The Family You're Born With, The Family You Create

For the past five years, I had been suffering an occasional trauma to my back, which I would always refer to as "my crookedness," - the muscles on the lower left side of my spine would completely seize up, causing my pelvis to tilt and making my hips look crooked. It was so ghastly and unbelievably painful, and always seemed to occur during stressful times in life - particularly during transitions, when feelings of being alone, ungrounded, unstable and unsupported were most intense (which makes great sense, as those lumbar muscles are those which "support" the body).

I was completely convinced that this pain was, indeed, brought on by stress. My method, then, for curing the pain was to tend to the body with bedrest, massage and chiropractic, and to endeavor to identify the source of the stress which initially caused the pain, and work through it by writing and loads of talk therapy. For years, it went on this way, and while the situations incurring the pain varied greatly, the pain itself and the internal dilemmas were almost always the same: very much centered around my childhood, family, and the way I was raised.

I didn't have very much support growing up. My parents were not present. There was very litle guidance. There was a lot of hostility. I floated between my mom's house, my dad's house, the babysitter's, the cousins and grandparents and friends' houses with no real sense of "home." My mom's house would have been declared as the official "home," but there was seldom anyone there, and when my mom wasn't working and my sisters were around, it was a house filled with much sadness and anger. When I think back to that first home, I don't find many happy memories there at all. Yet, I can recall many memories of feeling alone and afraid. When my back would later give out on me as an adult, each and every time, the feelings attached to it were also of feeling alone and afraid - and, I should mention, both anger and sadness, too, that I was/am so alone and so afraid.

This summer, as noted in previous posts, my back not only "acted up" again, but went the full distance, and just up and quit on me. For the month of July, I was in more pain than I had ever experienced in my life. I had gone crooked again, shortly after an old friend had come into town and signed a lease with me on an apartment, and then backed out. BOOM! Crooked. Alone, unsupported, not knowing where I'd go or where home would be, afraid, angry, sad.... the usual gamut. I went back to my tried and true methods of healing: bedrest, massage, chiropractic - even added acupuncture into the mix. While I was laid up, I spent time reflecting and examining the situation, and the old memories connected to it. I wrote poetry, spoke with friends and my shrink. But something was different this time... I wasn't getting better.

I soon began to experience intense sciatic pain shooting down my left leg. Now, I wasn't only crooked, but I was losing feeling and all strength from the leg, and could barely walk without excruciating and blinding pain. Having no medical insurance, I stuck with the homepathic healing and healers I knew and were offering their services - I added in shiatsu, reiki, myofascial release, herbs, supplements, arnica creams and biofreeze. While some would give me temporary relief, the pain continued to increase and journey further and further down my leg, to my ankle and foot.

In the meantime, my current apartment had been rented out for the month of August - I had to move! I had to find a place to move to, pack all my things, clear out by the end of the month, and have the place cleaned to get my deposit back - and I could barely even move from bed to bathroom! The stress, the crisis, feeling so overwhelmed and not even being physically able to get to my computer to look online for apartments, let alone get in the car to go see them, was.... well, I don't know a word for it. What's more scary than utter fear? That's what I felt.

I hadn't been in contact with my family for well over a year at this point. My father, who ever protected and came to the rescue, had passed away. It was all on me. I felt like I was eight years-old, hiding in the closet in the house of my youth, crying alone, wishing and praying that someone would come to help me.

And they did.

It started with my friend Nicole (as it always does) who sent her husband over to bring food, ice for my back, biofreeze, a backbrace, and other supplies to keep at my bedside for convenience while we figured it all out. Next, my ex-boyfriend Scott (who has always been dubbed "Mr.Mean," due to a song I wrote about our awful break-up) called and said he had a place for me to live. Then, the team came, one by one, day by day... Beth, Jeannie, Brant, Alyssa, Serena all came with boxes, with food, starting to pack me up as I either lied in bed immobile, or made trips to the ER and clinics.

It was a harrowing, emotional time for me. Not only was I in such great physical pain, but now was cycling through feelings of guilt, shame, helplessness, frustration, etc, that I was lying in bed while my house was being packed up around me. It was humiliating and humbling. I would stare out the window or at the water-stained ceiling with tears rolling down my face. Someone would come in to ask a question and catch me like this, would sit at the end of my bed and tell me, "Emily, you have been a great friend to me in this way or that way. You helped me in my life at this time or that time. You are so loved, and it's time for you to sit back, focus on your healing, and let us do this for you. Stop feeling guilty. There is no shame. You need our help, and we are your family, here to give it to you."

