Taunting traces

October 21, 2009

I've been following the blog of a new friend who just had her colectomy (step one in her three step process of life with a j-pouch) done a few weeks ago, and I'll tell you what, every time I read her blog I am transported to the darkest time of my life. All I can do is read what she's going through and encourage her. I'm helpless.

Today I read in her blog one line in particular that stuck out to me about her husband helping her get to the bathroom. All day I've been playing out scenes in my head of Jeremy there with me, helping me, encouraging me, holding on to me, and I almost panic thinking about it. God, what did he go through? How did he survive it? There I was wrapped up in my own little world, and rightfully so, I was trying to survive, but there beside me was this man whose experience I will never fully understand.

One scene in particular has been on repeat in my head. There I am sitting on the couch, hunched over, a pile of flesh and bones with a bag of feces attached to me. I feel so completely defeated, I can't even raise my head to look at Jeremy. I know that the woman that he fell in love with is nowhere to be found. I know that it was my confidence that he found sexy. And now, there is no confidence. There is a huddled up child who is afraid of the world because everything hurts so very much. Does he see me birthing our dead baby when he looks at me? I don't even want him looking at me, so I cover my face with my hands and sob. "How can you love me? How will you ever find me attractive again? I don't know if I can even go on any longer. You should just leave me now. Just go. I won't blame you. I will understand completely." They weren't words spoken to manipulate: Tell me how much you love me, how devoted to me you are, how you'll never leave me. No. I was a burden to him and I wanted him to know I understood that and that if it was just too much for him, he could leave. I would understand that too.

But what did he do? He got down on his knees on the floor in front of me so he could look me in the eyes, and he told me that he wasn't going anywhere. We were in this thing together. He loved me no matter what.

It's a tender and sweet and pathetic memory of mine. But today as I replayed it all in my mind, I did not play my role. I played Jeremy's role. And suddenly I panicked. Oh my God, what must he have been thinking? I'm going to lose her? She can't handle this and I'm going to lose her? She's going to give up? He was desperate to keep me going. It breaks my heart to think about that. He was desperate, and I don't know that he really let anyone know what was going on for him. Everything was about me. We both shared the fear that something more was going to go wrong physically for me (because it did time and time again), but it didn't strike me until today how much fear Jeremy also carried with him about my spirit breaking. And not just fear, but vigilance. He was vigilant about my mood and state of mind. Geez, I was really on the edge.

These things, they affect one's psyche pretty deeply. Oh, I just want to purge it all so I can be done and move on already. But there are still traces, faint, taunting traces I run into here and there.