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Alright, it’s been a rough week, and that last post was a bit of a downer. I can’t wait until I’m feeing better and can use words like, “Jubilant!” and “Triumphant!” or even better, not have to write about this anymore. At all.
But what are the ups without the downs, I guess.
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Don't gag, but on my yoga mat in my "Zen" room (or what was supposed to be a zen room, if more effort was put forth in making it one), I pray for my health and take in how I'm feeling and thank God for everything I hold dear - my life, Mike, my friends, and all who have reached our in ways small and large. I pray for my mom.
If I didn't undergo this process of reflection and introspection you would see in this blog my fleeting but very real grief along with tiny bouts of hopelessness. I see the futility in carrying on this way and refuse to dwell or make the "why's" into anything bigger than they deserve. I refuse to make that what this blog is about. Shitty things happen to people all the time, and the truth is I love my life. I am grateful. With that said... When I think of what to share on here, I often take conversations or questions from real life.
A basic question is, "How are you feeling?" and I assume the person is being polite. Surprisingly, though, I've found many people don't want me to answer briskly. For example me answering, "I'm okay...It changes every day," leads to a dip of the head, a narrowing of the eyes and then: "But are you like, sick all the time?" 
On Saturday morning I realized I was starting to look like I lived in a psych ward and had stolen myself a pair of little scissors or a small razor, and in my free time gave myself a few snips here and there, for fun. That little pixie from a couple weeks ago had become patchy and weird. I was in a little bit of denial about it, and it helped that I'd been avoiding the mirror. It's a difficult task now, seeing what I look like. Even in the old days I always thought people who stared at themselves in the mirror too much - checking themselves out in every reflective surface - were full of themselves. So I lived my life so overly self-conscious that someone might catch me ever looking at myself that I took great pains not to look too often in the mirror, even when I was alone. Make sense? No? I know. When thrust into a whirlwind of change and fear over a little thing called cancer you're faced with a host of coping mechanisms - whether you find them on your own or they are suggested to you (solicited or unsolicited). One that has cropped up a little is mindfulness, where you consciously strive to live in moment. Listen to your breath, be yourself, just do, just be à la Paul Rudd's Forgetting Sarah Marshall surf lesson: “Do less. No. Do more. Do less.”
I understand it means focusing on the NOW so that you're not always looking towards the future for something better, or towards the past for what was. Well, that's all well and good, and I know that the practice can be beneficial, but I have to be honest. I want it to be 2017, I want this cancer fucking out of me, and I want the people at work and the people at JBar this weekend (where I paid $9 for a subpar smoothie) - to stop looking at me like that. |
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