Changing landscapes. A sad isolation. Vertigo and vomit. Sirius and the dog days.
My cancer diagnosis shattered me.
Let me first say that I am absolutely okay admitting that. There is this assumption that when something devastating happens, one shouldn’t allow it to be devastating as it shows a weakness, an inability or a refusal to “go to battle and win.” More often it is encouraged to not let “such-and-such define you.” More often it is recommended that the least amount of change offers the quickest way back to The Way It Was. These sentiments advising that in order to do hardship “well,” one should stay constant and consistent and unchanged.
But…. Is it really in our best interest to live unchanged? Is it really ideal to get back as fast as possible to The Way It Was? Is it really healthier to return to the Before self?
Personally, I don’t think it is. And I don’t even think it’s possible.
I am learning a lot as a changed person. I now look out at life from different eyes. I find that I am being far more intentional about how I am putting things together after being shattered to a million pieces. As intentional as I thought I once was, I’m realizing I really fully wasn’t…so, I’m changing that. My new self no longer subscribing to many of the things I did before. There is much I am leaving behind. And whatever of old I may consider keeping goes under serious scrutiny. I now challenge everything. I now test everything to make sure it is aligned with who I am changing to be. I confront the rote, the motions. The Way It Was cannot be returned to. The Before Amber, as she was, is now gone.
Therefore, I have a new landscape. Things that had meaning before now have different meanings. Hope and peace. Fear and faith. Relating and energy and investment and time. Life and death and survival. Hindsight-ing and presence-ing and dream-ing. Authenticity. Vulnerability. Value. Attention. Intention. Purpose. What it means to live “well.” What it means to live “full.” What it means to live “real.”
So, I’m changing, and living with changed definitions.
One such changed definition that isn’t so nice.
I came to realize something this month when I had a friend ask me how I was doing. As I considered how to answer her question, I found myself afraid. Afraid that the truth
🔹the truth that my constant pain is unrelenting even almost 6 years out,
🔹the truth that my mere existence literally hurts my entire self,
🔹the truth that my misery remains as it did the last time she asked,
🔹the truth that I still have to hold the good with now a whole new shit-ton of bad,
🔹the truth that ‘no evidence of disease’ doesn’t actually mean the same thing the doctors mean,
🔹the truth that I live with invisible suffering t.w.e.n.t.y.f.o.u.r.s.e.v.e.n.t.h.r.e.e.s.i.x.t.y.f.i.v.e.,
might make her leave. Why? Because this time is the last time she’ll hear it. Or because she no longer can participate in the empathy needed to be my friend. Or because I’ve run out of time to get better.
I’m afraid because it’s happened. Not just once but too many painful times.
Authenticity doesn’t actually drive connection like I once thought it did. Like that time when I lived in a really sweet ignorance that made it easier to think that. Instead, authenticity now creates isolation. Now I encounter a difficult fork in the road – I could take the risk of truth and have authentic connection inside that truth no matter how hard, absolutely. I could also take the risk and have it leave me lonely, the truth being too hard to connect in. And the kicker – I won’t know unless I take the risk and each time I take the risk, it could very well mean the end of that relationship.
Melodramatic? Nope, it’s my lived experience. And honestly, in the times I was left lonely, I did not see it coming. I had boldly stepped into authenticity under an old expectation, one based on answers that sound more like, “most everything is grand!” But the more people I’ve lost, the more I’m learning. And I’m not sitting here blaming people for ✌🏼-ing out, either. It is what it is. What I thought it once was it actually isn’t. And while I will still deeply value it and believe in it and commit to it and participate in it, the harsh, not-so-nice reality, is that authenticity can be incredibly lonely.
So, I’m learning what it is to be lonely.
One such changed definition that isn’t so easy.
A couple of Fridays ago I was flat on the floor of my bathroom. Why? Well, a sudden onset of debilitating vertigo and severe nausea and intense puking my guts out hit, and wow did it hit hard. Now, before I go on, you must know this:
I have puked more in my life than anyone should ever have to, so I have a particular loathing of it and a bitterness toward it. My 3 pregnancies were horrendous, constant nausea and multiple-times-a-day puking in their 9-month entireties, into labors and deliveries, and even into post partums. Miserable, to say the least. In addition, I’ve now had chemotherapy. And radiation. And 15 surgeries. All of which came with constant nausea and intense puking. Wretched, so wretched to the core. And because my body is now in constant pain (thanks cancer), puking not only hurts more than it ever did before, it now takes days to recover from the intensity of that full-body experience.