The day of the move was horrendous. Despite hiring actual movers, I still had Nicole and Brent and Todd over to help load and unload box after box, heavy furniture, pets, you name it. It took the entire day and over $500, and there were still a few loads left behind. The next day, Alyssa and Lloyd showed up. We made two trips and managed to get the place cleaned. It was over - at least, the move was over. My back was another story.

In the midst of it all, we discovered that I would need a spinal surgery to remove a disc that had left its place between my vertebrae, and had shacked up in my spinal canal, pressing against my spinal cord. I had a matter of days to organize my new home, which was piled in with boxes and furniture, so that when I came out of the hospital, I'd at least be able to get around and have the things I needed most at hand. Again, Todd came over one night, this time with Rich, and they moved furniture and other heavy items to set in places out of the way of my walking paths. I saw so much sweat dripping from my friends' bodies over these few days. More drops of sweat than tears I'd cried over it, I think.

While I was in the hospital having surgery, Krissa organized a schedule for my return home - a schedule of friends who had each chosen a day of the week when they would swing by and bring food, do chores, take the dog out, etc. There were peopleon this list that I had never even spent a one-on-one with before, people from the circle that I barely knew anything about, and yet when they heard I needed help, they signed up and they came.

Carlos, another ex from almost a decade ago, volunteered to come by and take care of the animals while I was in the hospital. He's been by several times since I've been home, bringing bags of organic food and groceries, taking the dog for a walk, bringing me a laptop so that I can stay communicated and productive while in bed! And even my ex-husband, all the way in NYC, paid my cable bill from the old apartment so that I'd have internet and tv while I recover.

It's been like this now for the past week. Every single day, I have at least a half dozen friends who call or text or email or chat online, all asking how I am, what I need, if they can help. I have so many visitors, I leave my doors open so people can keep coming and going without having to get up to answer each and every time!

There's a huge moral to this long story that I'm tryng to get too, but finding the words has been the challenge all along. For 34 years, I have carried an immense pain in my heart and body (apparently mostly in my back) and spirit relating to family. I never felt like I had family. There was never anyone to turn to in my hour of need (except Dad, always Dad, but he's gone now), and I was forced to be so independent, self-sufficient and strong from such a young age. The anger I carried about that, the sadness, and so much fear from being so small and so alone - trying to heal that little girl in me for so many years, but she would just gnash her teeth into me again and again, never letting it go. For as long as she held on to all that pain, all that pain held me back in my life, in the pursuit of my dreams, in my relationships, in finding and living my joy.

But this whole experience - this awful, painful, dreadful experience - has given birth to the most profound epiphany of my life: I have a family. Not the family I was born to, but the family that over years I have cultivated and created for my self. This family loves me for exactly who I am - they celebrate me. They love me unconditionally, and have seen me at my very best and very worst and STILL love me. This family will never let me falter, or leave me to suffer. This family will support me, guide me, share with me, teach me, learn from me, learn with me. This family will be there for me in my hour of need, will calm my fears, will let me cry and vent and feel bad for myself, and tell me that it's ok. That I am ok. That I am MORE than ok... just in the past few days I've been told I am "amazing," "a goddess," "an inspiration," "a leader," "a gift." A gift. Me? Yes, me.

For the very first time EVER in my life, a peace has fallen over me. This new understanding and knowledge that I am NOT alone in the world, that I DO have a family, and that this family is better than any I could have ever asked for or dreamed of is something so profound, so humbling, so heart-exploding... it's been hard to describe. But the most amazing part of it all: that little girl in me, who ate at me my entire life, is finally, FINALLY at peace. I can feel her! She is not worried, not afraid, not angry... she is exactly as she should have been her whole life: happy, safe, and dancing circles around my heart.

To all of you, my dear and loving family, I thank you more than words could ever say. Even as I've been writing this, the phone has been ringing, offers to go for a picnic today and a movie tonight to get me out of the house come rolling in! I am so blessed, and so grateful not only for all the help and support, but for the quality and caliber of people I am honored to be friends and family with - amazing healers, artists, mothers and fathers, teachers, guides, philanthropists. I am so eager to heal, to step into my full potential at long last, and to make you all so very proud of the woman I am, and am destined to become! I am eager to pay it all forward, and to help others as I have been helped. I am so inspired, my heart so full. I love you, you painted and glittered and fairy-wing-wearing, fuzzy-pant bearing, black-light dancing, new aged hippies and happies and mammies and pappies...

I am so happy to have you freaks to call home!