The moral fiber of the story

When you find yourself gently weeping and muttering, "low fiber diet" in Costco, you have to stop and take stock of your emotional well-being.

Which is to say that I don't know how long I've been in a not-so-great place, but here we are.

Also: I have a colonoscopy scheduled for next Wednesday. It's been three years since I had those back-to back colonoscopies, because, as Wendy said then, who knew I was so full of shit? 

Because I seem to be more attached than most to the contents of my colon, in addition to 48 hours of liquid diet ahead of time, I'm supposed to be on a low-fiber diet for this whole week ahead.

Do you know what this means? No fruit or veggies. No oats. No nuts. No seeds. No beans! You're basically left with meat and dairy and white bread.

Nick was like, "I don't see anything wrong with that!"

I was like, "It's basically your life."

Because as it turns out, my entire life is high fiber. And apparently fiber is hard to get out of the nooks and crannies of your colon.

Stuff like broccoli hangs on for dear life, while white bread happily slides right out.

So yesterday I was going down the shopping list and I was all, "OK, I'll get the Brussels sprouts even though I'm not allowed to eat them."

I was being rather petulant about it. And clearly feeling very sorry for myself because I think I started crying somewhere around the sweet potatoes. Muttering "low fiber diet, fucking low fiber diet".

But what I think is going on is that spring is fucking tough.

Every year I forget this. Maybe I should just put an annual reminder on my calendar or something saying, SPRING IS HARD. Little sticky notes. AZALEAS ARE BEAUTIFUL AND SPRING MAKES YOU CRY. SPRING IS A FALSE FRIEND!

Little motivational poster kinds of things.

And this spring, jeez this spring, which absolutely refuses to get warm. I mean, it's supposed to be in the damn 30s tonight. What the fucking fuck.

But it's like I slog through winter, and winter never my friend. So I brace for it. Winter. I can do it. Winter. Be vigilant, because winter is rough.

But then winter ends, and spring is all new life and flowers and baby birds and hope!

Except not so much on the hope. I don't know if it's the residual exhaustion from winter, or that it's brighter and days are longer so I feel like I should not be so tired but I'm just so very tired, or something else entirely.

Maybe winter is long and all my reserves are gone.

I had a therapist who said that even when you don't realize that a traumatic anniversary is approaching, your body knows it. And I know that April and May are linked with big trauma events for me. Maybe that's part of it.

I don't know. What I do know is that I have to start eating a fucking low fiber diet like now and then next week I have to  liquid fast for 48 hours while taking mega-laxatives.

I don't honestly mind diarrhea, but now I have anxiety about not having a totally empty colon for my doctor to examine. Like, she's going to be able to tell that I had oatmeal for breakfast today, even though I don't think I have to start until tomorrow.

But being who I am, which is an external approval-seeking a first-born rule follower, I don't want to fail this excretion test. 

Also, and more importantly, I don't want a little piece of spinach obscuring a polyp. So there's that. White bread for days.

On the bright side, at least I don't, as my friend Kristin envisioned, have to lie on my back with my legs up and my feet by my ears while they peer in my anus for the procedure.

That would most definitely be something to cry about.