The Alchemy of Pain: A Memoir

The worst things that ever happened to me were also the very things that shaped me into someone strong enough to survive them.I understood pain before I understood most other things. First the psychological kind, then the living, breathing kind. My life casts doubt on two things related to trauma: the idea that it incapacitates you permanently, and that it excuses what you do because of it. Neither is true. I have the receipts.At the point in my life when I wrote this book; my surgical count had climbed eerily close to my years on this earth and I had enough hardware in my body to act as a divining rod. More accurate than most weather prediction models. I had lost more babies than anyone I knew, or any story I could find online. Yet somehow I could not shake the joy that encapsulates it all.Though I told my stories with a wry smile, the shock and sadness when I did so made me realize that my approach and mindset are not common.And that felt like something I could not keep to myself.This isn't a book about being healed. I'm not. I do not spend much time wishing for that really. If I truly love who I am, how can I argue with the process it took to get there?Join me for the evolution-buried in scar tissue and stitched with grace.