My chest felt tight and unusually heavy as we swung out of Panera, coffees in hand, to make the 40 minute drive from Oklahoma City to my childhood home. This was the trip home that ended things, most things left being sold, my mother's house contracted for sale, the end of my time of having a place to land should I need it. This all ended long ago with my mother's death and our inevitable dividing of things and the eventual acknowledgement that our childhood home would be bundled up for someone else to own.
But it's been a tender couple of days. I walk past all of the tables in my mother's house that are laden with memories in the form of glass and silver and ceramic and oil paint and I feel a tug, a grasping for these items that remind me of my grandmother's home or of some piece of family history that I'm not quite ready to let go. I suddenly think that I haven't taken enough, that my parsimonious view when we were dividing things was short-sighted, that now I need these things to fill up a certain void left by dividing and new space and the time when my own children might want something of their own. I have a moment when I believe that I have bankrupted their future with a few fickle objects, which is total bullshit because these things mean nothing to them now and will mean nothing to them in the future because they don't know the people for whom these pieces had value. Still, I feel the tug and want and I sit in these feelings for a moment just letting them come and go, come and go.
The most interesting feeling that I am having is the feeling of grasping at something, fine threads of memory that are silken to the touch but so fine that they are hard to feel between the calloused fingers of my memory. I pick up my grandmother's wrecked suitcase, I take my dad's toy monkey, I find an electric razor that may contain DNA that would help me unlock who I am through where my dad came from. This all lands for me at a remarkable juncture in my life. I am losing the emotional security of my childhood home just as I have moved into a new place of my own to live. I am packing up a lifetime of memories just as I am launching into a new sphere of work. Never have I been in such a transitional space in my life, all by choice, all completely without a concrete plan or emotional safety net.
A strong vision or the predictive power of decision trees have been my family's way of managing through some of the shittier events in life. Have a vision, you'll know what to aim for. Map out the predictable outcomes, you won't be surprised when the worst outcome arrives at your door. There is comfort in knowing what is going to happen and in a family that has had such wildly unpredictable loss, it's been a saving grace.
But wrapping up pieces of your life and closing the door on spaces that house your memories is terrifying. It means closing off the one thing that you knew you could come back to, no matter what. It also means that sometimes you just have to sit without a vision for the future, that sometimes you have to just be in it. And you think back across those people whose things you touch: remembering what a kind woman your grandmother was, or what a fiercely strong woman your mother was, or what a generous and loving man your dad was, or how you look back over your family history and realize that you come from perserverant and courageous stock.
And the grasping slowly subsides and is replaced by appreciation. And you muster your own courage and think about working without much of a net. And you can let go, slowly, and move forward, slowly. And so be it. Amen.
One girl's way of working out her experience of breast cancer through rapid-fire blogging. What you see is what you get. Me, relatively unedited and not always composed. *The title of this blog is an homage to The Flaming Lips song "Yoshimi Battles Pink Robots", one our family grooves to in the car. ['Cause she knows that/it'd be tragic/if those evil robots win/I know she can beat them]
Showing posts with label starting over. Show all posts
Showing posts with label starting over. Show all posts
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Friday, September 28, 2012
just to let it go
Regret nothing. Not the cruel novels you read
to the end just to find out who killed the cook.
Not the insipid movies that made you cry in the dark,
in spite of your intelligence, your sophistication.
Not the lover you left quivering in a hotel parking lot,
the one you beat to the punchline, the door, or the one
who left you in your red dress and shoes, the ones
that crimped your toes, don’t regret those.
Not the nights you called god names and cursed
your mother, sunk like a dog in the livingroom couch,
chewing your nails and crushed by loneliness.
You were meant to inhale those smoky nights
over a bottle of flat beer, to sweep stuck onion rings
across the dirty restaurant floor, to wear the frayed
coat with its loose buttons, its pockets full of struck matches.
You’ve walked those streets a thousand times and still
you end up here. Regret none of it, not one
of the wasted days you wanted to know nothing,
when the lights from the carnival rides
were the only stars you believed in, loving them
for their uselessness, not wanting to be saved.
You’ve traveled this far on the back of every mistake,
ridden in dark-eyed and morose but calm as a house
after the TV set has been pitched out the upstairs
window. Harmless as a broken ax. Emptied
of expectation. Relax. Don’t bother remembering any of it.
