i don't know what to pray for anymore

i've never been good at praying. ever. i know how it should be done: you're supposed to express gratitude for the good, which i do; you're supposed to ask for help with things that hurt and are in need of healing, so i pray for my friends. i'm good with all that... until i get to what's hurting me, to how i've hurt myself, to how i'd like it to be healed. i don't know what to pray for anymore.

every well woman exam i've had has come back normal, save for the last. i've lesions, abnormal cells that may need special attention. i go back in march for another exam, and if they're still there... well, then...

i'm trying not to think anything of it. for the past month, i've managed to roll with this well enough. apparently they're rather common. they're caused by human papillomavirus, which i got from that douchebag i dated last year. i got it because i'd lowered my standards, because i relented. because i'd thought a lot of things i didn't like to think.

it's probably nothing, this... i'll probably go back, and they'll do their thing, whatever it is, and i'll be fine. this is probably just me freaking out because that's what i do best.

i am a strong woman. i know this. i might not always act as though i've got a backbone. i might use bitchy and bluster as a defense mechanism a little too often. i'm horribly passive aggressive. but i can take a ton of shit. you can poke and prod at me until you can't find a vein anymore, like doctors did when i was a baby...

whatever this is, i'll deal with it. that's been my thought process for the past month, since i got those abnormal results. hell, for the past eighteen months since all this shit really began. whatever this is, i'll deal with it, like i've done a thousand times before.

curious, though, isn't it, that i would feel compelled to go see that movie to joey with love. i went because she was gifted with a beautiful voice and seems to have had a beautiful heart and soul, and i wanted to know that beauty a little better.

halfway through the film, though, i thought... this could be you a year from now. this struggle she endured, this battle she fought and lost... leaving behind a man who loved her and a daughter who needed her. this could be your struggle... only you don't have as many reasons to fight as she did. all because you relented, because you gave up. you who makes a point to hold her ground, even if holding it means to curl up in a ball, to dig a trench, to bury yourself. well... you're running out of trenches... you can only build so many before the ground gives way.