Contentment Magazine January 2017 | Page 28

CHALLENGE wonderfully supportive. I didn’t tell them about my coping mechanism. On the 144th day since my abortion, Naya Rivera, a star on Glee, revealed in her memoir that she had an abortion the day before filming an episode of the show. Sometimes I like to go through and read the comments on stuff like that. But there’s an inherent problem with seeking out wounding words: You end up wounded. When you specifically seek out someone who hates you, you start to believe they’re right. They’re so right to hate you. You’re all those things they say you are. I’m a murderer. I’m a sinner. I’m a monster. I still wince sometimes, when I see these things. Sometimes. I look at all these brave women who have ignored the stigma and spoken out about it anyway. I wish I could be like Naya, like Chelsea Handler, like Gloria Steinem. I wish I could let someone else know not to be afraid of it. If it happens, you have a legal, safe way out. It’s not anything to be ashamed of, either. I see it, my eyes well a little and my heart plunges to the pit of my stomach. I mourn him. At least, I like to think it would’ve been a boy. I mourn because I don’t want to forget. This was a big thing in my life, and no amount of alcohol can make it go away. I am living with the consequences of my actions, and I am choosing to do so. There hasn’t been y aversion to the a day that’s gone by that I topic is based on my haven’t thought about it.I’m guilt, not shame. sure that if I ever have kids Those may sound the same, someday, and that’s a big if, but believe me when I say I will feel guilty over the one they’re different. I could’ve had. At my two-week followBut I’m working on my up, I asked the nurse if I problems every day. I wish I could have a printout of the could say the pain has gone sonogram. She said, simply, of course. I signed a paper to away for me. The best I can release the image to myself. say is that it has subsided. This is never leaving me, and It’s nothing more than a that’s okay. I’ll never be the speck, really. Less than two same again, and that’s okay, centimeters in diameter. too; but I’m here—a little Nothing at all resembling a human being. But every time worse for wear, but more or less whole. M