Frank. True. Honest. Real.

I wrote this post about a month or so ago, right on the heels of the dream I described. In that time I had begun to believe that the things I was writing here were too goddamn depressing, that there was no joy in anything I had to say, that people didn't want to read shit that made them cry.

Which lead to me not posting. Which meant that I wasn't being true to myself.

And then I got an email from my friend Lara last night, a long-ago woman with whom I shared a voyage around the world that will forever be imprinted on my mind. Lara is a kick-ass woman and kicked me in the ass to post again. Because Lara is not afraid of scary things. She's not one to need to mark of sunshine and optimism on everything. She just deals with things as they are. At least this is what I remember of her,  and loved about her, those many years ago.

So here we go again. Some things not so lovely, some things will be. It is what it is.
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Every once in awhile, there is a dream so vivid and real that I can't erase it from my eyes. Stark-still morning leaves me reliving the flashes and images that the soup of my brain has created the night before: some delicious and gorgeous and sensual and beautiful; others deep and lasting and disturbing and filled with resonant worry. Last night was one of those nights, delivering to me the dream that I've pushed off and aside for the past three years.

I can remember the colors in the dream, deep sapphire blue, lime-emerald green, white...all outlined in a contrasted black...and the incredible realness of what was going on. Frank. True. Honest. Real. Sitting in this dream, watching it unfold, participating in the scene, I believed that it was really happening.

That's because it can. And might. Which is what I thought of in my dappled-sunlight morning, swaddled deep in the sheets, unwilling to peek open to the new day.

It was the first dream I've ever had about getting cancer again, a recurrence which is pretty much a death sentence in the triple-negative world. See, I've never checked the stats, never typed "likelihood of survival after recurrence triple negative breast cancer" into the google jackpot to learn about my fate. My sister mentioned it once, the likelihood that I wouldn't survive another bout, but I plugged my ears and danced around until that voice in my head was gone.

But this dream was the real deal, it was sitting in the hospital getting the news, it was the reality that I was going to die, not a question of if, but when. Fuck. So real, so very real that I did type in those words and my sister was right. Likelihood of recurrence? Much, much higher than other hormone-receptive breast cancers. Survival rate after recurrence? 10%. Survival time? Average of nine months. Nine. Months.

I can't begin to understand what it means to die from breast cancer. My mind goes into overdrive trying to picture it in my head, what it would look like and comparing it to my mother's death from lung cancer. What happens? How do you die? What happens to your body? Who are you in that space? And in nine months? Nine months...on average?

I've lived the past two years in a daze, half denying that I ever had breast cancer, half denying that it can or will come back. It's comfortable, this denial, until you are lying in your warm bed completely awash in the reality that you very well may. fucking. die.

Die.

That something fundamental has happened in your life that threatens your existence in a way that you can't resolve. That you may be that life cut short that people cluck their tongues and shake their heads about. That all of your bravado and feeling good and pushing past the looks of people who know your story may be total bullshit because you may get this again and have to make decisions that are horrible all to extend your life by months...months, not years.

I suspect this reality check is something that every woman who gets breast cancer goes through. I know friends who have had recurrences who are there and are winning. I know few people who have died from this disease. But I have watched my friends and loved ones waste away from cancer. I have watched the bizarre deceleration and crippling otherness of an otherwise vibrant life.

Honestly, this reality is too much for me to handle. It's bankrupt. It's the end of the road. It's the edge of the universe. I can't wrap my head about what it would mean. And I want to believe it won't happen to me. But I'm not that arrogant and I am just that pessimistic.

So how do you live when that veil has been lifted? Does it change anything? Is it just roulette? Isn't there some huge life revelation that I am supposed to get from "holy fuck, I really may die?"

All I can keep with me is the blue and green of the scene, of the movement of people through the film in my brain, of the feeling of reckoning that stayed with me in the dream and beyond.

Final. It is what it is. No way around it. Real.

I wish there was some big pledge at the end of this post, something that would tell everyone that this was going to be ALL RIGHT and that things will be fine. But I am just going to sit with this reality for a bit because I need to, it's been too long that I've pushed it away.

Gracious Space

Yesterday, I got off of a conference call, pushed in my chair, shouldered my bag and left work for what may be three weeks. It was really strange and incredibly sad to walk out of the office feeling this ick feeling of not knowing when I was going to be back. I am leaving behind projects that I really love, people who have been incredibly generous and kind, time with colleagues that I find warming and satisfying.  And I am leaving for something that is unknown and scary, a rolling into the inevitable and, worse yet, inescapable that sits just paces in front of me, no matter how I drag my feet.

There is a tension between this inevitable/inescapable feeling of slowly being swallowed by what is coming and the simple grace of letting it happen. In the words of the Cowboy Junkies: "the one thing in my life that these years have taught is/you can always see it comin', but you can never stop it." Struggle as you may to wish it away, joke it away, freeze it out, ignore it, cry it out, scream it away...it remains. Until you realize that it is what it is and sit with it, interface with it, level with it, accept it at your side and create a gracious space that allows you to be both afraid and fearless, loved and alone, valiant and cowering, illuminated and confused.

Because being "sick" is all of these things. With cancer, or at least early on-set cancer, you don't feel it in your body. It's like a little timebomb that over time you forget is ticking. It's the insidious guest that you forget is still staying at your house until the utility bill comes. It's the thing that causes you to chuckle, thinking surely that God has been worn down by the multitude of prayers hurtling heavenward and said "Fine! Fine! Enough! So I'll cure her (ping!). Can't you see I've got a lot on my plate right now?" It's the last minute reprieve from the path lab that comes minutes before the surgery that they perform to alter you forever...except it never comes. It's the three deep breaths and lights out and waking up, feeling around and trying to sort out which way the decision tree went in the OR.

So these anxieties are a little like that song about the boa constrictor...oh no, he swallowed my toe, oh gee he's up to my knee, oh fiddle he's up to my middle...Today I saw a friend and stopped the boa at the toe. I know I will get to Monday and see my sisters, have a little reprieve and keep him at my knee. By Wednesday, no doubt, he will be up to my neck. I keep breathing. I keep finding little things to hold on to (one of my dad's old wallets, mala beads and their 27 count made for me by my friend Molly (that reminds me of my girl Sha), my mom's fading but still present scent, cards from you all, pictures from Ava, hugs from David, a picture of Kali, deep rhythmic music, a smiling picture of my husband) that I can hold in my hand or feel on my skin to keep me grounded and not freaking out about what is coming. I know I will be fine, I just don't like getting there. I am not worried about the cancer (or so I tell myself), I am worried about the surgery. I am lucky, I am lucky, I am lucky. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

There was a song that was on auto-repeat for my sisters and me the entire time that we were living through the end of my mother's life. It has such special meaning for us all, but these lines from "Little Fire" always put the lump in my throat, every time I hear it.

"It says comes rest beside my little fire
We'll ride out the storm that's coming in
My friend, you know me and my family
You've seen us wandering through these times
You've seen us in weakness and in power
You've seen us forgetful and unkind

All that I want is one who knows me
A kind hand on my face when I weep
And I'd give back these things I know are meaningless
For a little fire beside me when I sleep"

So tomorrow is sitting with it, thinking about the religious tradition I grew up in and how there are lessons there about the process of surrender and triumph. Or, from David's wonderful Latin teacher's blog:

'non, si male nunc, et olim sic erit.'
'Even if evil is present now, it will not always be so'
Horace Odes Book 2 x

Amen.