Most people have trouble sleeping – especially geeks and freaks and entrepreneurs (oh, my!).

We keep such odd schedules that our bodies and brains often don’t slow down even when they’re supposed to, and who has time to relax anymore? Often, even after we fall, our sleep is restless or interrupted, and falling back to sleep is even harder the second time.

But sleep is our most precious function: it refuels us, heals us, and rejuvenates us. A good night’s sleep will empower us to have a better day, every time – and without it, we get increasingly moody, quick to anger, and far more prone to illness.

I know that Pace and I particularly had troubles over the past month, gearing up to the launch of the Writing Workshop, which is unsurprising, given the sheer excitement and anxiety that comes with a big project.

Here are nine tricks I’ve found to make sleep come easier and stay longer – and they work, even when you’re feeling lots of pressure. I’ve been putting them to the test quite a lot, lately. (;

1. Don’t do anything brainy.

Stop reading that engrossing non-fiction book, stop watching the news, stop doing anything that makes you think at least an hour before bed. If you’re thinking right up til bedtime, your brain won’t stop when you lay down, and you’ll wind up tossing and turning for a long while instead of sleeping.

Instead, do down-time activities. Read a fiction novel. Watch something calming or funny, but not violent or gritty. Meditate, take a bubble bath, or play a mindless calm video game (first person shooters are right out). Anything to wind your brain down. This gives your mind time to process the day behind the scenes so that when you’re ready for sleep, so is your brain.

2. Close your open loops.

If you find yourself laying in bed trying to remember if you fed the cats, get up and feed the cats. If you’re making a list of what to buy at the grocery store, write it down. Is the door locked? Go check. Is your alarm set? Take a quick look.

Assuaging these little nagglers will close your open thought loops, which will quiet your brain and allow you to sleep. Keep a little notebook by your bed for night-time list scribbling, make a nightly routine of locking the doors and checking on the kids/cats/dogs/fish. I even say things out loud like, “Yep, the front door is locked. The cats have food and water. I can hear the kiddo singing, so I know he’s okay.” Saying them out loud reinforces their completion and helps me remember better when I’m shutting down my loops before I sleep.

3. Don’t leave the lights on.

Make your bedroom as dark as possible. With all our technology, we’re inundated with lights – and it completely messes with our cycles. Even that digital clock is enough light to keep you from deep sleep. If you need a light, find a soft nightlight – but it’s best for as much dark as possible.

This is true for the rest of your house, too. Get a couple of soft nightlights to illuminate your path to the bathroom and put another in your bathroom, and leave the lights off. If you switch them on for your midnight pee, you’re flooding your brain with signals to wake up and start the day, which will make returning to sleep far more difficult.

4. Forget about the time.

Ever wake up in the middle of the night, unable to immediately return to sleep, and find yourself with a burning desire to look at the clock?

Ditch it.

Looking at the clock is another one of those signals that we’re ready to be up and rolling, so doing it when you would really prefer to be snoozing is counter-productive. If you’re able, don’t put a clock in your bedroom. If you really need one, put it out of reach and angle it so you can’t read it from your bed. (I use my iPhone for an alarm, so I can put it face down – and I trained myself not to touch it when I wake up.)

Knowing what time you’re awake isn’t going to help you sleep better, anyway; train yourself to let it go, and you won’t wake yourself up too much.

5. Don’t look at screens.

Again with light flooding our brains and telling us it’s time to wake up: if you look at a computer screen, TV screen, or even your phone screen, you’re risking waking up too far to easily drop back to sleep.

It’s ideal to stop looking at screens about 30 minutes before you go to bed, but if you can’t manage that, prevent yourself from looking at them in the middle of the night. Even set on the lowest light level, they’re still so bright that our brains think it’s morning.

So in general, if you wake up before you want to, avoid bright lights and screens and you’ll have an easier time of returning to sleep.

6. Don’t be caffeinated.

Don’t get caffeinated too late in the day. This one’s a bit tricky; you have to test and find your limits. For me, it’s 4pm; if I have any kind of caffeine after 4pm, I’m too caffeinated to sleep well.

