Ahh... day to day. Letting things go. Making some decisions about my future that mean shifting and changing, but feel good. Being home more, and not because I have 'things to do' or because I haven't been home in a while, but because it's safe and cozy here, and I don't want to talk to people, or visit.
Today I ask myself, "What if I don't have cancer?"
Yesterday I had some life-changing realizations - facilitated by the fact that I am cracked open by this mystery unfolding in front of me. Am I going to have to dance with cancer again? I'm already on the floor, waiting to see if my partner will step up, apparently. It's okay, because even if I do not have cancer, I do, at the same time. I know that's hard to understand, but it makes complete sense to me.
My entire life I've worried that if I was too much, too big, too much personality, too high-need, that the people around me would eventually leave. I would tire them out, they would run out of love for me. This thought has burdened me my entire life and when I had cancer before, made it hard for me to talk about what was happening for me. I felt like I was taking up too much time in people's minds and hearts, that eventually they would get sick of thinking about me and all of the 'big' stuff in my life. Then my mother died, and it was the same thing. I knew that I was entitled to feel sad, but not so entitled to talk about how my soul is crushed and ground into pieces I do not recognize, and that I am slowly rebuilding but I do not know the architect.
A friend said to me recently, "Kristina, you're just having your life, just like everyone else. You didn't choose cancer, you didn't choose for your mom to die. This is just what's happening." It really hit me in that moment, that I am not special- not in some way that means people will stop loving me when they wouldn't stop loving someone else. That I'm somehow not worthy of being worried about and cared for, and that I will exhaust people.
Yesterday I was driving to a friends and I was kind of dreading the visit because I knew we'd just talk about what was going on for me, and I worried she'd want to talk about anything but that. She and I talk a lot. Then I imagined her worrying about all of the things I'm worrying about right now, and asked myself, "Would I ever NOT want to hear her process what was going on in her life?" Not for a second would I feel that way. If I did, it would be me being tired, but not her being too much. I burst into tears driving down the road.
These issues have plagued me my whole life, really causing me to hold back from needing anyone other than myself or my husband. I worry about exhausting him too, that if I get cancer one more time, or I get a worse kind, or some other dreadful thing happens to me, that he'll leave me because it's just too much work to be my husband. He reassures me when we talk about it but I just couldn't believe it.
Now I feel like I've stopped dragging this giant stack of luggage behind me, I just set it down gently and stepped away. I haven't walked far, I'm still in the midst of adjusting my center of gravity around this shift in weight. Who will I become if I can ask for help? If I can be emotionally naked without worrying that people will take care of themselves best by leaving me behind?
So crazy, this cancer-venture. It never fails to give me enormous opportunities to move things around in my head and my heart. It doesn't matter whether I have cancer right now or not, I'm still in the midst of experiencing it all, being churned up, isolating, reducing, becoming smaller so that I can retreat and restore. Hopefully some day I can do all that without the threat of a life threatening illness. ;)
Speaking of which, I have my blood draw tomorrow. I wasn't nervous at all about it until about five minutes ago when I realized that there could be information that arises that points us in a definite 'be concerned' direction. It won't point us necessarily in a 'don't be concerned' because of what it's looking for and how, but depending on the numbers we get... well, suffice it to say, there is a little bit riding on the numbers being super low. The last thyroglobulin number was .7. Let's keep it there, okay?
As soon as I know, you'll know.
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