The Fool

a weekend of grief, excitement, and surrender before my hysterectomy

It’s 90 degrees and sweaty out. I’ve worn the same thing nearly every day—Elwood Core sweatshorts with a white tank and some sort of button-up; short-sleeve, long-sleeve, plaid, or chambray.

I wore it on a first date, and then a third. On these dates, I also wore no makeup. The constant humidity means my face is always dewy and radiant. As uncomfortable as I am walking around in the high sun, the moisture in the air is doing wonders for my skin. Right now, I feel good. Healthy, for the most part. Beautiful.

I’m making the most of summer. Living every day like it’s my last, because in two weeks, I’ll have a hysterectomy.

So it’s time to say yes to pleasure. To swim, run, tan, read, and kiss. I’ll drive up to L.A. to eat oysters with a tall, stunning English woman visiting from London who tells me I’m “ri-DIC-u-lous-ly gorgeous” in her posh accent, which sounds oh so nice. It must be true with an accent like that.

It’s time for a love affair, a little tryst. Why not?

Two weeks to go before a major organ is removed from my body. Before I say goodbye to carrying children. I’ll be laid up for six to eight weeks. Will it be painful? I don’t want to wake up in excruciating pain like before. I’ll make sure to let my doctors know. I can’t do that again. I’m terrified of the pain.

On a FaceTime date, someone tells me having my uterus removed is like losing part of my womanhood. I wonder if she notices the look that crosses my face. The quick contortion of displeasure. What a strange thing to say. I hope she never reaches out again. And she doesn’t.

Around this time, my friend gives me a tarot card reading. She helps me ask the cards if this is a mistake, if I should get a second opinion, but I answer before the cards can. After everything else I’ve tried, this feels like the only option left that might get my life back on track. I can’t keep putting my body through more disappointment, more misery. I need it done.

I draw The Fool, the card of new beginnings, a leap of faith, and infinite potential.

Besides, I can still have children, just not carry them. Do I want to do that anyway? Have I ever dreamed of doing that?

Yes.

I imagined, for myself and my future partner, having children from the same donor, and if money and heartbreak weren’t too big of an issue, they’d carry a child with my egg, and I’d carry a child with theirs.

That was the dream.

But I am sorry, future wife. You get to carry both, if we even have two.

Carry my child. I love you so much. Thank you for doing the work. I will bring you whatever you crave, whenever you want. I will do the diapers. I will clean the mess.

Do this one thing for me, please.

Just carry that baby for me, darling.

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Saturday

Before the surgery, my friends come over for a dip in one of the pools at my condominium. They say it feels like a resort. It’s 90 degrees and sweltering. Still, the perfect summer day. Why must we all work jobs? I want to swim instead. I want summer to feel like summer when I was a child, with no worries, no responsibilities, just floating in the pool.

Did you wait 30 minutes after you ate?

Be a good girl. Don’t run.

Remember to apply more sunblock. Have someone get your back.

That’s good.

The sun draws closer. It’s right on us.

We can’t smell the chlorine, but it’s so clean and clear, and we do handstands and somersaults and hold one another in our arms, twirling gleefully, so giddy, like schoolchildren. I’m floating on my back. There’s something so innately childish about swimming, floating, splashing in the pool. It’s healing. This is real summer.

What a beautiful day. What a beautiful weekend. No cares. Just two weeks until surgery.

Now there are actual children in the pool. We tense up. They’re loud. They’re throwing things. We swim to the deep end and hide in the corner. From the barbeque next to the pool, the father yells an apology at us for his children, which I think is funny. They’re just kids. It’s fine. I just want to avoid the basketball they’re throwing in the water. I don’t want to get smacked in the face with a ball.

He’s cooking something deliciously savory and aromatic. The smoke wafts and mixes with the warm, damp air. I can taste the smell of it.

The water is the perfect temperature, heated just right. Like bath water, but still refreshing, easy to wade in. I could stay here all day. But the children are in it now, and I’ve swum enough.

We leave the pool because we’re hungry. We get ramen, and my friend buys me ice cream afterward. The shopping center is packed with screaming children and families. I’m overwhelmed. I ask for a child’s scoop of cherry chip, which is cherry ice cream and dark chocolate chips.

My friend finds it a strange order. “Are you 85?”

But while I defend the flavor, I mostly just wanted to pick the first one I saw. I wanted to step away from the children. They are so loud.

But cute, from afar.

I watch a toddler getting used to their legs. Running and falling and running again without missing a beat, screaming and pointing, “Dog!” at my dog.

I softly yell “Dog!” back.

We’re in agreement.

It is a dog.

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Sunday

During the day I can’t breathe, but at night it’s magic. Nothing quite like 80-degree evenings.

I stroll along the bluff with a friend and our dogs, watching the sun dip behind downtown Long Beach. The evening is busy; it seems like everyone living in this city is outside as well, also with their dogs. Hubbell’s legs are too short; she’s swallowed by the grass, but she runs and is happy to be with her dog friends.

Every day I love her more. It hurts. Please don’t die.

When I drive home from the bluff, I take the long way back with the windows down and new Kelela filling the car, dripping out into the night, which is quiet save for the crickets chirping.

This weekend was a good one.

Less than two weeks to go, but in this moment, I’m zenned the fuck out.