It’s been a strange week.  This post originally started (in my head) as an essay about how being single can make me feel incredibly alone.  It sounded sort of whiny which was not the intent.  Life is hard enough, it’s even hard flying solo without a safety net.  And by safety net I mean a significant other, close friends who live nearby, or family members.

But then it morphed into something else.

A little bit of history here.  I moved to Florida fourteen years ago to relocate for the company I worked for at the time.  I came here by myself and essentially started over.  Five months after the move, I found myself in the emergency room in terrible pain.  I was admitted and underwent surgery for what was thought to be a burst appendix but what was really a ruptured ovarian cyst.

Up until that point, I thought I was a pretty self sufficient person and didn’t need anyone else.  Dead wrong.  Co-workers who had only known me for five months took care of things – they took in my dog for almost two weeks, contacted my family in Pennsylvania, picked up my mom at the airport, and just generally were awesome human beings.

I suppose you don’t realize how badly things can go wrong in a heartbeat until it actually happens.  And then you do what you can to avoid it again.  And going through something like that makes you realize how important it is to have a safety net of some sort.

 Did you notice the word “avoid” in that last part?  I am, I admit, an avoider.  Not necessarily a procrastinator but an avoider.  I avoid what I think will be uncomfortable or painful or just not what I want to do.  Avoidance can be an artform although long term avoidance turns into irrational fear.

My entire adult life I have avoided things like going to the dentist and going for annual physicals.   Part of the avoidance is I just don’t want to – dental work has always been painful for me and who wants to have pain if they can just avoid it?  Annual physicals?  I just didn’t want to know.  Thankfully, I rarely get sick.

So the hospital stay just fed the irrational fear of medical treatment and fear – absolute fear – of ever having to undergo surgery again.  Ever.

Late last year, I started to have problems with a tooth.  I hoped and prayed it would just go away knowing it wouldn’t.  I delayed and waited and avoided until the pain started this past spring.  I had to face the fear of the dentist, there was no other option.  A few months later, the tooth had to be pulled.  Fear?  Try a full fledged anxiety attack.   It wasn’t too terribly awful, mostly inconvenient.  More importantly, I survived.

But there was another nagging issue, one going back fourteen years to the ovarian cyst.  I was told then that there were likely issues that needed to be addressed but OH HECK NO, this girl was NOT going to undergo surgery again.  Nope.  So I avoided.

And then last Friday happened.  Menopause is not for the faint of heart, it seriously isn’t.  Things were happening with my body that scared me enough to make an appointment with a gynecologist.  Now, not only did I have to see a doctor, I had to see a doctor partially naked.  Perhaps this doesn’t bother other people but it was about the most difficult thing for me to go through.  By myself.

The appointment was yesterday, so I survived.  The nurse practitioner asked why I had not done the usual female exams and tests prior to turning 51.  I told her flat out – “because being here is terrifying for me”.  That statement can be incredibly liberating.

More tests to do which means more anxiety for the next few weeks until the figure out if there is something wrong or if I am just an old woman with aging parts.  🙂

So here is the takeaway to this long ramble.  Bits and pieces of things I have read over the past weeks and months popped into my head yesterday.  The first was to move toward your fear instead of running away from it.  Totally true and totally terrifying and yet totally liberating.

The second was to not allow shame to consume you.  Yeah, body shame is no fun at all.  And it’s all in your head anyway.

The third was something I read on facebook – to give yourself a gold star when you do something that you find difficult.  It can be anything.  I gave myself a couple of gold stars yesterday.  It is important to be your own cheerleader.  It sounds corny but it works.

This year was supposed to be the year of living a more authentic life but I think it has turned into the year of facing fears and overcoming personal struggles.

I hate calling contractors and having work done on the house but this year I have managed to have a bathroom remodeled, the pool refinished, and a new roof put on the house.  It does get easier.

I hate dentists and dental work but this year have been to a dentist and oral surgeon multiple times.  Not done with that situation yet, more to come.

I hate doctors and especially feared a gynecological exam.  Been there, done that and more to come.

Perhaps instead of a bucket list, I should write a “perceived fear” list.  The things the negative fearmonger voice in my head tells me to avoid at all cost.  The one I need to silence.