Enfleshed Existence

I've got to tell you, I'm doing some hating on my body right now.

As I mentioned before, I got a message from my GYN to keep an appointment this Friday that we had agreed to cancel if my pelvic ultrasound was looking normal. I keep telling myself that if this were something really serious I would have received an immediate summons by phone; that this must be something less critical but still necessitating a talk with the doc.

But I'm afraid.

And I'm angry. I'm angry at my body for letting me down...for letting me down most of last year...for letting me down despite my good-do-bee, responsible six-month checkup and annual female spelunking regimen.

I came up in the Our Bodies, Ourselves era. I'm supposed to love my body, love my reproductive system, feel empowered reveling in it and caring for it. Theologically, I'm supposed to cherish my enfleshed existence as a good gift of God; to reject the concept that our bodies are "icky" and an impediment to our relationship with God.

But right now I really hate my body, especially my internal gynecological pieces-parts -- my fibroid-studded uterus, my cystic ovary, my incorrectly carbonating hormones. I hate having to think about them and worry about them; I hate the pills I have to take to make them operate in a marginally normal fashion. I feel like telling my doctor, "Just rip the whole damn thing out of me right now." Honestly, if I could do it myself I would, at this point.