina gods. I am making light of an uncomfortable medical condition for the sake of art. Please do not visit that karma upon me. In all actuality, I would like my vagina to stay right where it is, in that boring yet comfortable place, tucked inside my body where I can’t feel it nor do I feel compelled to write about it. But things do not stay put as we age, so read on for a few common, distressing and distressingly common female reproductive issues.

FUN FACT: "Vagina" refers to the inside part you can't see that leads to the cervix and then the uterus. The outside parts we tend to call the vagina in everyday conversation are actually the vulva and labia. Helpful definitions and diagram here.

Jen’s Wayward Vagina

Jen woke up one morning, and while getting ready for work, she noticed a familiar yet uncomfortable feeling — like her tampon had slipped down and was poking out. Only she wasn’t wearing a tampon. Upon exploration, she was horrified to discover what she felt was not a wandering sanitary supply but her actual self — tissue from inside was trying to be outside. Jen has some medical experience, so she knew what she felt was a prolapsed vagina, which is just doctorspeak for, “Your vagina’s falling out of your body but we’d like to make it sound a little less terrible.”

After five or two hundred deep breaths, Jen calmed down enough to do some research. She was shocked to discover that 40 PERCENT of women have vaginal prolapse at some point in their lives. Why then, we wondered together, did we not know about this? Vaginal prolapse can come with a smorgasbord of fun symptoms that range from that feeling of “tissue protrusion” Jen felt to constipation and general sexual concerns about having a loose vagina.

We all know about erectile dysfunction and vasectomy reversal; pharmaceutical companies are falling all over themselves to develop treatments and yelling it out to the world as they do it. If 40 percent of women have vaginal prolapse, why had I not heard so much as a peep about it until Jen freaked out and shared it with me? Might she have freaked out less if she’d seen 80 thousand commercials for how to treat it? I’ll leave that to rattle around in your brain while I move on to another friend of mine. More info on vaginal prolapse here.

Rachel’s Pain-in-the-Pelvis Bladder

Rachel and I were supposed to meet up to walk, but she texted me that morning to say she didn’t feel well enough, but could I come over and talk? As I walked to her house, I wondered what was up. Maybe she’s worried about one of her kids. Maybe she’s leaving her husband. Maybe she has cancer. All three of these, I’m finding, are common at our age. It was none of them.

Rachel has a chronic urge to pee, though not much comes out. She doesn’t have a urinary tract infection. A urologist gave her a vaginal suppository to treat it, but she had a bad reaction to it. It burned her insides. Her doctor “had never heard of this happening before.” Now, she can’t exercise because she’s in too much pain. She has trouble sleeping because of the pain. And she’s generally unhappy because, again, pain. Our shared gynecologist suggested melatonin and general disregard for the impact this pain was having on her life.

She’s since done some internet research, diagnosed herself with interstitial cystitis (IC) and altered her diet, which has helped some. IC affects somewhere between 3 and 8 million women and has no cure. Thanks, medical people. Let that one marinate along with vaginal prolapse.

Sarah’s Disappearing Clitoris

That’s right; that little motherfucker who brings you so much pleasure can disappear, and she is not going to go quietly either. She’s going to go kicking, screaming, itching and scarring all the way. It’s called lichen sclerosis. I would never have heard of it if Sarah hadn’t told me she had it and has to keep Clobetasol cream on her person at all times for the rest of her life. Obviously, it messes up your ability to enjoy sex. Four percent of women who have it wind up with vulvar cancer. It’s a lifelong, incurable thing that affects one in 80 women, mostly those peri- or post-menopausal. Betcha never heard of that one either. Ever see a commercial for itchy, scarring clit pills? No? More info on lichen sclerosis here.

The Really Disturbing Thing

It’s scary that these conditions exist, but what’s worse is that no one talks about them. That makes them even more terrifying. Men can make jokes about not being able to get it up because everyone knows about that thanks to Viagra and their never-ending ad campaign. No one jokes about itchy clits or vaginas gone rogue. Or undefinable, vague pelvic pain that maybe wouldn’t be so undefinable if there were more research dollars poured into women’s reproductive issues.

I don’t want much. I’m not asking for science to make me fertile at fifty. Believe me, I don’t want that. I’m just asking for a little transparency — that women not be blind-sided by these conditions. That we not feel horrified and alone about something that affects 40 percent of people with vaginas. And maybe some money and research put into what medicines, procedures or therapies would help us be more comfortable as we age.