Leap and the Net will Appear

 I've had a few times in my life where I've taken risks. More lately than before, but I digress.

Every time I've bumped up against a potentially big change in my life, at least in my adulthood, I find myself falling back on the phrase, "Leap and the net will appear". When I stopped being an Americorps member, when I decided to go back to grad school, when I became a supervisor, when I decided that I wanted to let that go in favor of seeing clients again, and now that I'm branching out on this new endeavor.

What's different about this time is how unbelievably sure I am that what I'm doing is the right move. I've told some colleagues about what I'm doing and they look at me like I have 10 heads. "Isn't this risky?" Yes. "Aren't you afraid that you're not going to make any money?" No. "How is this different from a group practice that takes X% of your income?" I'm not doing it to make money off of my colleagues who work hard enough and should keep every penny that they earn aside from sharing the cost of the space that we use and the resources we use to keep it running.

The thing is, once I stopped panicking about money and turned my attention to where it belonged, which was on building the field and serving clients well, all the rest of it fell into place. I've literally never had the stars align like this. Never. I've never been more sure about my career and what I want to do with my working life. I wake up every day excited to see my clients, excited to see how my business is going to develop today, and just...excited. There's lots of messy stuff coming for me over the coming weeks, and I'm ready for every single bit of it. All I have to do is keep putting one foot in front of the other, and I'll get there.

The biggest growing edge about self-care for me, I've realized, is that I don't listen to myself. I get internal feedback all the time and most of it just gets cast aside. The time off from work that I had when I had my hysterectomy really forced me into that place of listening - just listening. There wasn't much else I could do because I blew through Intervention and most of Hoarders in my first week between naps after showering, so I decided to tune into the demolition derby going on in my own brain for a change. I am still in disbelief about what came out and what continues to emerge. The lesson that I had to take from that time and still have to continue to learn is that I will do myself no good whatsoever if I don't tune into what I need. At what point did I start to think that my own needs weren't important, or that others' needs were more important than mine? It has gotten to the point where I struggle A LOT to ask for what I need. Even basic stuff! What's that about, and how can I fix it? And, if I don't state my needs, how do I expect them to get met? All of this work has opened up a huge Pandora's box for me, and it's one that has needed to be opened and rooted around in for, well, basically almost 41 years.

I have two weeks before I start on this next leg of my journey, and I couldn't be more excited. (Now if my internal feedback could just stop yelling so that I could hear what it's actually trying to say, that'd be fantastic.)

Best.Birthday.Gift.Ever.

I've been going back and forth with the surgeon I'm working with for a few weeks now trying to nail down a date to yeet my thyroid. I'd call, they'd call, no one would call anyone, and then finally I got two options: July 12 and July 19. July 12 is my 41st birthday.

In considering these two dates, I had a few things to think about:

1. Rob sometimes works during the summer and I didn't want to interfere too much with his schedule. It's fully a two to six-week recovery time, with the first two weeks just spent on my couch watching TV, as it was with the hysterectomy. 

2. I am opening the doors of my private practice hopefully in the next four weeks.

3. It's summer!

4. Perhaps the biggest, I don't want to bring this health stuff into 41. It started just a couple of months into me being 40, and I've been dealing with it literally since I was diagnosed with Lynch Syndrome in September. My goose is cooked. I don't even want to think about the amount that I've paid in copays this year, but it's several hundred dollars. I've visited doctors literally 1-3 times a week for the past eight months. I'm ready to not set foot in a doctor's office for a while (though I know that's not in my cards, because once the surgeries are done, it's time to mess with my hormones through medications and make sure that my levels stay stable, which is going to take some time, which also means visiting more medical vampires).

5. This is a riskier surgery than the hysterectomy, and until I can talk fully again (which I'm told takes some time), I don't necessarily want to be seeing clients. I caused enough of a ruckus with my clients in cancelling two full weeks of sessions and then appearing just fine afterward - I don't need to do that again with a side of "Oh also my voice may cut out from time to time. Pay no mind and also pay no mind to this incision on my neck that's going to be there for a while." (I'll be wearing lots of scarves, to be sure.) The best time for this surgery is when my caseload will be low, which is July.

So, my thyroid is coming out on my birthday. Rob thinks it's a little funny (not in a "ha ha" way, I can tell) that I'd do this on my birthday when I have the option to push it out a week. I am ready for this to be done, and I personally think that the best gift I can give myself for my birthday is the closure of this chapter. Will it entail a night in the hospital? Yes. Does that mean that I'll be spending my entire birthday in a hospital? Also yes. But, once this surgery is done, I'll finally be able to put all of this behind me - the fear, the physical stuff, the disruption in my life, and the general difficulties that I've had as a result of all of this stuff. It's worth spending my birthday in a hospital if that's what I get to leave there when I walk out post-surgery.

The page is turning, and I'm on the home stretch, friends. I can feel it coming.