Figure out how late caffeine affects you, and make sure you don’t have any after that. Having caffeine coursing through you will prevent you from falling asleep – and can prevent you from sleeping well even after you do fall.

7. Exercise early, not late.

Exercising first thing in the morning really helps you sleep better, but the later it gets, the more that adrenaline will stick in your system, giving you trouble relaxing and sleeping. Get it done early, or skip it for the day.

8. Ablute.

Our monkey brains love ritual. If you have a nighttime ritual that you can do right before sleep, you tell your brain and your body that it’s time for resting.

For example, I brush my teeth, wash my face, brush my hair, and pee right before I climb into bed – and I mean, immediately before – not an hour, not ten minutes. On my way to bed, I veer into the bathroom and ablute, then go get in bed. Once I’m in bed, I cuddle with Pace for about 10 minutes, then roll over and assuming the sleeping position, and I’m out.

This sends the message to my body that it’s time to get ready for sleep, and by the time I get to bed, I’m already yawning. Find something simple, relaxing, and repetitive, and get your groove on – this will increase your chances of an easy slumber.

9. Bed is for sleeping.

This is the most important one.

Don’t do anything in bed except sleep. (And your partner; sex in bed is fine.)

We are creatures of habit. If you lay in bed and read for two hours every night, you’re training your body to lay awake for hours before sleep. Then, when you don’t want to read, you’re going to lay there anyway because that’s what you’re trained to do.

I’ve gotten this one down to an art form. As soon as I get in bed and get comfy, I get sleepy. This is because, for years, all I’ve done in bed is sleep. I don’t read there more than once a month (and usually not even that much), I don’t lay there when I’m talking on the phone, nada. I get in bed to sleep, and sleep I do.

In fact, this is so important that it’s important to adhere to it even if you’re trying to sleep and can’t. Don’t lay in bed for more than an hour if you’re having trouble sleeping; get up and go do something relaxing for a bit, then try again. If insomnia persists, repeat. Laying in bed not sleeping reinforces to the body that bed is for other things, and you’ll have more trouble later on.

Good luck, and sweet dreams!

I used to be terrified of travel. I wasn’t afraid of the act of traveling, but I was utterly terrified of missing my flight. I’d become a neurotic mess three days before a flight, I’d lose sleep, I’d pack 24 hours early, and I’d get to the airport five hours early. I was not a good traveling companion (with apologies to Pace. Again.).

Finally, after taking several trips with me and faced with several more, while we were in the airport securely at our gate with two hours to spare – and probably out of a fit of boredom, having to wait so damn long for our flight to board – Pace asked me, “What are you so afraid of?”

I said, “Missing my flight.”

She blinked – a lot – and asked, “Why?”

I stared at her as though she’d turned magenta and sprouted antennae. “What?! Because terrible things happen if you miss your flight!”

She said, “Like what?”

I was agog. How could Pace, a seasoned traveler, not know?! I thought about it, trying to squeeze my huge emotional reaction into words. It took me a moment, but I finally managed, “I don’t know! But I know it’s terrible! They fine you and send you home and ban you from their airlines and your entire trip is ruined and everyone gets really super mad at you!”

I realize that sounds ridiculous, but that’s what I thought. Seriously.

It was Pace’s turn to look at me like I’d sprouted antennae. “Seriously?”

I nodded.

She started giggling. I got huffy. She tried to stop, failed, then after like fifteen minutes of laughing managed to stop. “Kyeli. All they do is put you on the next flight.”

I paled, I’m sure of it. “Really?”

“Really really. They may charge you a fee, but they usually don’t even do that.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “Really. I’ve done it before. You know me, it’s not unusual for me to be late.” She shrugged. “They put me on the next flight out without so much as a stern look. That was it; they didn’t even lose my luggage.”

“Oh.” I sat for a minute, feeling kind of silly. “Oh. Well. That’s not so bad.”