Okay, so back to what I was saying: I was plastered flat on the floor. In the dark. Eyes slammed shut. Trash can adjacent. Pleading for relief. Angry, bitter, despondent that I didn’t earn a No More Puking ticket for the remainder of my life. HAVEN’T I PUKED ENOUGHHHHHHH? Triggered, traumatized, fractured with memories of desperate nights in the same exact position not knowing if I’d make it because of the poison. I HATE IT HEREEEEEEEEEEEE! Scared, anxious, distraught that cancer had returned, that it was in my body and for sure invading my brain. WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS SUFFERINGGGGGGGGGG!? On the floor in between all of that and amongst the sobs heaving through my body, a thought occurred to me. I no longer can live in a life where puking is just puking. Sure, it could be nothing. Or, it could be everything. Food poisoning? Maybe. Cancer? Maybe. I’ll be fine. Maybe. I’m dying. Maybe. A playing field now leveled in the worst way.
My point is this – some of these thoughts aren’t necessarily new thoughts. But what new thought did occur to me was how it is to live both in complacency and in urgency. This is what cancer has caused in my life. This is a new definition that is not so easy and one that I am now required to live by, not having asked for ANY OF IT. According to Webster, to be complacent is to be pleased without the awareness of danger. To be urgent is to be compelled toward immediate action. The gratitude I have because of surviving should mean that I rest in peaceful complacency. The purpose I can live because of surviving should mean that I urgently make my life hugely significant.
So, I sit precariously teetering on the blade-sharp fulcrum in between.
And all of the other changed definitions of all of the other everythings.
The ‘dog days of summer’ has an interesting origin story. It’s said that the Romans would dread the rising of Sirius, the dog star, in the months of July and August because Sirius brought with him extreme heat, drought, fever, lethargy, madness, and bad luck. Welp, like them, I too, struggle in July and August for much of the same reasons! Before cancer, it was because I didn’t like the heat and my favorite time of the year was fall into winter. My dog days being marked by my impatience for the weather to change, and fashion to bring about cuter, more comfortable clothes, and that my favorite holidays were that much closer.
But now, my dog days are redefined. I still don’t like the literal heat (even more so now), but the end of summer into fall into winter isn’t what it once was. Now this previously joyfully anticipated change in seasons is full of painful memories. July and August now marking only the beginning of my undoing, the obliteration of the old me, the shattering of me into a million pieces. My dog days now being the surviving of an out-of-nowhere medical diagnosis, one that has forever altered my existence.
I also acknowledge that without an undoing, a rebuild isn’t possible.… and so inherent in the rebuild, is redefinition.
🔸Like, complacency looking different now. And urgency.
🔸Like, the sentiment “tomorrow might not come” no longer being rote or meaningless from a place of pseudo-control.
🔸Like, gratitude. Visible or invisible.
🔸Like, pain. Invisible or visible.
🔸Like, wanting to make everything matter all of the time but also like living in the peace that comes with believing my simple existence, without any striving, matters.
🔸Like, the version of god that is often presented from privilege is okay to challenge and question and wonder about and that it might actually be okay to change the version.
🔸Like, what it is to want to be alive to fill life full while knowing that being alive means puking even though I’ve earned my ticket out, or that next time I’ll think it’s something but it’s again really nothing, or that the time after that I’ll think it’s nothing and then it is actually something.
🔸And like, the tragic fact that all of this doesn’t actually have an end to it until the end.
So, I rebuild. And redefine. And live changed.
July’s Message
*I cannot find the original artist of this image to cite.
We’re supposed to change. Even when the rebuild comes at a high, of astronomical proportions, cost…… Even if the change is both beautiful AND tragic.
So, where might you be changing?
I so appreciate you taking time to read my thoughts. See you next month! 🩵
Powerful!