Does this word now have new meaning? Is it a punishment?
Home was a refuge from the outside world.
A place we come when the day is over.
A place to entertain, to make our own, where we set the rules.
Home is a place that is univaded, unmonitored, unscheduled and undivided.
When I was diagnosed with cancer, home was more than that...home was safety. Home was where my family was, home was NOT the hospital and home was where I could, if I so chose, not wear pants without signficant repercussions. Home was where I could barf. Home was where I could swear. Home was where I could go outside, scream at the sky and home was the place I decided, in my dark days, that I would die.
Now we're all home. School is home, kids are home, parents are home.
As some of you my know, over the holidays we travelled to the Soo. Before you go ape shit just know that my entire family was tested on day 5 and day 14, we then isolated for 2 days and travelled stopping nowhere. When we arrived in the Soo we maintained a bubble and went nowhere but to the toboggan hill and I will admit I went to Rome's once. I had to. Grocery stores are my weakness. Anyway. We didn't bring any Rona anywhere. To my friends I didn't get to see, I'm sorry but most importantly I saw my Dad who also battled cancer this year and is immunocompromised as I am.
Anyway, I went home. It was comforting and soothing and full of love and memories and great food and laughter and at times, tears, by me. A year spent battling cancer is almost more than anyone should bear. It's a mind roast, a body toast, a total reorganization of everything you know. As you read, I was brought to my knees a few times over the holidays, I am still too hard on myself and am still learning how to come "home".
I was texting a friend tonight and while I was writing I was saying how ironic it was that as soon as I was diagnosed with cancer Covid struck, my kids and my partner were sent home, to be with me 24/7. We had some time to chill in the summer and now, we're all stuck back together. I don't plan on dying from cancer in the near future or at all really, but let's just entertain for a small second I did. I am now lucky enough to spend all day with every single one of them, here at home. I wondered if the universe conspired to give me just a little more family time....when I needed it most.
I'm not saying this current situation is a blessing to all.....by any means. Before all teachers and working parents jump down my throat....
I know home schooling is tough. I saw my sister, and my brother in law, both teachers try to navigate their online teaching. One in a bedroom, one in a laundry room and bouncing back and forth to help my nephew who is in grade 1. This kid is brilliant, but still he doesn't know how to log back in when the computer freezes. Also, he's got a short fuse. Day two the kid came downstairs while I was relaxing watching CNN and the Americans go insane and said "what the fuck" when he couldn't find his book of inspirational men for show and tell. It's a learning process, he learned that day how to express frustration, return to class and appropriately pull himself together. It was a proud moment.
I'm digressing from my original point.
HOME.
This year. I'm coming home. I'm staying home. I'm organizing, I'm looking in the mirror and I'm going to find home within myself. I'm going to be OK with home in me. My own refuge. I don't know if the cancer will come back. No one does, not even the 6 brilliant doctors who are on my team. Not the psychic, not the Shaman. What I do know is, sooner or later, I need to be OK with HOME. When I close my eyes at night I have a choice to make, when I open them the next day, same choice. One day, they wont open. I need to be OK with home in me.
Is home a hostile place filled with agitation, fear and frustration, not knowing the future? Or is home a place filled with opportunity, lightness and love?
My home, this year, for my children as they navigate online learning, and for me, and Jason...will be one filled with plants, strange gregorian music from time to time....lunch breaks that matter, conversation that is relevant and breaks when we need them....not when we're told to take them.
My internal "home" will be one filled with forgiveness....I forgive myself for being so goddamn tough on myself as I battled cancer. I felt I needed to win, but now what I need to be is loving and light with what remains of me. I had a friend message me and remind me that we're all wonderful and terrible and everything in between. It's not like I needed permission to be that, but I needed to hear it to realize that's what I am. I appreciated that message. As a human. We all are battling everyday to come home and be OK.
We're all doing our best. Even on days when we eat cheetos in our underwear. We're still doing it to feed some part that needs soothing.
Life is messy right now, but life in general is pretty messy and so is love. The messiest love is the one we have with ourselves and as the days approach especially for parents it's going to get a lot more complicated. Weighing your needs as a professional, your children's needs as students...and the needs of a family to see the home as a place of refuge and love....it's not easy.
It's like having a body with cancer in it. You want to love it, but want to kill it. You want to succeed but not at all costs, you want to be left with something worthwhile, something stronger or at least something that can be resuscitated at the end of the lockdown.
I chatted with my naturopath today as I was having my IV and he presented an interesting point of view, he noted that most masters programs are now all online. It's just easier, perhaps in 20 years we'll look back at all day in person learning and see it as archaic. Online learning and the ability to navigate it is important for our kids. Of course the loss of human connection for now is unfortunate, but that wont be long lasting. What if the online learning is an option and our kids then get to choose what lights them up inside outside of a curiculum? What if this is part of the evolution of education? Homeschooolers meet Harvard.
Cancer for me has certainly been that. I'm being forced to evolve, to change my ways, to evaluate situations differently, focus being more on the "how can this bring me happiness" and less on the "why do I feel obligated to do this". I examine my thoughts more....I have 3 therapists. I realize truly and deeply how fucked up my thinking has been....about myself, the expectation placed upon me and about what I see when I look in the mirror.
When we are born, we know home. Our mothers, their breasts, or the nutrition provided to us by our parents. It is our family, our immediate surroundings. It keeps us grounded, so we can evolve, grow and mature.
I see this lockdown now, differently than I saw the last one (mind you I was loopy from chemo for most of it) I see this lockdown as an opportunity to define home. For me, for my kids, and them for themselves. To place the responsibility back on them, what do you see when you look in the mirror or in the camera? Is it something you like? If not, I'm around...let's talk about it....
For me...at the end of the day, when I fear death, and cancer and withering away or not being with my kids....I can talk about it....I can try to find home again.
Covid is savage, I know people who know people who have died. I'm certainly not saying it's a blessing.....but I know people who have died from cancer too and I battle it. I'm not saying it hasn't been a blessing.
It's blown me wide open. Made me reassess what matters and to give myself the space to be a human that says "what the fuck" and eat cheese when I need to.
I start my appointments and scans again soon after my break, but I have a different attitude towards them. They will be what they will be....but more importantly I will be what I'm meant to be. I will find home within me while being stuck at home.
I will use this time to teach my children what they may never have had the opportunity to see...how to handle home and work, how to navigate uncertain waters, how to take a break even though it's not scheduled and how to plant a garden in the spring.
There's always a brightside.
Home is most certainly where we will find it. Especially now.
What a gift that is.
I'm so grateful to have them home with me.
Even if it means they miss a math lesson or two because I'm busy teaching them how to make the perfect pasta sauce.
Life is so precious. Home truly now is where the heart is.
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