Tilted Uterus: A Love Story
Charles Bukowski famously said that we are all museums of fear. I believe there is some truth to that, but I think it’s truer to say that we are museums of the stories we tell ourselves.
I haven’t traditionally lived my life in fear. The way I saw it, things usually worked out. Bad things aren’t really going to happen to me. That has been my mantra for as long as I can remember, except for a spell when I stayed up nights worried about being framed for murder. What would I tell the DA? How could I find evidence while I was locked up?
(I’m not sure what you people did when your grandmas babysat, but I played gin rummy and — more importantly for this story—watched Colombo and Murder, She Wrote.)
Nancy Reagan taught me to fear drugs when I was in elementary school. I rehearsed scenarios where I would JUST SAY NO, but eventually realized that there were no pushers on the corner who were going to force me to do weed.
But then I had kids.
Do you know how hard it is to hold up the sky with worry? To never give in to the calm of thinking the kids are alright because the specter of danger is lying in wait, ready for me to let my guard down. Worry is my fortress that keeps the demons out.
On my worst days, I believe that if I conjure every nightmare scenario, I could head them off at the pass. If I am prepared, they can’t get me.
Of course, eventually I realized that you can never be prepared, although you can ruin your days by trying, and that they can indeed get me. So, the trick then is to keep a steady diet of the kinds of stories that are A) true and B) not fucking terrifying. Little by little, I’m learning that the world isn’t going to ever let up. It’s not designed to give me a break or make me feel good about myself. The world is designed to encourage me to medicate. And get botox.
About a year ago, I learned something about myself at the gynecologist.