Sarah Nyhan

I’ve been so confused. About why my motivation seems to have
vanished. About why I can’t get excited about anything.

I think I finally found the answer. It’s because I don’t have a
narrative anymore. And I don’t know if there is a new narrative
to find.

The hysterectomy was probably the tipping point. I mean I
consented to it only because I couldn’t live one more minute
with the pain that tumor was causing. It was either the
hysterectomy or death. The pain was that bad. And no, I don’t
say that lightly at all.

So I was logical in the moment. But I was thrown way off guard
by how much the hysterectomy would impact me emotionally.
On so many levels. Nobody prepared me for this. There was no
follow-up offered for this.

It really felt like a death. Of me. Of my story. Of so many dreams
and possibilities. Officially over. Off the table.

In short, I didn’t know who I was anymore.

And that’s the big problem holding me up from moving forward.

All your life from the first minute you become aware of it, people
are telling you that one day you’ll be a mom. They are giving
you dolls, little fake babies, to play with.

It was hard enough trying to go out and be in the workforce. To
choose love over just a body next to me. Fucking me. Giving me
children to take care of for the sake of.

So that’s why I was caught off guard by this grief. Because every
day for decades of my life, sometimes multiple times a day, I’d
have to face that pain. That “failing” as a woman. Every damn
day I’d have to answer for why I was alone and childless. The
constant judgement from others. Their disdain.

I thought I was used to it. I thought I had worked through that a
billion times over already.

And I had in many ways. But the hysterectomy ushered in a
depth of grief that I was wholly unprepared for. Completely
caught off guard.

Surely intellectualizing everything would be the answer, no?
Surely I could tell my heart not to be so invested. To face reality,
right? Just full-on acceptance, right?

I don’t know why that doesn’t work. My spirit won’t cooperate.
Everything in me. Every cell, every synapse resists. And that pain
is non-stop. Keeps drumming on and on and on and on.

It’s the finality of it all.

Before, when people looked down on me, I’d always be able to
buffer myself from their hurtful actions by telling myself, “One
day. Just watch. One day this will all make sense.”

One day there would be someone special who would see my
value and my worth. Someone they looked up to. Someone they
would want. Who would choose me. And thereby I would finally
have social respect.

I’d finally have a kid. I’d finally be part of the fabric of what’s
going on. Versus constantly being ostracized to the fringes.
Discarded over and over.

But the hysterectomy was the death of that dream. Now there is
just me. Now I will never experience being a part of the main
thing. Now my story is forever different. Forever alone.

“But Sarah, you can still be matched with someone. You can still
adopt.”

Intellectually I know this. But it’s still not the same. No disrespect
to people who are adopted. Hell, I wish I could be adopted.

I’m just expressing that there is a reality in me about not ever
having that main storyline now. I didn’t truly realize how I had
been waiting my whole life for that moment to materialize. How
much of my hope and meaning was unconsciously wrapped up
in that potential future.

And now? Nothing. Decimated. Internally destroyed. Physically
and emotionally. That dream was literally ripped out of me.
Thrown in the trash. Or wherever they send uteruses and ovaries
once they’ve torn them out of women’s bodies.

I guess I still have a life that I should be thankful for. But it
doesn’t feel that way. There is nothing right now except sadness
and anger. Oh yeah, and resignation.

The hope that I’d have a family of my own. That was always my
reason to live.

That would have given meaning enough to all my pain. All the
years of suffering. To finally see me in a family of my own. That
would have made everything make sense.

Now? Nothing.

Now nothing makes sense. Now I don’t understand the meaning
of all the years of excruciating pain. Now, looking back, it seems
like pointless torture. All for what?

Nothing makes sense anymore.

Not even rainbows in the sky. Because where is my hope, Lord?
Do You not care?!

All these years I was rocking for You, God. Is this all the thanks
that I get?

Since middle school I vowed to wait for You. And now I’m the
laughing stock? Now everyone gets to feel pompous in their
judgement of me? They get the last laugh? Am I truly the fool
they think I am?

God?

Now I understand why my Jonathan asked God not to show him
anything more. It’s too painful. It doesn’t make any sense. It feels
like cruel torture.

To even have someone say, “But Sarah, you’re still a child of
God.”

Yeah, but what good does that do me now, here? How many
more years will I have to live with this pain and shame? If God
cares so much for me, then why this? Decades more of
unending pain and desire? How am I supposed to find
happiness in that?