Pace put a comforting arm around me. “Indeed.”

What are you afraid of that might not be so bad, once you give it a good look?

Kyeli and I have been so wrapped up in World-Changing Writing Workshop preparations lately, all our down time has consisted of us collapsing exhausted onto the couch.

Yesterday, we decided to do something creative instead.

We wrote a song.

(Did you know that Kyeli and I have a band? It’s called Sweeter Than Lazers, and it’s just one guy just the two of us.)

We’ve been working on this song for a while; yesterday we laid down the final vocal track and mastered it all together. It’s called The Second Sunrise. It’s only two minutes long, because we’d said all we wanted to say and didn’t want to lengthen it just for the sake of having a standard-length song.

Listen to The Second Sunrise by Sweeter Than Lazers (MP3, 1:52)

Pace: lyrics, composition, arrangement
Kyeli: lyrics, vocals
Thanks to Matt Blair for a helpful suggestion on mixing.

Software used: Renoise, Audacity, The Levelator

Lyrics:

    good morning
so sorry moving to the sun
    still hiding
so sorry got to run
    so crazy
so sorry moving to the sun
    so angry
    so sad that we are done

to be true
anew
what of our eyes unseeing

stew in the queue
a clue:
seeking the sun
inside of you

    good evening
still sorry moving to the sun
    no dealing
so sorry got to run
    rebuilding
so sorry moving to the sun
    things changing
    and maybe we are one

We like it a lot, and we hope you do too. (:

I feel so much better than if we had sat around and consumed visual media. It took some effort (and a little caffeine) to get over the initial resistance to doing something creative, but I’m ridiculously glad I did.

I’m happy I chose nourishing time over down time.

I can remember being in grade school, playing with my friends, completely oblivious to being fat. It just wasn’t a big deal at all.

I remember being in 6th grade, being called “Fatso Lorino” for the first time in my life, and it breaking my heart. I didn’t understand what was so different about me – and since the kid who coined that oh-so-kind moniker was fat himself, it was all very confusing.

I remember being starting high school, being with friends, being out and public in theatre and choir, performing all the time, on stage singing and acting my heart out – never really thinking about how much fatter I was than anyone else.

I was certainly a misfit, an outcast. I knew people in my family didn’t approve of my body – but they didn’t like my hair, either, so whatever.

But somewhere along the way, it sunk in anyway. The prejudices eventually got to me. The constant onslaught of subtle clues that I was fat – and therefore, unwanted. Living in a thin-centric society was enough, let alone the barrage of messages from various well-meaning people in my life.

It all sunk in, and I developed body issues. My breasts are too saggy. My hips are too hippy. My stomach too rolly. My back too broad, my upper arms too waggly.

But I didn’t start out that way. There was a time when I didn’t know I wasn’t the “right” shape.

How about that?

Here’s a fun story of learning about myself and separating out my own thoughts and beliefs from the tapes in my head (Week 8 of 52 Weeks to Awesome). You get it in both audio and text format, but the audio is much funnier because we burst out laughing umpteen times a minute. (:

Pace and Kyeli get introspective and silly about caffeine (MP3 audio, 6:07)

Kyeli: When you need caffeine, why do you ask me to hand you half a caffeine pill and ask you to take it? Why don’t you just get it and take it yourself?

Pace: I’m working on that, but I feel a lot of resistance to it. Until I get better at doing it myself, I appreciate your help.

Kyeli: Do you know why you feel resistance to doing it on your own?

Pace: Hmm. No, I don’t know. It’s weird, because I have no problem drinking coffee, but taking caffeine in pill form feels bad for some reason.

Kyeli: What about caffeinated soap?

Pace: I don’t know. That’s just weird.

Kyeli: So, a caffeine pill is bad if you take it on your own, but it’s okay if I hand it to you and say, “Here, take this”?

Pace: Yeah. It’s like… pills are okay if a doctor tells you to take them, but maybe I picked up a taboo against self-medication? That it’s bad to alter your consciousness for non-health-related reasons? That may explain some of my weirdness about drinking, too.

