Seventh-day Anniversary
heart surgery or the day when the hole in my heart turned into a butterfly
“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” ― Alan Watts
Yesterday marked a week since my heart surgery. I celebrated by taking the first independent walk to my favorite cafe. As I slowly moved through the swaying ocean of spring blossoms, enjoying the sun on my sleepy cheeks, shaking leftover dizziness along the way, my soul sang, wrapped in abundance. I could see gifts everywhere I looked - in the gentle pinks and purples of magnolia flowers, in the loud birdsong, in the bare possibility of walking at all after spending many sedentary days at home. Simple things that mean so much…
On April 2nd, I woke up at 4 am with a big smile as if it was my birthday. I was overflowing with joy. It made me wonder if I had, in fact, exhausted all the anxiety, so everything that was left was a deep peace and excitement for what was to come. A ride to a hospital took about an hour. I stared at the car window but saw my life instead of the city streets - random excerpts from last year, slowly moving up until the past few days.
The recent weeks were a rollercoaster, an “Anxiety Central.” I swayed between the polarities of being an absolute Yoda-type zen master to a dramatic creature afraid to die. It wasn’t pretty, but I proudly owe every inch of it. It was an invitation to nurture a deeper intimacy with parts of myself that had difficulty navigating the experience of change, of having a mortal human body. It showed me closeness that literally left no place for hiding things, a state of welcoming all of it - the nice and the ugly.
I was learning to gently hold myself through it all - through the moments when my physical body was paralyzed with fear of death or things going wrong during the surgery, through the anger for not having enough energy to do things, through comparing myself to others and never winning, through the frustration of being bound to navigate multiple tests, bloodwork, MRIs, and never-ending, money-sucking doctor’s visits instead of doing something better with my life. I learned how to hold space for myself when nothing seemed to calm me down - I just sat on the floor of my studio, crying my eyes out, spiraling into oblivion with both of my arms tightly wrapped around my shaking body. A tender act of seeing and holding myself like this turned out to be a potent medicine I craved, the brave leap forward from feeling stuck in a vicious loop to the abundance of self-compassion.
When I reached the bottom of this dark and scary well, I was no longer afraid.
I was born during the soviet union times, growing up in a deeply traumatized society that was trying to figure out how to survive when the ruling regime fell apart. I was raised in an environment where people pushed through concrete like dandelions on a sidewalk. They often didn’t have a choice of slowing down and recovering. Self-care was mainly unheard of. I observed women in my family and around bulldozing through the harsh reality while looking pretty and put together but highly dependent on public opinion. Experiencing that wired me a certain way - I learned how to adapt and survive, muting my sensitivity when needed. I also received the gift of finding moments of joy even if they were nowhere to be seen, creating them out of nothing (just like the meals my mom cooked from what seemed like thin air). This factory setting is something I’ve been trying to unlearn for years. It makes it impossibly hard to relax, take it easy when I’m out of commission, and shed the fake notions that I must be productive at any cost at every moment of the day.
But the Universe has its ways of making us learn (grow); they come in different shapes and forms, carefully tailored to each and every one of us; they may be subtle at first; they may also come in the shape of war following a year of sticky depression following a health decline following heart surgery :)
On March 21st, an essential part of my birthday celebration was finally meeting a surgeon I trusted to fix my heart.
On April 2nd, I, fully conscious, watched on a giant screen how he closed the hole in my beating heart in real time. I was lying there in complete awe while he explained every step he took. Did you know the device used as a patch and permanently placed inside the heart resembles a butterfly? I now have a life-saving butterfly in my chest.
Every person who touched me during the entire surgery and recovery process was an angel—every single one. The guy at the front desk might’ve been a grumpy angel, but who isn’t at 6 am in the morning :)
There are so many realizations I want to remember from this whole experience. They keep on revealing themselves as I go, just like the fact that I couldn’t go home the same day and needed to spend the night in the hospital because I kept on fainting. It felt utterly frustrating. The competitive me was ashamed of slowly gliding down the bathroom entrance on my first walk. Whenever I attempted to sit down on a bed and walk again, I’d turn into a paper-white swaying tree while older people around me were getting up and walking around after the same procedure and were discharged home.
