How Discovering I Was Ill Taught Me To Let Go

Letting go was never something I was very good at doing. Stress, tension, drama — these are more my specialties. Having grown up in a tense household (most of the tension relates back to legitimate trauma, like when my mom was sick and passed away), I feel most at home when there’s a problem to solve. I felt this way until last week.

"They found a mass..."

I was sick over the Thanksgiving holiday, and let me tell you, puking on a cross-country flight is something I can definitely die without doing again. Although, kudos to the flight attendants, who treated it very casually and clinically. They passed out barf bags as if they were Diet Coke.

My doctor thought I had kidney stones, but once I went to the emergency room, that was pretty quickly ruled out. I got a scan of my entire body and then I heard the words nobody ever wants to hear:

They found a mass. Though they seem pretty confident that the cyst in my reproductive area is benign, and not cancerous, I still need to get it tested. The past week of my life has felt like a month; I’ve been subjected to several uncomfortable tests that need not be detailed.

So it turns out, it’s just a random build-up of things in my body. Shaped like a fist, it had been sitting on the most sensitive part of my body, lodged deep inside me and is apparently too big. When I learned this, I joked to the person administering my sonogram that “usually I know when something that big is inside me.” She smirked, but in her eyes, I saw pity.

Surgically Removed

I am getting surgery in a few days. All I have to do is show up, get knocked out with anesthesia, and tell my body it’s okay for the doctor to remove this gigantic cyst that’s been causing grief and pain.

Some doctors think these types of cysts are twins you absorbed while inside the womb during pregnancy. Regardless of the cause, this happens frequently, and I’m lucky it didn’t rupture or grow any larger.

So, all I can do now is spiritually let go of this build-up, this cyst, this mass, that has been attached to me for 26 years so that doctors can allow me to let go of it physically.

All I definitely know is that this will be the first time in my life that I’m having an easy time letting go of something. So many times failures, heartbreaks, jobs and general issues are so difficult for me to part with amicably. But suddenly, as I’m faced with something that is more a part of me (literally) than any of those things – something internal – I find myself so easily letting go of it.

Be gone, cyst. Be gone, negative energy. I am letting go of this build up. I will start fresh in the New Year; I will experience life without that piece of myself that I never knew I always had.

Now I’m left pondering: How many pieces of ourselves are we unaware that we need to let go of? It doesn’t require a doctor to fix all of the negativity we navigate internally: negative habits, heartbreak, trauma, grief — anything.

When this cyst comes out, I’ll feel lighter. So, if I can have something huge removed from my body with surgery, imagine all the negative stressors we can be rid of without invasive surgery or anesthesia — take a moment to introspect and cleanse.

Top Photo Courtesy: Tumblr