I wish I could just forget it. But everywhere, all day being around
people – they won’t let me forget. They won’t let me move on. I
was born into a society that centers itself around the family
structure.

Hell, even animals seem to have it better than me. That’s when
I’ll really get pissed off. When the goddamn animals somehow
figured it out. What I wanted. What looks like now I’ll never have.

I have to give up. I can’t shoulder constantly carrying this grief
for the rest of whatever time I have here. That would break me.

I don’t want to become an old woman consumed with
bitterness. I can’t do that. I refuse. That isn’t who I am at the
core. I can’t let everything that happened rob whatever is left of
me.

But I have to give up somehow. In some way that will let me get
back to something that looks and hopefully feels like a real life.

Some new story that doesn’t feel like someone else’s that I am
desperately trying to borrow as my own.

No. I need at least one goddamn thing that belongs to me. That
is actually me. Not just some construct of a society I have never
fully been a part of.

Or am I?

This is the voice of so many. Hysterectomy or not. Who have felt
the same. Wanting a tribe and community of their own. Feeling
so painfully disconnected no matter how hard they try on so
many sides to gain that seemingly elusive acceptance. To be
invited inside by those they respect.

Flatlined. My story, my hope died with the hysterectomy. And
cruelly, I am still alive.

But, God.

God doesn’t ever leave me. God hasn’t ever let me completely
give up.

I’ll be on the brink. And then God will envelope me with Love.
Showing me clear as day that I am not abandoned.

To be Seen by the Most High God. My Creator. The Sustainer of
the entire Universe. That’s everything to me.

I do have a Father. I am a Loved child.

That’s why I can’t give up even when I don’t understand. That’s
what keeps moving me forward when I have nothing left. That’s
the bright Light I find in all this frigid, suffocating darkness.

At the end of the day, God loving me is my meaning through all
of this.

And not just one time. Over and over. Day after day. Big and
little ways. God, my heavenly Father… and Mother, keeps telling
me They See me. And not just that; but continually also that I am
thoroughly Loved, Enjoyed, and not at all abandoned.

That is the ONLY reason I move forward at all.

I no longer have a story. Other than God’s Love for me, I no
longer have hope. My dreams appear to be as decimated as my
reproductive parts. I don’t know how or why I should go on.

Other than God Sees and Loves me. That is my enough.
I don’t have answers yet for all the disappointments and pain. And disappointments is a severe understatement. Nothing
makes sense right now.

Except God Sees and Loves me. That’s the only thing I am sure
of. That’s my only Why. That’s my only How. That’s my only way
forward in the face of what feels like the loss of everything. Of
even me.

And if God is for me, then…
Then the story isn’t over yet.
Then I’m not over yet.
Then there is some meaning.
Some reason I’m still alive.
Some hope out there somewhere.
More adventures.
More Love.
More possibilities.
Anything is possible.
There is nothing too difficult for The Lord.

Which is both painful and exciting to try to take hold of.

But thankfully it isn’t up to me. Thankfully I don’t have to hold on
because Jesus is holding onto me.

I am sure of that. I’ve experienced it way beyond just the
intellectual. Day after day. In the midst of the depths of my pain
and misery.

So we get up. We shower. We get dressed. Ready to receive.
Ready for more adventures.

Ready to be surprised at any point, Father.

Ready for You to do the heavy lifting now. Not me. I am just
Your Kid.

Loved. Wiped clean of all society put on me.

Just Looking at You for the next step. For the next open door.

Not forcing myself to do what others say if it doesn’t feel right
for me. Trusting You for that.

Washed completely clean of all that was put onto me by others.
Waiting for a new story. Dreaming new and maybe even bigger
dreams.

You ask me what I want. And I can finally hear You.

All of my fears found me. They took all they could take. There is
nothing left besides You and Me. And that is enough.

I was scraped clean of the cancer in my body. And all the
cancers in my heart, spirit, and mind.

I’m Your kid first. Before anyone else’s.

Before I was even my own.

And if You still see Me, if You still Love Me – then that is enough.
More than enough.

I go forward with the absolute loss of my former expectations.
But You are big enough to fill the great voids in me with New
Life. Whatever that looks like.

I trust You are with Me as I pick up the pen to write the new
story.