Kyeli: But I’m not a doctor, so why does it still count?

Pace: *announcer voice* She’s a REAL DOCTOR!

Kyeli: *giggles*

Pace: *announcer voice* And she loves HICKORY SMOKED HORSE BUTTHOLES!

Kyeli: *giggles* But seriously, what if some random dude on the street handed you a caffeine pill and said, “Here, take this?”

Pace: No, that wouldn’t count.

Kyeli: What if you got out a caffeine pill, handed it to me and asked me to ask you to take it, and then I asked you to take it?

Pace: Yeah, that would totally work.

Kyeli: *baffles*

Pace: Maybe it’s like… an authority figure? No, because a cop wouldn’t count. A caretaker. That’s it. If a caretaker tells you to take a pill, it’s okay. Otherwise, it’s not.

Kyeli: That makes sense that you would pick that up. But why is it okay to drink coffee? It has just as much caffeine as the pill, and yet you don’t have resistance to drinking it without me saying, “Hey Pace, drink this coffee.”

Pace: Hmm, I guess there’s a special exception for drinks. I would have a lot more resistance to an alcohol pill than I would to an alcoholic drink.

Kyeli: What about… what’s that caffeinated water called? Water Joe? Is that okay?

Pace: Yeah, that’s fine.

Kyeli: So what if you crushed up half a caffeine pill and dissolved it in a glass of water? It’s exactly the same as Water Joe. How’s that?

Pace: Oh no, that’s totally not okay.

Pace and Kyeli: *burst out laughing*

Pace: I guess the difference is that with Water Joe, some faceless, nameless person at the Water Joe factory put it in a bottle, and that kind of gives it the Societal Seal of Approval. “It is okay to drink this!” But doing it on my own doesn’t get the seal of approval, because I don’t have that authority.

Kyeli: But if you worked at the Water Joe factory, you would?

Pace: No, no, I’d have to be in charge of the factory.

Kyeli: So if you were in charge of the Water Joe factory, you could crush up a caffeine pill, dissolve it in your glass of water, and drink it?

Pace: No! I’d have to do it the official way and push the buttons in the factory. I’d have to drink from an official Water Joe bottle if I want the Seal of Approval.

Kyeli: *giggle* So… coffee has the Societal Seal of Approval because it’s a generally accepted thing that people drink. And so does Water Joe. But Water Joe Moonshine doesn’t?

Pace: Exactly.

Kyeli: Of all people, you’re the last one I’d expect to obsess over the Societal Seal of Approval.

Pace: *shrug* I guess I just picked up this tape when I was younger, and it’s still running.

Kyeli: Well, now that you know it’s just a tape, is your resistance still there?

Pace: *checks* Yup, still there. Maybe a little weaker, but still there. Still, knowing about it helps a lot. Thanks, peachberry.

Kyeli: Any time, babe.

Hello, dear readers! This is a sneak peek of our next big thing.  We call it the World-Changing Writing Workshop.

In the process of blogging, growing our business, publishing a book, writing our manifesto, and authoring an e-course, we’ve learned a lot about how to change the world by writing. Also, our lives have been changed by the things we’ve read: books, e-books, and blogs, fiction and non-fiction. Now we’ll help you take your love of writing and use it to change the world!

The World-Changing Writing Workshop will be a 6-week telecourse where we (Pace and Kyeli) and other world-changing writers share our advice and experience with you. Regardless of whether you’re a novelist, blogger, author, or marketer, we’ll teach you how to change the world with your writing!

We think this will be awesome and fun, but we want to hear from you. Is this something you’d be interested in? What would you want to learn?  Who would you want as guest speakers?

If you could please help us out and take this quick 3-question survey, we’d appreciate it greatly!

Thanks!

If you follow me on Twitter or FaceBook, firstly I apologize. I’m totally uncensored, so you get random things like me talking to my uterus and current obsessions in addition to rambling about my day and suchlike. (At least it’s short rambling.)

