I am feeling totally frazzled today…lots of “off” vibes, strange weather, insecurities, frustrations, last-to-know moments, peculiar interactions, unpracticed routines, the high of opportunity with the low of it falling through, an oddly behaving dog, time seeming to vanish in the blink of my eye…
It’s on days like this that I have to be extra intentional about writing an accurate narrative. What do *I* know from the first-person perspective? What do I know because I asked the source directly? If I’ve heard something indirectly, am I inferring correctly or am I presuming incorrectly and to what end? Are the conclusions I’m drawing reality or fed by misinformation? Am I blinded by a personal filter created by manipulative motives or am I seeing truth through gifted discernment (interesting that those can *almost* look the same).
What a weird day.
This Day in 2018:
It’s Late and it’s Been a Long Day
Too tired to write much.
Helped paint today.
Helped cover school text books.
Ran errands.
That’s a lot in one day for a girl who hasn’t done a whole lot in over a year. And major surgery is, well, major surgery….even 7 weeks post-op.
And tomorrow is chemo. And an echocardiogram.
This Day in 2019:
Doing the Hard Thing
Doing the hard thing is always worth it. It doesn’t make it easier or better or butterflies and rainbows, but it is worth it.
This Day in 2020:
When Normal is Weird and Weird is Normal
It’s 6:30am. My oldest is sleeping because she doesn’t have to get up for the first day of school. Sure, she’ll work later and her college classes will start next week, but after preschool through 12th grade of normal first-day-of-school traditions with her sisters, today was far from normal. Waking up my other two, hours earlier than what has become their norm, for the weirdest first day of school in our lifetimes, was, well, weird. And then taking normal first-day-of-school pictures of only two of my three kids (which is not normal) just before sending them off to the school building (after not being there since an almost apocalyptic-like overnight shut down), and reminding them a mask and a normal temperature would be their ticket into the building. Weird.
Driving home felt strange and I was confused and curious about why. But now as I write, almost 10 hours later, I realize I was holding both a grief and a relief together. Relieved that the rhythm and routine of old was back, knowing that the girls were excited about the things they had to so abruptly give up yet a grief because we had settled into the new weird, now as routine as an old normal…so much so that the old normal now feels weird and this new weird is now normal.
Also interesting is that yesterday I struggled to write…finding myself confused and curious about why. Yesterday was another anniversary day for me…the 18th of August in 2017 was the day I had my mammogram and ultrasound. It was a Friday and I remember sitting in the parking lot with a surreal feeling of ‘is this really happening?’ I remember walking into this big building, checking in at this unfamiliar desk, filling out breast-specific paperwork, detailing why I was there by drawing on a diagram what was concerning. I remember following the instructions of the medical staff [it was almost like they knew] – I changed into a gown, put my clothes in a locker, and sat and waited. Next the room with the machine that would capture the images of a tumor unknown. Then I waited again. Off to a different room with a different machine that would capture more images of more tumors all unknown. As I sat alone in the dark room while the Sonographer went to get the Radiologist [she must have known, too], the images glared at me from the screen and time stopped; my mind blank and spinning at the same time. I could feel my insides shaking as I waited for the sounds of the door opening and then, in an instant, I was looking face to face with the Radiologist.
‘Do you know?’ I asked boldly but quietly, knowing that once I heard his answer, I couldn’t unhear it.
‘I don’t like to share what I think until I know, and I hope I’m wrong, but, yes, I think I know. I believe we are looking at cancer.’ He said quietly and steadily, yet full with emotion. I could tell he hated saying it. I could also tell he was practiced at it.
I was led down a bright hallway to a small room with a chair. More waiting. More blank. More spinning. And then a kind, very short, dark-haired woman came in and took care of everything. She scheduled my next appointment, explained what I could expect, wrote down the address of the location of where to go and gave me a folder with all of the information and documents I was supposed to hand to the people at my biopsy appointment 7 days later.
As I went through this morning, I realized that much of how I was feeling about this very weird first day of school *today is what I was struggling to articulate *yesterday, *three years beyond the anniversary of a dreadful day. The old normal is now weird and all that is now weird is normal. Oh survivorship, you exasperate me.