Let’s stop here, under the lit sign
on the corner, and watch all the people walk by.
- Dorianne Laux “Antilamentation,”
The dusty boxes are still sitting in the bottom of my closet back home in Oklahoma, my meager pilfering through them surfacing so many emotions that I felt like I needed to stop, to breathe, to reframe my thinking before I carried on.
A text sent to my friend said it all:
"Sorting through all of my childhood to pre-Portland life. Kind of intense to realize what a depressed and fcked up young adult I was, even if people didn't see it on the outside. Crazy."
and
"It's really weird to struggle with the idea that there was a lot of lost time in my life. Time I will never get back and time I may not have in the future."
So today when the poem above from Dorianne Laux came through my feed, something hardened from long ago became soft inside of me.
You’ve traveled this far on the back of every mistake,
ridden in dark-eyed and morose but calm as a house
after the TV set has been pitched out the upstairs
window. Harmless as a broken ax. Emptied
of expectation.
Every year I spend the days before Yom Kippur reflecting on the past year (no, I'm not Jewish but I borrow this tradition). Thinking through the things that made me happy, thinking through the things I regretted or that made me sad or wistful, thinking of things I want to do in the next year, who I love, who I want to spend time with, how I want to challenge my mind and life to do good things. It's a important time to write things down, to take stock, to see where I am going.
Sitting with these feelings this in-and-post cancer year has brought in the added layer of "time". Time I have wasted, things I have done, situations I have been in during my life that were neither healthy nor happy. And the great sadness of looking forward and thinking about time and not having it and how horrible that would be.
{And then reading that Susan Sontag was diagnosed with Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer in 1975 and lived until 2004. So go figure.}
What softened inside of me was the realization that life is too short to dwell in what happened in the past, to rehash the things you wished had happened in relationships, to question decisions that led to different paths than the future I had seen for myself. Even for a person like me who has struggled with the depressive tendency toward rumination over such things [the twisting of invisible hands and the sighing of invisible sighs that leaves you sitting in a rut you can barely peer out of], there is the possibility to not revisit this, not to drag it with me, just to let it go.
Relax. Don’t bother remembering any of it.
Let’s stop here, under the lit sign
on the corner, and watch all the people walk by.
Amen.
to the end just to find out who killed the cook.
Not the insipid movies that made you cry in the dark,
in spite of your intelligence, your sophistication.
Not the lover you left quivering in a hotel parking lot,
the one you beat to the punchline, the door, or the one
who left you in your red dress and shoes, the ones
that crimped your toes, don’t regret those.
Not the nights you called god names and cursed
your mother, sunk like a dog in the livingroom couch,
chewing your nails and crushed by loneliness.
You were meant to inhale those smoky nights
over a bottle of flat beer, to sweep stuck onion rings
across the dirty restaurant floor, to wear the frayed
coat with its loose buttons, its pockets full of struck matches.
You’ve walked those streets a thousand times and still
you end up here. Regret none of it, not one
of the wasted days you wanted to know nothing,
when the lights from the carnival rides
were the only stars you believed in, loving them
for their uselessness, not wanting to be saved.
You’ve traveled this far on the back of every mistake,
ridden in dark-eyed and morose but calm as a house
after the TV set has been pitched out the upstairs
window. Harmless as a broken ax. Emptied
of expectation. Relax. Don’t bother remembering any of it.
Let’s stop here, under the lit sign
on the corner, and watch all the people walk by.
- Dorianne Laux “Antilamentation,”
The dusty boxes are still sitting in the bottom of my closet back home in Oklahoma, my meager pilfering through them surfacing so many emotions that I felt like I needed to stop, to breathe, to reframe my thinking before I carried on.
A text sent to my friend said it all:
"Sorting through all of my childhood to pre-Portland life. Kind of intense to realize what a depressed and fcked up young adult I was, even if people didn't see it on the outside. Crazy."
and
"It's really weird to struggle with the idea that there was a lot of lost time in my life. Time I will never get back and time I may not have in the future."
So today when the poem above from Dorianne Laux came through my feed, something hardened from long ago became soft inside of me.
You’ve traveled this far on the back of every mistake,
ridden in dark-eyed and morose but calm as a house
after the TV set has been pitched out the upstairs
window. Harmless as a broken ax. Emptied
of expectation.
