Hopscotch

She hadn’t felt like herself for quite some time after the surgery. She wasn’t in pain, that had subsided after the first few weeks, and her healing was “going along nicely,” according to her doctor. Still, there was something holding her back from normality; a sense of slowly sliding through life that countermanded her need to reclaim the time before.

“Hysterectomy” was not a word she ever thought would have been used in regard to her, and yet, there it was, written across her life with thick, black strokes. True, she felt better with the tumor gone, yet her surgeon had taken something more. No, not her womanhood; she didn’t define herself in that way, even though society had made that attempt on all young girls of her generation. Her childhood room had been littered with baby dolls and miniature versions of motherhood until the first drips of blood came signaling that true motherhood was on the horizon. Yet, it had never come, but neither had a mourning for it come. There had been no inward itch towards motherhood, even as the years flew past. She blamed the fact that she had spent her early youth tending babies and toddlers by the dozens; being elbow deep in dirty diapers, vomit, tears and hugs. Still, she wasn’t certain if that was true.

Looking out of her study window, she saw a group of young girls chalking a sidewalk and remembered doing the same herself. Those rituals of games and chants that ended with how many children you would have, as a curse for your skill at hopping across chalk lines or jumping a rope. “Little boys did not/do not play games that define them by breeding,” she murmured to herself, before loudly saying, “enough,” and stomping out into the street.

She marched past the girls and their games as echoes of niceties from well-meaning friends pulsed through her temples. Not even one tear streaked her face as she padded the pavement in determined steps. She had not been beaten down nor did she accept the role of prune or parched desert. She knew she was vital, as every woman everywhere is vital whether she is a mother, a wife or not. Yet, since the surgery, there was a sense of being sucked into that particular attitude.

“I’ll have some apple pie a la mode, please,” she responded to the waitress who had asked for her order in the restaurant she found herself in after walking past exhaustion.

“You’re gonna love it. Our pie is the best in town and you’re lucky, because the cook just made a fresh batch. Nothing better than just out of the oven apple pie a la mode, in my book,” said the waitress almost skipping across the floor.

“Lucky me,” she replied back, a smile spreading across her face. “Yes, lucky me,” and she reasons to feel lucky. The doctor had removed a fast-growing soccer ball-size tumor, which had grown through her uterus, and it hadn’t been cancerous. She would no longer feel the constancy of it growing and pushing inside or ever hemorrhage because of it again. Nor would she ever have to deal with her ex-fiancé who had already named their children and beaten down any of her attempts to grow into her own skin.

It was the first time she’d remembered him and how bad health had played a role in setting her free. Still, everything didn’t come together in that moment, but it was a start. She could feel it, even as she savored the pie and nodded her thanks to the waitress. She had looked at herself in a mirror of her own design and returned with a triumphant smile that continued as she walked home past the rain that hurried the little girls into their homes, and washed away all the hopscotch boards in the city.