Like the mythic Ferryman transporting me across the River Styx, my surgeon delivered me to the banks from which my hero’s journey would begin. There, instead of Cerberus the three-headed dog, I met a Dragon named “Thou Shalt.”
Cleverly disguised as a procession of hospital roommates and staff, make no mistake, this was a Dragon. Representing my greatest vulnerabilities, it would take superhuman strength and courage to face this beast head on. As I was transferred to my hospital bed, Thou Shalt awaited to begin the Superhero initiation.
Thou Shalt be Defined by What You Do was the first manifestation of the Dragon sent to engage me in psychic battle. Newly self-employed, (read: no paid time off) I was consumed with my work before surgery and had considerable anxiety about leaving my infant venture to tend to my health.
The Dragon, assuming the form of a businesswoman in the hospital bed next to mine, assured me work can go everywhere now. Barking orders into her hospital phone with language that would make a sailor blush, this dedicated manager made no bones about her indispensability and the hell everyone was going to pay when she returned to clean the messes they were surely making in her absence.
Over the next 24 hours I listened to extended phone calls too numerous to mention as I watched the Dragon become engulfed in the fires of her own self-importance and commerce at all cost. When a call came for her on my own bedside phone I was forced to reach in to the flames to hand her the receiver. Fully expecting to be singed by the heat, I was astonished to find that the flames had no effect on me.
As she became increasingly fierce and outrageous in her demeanor, I calmed, recognizing Thou Shalt had no power over me. I would not be beholden to the gods she worshipped. Shuddering at the vision of the woman I might have become had I given in to the fears that possessed her, I lapsed into a fitful, morphine-assisted sleep.
The next day, I awoke to meet Thou Shalt be Defined by Your Relationships. This time the Dragon appeared to me as a woman in her late forties who was hemorrhaging and appeared destined for a hysterectomy, a fate not unlike my own. She was inconsolable. Her youngest son had just left for college and had taken her identity with him. “What will I do?” she cried. “I must have another baby. I have to have another baby!”
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