Letting Go

It's been forever since I have blogged.  Like 5 months forever.  Not that I haven't had things to say, just haven't made time to say it.  But, since Maryn seems content to listen to play with my phone and listen to I-tunes for a minute, I am going to take a moment to tackle this blog thing again.  Oh...wait...Kelly Clarkson's voice has just been replaced by 50 Cent...skip...Maryn screaming because she loves her gangster rap...ok, Train is on and that seems to be okay...What is WITH Train, anyway?  They are like the discount band of the 2010's.  Everyone seems to like them and they sing about...nothing.  They were the house band for the Rachel Ray show last week.  Seriously, Rachel Ray?

Back to serious blog business.  If you've never read my blog before, hang on tight and try to concentrate, I have the attention span of a fruit fly.  I love the whole 'three periods in a row at the end of the sentence to show that I am still thinking', I streeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech words out for emphasis, I love to use BIG LETTERS, and I use parentheses way more than is necessary.  I don't pay attention to punctuation or sentence structure.  And sometimes I write from personal experience and sometimes not, so if you think you might know someone I mention in my blog, trust me, you don't.  And it's not about you (unless it's flattering, and then by all means, assume that it's about you!).  Get over yourself and write your own blog if you have issues.  Or just read my issues and bask in your normalcy.  Totally your call.

If you're my friend, or at least my Facebook friend, you probably know that I spent the greater part of April getting my tonsils removed (thanks for all of the well wishes, I needed them!).  More specifically, recovering from getting my tonsils removed.  The actually removal took about 20 minutes, the recovery took 2 week.  It sucked.  There's no sugar-coating it.  It was rough.  I have also parted ways with my wisdom teeth and my gallbladder (I am becoming the real-life version of the Operation game!), and my tonsils seemed to hold the biggest grudge on their way out.  Like the boyfriend that comes back to your apartment after the breakup to get his/your favorite sweatshirt, and then rips the sweatshirt in front of you on his way out.  Again...I digress...(true story, though!)

I have been putting off this surgery for over a year since my doctor recommended it.  However, with 25 cases of strep throat in as many months, it was time to part with this flagrantly disobedient part of my body.  Tonsils, for those of us that are not Otolaryngologists (look how BIG that word is=look how smart I am!) are supposed to be our first line of defense against breathing/swallowing potentially dangerous micorscopic junk.  They are supposed to keep us from getting sick.   My tonsils had become hoarders:  they refused to let anything go until it was big rotten pile of festering disgust.  Time for an intervention.

We didn't always have this toxic relationship.  My tonsils and I were BFFs for over 30 years.  They were amazing, actually, and I never had even a single case of strep throat for 31 years.  And then they let me down.  I'm not sure where we started to part ways, perhaps it was my sudden obsession with coffee or my early-30's fascination with the Neti-pot, but my tonsils and I stopped getting along.

And I waited.  I waited over a year, because I heard that the pain was unbearable.  Because I didn't want to put my family through it.  Because it just seemed easier to deal with the infection.  Honestly, because I was freaked out.  And it wasn't a guarantee that I would never get it again.  So I kept putting the surgery off until I got to the point where I realized that I was missing so many irreplaceable life moments because I was sick with strep throat.  I got to the point where my hope was greater than my fear.

And so they went.  And it was a rough recovery.  Rough on me, rougher on my family.  But we made it through the process and hopefully I will be rewarded with a strep-free future.

Laying in bed in the early days after the surgery, I thought a lot about my tonsils and the idea of something that works so well in the beginning, and makes complete sense...then, everything changes and what was extremely helpful becomes horribly damaging.  Like a friend that was a perfect fit when she and I met, and as I grew and changed I realized that we no longer hae anything in common.  Like the sweatshirt-ripping boyfriend who morphed from a knight to the dragon in a few short months.  Like the church group that meant so much to me during a certain life event, that now doesn't quite have the same sense of relavancy.  And then there are the non-relationship items:  the family traditions that started out to bring everyone together that over the years have become impossible to continue without stressing someone (or everyone) out, the volunteer events that seemed like such a good idea at the beginning and ended up eating so much time that more important events were missed, the "perfect" job that pulled so much attention onto itself that "work to live" became "live to work."

All of these connections started out symbiotic.  All of them were "good" to begin with.  And then they weren't.  When is it ok to just let go?  To count your wins and losses and get out while you're even (or can at least walk away)?  Why don't we just go ahead and get it over with at the moment we know it's a lost cause?

My simple tonsil-related answer:  because it hurts.  Any kind of "-ectomy," from a appendectomy to a tonsillectomy to a relationship-ectomy is going to HURT.  And it will probably hurt more perople than just you, and if you're like me, that's the hardest part.  There's no guarantee it's going to solve all of your problems.  The hope must be greater than the fear.  A good friend of mine once told me that if you are filling your life with the wrong stuff, you're deciding not to make room for the right stuff (she's a keeper, that one!).  Making room, letting go, "-ectomy."  Choose hope, choose healing.  Seems to have worked for me.  I'll keep you posted.