Every year I spend the days before Yom Kippur reflecting on the past year (no, I'm not Jewish but I borrow this tradition). Thinking through the things that made me happy, thinking through the things I regretted or that made me sad or wistful, thinking of things I want to do in the next year, who I love, who I want to spend time with, how I want to challenge my mind and life to do good things. It's a important time to write things down, to take stock, to see where I am going.
Sitting with these feelings this in-and-post cancer year has brought in the added layer of "time". Time I have wasted, things I have done, situations I have been in during my life that were neither healthy nor happy. And the great sadness of looking forward and thinking about time and not having it and how horrible that would be.
{And then reading that Susan Sontag was diagnosed with Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer in 1975 and lived until 2004. So go figure.}
What softened inside of me was the realization that life is too short to dwell in what happened in the past, to rehash the things you wished had happened in relationships, to question decisions that led to different paths than the future I had seen for myself. Even for a person like me who has struggled with the depressive tendency toward rumination over such things [the twisting of invisible hands and the sighing of invisible sighs that leaves you sitting in a rut you can barely peer out of], there is the possibility to not revisit this, not to drag it with me, just to let it go.
Relax. Don’t bother remembering any of it.
Let’s stop here, under the lit sign
on the corner, and watch all the people walk by.
Amen.
Friday, May 4, 2012
Carousel
Giselle always got this crazy cat third eye that would appear every time we gave her Lorazepam. She'd yowl and protest you shoving the shaven-down half of a itty bitty pill down her throat, but within 30 minutes would be zonked and ready to travel.
That memory made me smile a bit as I dug through the bathroom closet looking for the prescription that I had so many months ago. I used to take Atavan (Lorazepam) after I got the port inserted and would lie awake feeling the creepy sensation of the port going into my vein and grappling with my constant worry that it was somehow going to cause a clot. One Atavan and thirty minutes and I would forget about the port and wander off into sleep.
Tonight I found that trusty pill bottle with half of the scrip left, so thankful that my own distaste for being on prescription drugs keeps me from enjoying them enough to run out of them. I'm trying to corral my mind back in tonight, keeping it from repeating the anxious worry that's been swirling in my brain since I came home from New Orleans. "Is it going to stick this time?" my brain wonders and as I prod my breast for any sign of hardening. In the pit of my stomach, I think I know that the answer is "no", because I think that I know these things about myself and the way my body works.
So with that whisper to my nervous self, my brain goes into a visual overdrive of what life will be like. "If I lose my breasts," I think, "I'll leave my job and just work out all the time. I'll be in the best shape ever. I just won't have any breasts. It will be fine." And then, my hopeful self says, "Well, maybe in a few years they will come up with a surgery that works for me." and my nervous self laughs softly, pats my hand and reminds my hopeful self that we've been here before, that it's not the procedure, per se, but what my body does to it. And then my brain lurches into another scenario where I feel every bit of what this 14 months of procedures has done to my body, feeling I've been completely trapped in intervention after intervention until I just want to scream.
A picture of Truman-Show-esque carousel ride just popped into my mind. Round and round, garish lights and horrible music and the sickening up and down of hard uncomfortable horses set against a white sound stage. And then it's as though someone rips the needle from the record and everything stops, the only sound is the clicking of my heels as I walk for the door and open it to the bright sunlight. That is what I want to have happen right now. Really, honestly, truly. I want to somehow walk out of this sideshow of a life I have been given. I want everything to just go back to the way it was a year ago January, before any of this insanity started. I want my body back, I want my time back, I want my life in all of its complexities that I still need to figure out back. I don't want to need help. I don't want to be frustrated. I don't want to be sad. I don't want to be angry. I don't want to be what I see in the mirror these days.
So it won't be that. I will get through the next couple of weeks. The post-surgical depression/anxiety that I am feeling will subside as things straighten out, as I can move around better as the incisions heal, as I know if these breasts are going to stay or go. Life will even out. I know this. I hold on to this as fiercely as a child clutches a new treasured stone at the beach.
Thirty minutes has come and gone and I'm not sure if it's the drugs or the writing, but I think I should be able to sleep now. I'm not writing this to worry anybody. We've been here before, you know, and I appreciate that you are still here with me. It's just been a really, really long road.
P.S. I just looked back in this blog to find an old link and was completely surprised that this recent reconstructive redo was one day shy of the ONE YEAR anniversary of my mastectomy/reconstruction that started me on this path. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. A year and we are still walking.