Michelle, the nurse who took care of me that day, softly whispered in my ear:
Love, everyone is different; you need to be gentle with yourself and respect your pace.
Also, can we take a minute to acknowledge the actual labor of love that being a nurse is? Those incredible people run the whole operation! The amount of hard work (not only physical) that they carry on each day is unparalleled.
I am home now. I am a sailor who slowly makes her way through the thick fog, navigating the roaring ocean with almost zero visibility but knowing deeply in her unbound heart that the sun is always there, even if all she sees is a thick blanket of clouds. The medication I must be on for the next few months makes me lightheaded and dizzy. So, I’ve been a living embodiment of a snail with a hint of a sloth. For now, I navigate between a bed and a reclining IKEA chair with short stops by the easel. I am not allowed to lift anything heavier than 10 lbs; technically, I can’t even lift any of my cats or a gallon of water to refill a kettle.
Some days, I feel overwhelmed by the weakness and the whole experience of not being able to use my body the way I am used to. I miss yoga; I miss a simple act of running up and down the stairs in our building; I miss cleaning our place and being able to move things around with ease.
It’s such a humbling experience to meet myself in those circumstances. And it is such a gift to be surrounded by so much love and support.
Managing to get an hour and a half of painting by the easel - goosebumps. A recent trip to my favorite beach filled me up with so much freedom and my pockets with shells. Messages and calls from people who love me wrap my whole being in a warm blanket of gratitude - watering my garden one cup at a time.
I am constantly learning, moving, and flowing, even if my physical body is mostly resting for now. There are times when I sit with the challenging experience, not trying to push it away or exit into comfort. And there are times when I consciously shift my awareness from the heavy into the gratitude (when for every anxious thought ripping my mind apart, I find something to be grateful for).
Learning when to sit and allow and when to shift and let go is life-changing. Being carried away by a tsunami of emotions is ok, too. It is equally precious as being able to hold myself. I am still a beginner, but I can already see the transformational power of being present for the whole conversation.
Spring is finally here; everything bursts with bloom, and the air is full of change. I keep reminding myself to respect my own pace, lean on this quiet time of introspection, and be in my cacoon and watch the world around me break from hibernation.
When suddenly we can’t use our physical bodies to the capacity we used to before, finding ourselves in a totally different rhythm, often uncomfortable and discombobulated, it is the best time to go inward. Times like this are great teachers. They show us what a miracle our bodies are. When we are healthy, we rarely think of our bodies with gratitude. But everything changes when things deviate, and we find ourselves restricted in movement or ill.
Our bodies are miracles! When I think that my whole system has been keeping me alive for thirty-eight years while working with a hole right in the middle of my heart, I swell with gratitude. And now, after surgery, it will take time to realign how to work differently with a foreign device placed to be a part of it forever. Even though some days feel tough, and I feel impatient to recover or moody for being so limited in what I can do, I try to choose gratitude; I keep holding myself as gently as possible. This won’t last forever, even if it feels like this at the moment.
The precious life I was given is happening here, right now, at this very moment. I am flowing in a fast river that I can’t control, but my attitude is in my hands.
The diary entry from March 21st, 2024, on the morning of my birthday:
“On the morning of my 38th birthday, I find myself on a yoga mat, slowly moving my still sleepy but oh-so-grateful body. It is pretty emotional to feel my body so deeply, to be, probably, the closest to it that I’ve ever been my entire life. I flow from one asana to another, rooting my feet deep into the ground, visualizing that each of them is covered with roots that reach down six floors below me into a rich black earth, right to the earth’s core. As I lift my hands to the sky, I imagine them like long, thin branches of a tree kissing the blue sky above.”
“When you find out that there was never anything in the dark side to be afraid of … Nothing is left but to love.” - Alan Watts
Shortly before my birthday, I commissioned
a poem as a gift to myself. It moved me, reaching straight to the tender spot where my heart lives. Thank you for the gift of your gift, radiant being <3.
Love, Eve
P.S. Things I loved, found interesting, and want to share with you:
I am excited to start reading The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey
an ode to life + a secret of how to let go - The BEAUTY of an ORDINARY LIFE
Sounds True: Insights at the Edge episode with Alexandra Roxo: Dare to Feel