Be the change you want to see.

Well, we made it to Friday.
I'm having a little moment here.
I can let tears roll down my face, it's become a bit of a skill actually over the last few years.

I'd say there's no particular reason, but literally? This life right now I'm surprised I haven't been crying more.

It helps that I have a comfortable home for my quarantine. Husband, cat, food, craft supplies, internet, a greenspace.

I want to transcribe my notes about this week, but in the morning, I think.

About done with the eye-leaking, and I'll finish getting my meds in me and transplant myself and the cat from the couch to bed.

old ghosts (tw: termination of pregnancy)

I was looking in the mirror one day and thought, "I would have none of this if I hadn't ended the pregnancy."

I was 25 years old when I got pregnant.
Can't decide if I should phrase that as "had an unwanted pregnancy", "got impregnated", or what. "got knocked up" isn't quite appropriate for the situation, because I can't afford in telling this story to be too flippant.

it was 1995. My dad had been dead less than a year, after being sick from diabetes and liver damage for several years, declining worse each year.
Mom and I were living together, in the house on Papaya Drive with the 1970's Spanish tile floors and the little fish pond and waterfall in the back yard. I had a great view of the green green green backyard, and had the constant waterfall noise in my ears every night as I fell asleep.


The smell and the feel of that house inform my memories of the time.

Brian and I were having sex and he didn't tell me that the condom broke, till after. Like, it still puzzles me, he says he felt it tearing, he says it was actually kind of painful for him, but he kept going.

He told me afterwards that he thought I wanted him to, to keep going, which yeah, who doesn't wanna get off, but seriously WHAT KIND OF ASSHOLE DOESN'T TELL HIS GIRLFRIEND THAT THE CONDOM BROKE. I still ... *makes incoherent rage noises*

You know how I learned that the condom broke? I reached down to hold the top of the condom when he went to pull out, and the horror of it was that all there was to hold was the ring that was the top of it. That was all that was left. … we had to dig inside my vagina and find it to pull it back out….

I could try to put possible reasons on what he was thinking, maybe it was as simple as HE wanted to get off too so he kept going even without the condom.

But I don't really wanna think about his alleged motivations because **I** was the one who wound up pregnant.

I felt the change in my body almost immediately. Within just a few days after the "accident," my boobs got bigger, the nipples got softer and more tender. My pussy and labia were constantly hot and tender, and I just had this internal *awareness* low in my pelvis and belly. And I had so many feelings about all of it.

mostly I came to a sudden and crystallized awareness that, more than not wanting to have to raise a child, I didn't want to spend the rest of my life with BRIAN. And I knew immediately, at a gut level, that in some way or another, no matter what else, I'd have to deal with Brian forever if I chose to have this kid.

and it was almost inconceivable anyway, (heh, yeah I went there) to think of having a kid. You spend so much of your early adolescence and twenties controlling your fertility really tightly, worried about the what-if. And sex is mostly fun, mostly meant to be fun, when you're not in a serious relationship and *planning* to have a kid…*

I had done research for a paper in college into medical side effects of being pregnant, it's no kind of easy walk in the park! There's real risk of gestational diabetes, blood pressure problems, varicose veins, digestion issues, likelihood of daily vomiting over months, *massive* mood swings and hormone changes, I mean the number of side effects you have to suffer through for a WANTED pregnancy, not to mention the non-zero risk of DEATH, or single parenthood, or ... all the different ways your children hurt you or break your heart.

That little... blue line on the pregnancy test. Oh my god. Possibly the scariest thing I've ever seen, and I already even KNEW. Like, there was no MISTAKING what my body was doing. I had this swirl of emotions going through my brain and body.


And I left the test on the bathroom counter, under a sheet of newspaper.(back when we still took the paper) Like I had zero idea how to talk to my mom about this. I was terrified I was going to be a disappointment to her, but I knew without thinking that if I *didn't* conceal this test, she would find it and know and help me. (and it turned out that she did find it, and she did help me, which I'll talk about at the end)

I can't even tell you about all the other things I was feeling then because even now, 25 years later, it's still hard thinking about that time in my life; emotional chaos and turmoil, still angry and grieving my father's death, along with everything else. I know I haven't quite forgiven myself for my own ignorance (and what feel like bad-choices when I am being hard on myself).

Though, trust me I do know all about the extenuating circumstances. I know why I made those bad choices especially because I have gotten therapy and done a lot of self work over the last two decades. I can see my own patterns and recognize where those impulses arose from and I don't let that part of myself drive the bus anymore, because I've healed a lot of those childhood injuries, or at least mostly healed them. Largely through talking and writing, both writing the blog and longhand and poetry. All kinds of ways.