That memory made me smile a bit as I dug through the bathroom closet looking for the prescription that I had so many months ago. I used to take Atavan (Lorazepam) after I got the port inserted and would lie awake feeling the creepy sensation of the port going into my vein and grappling with my constant worry that it was somehow going to cause a clot. One Atavan and thirty minutes and I would forget about the port and wander off into sleep.
Tonight I found that trusty pill bottle with half of the scrip left, so thankful that my own distaste for being on prescription drugs keeps me from enjoying them enough to run out of them. I'm trying to corral my mind back in tonight, keeping it from repeating the anxious worry that's been swirling in my brain since I came home from New Orleans. "Is it going to stick this time?" my brain wonders and as I prod my breast for any sign of hardening. In the pit of my stomach, I think I know that the answer is "no", because I think that I know these things about myself and the way my body works.
So with that whisper to my nervous self, my brain goes into a visual overdrive of what life will be like. "If I lose my breasts," I think, "I'll leave my job and just work out all the time. I'll be in the best shape ever. I just won't have any breasts. It will be fine." And then, my hopeful self says, "Well, maybe in a few years they will come up with a surgery that works for me." and my nervous self laughs softly, pats my hand and reminds my hopeful self that we've been here before, that it's not the procedure, per se, but what my body does to it. And then my brain lurches into another scenario where I feel every bit of what this 14 months of procedures has done to my body, feeling I've been completely trapped in intervention after intervention until I just want to scream.
A picture of Truman-Show-esque carousel ride just popped into my mind. Round and round, garish lights and horrible music and the sickening up and down of hard uncomfortable horses set against a white sound stage. And then it's as though someone rips the needle from the record and everything stops, the only sound is the clicking of my heels as I walk for the door and open it to the bright sunlight. That is what I want to have happen right now. Really, honestly, truly. I want to somehow walk out of this sideshow of a life I have been given. I want everything to just go back to the way it was a year ago January, before any of this insanity started. I want my body back, I want my time back, I want my life in all of its complexities that I still need to figure out back. I don't want to need help. I don't want to be frustrated. I don't want to be sad. I don't want to be angry. I don't want to be what I see in the mirror these days.
So it won't be that. I will get through the next couple of weeks. The post-surgical depression/anxiety that I am feeling will subside as things straighten out, as I can move around better as the incisions heal, as I know if these breasts are going to stay or go. Life will even out. I know this. I hold on to this as fiercely as a child clutches a new treasured stone at the beach.
Thirty minutes has come and gone and I'm not sure if it's the drugs or the writing, but I think I should be able to sleep now. I'm not writing this to worry anybody. We've been here before, you know, and I appreciate that you are still here with me. It's just been a really, really long road.
P.S. I just looked back in this blog to find an old link and was completely surprised that this recent reconstructive redo was one day shy of the ONE YEAR anniversary of my mastectomy/reconstruction that started me on this path. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. A year and we are still walking.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
I'm pretty sure that it wasn't a day like today, where the sun is shining through the windows and my beautiful girl is playing "Ode to Joy" on the piano just feet away. And I am pretty sure it didn't even occur to me when I made the biopsy appointment that my official "diagnosis day" was going to be St. Patrick's Day. And I know exactly where I was on March 21st, 2011, the day I will always think of as my own personal "D day".
It's been 365 days since I sat at my desk and heard the words "cancer", "Invasive Ductal Carcinoma", "grade 3 tumor", and "breast surgeon". The capable side of my brain had clicked into gear and I was dutifully writing down everything the radiologist said, asking the right questions, knowing that my husband would want to know the details so he could launch his own fact-finding mission.
And then there was the call to Nick, which brought it all to the surface and the second call to my dear friend Ashley who was wired for Ann Arbor breast care doctors and the third to my sisters. And then the numbness of that hour and fifteen minute drive home when I just didn't know what to do, think or feel.
I sit here a year later, feeling like it's been more than a year and in some ways wondering where the time has gone.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes.
365 days.
12 months.
1 year.
When people told me it would be a year of my life, I screamed. I was furious. "I don't have time for this! I have a new job! I'm turning 40! It will NOT BE A YEAR!"