Secondly, you’ve heard that I’ve been jonesing for a scooter. In fact, I declared 2010 to be the year I get one. I did research and checked into motorcycle laws – and found and fell in love with a particular scooter. I priced it new, found a place in town that sells it. I started figuring out how much I could put down and how much I could afford to pay monthly, and talking about other financial options.

I was all set to buy the scooter. I even had a name picked out for her!

And then, I decided not to do it at all. After weeks of thinking about very little other than my soon-to-be scooter, I kind of surprised myself there.

After weeks of research and noodling and excitement, I had a major shift. I learned to respect money.

I feel like I leveled up! Suddenly, I understand money far better. I grok that, when we spend money, we no longer have it – whether it’s cash or not. I know where it comes from and I get that I need to know where it’s going, all the time. It’s not my enemy; we’re friends. It’s not some amorphous thing that just happens to me; it’s real and I can pay attention to it and have understanding of it.

What does this have to do with the scooter?

Well, I started thinking of all the other things I could do with the money I’d put into a scooter. I could go to Portland and meet all the cool people there and buy a huge ton of socks in person. I could go to cons and meet people and have an awesome experience. I could visit friends across the country. I could get 10 new tattoos (I don’t actually want that many; don’t worry, Daddy). I could have 750 grande chai lattes. (Seriously? Only 750?! I need to figure out how to make them at home, omg.) Or the money spent on a scooter could go into savings. It’d buy us 2.5 months of security.

I also started thinking of the practicality of a scooter: I live in Texas. It’s hot here 10 months out of the year – and I hate the heat. Scooters don’t have air conditioning. I have tattoos. The sun is terrible for skin, but worse for tattooed skin. Scooters don’t have roofs. And there’s the additional costs of gas and maintenance, taking classes and getting a motorcycle license, etc.

Once I started weighing all the other possibilities and thinking of the actualities of it, getting a scooter seemed like a dumb idea.

This was revolutionary for me.

I never used to think things through like that. I’d be out and on a scooter, willy nilly and never you mind things like practicality and actualities and other possibilities!

To slow down, breathe, and realize what I want is not what I thought I wanted, well, that was really something. Even further, to stop before I spent a ton of money and wound up with something sitting around gathering dust and regret… that was damn near the end of times.

Our culture is addicted to instant-gratification. We’re not taught to slow down and think; we’re taught to RUN RIGHT OUT AND SPEND SPEND SPEND RIGHT NOW HURRY! SALE ENDS SOON! And it makes me sick, but I get all swept up in it and need to run right out and hurry hurry hurry. I’ve spent most of my life running right out and spending spending spending, and then wondering why I never have enough for travel or books or emergencies.

And it’s not just about money, either. We spend our lives running, rarely taking time to slow down and figure out what we want in any capacity, and we run til we realize how unhappy we are even though we’re surrounded by all the things we thought we wanted.

Slowing down to breathe, to figure out what we want before we wind up with what we don’t really want – that’s revolutionary for all of us.

Dru and I have been playing the Sims 3 like we’re some kind of insane addicts who will curl up in little balls if you take our tiny pretend people away.

But! We’re learning all kinds of lessons!

Lesson #1: Don’t fire off a rocket in the house.

Dru learned this one the hard way. His Kid Sim was playing with an outdoor rocket in the house, and when it went off, it utterly exploded, creating a fire that killed the kid and his dad – who’d come up to save the kid, to no avail. Cue really sad Mom Sim and a weeping Real Life Kid, and we’ve got one serious lesson.

How many things do we parents let our kids do or play with without really understanding what it is? Parents are quick to blame TV for our children’s bad behavior, but if you don’t know what they’re watching, it’s not the TV to blame. If you don’t know your kid’s habits, how can you know if they change drastically? If you don’t pay attention to your child, your child might just fire off some kind of rocket and devastate all of your lives.