I was 25, and Brian was 28. Theoretically that was old enough to know what we wanted, but both of us were dumb and inexperienced in relationships. We'd not really thought and especially not talked about what we wanted at the time or at any time in the future. We were just slinging along together because I think both of us thought we were the best we could do.

But we were old enough to decide if we wanted to have a child together and we met at Tower Cafe in downtown Sacramento to talk about it. about two weeks after the condom broke and a few days after I had taken the test. I'd said "we need to get together and to talk face to face" and he said yes, so we scheduled it. We hadn't even sat down properly at the patio table when Brian said, "You're pregnant, aren't you?" and I said yes. I don't remember exactly how the conversation went but I remember it wasn't a difficult or stressful one.

We were unanimous, that we didn't want to have a child (together), and we were both relieved to find that out. That neither of us had to try and convince the other to keep or to terminate. We were agreed to terminate.

I made the appointment. I had to stay pregnant for a total of eight weeks before the hospital could perform the procedure. I don't remember why that was.

To his credit,(Brian) did take me to the appointment, and did get me home safely.

My mom, and this makes my eyes fill up with tears, had a heating pad, an extra blanket, and she'd set up her bed, the big bed, for me to have a nap. She brought me a bed tray with my favorite tea, some toast with jam, and a little rose-bud in a little vase. I absolutely did cry from that, and everything else.

Brian stayed with me there on the bed until I had the snack and fell asleep. It was dark when I woke up, and he wasn't there anymore, and I was disappointed and angry, but realized there was really only so much I could expect from the guy.

Mom was good to me. No judgment, no anger, just support. She had my back. I had her back. We were a good team back then.

I don't like contemplating alternate universes for this story. Like, the what-if game doesn't work out well for me.

in 1995 I hadn't gone back to school to get a teaching credential.

I hadn't met my first husband, or even the boyfriend before him (who was and is a better human being and more thoughtful and kind than either Brian or my first husband).
I hadn't started my spiritual journey that gives me so much richness and meaning in my life (and which I was turned on to by the boyfriend I mention above)///
I hadn't started getting therapy for my relationship with my dad and my inability to grieve him or to get out of the anger stage of the grief.

My mind shudders away from the idea of having had to raise a kid in the conditions we were living in. Not that those were horrible, but it would have been stressful, hard work. And while I know motherhood is supposed to have its rewards, I just don't even know how I would have coped, without the skills that I have been able to acquire BECAUSE I didn't have a kid...

It's this fork in the road that my life took, and I DEFINITIVELY chose the one path and left the other path behind.

I'm glad I am HERE. I'm glad that THIS is what it is. I'm glad to have Eeyore and my priesthood and Burning Man and a lot of beloved friends. I'm glad to have the writing, and the making and the sewing and the dancing, and the work toward social justice.

The ability to choose when and whether to have a child is HUGE in your ability to determine your life's path. HUGE./// 12 Minutes

I don't have any kind of snappy ending, except that I am grateful that I got the chance to have the choice about whether or not to have a kid, and I will continue to fight for other people's right to chose whether to have a kid or not.

NOTES Performed this on the spoken word stage at center camp, Burning Man 2019 Mon August 26. One woman thanked me and cried. One man told me about, before he knew he was gay, his girlfriend got pregnant, and when she miscarried, they also cuddled in bed with the heating pad. And a couple that were pregnant (8 months) and beautiful "the first one I've carried to term"
But the last person said, "did you do this as a TED talk? It feels familiar" and I said no, it was a blog post and he said "huh well I guess we know what comes next"
SQUEEEEEEEEE

TAGS abortion, actions have consequences, anger, becoming, challenge, children, choice, dad, death, designing my own life, feeling some feelings, feelings, guilt, karma, life is good, making things, mom, open hearted, pagan practice in everyday life, paradigm shift, parent, past lives, pathwork, personal cartography, pregnancy, probably more than you really wanted to , sad, self, self-worth, spirituality, state of the liz, stomping brain weasels, stream of consciousness, taking care of business., truth falling out of my mouth, what doesn't kill me makes me stronger, words, spoken word, burning man

Yesterday I was due to meet my seester at the gym, we were going to work out together. She had car trouble and had to cancel; I was kind of proud of myself for not finding an excuse not to go, but I already had woken up, gotten dressed, had something to eat (a couple handfuls of Cheerios, but still) and had found my shoes. So when she texted me I decided to just go anyway. I'm at the point where, after having neglected to work out for over 8 weeks, shit HURTS. my lower back has been sore like it used to be, my surgery knee has been tender and a bit wibbly, my shoulder is cranky and crunchy, and my middle back makes cracking noises when I touch my toes.

bad news man.

