![\"Robin](\"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/shameless-917x1024.jpg\")
I don\u2019t curse. Probably because of all the hours I spent as a kid in the back of my mother\u2019s car,\u00a0stuck in traffic on the Long Island Expressway, with my mother ranting at the wheel. There were f—ing idiots driving alongside us, damn a–holes in front of us, and\u00a0 stinkin\u2019 s—heads in the front. The swearing fascinated me. I couldn\u2019t master her competence or style. So I never tried.<\/p>\n
This past week, on the day of my colonoscopy, my friend drove me to and from the hospital and stayed for the brief review after the procedure.
\n\u201cDo you remember what the doctor said?\u201d she asked the next day when the whole event was a vague memory. I couldn\u2019t even remember what the doctor looked like. \u201cHe couldn\u2019t finish the last part of the procedure because you were in pain and were cursing,\u201d she said.
\n\u201cMe? I don\u2019t curse,\u201d I told her.
\n\u201cYou were cursing. Yes you were,\u201d she insisted.<\/p>\n
I was crushed. How rude, I thought. How crude. This couldn\u2019t be true. The worst four-letter words I ever dared to use were \u201cdarn\u201d and an occasional \u201cwhat-the hell?\u201d I got queasy just typing those. The self-image I\u2019d always nursed of a bland, demure, tight-lipped girl-woman was suddenly gone. My self-identity was a fraud. Here I was trying to recover from the loss of my daughter and I somehow had lost myself.
\nWho am I? Whose words did I use, I wonder? My son\u2019s? I\u2019d heard a sorry earful the time he broke his leg in high school and the doctor set the bone without using anesthesia. Or did I use the long forgotten language of my mother stuck in traffic on the LIE?<\/p>\n
Flummoxed, I then had to wonder: what else did I not know about myself?<\/p>\n
\u201cRight after the procedure you wanted me to take your photograph,\u201d my friend said. I winced at the photos of me sitting up, wrapped in the hospital gown and blankets, silly and shameless.<\/p>\n
No. I definitely don\u2019t know her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I don’t curse. Probably because of all the hours I spent as a kid in the back of my mother’s car, stuck in traffic on the Long Island Expressway, with my mother ranting at the wheel. There were f—ing idiots driving alongside us, damn a–holes in front of us, and stinkin’ s—heads in the front. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[153,64,168,155,152,154],"class_list":["post-534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1","tag-cursing","tag-healing-from-loss","tag-healing-from-loss-losing-myself","tag-know-about-yourself","tag-lies-we-tell-ourselves","tag-loss-of-self-identity"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t