Knowing the rocket was an outside toy and making sure he supervised the Kid Sim would have prevented this tragedy. Dru learned a lot about being a god parent that night.

Lesson #2: WooHoo makes babies.

WooHoo is, you may can guess, Sim Sex. It’s very vanilla – this is a kid-friendly game, after all – the sims cuddle up on the bed, giggle a lot, then dive under the covers and heart-shaped confetti sprinkles down from the ceiling, and they emerge from the covers all grinning and happy and clothed.

Dru made a couple, and eventually, the couple wanted to make it. Don’t we all? So, he sent them to bed and WooHoo happened.

And Sim Lady got preggers.

Dru was baffled. (Especially when I couldn’t stop laughing.) He said, “But I didn’t tell them to try for a baby!” (“Try for a baby” is another option.) Somehow, between snickers, we managed to have a very good and informative discussion about how sex makes babies – often whether or not you want one.

And in Real Life™, you can’t restart your game and not be pregnant anymore.

Our culture rarely talks about sex. Sure, you see it everywhere, but rarely do we educate our children – or ourselves. Even partners often have trouble talking about sex, even if it would make sex better, hotter, more fun.

Starting out with our kids, talking about sex honestly and openly, advocating birth control, and being there for any questions without pressure will help lead our kids to a better understanding of how our bodies work, why, and how babies come from WooHoo.

Note: the Midwest Teen Sex Show is an awesome resource to share with your budding teens. Watch them yourself, first.

Lesson #3: Money won’t fill your happy meter.

There’s a cheat code for money. You can get hundreds of thousands of Simoleans, instantly, with no effort whatsoever. This is handy if you’re building a house, but… well… we tend to abuse it and buy the best of everything ever. The best bed, the best stuff, the best stove. You get the idea.

The other day, though, Dru noticed that his sims were miserable. They’d been working long sim hours and not getting enough sim fun. He was frustrated, and said, “But I bought them the best everything! Why aren’t they happy?”

Heh. We talked about how working all the time and never having fun makes people unhappy, even if they live in a huge gorgeous house on a lake, surrounded by material luxury. We all need fun. We need to go to the bathroom in time to not wet our pants. We need food before we’re too hungry to walk. We need comfort, sure, but we need companionship and fun even more.

Lesson #4: Sometimes, your prayers will be answered. Other times, you’re on your own.

Occasionally, a Sim will get stuck or have a specific need (like going to the bathroom in time to not wet their pants). When this happens, it’s up to the player (with our god-like powers) to help out. Sim standing in the kitchen, waving his arms around? Check the Mood Meter and send him to get what he most needs.

But sometimes, if you let him do his own thing, he’ll fill his own most urgent need. Want him to sit and read and improve his logic? Fine, til he has to pee, then he’ll ditch the book and jog to the toilet.

Sometimes, we need help fulfilling our needs. We can pray or ask for help from the Divine or our more earthy companions. We can listen to our hearts and ask for guidance – and heed what we receive. And other times, we’re on our own. We can set up our environment to better serve us when we’re stuck. We can learn more about ourselves so we can anticipate our needs and take the best possible care of us.

Lesson #5: Fulfilling your dreams makes you happy.

A new game mechanic in Sims 3 is wish fulfillment. You get to choose traits (good, evil, lucky, genius, neurotic, friendly, etc), and then a lifetime goal (there are dozens), and then your sim will have little mini-goals appear throughout their life. Each mini-goal is related to their overall life goal and helps them on their path. (Usually.)

When you accomplish one of the goals, the sim gets a burst of happy that lasts anywhere from hours to weeks.

I find this one to be the most telling.

When we follow our hearts, when we’re on the right path, when we’re accomplishing goals and moving forward – we’re happy. It’s when we stray from this that we get depressed, unfulfilled, unhappy, and demotivated.

Just like the tiny little pretend people, we get a burst of joy from fulfilling our goals when they’re aligned with our hearts – so follow your heart, be it tiny and pretend or big and real.

Lesson #6: We’re all the same underneath.

