I don’t know what day it is. Seems easier now to gauge time in terms of how many days it has been since I had which appointment or received which diagnosis. And since it has now been two days since I started trying to write this, my only way of capturing time currently is by how many days it has been since no one has called me back to let me know anything. So it’s all that garbage above that likely makes no sense, plus three more days of medical crickets. But I do know it is Thursday because dumpsters go out. Is it pathetic that trash day is my only point of reference? Oh – I also know Tuesdays and Thursdays as referents because they are 7th period band practice and late pickup for Quinn…so maybe I am winning in more ways than trash collection. I’m just not winning any information collection.
Aside from today being trash day and band practice, my best guess is that we are around two weeks-ish of sort of knowingness something bad, and seven days under the belt of positive knowingness of well, shoot… minus all the details that are actually kind of important in the overall what-the-fuck-do-we-do-now-ness place in which we find our state of collective existence. It feels like forever since I sat on that exam table trying to digest information I already knew somewhere deep in my gut. And now it feels like a more forever kind of foreverness, if that’s even possible, since fucking anything at all has been done about it by the powers that be, which are definitely not we (power, that is).
Wow, I need to breathe. Not sure I even remember how. I’ve earned an A+ in nail biting though. √+ for me.
I’m starting Tai Chi tomorrow. At least in my head I am, and perhaps my body will follow. I’m gonna make Mike do it too, because if nothing else, we will laugh our asses off at each other, and just the thought of that makes me smile.
Back to forever… it’s all relative. Mike and I keep trying to tell ourselves that in just another day or two we are going to get into some kind of fucking rhythm that makes us feel like we have control over something. Like if we walk the dog at 7:39 each night then we have mastered some part of our day with success, and that it won’t matter that we have no fucking idea what is going on in this world of cancer because we checked something off our list of the forever that we want together. That did not pull together as wittily on paper as it did in my head, but trust me – it had potential.
I am no brilliant orator in general, and especially not when the topic at hand challenges the strength of the shell I am most comfortable hiding behind. In the past few weeks I have tried to claw my way through more emotions than I even knew I was capable of…and no matter which one it is that hits me I still emerge hating myself for not being strong enough, or stoic enough, or Scandinavian enough, or Suzy enough…and I have no fucking clue what any of that means. I only know that I am struggling, so I guess that means I know I am alive.
I’ve been having lots of talks with myself about how I’m gonna handle this shit, and at this point I would be happy to produce even the smallest morsel of grace. I have not witnessed that yet; I am clearly a work in progress. Humanity as a whole is a work in progress. It makes no difference how you break it down; it is neither shitty nor beautiful; it is both and so much more. It’s just that some days it feels like it can swallow you alive, and that’s when you really have to stand up on your wobbly legs and fight back; that’s when you know you are really living rather than simply existing.
I don’t know what to do with these tears that fall, or this inability to smile the smile that used to define me. But I am working on it, and I WILL figure it out. This isn’t the me I know. This version of me scares the shit out of me and I want my real self back. If I knew how to skip across the bridge I would joyfully do so, but I am so busy being mad at myself for feeling sad that I mostly just feel blah and pathetic and then I start a whole new cycle of not knowing what the heck to do with any of it. And I get mad at myself all over again.
Yes, I know I am boiling over with anxiety. Yes, I know this post is angry. And yes, I know the root of all anger is fear. And I am fucking scared.
Suzy Ham 