The Three F’s: FAT, FORGETFUL and not FUN.
Shhhh, use your inside voice, I’m a string pulled to its tightest.
Approach me gently because my fight or flight is in the red.
Honestly, try not to dig too deep because there’s a lot I can’t verbalize.
I’m friggin trying, but tonight it feels futile. I hate how much my life has changed in such a short period of time, and I feel so NOT in control of any of it.
Cancer sucks. And it’s big and scary, and in my body and I feel like it’s taking the best of me. It’s a lot to process and be okay with. It’s eroding my spirit, changing how I function and killing my aesthetic. All I want most is to feel some sort of control again; feel in my own life’s rhythm again…feel joyful and like myself again.
I went back to work at the end of January, but have really been struggling with ALL OF THE THINGS. I forced myself to reintegrate, too soon. I wasn’t healed, recovered or regulated; and it’s easy to tell because I’m leaking at the seams. It’s like my cancer diagnosis and the recent passing of my Dad shattered me into a million pieces, and I show up daily wearing these shards of glass under my clothes. I sometimes wonder what people are thinking when they become reacquainted with me, liiiiilkkkkkeee you seem to recognize me? You are calling me Betty, are you guessing, or do you know for sure? Don’t I feel like a stranger to you? If not, then why the fak do I feel like such a stranger to myself?? Maybe pieces of my pre-cancer self are just muscle memory. Because more often than not, I feel fat, forgetful and not fun. I know I’m hard on myself, my ex-psychologist told me so – numerous times, before she broke up with me. Omg, she literally dumped me via email citing some random out of left field excuse, ok “conflict of interest” hi flashbacks to a guy I was talking to back in 2005. Well unbeknownst to her, the only conflict of interest was her lack thereof in my interest in continuing to see the only psychologist I have ever seen and the only real navigation I was relying on out of this mess. Anyhoo here we are.
I joke, but it’s hard. These seasons are hard. But I know they are temporary. I am going allll the way through it – but I know I’m not the only one. Many of us are going through it. I also know I am not doing myself any favours stewing in this same head and heart space. I know I need to speak life over myself, speak truth over the internal dialogue I’ve been recycling and cast light into my shadows.
Stop wrestling dear One, don’t you see? The storm is passing, you can stop gripping, the worst is behind you. You’ve been holding so tightly, your nails are making your own hands bleed. Don’t you see, look around, you are still whole and here. You are resilient, made to do such maddening things, yet still sing such beautiful songs. You don’t know it, but you will live again, joyfully and abundantly. Be porous and pliable knowing this truth. Let this life soak you because your heart is bulletproof. Allow these scary monsters to sit ontop of your skin long enough for them to rot and decompose. Eventually they will fertilize your spirit and in the new season of life, flowers will bloom from the earth of your soul and you will dance again. Allow this life to flow through you, allow your heart to walk with you, and allow your tongue to keep speaking of dreams you will always dare to dream. This time is sacred. Burn all of this shit to the ground and make yourself new. Stop resisting the tides. Allow the bear to walk on two feet, and the mouse to howl at the moon; accept the eccentricity of the day and believe the impossible possible – let it all in, breath by breath, let it all in. Allow, accept, hope, breathe. Allow, accept, hope, breathe. Allow, accept, hope, breathe. Everything is temporary, including this burden.
Allow. Accept. Stop Resisting. Let in. These are the things I’ve been running from. Before I try, and do, or be – maybe I can stop and acknowledge, I’m not okay right now. I don’t feel in control right now, and have felt this way for months. I’ve been tethered to a perpetual state of feeing low but trying really hard not to be. This cancer takes me further and further away from myself and I haven’t yet found my way home. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it isn’t to say that I feel like I won’t ever, I always have, and I know I most likely will – just not tonight. <3