This is, perhaps, the most important lesson of all.

I’ve made a wide range of little pretend people. When you’re really enjoying a game (read: obsessed), it’s fun to try out all the options. I’ve made evil Sims, good Sims, family-oriented Sims, downright nasty, mean Sims, and even an insane Sim.

But the thing I noticed was, every single one of them needed the same things.

They all needed food. They all needed to go to the bathroom, to shower, to have a clean and pleasant environment. They each had different versions of “clean and pleasant”, they each had different levels of social needs, and they each had differing desires – but that’s true for us, too.

My insane Sim, with her hard heart and mean spirit? She got lonely. She sat at her computer desk and cried once, when she’d gone too long without real Sim interaction. She was afraid of the dark, and got scared when she got lost in the graveyard in the middle of the night.

Deep down, she was the same as the sweetest Sim around.

It doesn’t matter if we’re fat, sweet, hard-hearted, or even green.

We’re all human. We all hurt, we all dream, we all long for things, we all love.

We all need to go to the bathroom from time to time.

In Real Life™, we get caught up in our differences and forget our sameness. Indeed, those differences make us all the more human. But it’s our sameness that brings us together, our sameness that helps breed connection.

In our differences, we enrich the world. And in our samenesses, we shall connect.

Today is Valen’s Day.

I wager you’ve never heard of that particular holiday. That’s because Pace made it up. Several years ago, she posted a silly picture:

(that’s Valen from Babylon 5); can you guess what it means?

Yeah, it still hurts me, too. “Happy Valen-tines day”, indeed.

But, at first, I got “Valen’s Day” out of it, and the name stuck. We started celebrating Valen’s Day on 2/12, because 212 is Pace’s lucky number.

Ta-da! A goofy, self-proclaimed holiday was born, one we celebrate with glee every year.

Holidays in general are largely made up. Most Christian holidays were, shall we say, procured from the local pagans, in order to more easily convert them. And the “real meaning” of most holidays has been converted into mass commercialism, the spiritual or earthy meanings long forgotten.

Taking something important to you, be it funny or inspirational or devotional or whathaveyou, and turning it into something to celebrate, making it a holiday, is very freaky. It’s fun. It can be sacred. It can mark something monumental (like a wedding anniversary or a divorce anniversary) or something meaningful only to you. It’s also revolutionary, because society says “celebrate these certain holidays and no more or less, you filthy heathens!”

Society be damned.

Happy Valen’s Day!

Yes, folks, this is a post about my girly bits. Specifically about my cervix, but my vagina is discussed.

Daddy and Little Brother (and anyone else uninterested in my girly bits), you probably want to stop reading right here. I’m going to be disturbingly frank. Consider yourselves warned.

There’s a good lesson at the end, though. (Tempt, tempt.)

Let’s begin.

My vagina and I are good friends. Unlike most women, I’m rather familiar with how mine looks and feels, inside and out. This has come in handy from time to time, when something is awry – I can catch it before it gets too awry.

You might already know where this is heading, right? Because why would I be talking publicly about my private bits unless I had damn good reason?

Yup.

Last week, I went to the bathroom as usual. When I attempted to reinsert my Diva cup (yes, that means I was in need of the menstrual hut), I found my vaginal cavity blocked.

And promptly freaked the fuck out.

I calmly said to Pace, “Honey, get the flashlight and meet me in the bedroom, stat.” (Calm, because I didn’t want to terrify my son, who was setting up a game nearby.) Pace picked up on the panic in my voice and didn’t waste any time getting to me.

After a while of uncomfortable poking and prodding – and the least sexy photographs of a usually sexy place possible (for science!) – she went off to the computer. She was doing the research, as I am forbidden to google medical issues.

(This is because, once, I sprained my ankle and read an article on how a sprained ankle can lead to death and freaked the fuck out.)

After extensive research, Pace said, “Okay, it looks like your cervix.”

Pardon me?

My cervix?

As in, the thing that’s supposed to be at the other, far away, hard to reach end of my vagina?