But it turns out that it's taking more than a year of my life. There is the year of fighting cancer, of re-arranging your body to keep it safe and re-arranging your life to up your chances of survival. Then there is the next year of your doctor telling you that you have to lose weight, that you have to get back in fighting shape. Yes, fighting shape because you are still fighting. And one year stretches to five and your "illness" becomes something to manage long term.
And the only thing that gets you through, the only thing, the ONLY thing is the love of people around you.
So today I am thinking about those five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes that have moved through my life this year. As I am typing this, the beautiful song "Seasons of Love" from the musical RENT keeps running through my head.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty-five thousand moments so dear
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets
In midnights, in cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife
In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, a year in the life?
How about love?
How about love?
How about love?
Measure in love
Seasons of love
Seasons of love
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty-five thousand journeys to plan
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure the life of a woman or a man?
In truths that she learned
Or in times that he cried
In bridges he burned
Or the way that she died
It's time now, to sing out
Though the story never ends
Let's celebrate
Remember a year in the life of friends
If I could to add my own minutes, they would be measured in:
special dinners delivered with love
minty rosemary spray
threats of pink jumpsuits
wigs from friends
Hermes scarves
sisters' love
rides to chemo
hugs from co-workers
cinnamon rolls
special bracelets
I love yous from my children
strength from my husband
curiosity from Kindergarteners
stolen hours at chemo
breakfasts at Zola
understanding bosses
cheers from my wise elders
missing my mom
love of the fuzzle from my niece
laughter
laughter
laughter
thoughts of fairy-dust shooting nipples
worry
sadness
fear
joy
strength
courage
beautiful parties
hugs from friends
clipping shears
coffee between labs and infusion
the smile of lab techs
occluded veins-because they should be
learning to accept appreciation
carpool talks
deep conversations with total strangers
hearing everyone-knows-someone's chemo story
cake appearing out of nowhere
looking forward
looking back
looking forward
looking back
looking forward and forward and forward again.
more things than I could ever describe here
So I end today wondering what this means for this blog. What started out as a quick way to update people on what was up with my health quickly morphed into a space for me to get out what I was feeling about working through treatment and all that went with it. It's been amazingly cathartic for me. But is it over now? It feels incredibly ego-centric to keep writing. Surely this has been enough about me to last a lifetime. Or do I say "screw it" and just keep writing about this next phase of rebuilding my health and not worry about burdening people with more stories? It's hard to decide. Part of me wants to keep writing so that there is a time capsule for my kids to reflect on when they are old enough to wonder what happened in those days. Another part of me recognizes that this year has come to a close. I just don't know. Maybe you could let me know.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty-five thousand journeys to plan
Here's to the planning. Thank you for every minute...
that I can measure in love.
It's been 365 days since I sat at my desk and heard the words "cancer", "Invasive Ductal Carcinoma", "grade 3 tumor", and "breast surgeon". The capable side of my brain had clicked into gear and I was dutifully writing down everything the radiologist said, asking the right questions, knowing that my husband would want to know the details so he could launch his own fact-finding mission.
And then there was the call to Nick, which brought it all to the surface and the second call to my dear friend Ashley who was wired for Ann Arbor breast care doctors and the third to my sisters. And then the numbness of that hour and fifteen minute drive home when I just didn't know what to do, think or feel.
I sit here a year later, feeling like it's been more than a year and in some ways wondering where the time has gone.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes.
365 days.
12 months.
1 year.
When people told me it would be a year of my life, I screamed. I was furious. "I don't have time for this! I have a new job! I'm turning 40! It will NOT BE A YEAR!"
But it turns out that it's taking more than a year of my life. There is the year of fighting cancer, of re-arranging your body to keep it safe and re-arranging your life to up your chances of survival. Then there is the next year of your doctor telling you that you have to lose weight, that you have to get back in fighting shape. Yes, fighting shape because you are still fighting. And one year stretches to five and your "illness" becomes something to manage long term.
And the only thing that gets you through, the only thing, the ONLY thing is the love of people around you.
So today I am thinking about those five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes that have moved through my life this year. As I am typing this, the beautiful song "Seasons of Love" from the musical RENT keeps running through my head.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty-five thousand moments so dear
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets
In midnights, in cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife
In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, a year in the life?
How about love?
How about love?
How about love?
Measure in love
Seasons of love
Seasons of love
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty-five thousand journeys to plan
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure the life of a woman or a man?
