these photos were taken less than 9 hours apart…
Happy Friday!
Yes, it’s been a big week.
And instead of explaining why and how and what all happened, I’m going to get my own brave on and simply share the script I wrote the day before going on stage at Grand Slam… it kinda of explains it all.
(Warning: I’m gonna get pretty darn vulnerable here…!!!)
I Never Thought I’d Be Here.
What are you afraid of?
When I was in theatre school, they had us do this exercise where we had to trigger our deepest fear in order to evoke emotion and tears.The idea being we’d learn to cry at the drop of a hat.
And mine was always the same. Ever since I was little, my deepest fear was losing my Mum.
See, my Mum was my person. She saw me, she got me.
And then she got sick.
Like, really sick.
Like, lose your hair from chemo sick.
Like, skeleton sick.
And then, my deepest fear became my reality.
I lost My Mum.
And then I lost me.
And so, I went on a mad search to find me again.
I checked in Chiang Mai, volunteering at an orphanage for HIV babies and children.
I combed through Calcutta, spending time at Mother Teresa’s Home for The Dying.
I rummaged around Rishikesh, living in an Ashram to study intense yoga and meditation.
I shaved my head for breast cancer research.
I spend 3 months picking apples in New Zealand. (…I may have met a man, and moved into his van!)
But was I being brave?
No.
I was running, I was hiding, I was escaping.
I wasn’t conquering ANYTHING.
As long as we’re trying to conquer our fear, it’s actually our fear that’s conquering us.
I’ve come to discover our fears are like the whac-a-mole game I used to play at Chuck e Cheese… as soon as you smash one down, another one pops on up.
And that’s what happened to me.
My fear of losing my Mum, losing the one person who got me, came true.
But I never conquered it.
Instead, it became my fear of never being able to become a Mom myself – to be that that person for my child one day the way she was for me.
And that’s when I discovered something fascinating about fear.
When you flip it over, if you look carefully enough, what you find is desire.
And the deeper the fear, the greater the desire.
Which brings me to my next question:
Have you ever given yourself a subcutaneous injection?!? It’s when you pinch your skin, and you plunge a 1.5-inch needle all the way in, and then slowly squeeze the syringe until there’s no liquid left.
I did this to myself for the first time on Nov. 9th.
It was not fun.
And over the past 11 days, I’ve done it 24 more times, injecting 5 different types of drugs into my belly and upper thighs, popped a whole bunch of pills, and rubbed hormonal gel onto my shoulders every night before bed.
For one reason only.
I want babies.
And I don’t have any.
And I’m single.
And I’m 38.
Which means it’s egg freezing time!
Which starts with egg harvesting.
Which happens when they say go time.
And so, at 10:30 this morning, I was in a hospital gown, knocked out under twilight anaesthetic, for retrieval surgery. (And you know what’s kind of crazy, I still don’t totally know what went down in there… but it involved the longest needle I’ve ever seen in my entire life, a whole lotta pain and discomfort, and them sucking up all of the liquid from each of my follicles, hoping to find some treasure inside.)
And now, after 5 months of no coffee, no alcohol, no highlighting of my hair, no doing of my nails, I’m happy to report I have 9 tiny eggs, comfortably chilling in a freezer down the street.
I never thought I’d be here.
I could’ve spent so much time and energy trying to ‘conquer’ my fear… but that would have been futile.
Because they’re not going anywhere.
So instead of being ashamed of fear, afraid of fear… be brave enough to feel it, to face it, to embrace it… and then to expose it.
Because only then will you see your fears and desires are actually two sides of the same coin.
And it’s far more powerful to be pulled by your desires than be paralysed by your fears.
So I could be the person have been sitting in that sterile waiting room, avoiding eye contact with anyone at all costs, or I can take selfies with the nurses at the clinic (and I have some great ones, let me tell you) I can shamelessly ask you to send any cute, kind, eligible bachelors my way, and I can bravely stand here totally crampy, totally bloated, and totally exposed.
And I am.
Because when I look at my deepest fears, all I now see are my greatest desires.
And the same it possible for you.
So, what are you afraid of?
THANK YOU.
And so now I ask you… what are you afraid of? And will you be able to look close enough to see what lies underneath that fear is actually what you desire? I look forward to hearing from you in the comments below.