It seems to have wandered a bit out of place, don’t you think?

I was, unsurprisingly, still freaking the fuck out. Pace remained extremely calm and helpful and kind, and took excellent care of me. I called friends and they said reassuring and comforting things and gave me good advice. I stayed up way too late because sleeping seemed like a bad idea. I mean, what if my uterus as a whole decided to climb out and run off? Apparently, various bits of me are getting errant ideas! So I fussed and freaked and panicked for hours, then asked the internet what to do.

The internet, in a moment of stunning grace, said, “Everything is going to be alright.”

So I went to bed.

The next morning, I went to the doctor. I managed to find an Ob/Gyn recommended to me my best friend, so at least it was someone I knew by proxy about to shove her fingers up my girly bits rather than some stranger dude in the ER.

I told the doctor about my past (miscarrying and being raped) and that I was extremely terrified, and she thanked me and promised to be extremely gentle and tell me everything before she did anything. I told her the whole story about my bits trying to escape, and she listened (mostly). Then she did prod and poke and I cried a little (because it’s so fucking triggery I can’t help it).

Diagnosis?

Uterine prolapse. In English (or Kyelish), my uterus is, indeed, trying to escape.

And here I thought we were friends.

But seriously, it means my uterus isn’t in the right place and is collapsing. There are lots of things I can do to mitigate the symptoms. I’m going to survive. I’m devastated, and there are some pretty horrible consequences (more on that later), but it’s not going to kill me. It’s not as terrifying, now that I know what’s going on.

But, here’s the thing.

Had I not known my body well, I might’ve missed it until it became life threatening.

Once I made myself get to the doctor, I had to hold firm and make her tell me that my uterus wasn’t going to actually come out. I needed to hear her say it so I could chill (at least a little).

And wow, did I need Pace there to make sure I covered all the things I needed to cover. I was so terrified and freaked out, I knew I’d never remember everything. And then, on the table, on my back, my cervix (trixy trixy cervix) wasn’t as far prolapsed, so there was much discussion before we were able to get her to really understand that there was a very serious problem. Had I not been so familiar with my vagina, I might not have had the knowledge with which to move her to action – and without Pace, I might not have had the emotional strength to keep trying.

Being able to inform your healer of all your symptoms, being able to provide a complete and clear story, is critical. If you can’t tell your healer for whatever reason (like, me choking up from body-triggers), tell someone you love and trust and then ask them to come with you and help. Or write it down before you go – most healers are so delighted to have a complete picture, they’re happy to read it.

Don’t let your very private parts go ignored. Our breasts, vaginas, penises (penii?), anuses, and internal reproductive organs get ignored the most because they’re the hardest to talk about when things go awry – but if they malfunction, so does the rest of us.

Whole health is about being entirely healthy. Even our pink squishy bits need to be healthy to help complete our picture.

So, to break it down:

1) Know your body. Become familiar with how you feel on a regular basis, so you can get an early sense of something going wrong.

2) Make sure your whole story is told. Tell it yourself, either to the healer or a friend. Write it down. Get it all out, even things you think are unimportant and unrelated – they might be neither.

3) Ask questions. Even dorky questions. (I asked, “Is my uterus going to fall out?” The obvious answer is no, but I needed to hear it from the doctor.)

4) Make sure you feel informed. If the healer acts like they’ve told you everything, but you don’t feel fully informed, keep prodding for more. They almost always have more.

5) If you’re afraid, go anyway. Take someone you know and trust and feel safe with, to offer you comfort and support.

People, I am utterly, utterly terrified of the ob/gyn. Every time I go, I cry. It shakes me up for days. Ever since I miscarried, being put in stirrups is enough to send me right back to that terrible moment and I’m flooded with fear and despair. It’s not easy. It’s why I avoid regular girly-bit maintenance. But this time, that avoision could have cost me my uterus – or my life.

Knowing our bodies is critical to our health. If we don’t know what “normal” feels like, we can’t know what abnormal feels like.