In truths that she learned
Or in times that he cried
In bridges he burned
Or the way that she died
It's time now, to sing out
Though the story never ends
Let's celebrate
Remember a year in the life of friends
If I could to add my own minutes, they would be measured in:
special dinners delivered with love
minty rosemary spray
threats of pink jumpsuits
wigs from friends
Hermes scarves
sisters' love
rides to chemo
hugs from co-workers
cinnamon rolls
special bracelets
I love yous from my children
strength from my husband
curiosity from Kindergarteners
stolen hours at chemo
breakfasts at Zola
understanding bosses
cheers from my wise elders
missing my mom
love of the fuzzle from my niece
laughter
laughter
laughter
thoughts of fairy-dust shooting nipples
worry
sadness
fear
joy
strength
courage
beautiful parties
hugs from friends
clipping shears
coffee between labs and infusion
the smile of lab techs
occluded veins-because they should be
learning to accept appreciation
carpool talks
deep conversations with total strangers
hearing everyone-knows-someone's chemo story
cake appearing out of nowhere
looking forward
looking back
looking forward
looking back
looking forward and forward and forward again.
more things than I could ever describe here
So I end today wondering what this means for this blog. What started out as a quick way to update people on what was up with my health quickly morphed into a space for me to get out what I was feeling about working through treatment and all that went with it. It's been amazingly cathartic for me. But is it over now? It feels incredibly ego-centric to keep writing. Surely this has been enough about me to last a lifetime. Or do I say "screw it" and just keep writing about this next phase of rebuilding my health and not worry about burdening people with more stories? It's hard to decide. Part of me wants to keep writing so that there is a time capsule for my kids to reflect on when they are old enough to wonder what happened in those days. Another part of me recognizes that this year has come to a close. I just don't know. Maybe you could let me know.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty-five thousand journeys to plan
Here's to the planning. Thank you for every minute...
that I can measure in love.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Begin the Begin
Today was an end and a beginning.
It was my final appointment as a cancer patient. It is the beginning of my life as a person who is, in some ways, managing having a chronic disease.
We sat with my doctor as he spoke about the rules of the game going forward, about the inevitable worries that crop up, about when to call and what not to worry about. And then it was over.
Over. And so very strange.
Nick and I both walked out almost feeling like "what happened to us these past 10 months?" When you aren't in the middle of it anymore, it feels a little blank.
I had cancer, now I don't.
Or do I? Or will I? Life is back to normal, stuffed too full of things to do from family to projects to dust bunnies. In many ways, it was like it was all a dream.
This ending is almost more strange and sad and bizarre than the day they unplugged me from chemo. The finality of it is confusing.
I was not sick, then I was, now I am not.
I didn't know I was sick before and I don't know if I will be in the future. Part of me still doesn't grasp the fact that I had cancer. Isn't that strange?
Part of me does not grasp the fact that I had cancer.
I keep repeating that in my head, trying to get it to sink in.
How do you survive something you've never really accepted?
This is all part of the restarting. I can floss my teeth again. I can exercise in real ways. I don't have to use so much hand sanitizer. My hair is growing back in.
In 6 months, will I remember any of this?
Let's begin again, begin the begin...
It was my final appointment as a cancer patient. It is the beginning of my life as a person who is, in some ways, managing having a chronic disease.
We sat with my doctor as he spoke about the rules of the game going forward, about the inevitable worries that crop up, about when to call and what not to worry about. And then it was over.
Over. And so very strange.
Nick and I both walked out almost feeling like "what happened to us these past 10 months?" When you aren't in the middle of it anymore, it feels a little blank.
I had cancer, now I don't.
Or do I? Or will I? Life is back to normal, stuffed too full of things to do from family to projects to dust bunnies. In many ways, it was like it was all a dream.
This ending is almost more strange and sad and bizarre than the day they unplugged me from chemo. The finality of it is confusing.
I was not sick, then I was, now I am not.
I didn't know I was sick before and I don't know if I will be in the future. Part of me still doesn't grasp the fact that I had cancer. Isn't that strange?
Part of me does not grasp the fact that I had cancer.
I keep repeating that in my head, trying to get it to sink in.
How do you survive something you've never really accepted?
This is all part of the restarting. I can floss my teeth again. I can exercise in real ways. I don't have to use so much hand sanitizer. My hair is growing back in.
In 6 months, will I remember any of this?
Let's begin again, begin the begin...
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