So I haul ass over there. Took the new car. Weird to feel like "I" fit in with the shiny Audi, Porsche, Prius, etcetera in the parking lot, but I did. I blended. (WAT)

And I go and get on the not the treadmill, but the elliptical trainer, because I wanted to have the option to work my arms, back, and get a bit of a twisting stretch in. I needed it. It felt good.

I got tired and bored pretty quickly. The last few times I have been to the gym I was either meeting my trainer, who definitely keeps me engaged and interested (I am a bit sad she isn't working there anymore), or I've been meeting tshuma, wrenb, or I run into angelkatharine and at least have a bit of a chat. But twenty minutes on the elliptical is considerably less fun when you have nothing to do but be in your brain (now granted, I mentally wrote some more for NaNoWriMo) and nobody to interact with. And I got fatigued after only about six minutes. I blame my not maintaining the habit of regular movement. Expect that there's lactic acid or stress chemicals buildup in my muscles and bloodstream.

(Side note: I know the body excretes waste chemicals in something like six ways: through sweat, tears, piss, shit, and from the genitals via ejaculatory fluid or weeping. that's only five, I wonder if I will remember what the sixth is or if I am misremembering. Point being, I wake up nowadays, sometimes, with my eyes just LEAKING. It's weird and a little disconcerting. But I'm guessing it's because I haven't been working out to a sweat very often recently, so my body has to find another means.)

Anyway, I do make myself do the twenty minutes, and then I go to the foyer where there's exercise balls and foam core rollers and mats, and I start doing some flexibility work for my hips, rolling big slow circles while seated on one of the exercise balls. Felt pretty good, and I was waking up my core muscles too.

And then I see Etty. She's the trainer that my former trainer Tal had told me I might enjoy working with. And we get to talking, and I was *sure* I had sent her an email or a text telling her I had an interest in training together, but she said she never received any such text or email. And I shrug, I don't know if I forgot or not... But it turns out she had an appointment be cancelled for the space that starts in ten minutes, and would I like to work out, gently, as a getting to know you kind of assessment and do we work well together. I'd been debating if I wanted to go in and explore the weights again like I had the last time; and I figure, sure! And she's willing to comp me the hour as we get acquainted. It was like the serendipity fairy came by and sprinkled serendipity dust all over us(me) to get me back into working out regularly!

We have a good getting to know you chat where I fill out the goals for working out worksheet and I find out that Etty also used to teach (and she says Israeli kids don't respect teachers the way kids here do, and I didn't disabuse her of her notion, which was maybe kind, maybe not) but she really likes teaching one on one, so physical training is a good gig for her. I tell her I have joined NaNoWriMo and a little about what it does, and she says, "maybe you should be a writer!"

and I think, maybe I SHOULD be a writer.

And then we go work out a bit, she has me do lunges and squats and moving stretches and checks my form (which is almost like I forgot the million little corrections Tal used to give me, in just over two months) and we talk about how important it is to have correct form, which I couldn't agree more on. I make sure she understands about my surgery leg and the tension from all that adaptation my body had to do while it was injured and uncorrected. And I just realized yesterday that I passed the third anniversary of surgery on Nov. 1, and how good my body feels in retrospect, now. So many little things that really add up. Fuck that first surgeon who tried to tell me that I didn't need surgery, that lots of people do just fine without an ACL, because now I can move and dance and work out and I. DON'T. FUCKING. HURT. ALL THE TIME. Not anymore. Seriously, fuck that guy. I'm so glad I got bk2wto recommend his surgeon, that guy was PHENOMENAL.

(end digression)

so we try me on plank position and i can't hold it long, and I keep shifting around trying to hold it and she asks me to hold still, and I make it about another three seconds before I just FOLD. dammit. welp this is where I am now, just need to know where I am now so I can set goals appropriately and then work to meet them.

and then we try my pushups ability in a couple different form factors, and she puts me in this frame to have me hold myself up and lift my knees up for core work and wow that was hard, so we try it on a weight bench lying down instead, like swimming instead of like bicycling I realized after I was doing it wrong. More core work for me! More EVERYTHING for me. *sigh* Okay. Need a little work to get back where I was. And to meet my goals of being able to do inversions and maybe start doing some circus arts work. Fun, playful goals. I need fun playful goals. And having a smart trainer who understands about teaching, is a damn good thing.

So I signed up for a new package with Etty. We start next Friday morning at ten, and I'm looking forward to it.