Fake it till you make it!

Living in the world of assumptions, that what 'is' today, 'will be' tomorrow, is a curious thing. I assume that because I generally feel pretty clear about this cancer thing that I shouldn't be upset about it. When I do feel upset about it, I don't feel like I'm in the moment, I feel like I'm focused on the wrong thing. When I wake up because of anxiety, I feel like maybe I'm not coping as well as I 'should' be. I know these things aren't true, they're just stories, but it still sits in my body this way and I am still finding my way with it.

Today I feel short of patience and that I wish I could have a good cry. I am a pretty emotional person but for some reason crying is difficult. I often wish I could, but until something really acute rises up in me, I'm sort of stuck. Today is like that. I met all day with the wonderful people who are working with me on the food co-op and made arrangements to take a leave of absence in July-August. Their feeling was that I might want to take a longer leave (considering I still have to do radiation in September and may still be sorting out thyroid med dosages and/or feeling crappy). When we edged around the topic I just felt this sadness in me that feels very far away and very real, all at the same time.

I just feel what I feel, I don't feel like I shouldn't- but it always surprises me. I felt really good with all of this the last few days. Today I feel tired of it already. Knowing that on the 18th I might have another biopsy really truly causes me to want to curl into a ball and cry because I'm scared. I am putting my energy into focusing on NOT needing one but I just don't have a lot of faith in that, it doesn't resonate.

I remember when I was 12, I was enrolled in modeling school (haha, I totally was!) and it was "learn to tweeze your eyebrows" day. I was so scared of having my eyebrows plucked I was positively shaking. The woman teaching us how to shape our brows went around to each girl around the periphery of the room and pluck, pluck, plucked. The woman got closer and closer to me and I was damn near bursting into tears because I just knew it was going to be excruciating, and she leans in with her tweezers, makes a face, backs up a few feet, looks at me again and says, "You're good. You have a beautiful shape to your eyebrows." Not one hair was removed from my face that day and I was the ONLY girl who didn't need a little help. I was all scared for nothing.

I'm hoping this is like that, too. 

It doesnt' help me to read the accounts of other people who talk about how 'easy' it was to get through all of it. When it's behind you (like birth), it's easy to minimize the intense work it takes to get through something like this - your memory is so kind to you, it erases all the jagged edges and makes them soft enough to live with for the rest of your life.

I know that this is the case with this too and I wish I had someone who was freaking out too, just a little bit, sometimes. Everyone's at ease. If they're not, they're not telling me.  It's not that I think I'm going to die, I really don't. It's not that I'm scared of having cancer, I'm not. It's just that this whole think is so hugely enormously small - the best cancer you can have is helpful in some ways and so minimizing in others. It's CANCER. And, it's also just cancer.

How I feel about it, I'm realizing, depends on the day. Today, it feels like CANCER.