Noun.

• Marrow- the fatty network of connective tissue that fills the cavities of bones
• Marrow- the most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience

 
Bone marrow biopsy
Bore out my vitality in a thread
Cherry red on the petri dish
The pain is excruciating
I don’t want you to see my most essential part
Taking a microscope to look at my essence
 
One more “first”
Anticipation of pain
A needle to my center
Owwww!
Sucks the heart
Leaves an absence
Deep aching left in the wake
 
It is a violation.
Perhaps the cavities of my bones will reveal
my pith to be altered
Maybe you will see
That I’m not at my core who you think I am
All pretenses and projections will be blown
 
The truth will be revealed
Perhaps it will be a relief, I don’t have to act any longer
You’ll see I’m broken, less-than, deformed, mutated, or otherwise not normal
And I’ll have to stop pretending.
Perhaps it will be my next greatest challenge, and I’ll have to show up even more
You’ll see I’m clear, resilient, scaffolded, filled with super-cells ready for action
And I’ll have to stop pretending.
 
Relief has many forms.
The line between positive and negative degrades to truth
This is more complex than results on paper
Because it is comprised of experience
 
The results will mean nothing/everything
They tell me and everyone else who I am
Yet say nothing about my hopes, desires, and capacity to love.
A life lived anchored in marrow.
 
I often wonder if I am strong enough for what I want to accomplish in this life
And now some of that strength will be removed
And then it will grow back fiercer
With renewed vigor
Intensely recommitted to being vital
To living out it’s impact and purpose
Perhaps I should say thank you
Thank you for removing a burdened cross-section
So that resolved vitality can replace it
 
 
With one more part of me removed… who am I now? 

Sometimes life doesn’t make sense, and it feels like it's taking us for a ride.
 
Yesterday I hiked 2000 feet up Manitou Springs Incline to almost 9000 feet, and ran down. Twice. A personal triumph of my recovery.
 
Tomorrow I go in for a bone marrow biopsy.

 
How can things be so rapidly, intensely, good and bad; how can I possibly take it all in and not be thrown off the ride?
 
My life feels like a roller coaster of extremes. So many ups and downs it’s nauseating trying to make sense of.  How can our best days and worst days be so inextricably connected? How can we possibly feel so much? When our lives don’t make sense, and our capacity is stretched so far, it can be dizzying, crazy-making, and human.
 
To be honest, some days I want to just get off of the ride. I want to exit the roller coaster car to the right, and go get some funnel cake. Sticky, powdered-sugar fingers. Sweetness. Slow enjoyment of the moment. A deep breath, a sigh, the slow mundane every day… But wait: Times up, fasten seatbelt, lower the bar for a false sense of safety.
 
Feeling like I’m in control on the roller coaster is a false thing… yet I want it. I fantasize about it. For example, I think about things such as if life made sense then if a good thing happened to me, it’s because I’m a good person. And if I keep being “good,” then only good things will happen. Translation: Do good deeds in the world for myself and others, and, the voice in my head says, I’d have fewer biopsies, and spend more time eating funnel cake… but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
 
The ups and downs don't make sense, or add up. And in addition, I don’t see that roller coaster being replaced by spinning tea cups anytime soon. And, truthfully, I’m pretty glad about that. My life has been intense as far back as I can remember. I learn and grow from the tightly woven ups and downs. I can handle it, and I would never trade tea cups for coasters… so how do I ride the coaster, be in the intensity, breath in the confusing moments, and know when to raise my hands up and let go?
 
On this seemingly out of control free fall of the coaster, suspended upside down with this tiny little seatbelt digging into my hip bone, can I accept it and ride it through? Can I be aware I’m going for a ride, and remember that I have the skills, foundation, and support necessary to come through the other side?
 
Sometimes we can’t get off the roller coaster. We can’t slow down the momentum and intensity of life. But we can recognize and accept that we're in intense times,, breathe with this moment to reveal it for the rickety coaster it is, and fully feel the ups and the downs.   

We can't have highs without lows, and sometimes they happen almost at the same time. What's one high and one low of your past week? Take a breath, and remember the experience of both of those moments. Now bring them together and notice if they can be in relationship. For a moment, just feel, the joy and the ickiness. There's room for it all, and it's all part of the human experience. 

​I hate quilts. Don’t worry, I didn’t just change my blog to be themed around an anti-pioneering sentiment. I hate quilts because of all those patterns. Sometimes I look at the patterns and get immediately overwhelmed and lost in them. 
 
