Ahhh. It's true. This January 6th marked the 4th anniversary of the day I started chemotherapy. It ranks, still, as the most traumatizing day of my life.
As a refresh...it was the day I brought the "cold capping system" to my treatment in an effort to preserve my hair. My dad spent thousands. I was still in shock.
Jason was prepared to be my go-to cap man.
Fifteen minutes into the brain freeze I was tapping out. Crying.
It all began there. The shitty self-talk.
I couldn't do it. My kids shaved my head. I did the whole chemo/surgery/radiation routine as well as eating supplements like it was my job. I did it faithfully. I weighed nearly nothing. I had no hair, I was fragile. I was dead. The old me was killed by it all.
Looking back....I see this now.
We all go through things that change us so profoundly that we can't ever be who we used to be....and not in a good way. The good things: becoming a parent, travel or leaving home; these are things that we seek, for change. I didn't have that choice.
Years have passed. I have struggled, so much. Emotionally.....with it all.
Being rocketed into the stratosphere of menopause didn't help. HA! Wow. What a ride. To my friends who are probably entering peri-menopause....hang on sisters, it's a bumpy ride.
I haven't written for a year. Collecting thoughts in my head, wanting to share, but feeling like: maybe no one gets me anymore? How many menopausal 46 year olds with no breasts are there out there to hang out with? lol.
During the past year, I've had some serious ups and downs. Alcohol, depression, laying in bed for days, questioning my worth, wondering if I'm a good mom, partner, person....
It's been vicious. I still feel guilty about the way I handled the worst of it.
A few people I know have died in the last year, which blows. However; I've found a space there. A sort of in between. In between grief and love. They are so inexplicably tied. Death and love. It's a cosmic joke that one makes us better at the other.....but it's true.
If you don't feel deeply you live on the surface of life. You survive, but you don't live.
I've been a hot mess this past year many times, I've also been inspirational and profound. I'm starting to get a handle on being a little more one than the other......but not quite there yet.
I didn't write for so long because I felt guilty. I have survived cancer, shouldn't I be doing everything I can to stay alive? Juicing, keto, yoga, fucking zoomba....I don't know. Something life affirming, no?
Yeah, no. I've been in the weeds more than in the gym.
I don't know if distance and time past from the instant trauma and all the shit of 2020 for me (which also included COVID) has changed my perspective, but I'm going to go ahead and say yes. It has.
I'm by no means perfect. I don't follow any protocol I'd advise a client of mine to follow. Which I guess, maybe makes me a hypocrite, but I don't think so. I think it just makes me more complicated. Anyone who knows me knows I've never ever been simple.
Cancer still is with me everyday. I don't think about it all the time, but it's all tied back to having gone through what I did. I carry it with me, it's a filter, easily activated. Certain things make me more of a hedonist, others more of a stickler. I'm more gentle but I'm also more tough.
I love a good conversation with "old" people. I spend time, listening, appreciating. I cry more easily, because you can't keep your tears in, they turn into poison if left in. I'm more generous, I'm also more selfish. If I need sleep, I take it.
I don't ever hate anymore, it doesn't serve me. If anything I feel sadness and compassion for unfortunate circumstances, for people who refuse to accept me where I'm at with anything but love and understanding. I do my best to protect my children for my mess, it's hard sometimes, they know I'm human and I know they know I love them always. I'm not responsible for anyone's feelings but my own. This was a hard one to acccept.
I love the earth and the trees, the sunshine and the birds. I have found that little Sara inside of me that was told she was too loud and too much and too opinionated, that Sara that delighted in the deep woods of Fort Creek, the crows, the smell of snow, the beauty of a sunset.
This past year - blog wise...ugh, words have escaped me because I was just trying to get the pieces together of the new me. Ups and downs. I was a little Humpty Dumpty. Without the Humpty.
I'm finally sad about losing my breasts. It was so traumatic. I pushed the sadness so far down. I didn't realize it....I was just so worried about staying alive, I would've cut off my legs if it meant being around longer for my children. For such a long time I was just grateful to be alive, but now I miss them. I'm not conventionally attractive anymore or the sexy baby I once was (and absolutely would still be had it not been for the big C), I am though, a new version of me.
I never saw her coming.
She is angry, she is grateful, she is messy, she is tired, she is now diabetic ( thanks aromatase inhibitors and booze), she is confused and curious.
Above all, she is rising. It's taken so long to build the strength up just to put words to a page. That same rising energy is building within me. It's the fire, it's life, it's love, it's rebirth.
I'm not "her" anymore. I mourned her for a few years, I tried to drown the memory, I tried to sleep her away, I tried to eat her away, I tried to work her away. Now, I just feel a small fire burning.
The other day I cleaned Madeleine's room like I was Martha Stewart....I'm talking labeling baskets and folding underwear. When she came home she asked me "who died?" I laughed....she said I only clean like that when someone dies. OMG. I thought about it and it was true. Good God. Better than a bender, but I've done that too so, I'm no role model.
An astute observation by my 11 year old. I realized later the person who died was "her" - old me.
I'm a work in progress, I'm improving, I'm learning. I'm listening to life stories - short and long. Sometimes it's just so much. It's life. There's darkness but there is so much light too.
I observe them both.
Lately the light hits differently. I feel that elemental "me" again. I'm not sure of the future. I still have another year to go before my odds of survival increase.
I'm far from perfect; however, I understand I don't need to be perfect to be loved by those who understand my life these past 4 years.
I am moving in the right direction.
I have been silent for a long time. It's not because I didn't have anything to say, I just couldn't get the words onto the page. I don't know why? Maybe, because I felt if I wasn't living "right" I wasn't in any position to speak.
I see now it's not only about how I'm living but also having mercy on myself for falling down so many times when I've been trying to get it right after such an awful experience.
We're all broken in different ways.
There is though, a light in the dark. It shines in, and stokes that essential flame that is you.
I needed some space and breath and time to let that fire grow.
It's growing and I feel it.
Cancer didn't define me. It modified me.
I'm human, it's taking time.
Let's just say the upgrade is loading.
"Her" 2.0
Comments