Post-Op Feels: I’m Running Off to Join the Circus

This post is part one of Emily Thorpe’s Post-Op Feels series. You can read her second post in the series here. 

I have an announcement to make: I’m running away to join the circus. Okay, I’m not running away. And it’s actually a circus class, but just go with it, alright?

I’m not what most people would call athletic. I’m nearly 5’9″, have flexibility issues (which were worsened by my Endo trying to fuse my uterus to my tail bone – yes, seriously), and balance isn’t my forte. I’ve fallen down a lot of stairs.

In October I fell UP the three stairs and put my head through the wall, giving myself a probable minor concussion and a definite scar between my eyes in the process. I crash into doors constantly, which has resulted in several stupid, but funny, injury stories.

Zumba, Spin, and Insanity-type workouts can be fun, but I get bored easily. The cheesy instructors and faux-happy people in the backgrounds of workout videos generally make me seethe in annoyance. And running, in general,l feels like the best form of torture for me.

In short, I would have loved to be a ballerina or even a basketball player.

But alas, I was an editor on the school newspaper growing up and kept myself from serious harm (due to boredom or clumsiness) by taking pictures from the sidelines and writing about the real athletes after watching them crush it on the field, or court, or whatever the hell format they operated within.

However, since my lap surgery last June, I’ve gained at least 20 pounds. I’m currently at the heaviest I’ve ever been. I feel it in the way my clothes fit and the extra effort and strain it takes to get up the stairs to my 8-5 office job isn’t great, either. I see how uncomfortable I look in photos, and I just don’t feel like myself. The surgery brought about a lot of wonderful outcomes: my symptoms have been extremely low-grade after the first three cycles of fiery pain, that somehow seemed to spread throughout my body while also making my uterus feel like an enormous boulder about to fall out of me. I have more energy, I (sometimes) sleep better, and eating has never been easier.

I’ve never been strong, but now I just feel weak.

But the recovery took longer than I expected and the pure lack of supervision of my diet has left me larger and somewhat unsure of this new body. So when my sister-in-law told me her partner for aerial classes was moving on to the next phase in her life, I decided to join her class and get reacquainted with this body I’ve recently become frustrated with and have felt betrayed by more often than not.

I want to trust myself and my body. I want to gain some kind of control since the Endo stole that from me before I even realized it.