Honestly, it feels like forever since I sat down to publish a blog. Why? (Thanks for asking by the way.) Because I scared myself with what I wrote 2 weeks ago when I began a blog. It felt so raw, dictated into my iPhone between sobs: poor Siri had no idea what I was talking about. I had to get a decoder ring out to decipher the dictation today. It was so personal I wasn’t ready to release it out into the world yet. There’s something to be said for honoring yourself and your timing.
 
This blog is about one of my many patterns… and really about patterns in general (so as I talk about mine, insert one of your own in there… the thing you want to change, and try to, but keeps coming back at varying degrees between slightly annoying and pull-your-hair-out-and-throw-something annoying. Ya, that one).
 
Do you ever notice that when you try to change that ingrained pattern that the universe pushes up against you, to test you, to see if you're strong enough to actually change? (Frustrated sigh)
 
Two weeks ago was that it’s-hard-to-shift-no-matter-how-hard-you-try kind of day. I couldn’t get any perspective because my stupid pattern felt like it was engraved in the fiber of my being, rather than just conditioning. You know, that moment where it seems like sometimes no matter how hard you try, those few patterns keep haunting you.
 
So here’s what I wrote:
 
I really want to slow down, I swear. Today I learned, no matter how hard I want this to shift, it's a battle. Over and over. Because not only do I have to convince myself, but it feels in this moment like I have to convince my family, and my culture.
 
Everyone wants me to keep doing. Achieving. All the time. No break. More more more.
 
Me? I just wanted a day off. But instead I got five hours of working out mountain biking, after four intense days of regular work. This happened because I couldn't use my voice. So instead of shifting things, I just did the same thing all over again. Doing, achieving, checking something else off the list. Another self-damaging activity disguised as an achievement.
 
I cried for the hour getting ready to go bike, straight through into the first two hours on my bike. I was so angry and sad I was doing the snotty weeping (which is extra not cute, by the way, when there’s wind). I was so upset at myself, because I couldn’t actively speak up to my family, my culture, and most importantly, my mind. Because I couldn’t advocate for the fatigue in my body when my relationships felt at stake. My health vs my dearest relationships. I value both so much, and sometimes they come head to head.
 
I want to create new neural patterns. Repeating the same thing deepens that pattern all over again. Literally it makes that neural pathway in our brain stronger. Again. Reinforces it. Yet here I am. Five hours of exercise stronger, making everyone around me happy, but my heart a little bit more broken for not honoring myself and my body. I guess I can always rest tomorrow. I am so aware that this is one of the reasons I got sick. And stay sick. And I don't know how much more strength I have to keep trying. (Knot in my stomach)
 
… Annnnd, flash forward to today. It hurts me to read what I wrote. But I also have a little more space from it, which feels refreshing. I wanted to share it with you because we all have those moments where we are in our brokenness, and feel like all the work we’ve done is pointless, because, well, here we are again.
 
And then there’s a new day. Brush off the dirt, and start anew. In the last 2 weeks I’ve fought for my rest time with new vigor. This was a painful experience to go through to be reminded that I’m my best advocate, but sometimes I suck at it. Here’s a fact: my important relationships will still be there at the end of the day. Even if I didn’t go on the silly bike ride. We can repair the ruptures, and still love each other. But my health has to come first. (Remind me I said this next time I blog about slipping up into over-achieving again… of course it’ll happen, because it’s not done teaching me yet.)
 
Painful to feel the “lather, rinse, repeat”… that I’m sometimes stuck in Groundhog Day. So hard to watch myself do things when I “know better.” When I want to honor my relationships, when I want people around me to be happy and I feel falsely like I actually have some control of that… maybe I do in the short term, but is it worth making myself literally sick over? Of course not. But sometimes it’s so hard to stand up for your own truth in your relationships.
 
So here are the bigger questions: How do we be kind to ourselves when our “dormant” patterns rear their ugly heads? (Because they will, and we won’t always be able to change in that moment.) How do we look back at a pattern that frustratingly got the best of us 2 weeks ago, and see how it pushed us to get more real with ourselves? How do we stay curious in honoring both our relationships and ourselves?
 
Maybe there are ways to enjoy the warmth of a quilt, despite the patterns.
 
Somehow we’re peeling layers of the onion, and turning coal into diamonds, and uncovering what’s already our inner wisdom, and all that. Wishing you kindness to yourself: we’re all still figuring this stuff out.

Feel free, as always to comment below if this feels true (or not!) for you too~