Really down today

I don’t know if writing this will help me, but it may help for honesty’s sake. People tell me I’m strong, all the time. Maybe I am. I’ve worked through a lot, and learned a lot; and I’ve been able, mostly, to be open to what’s happening in me and around me. Today, I’m just gritting my teeth.

Crying might help—but I only feel like it when I talk, and there’s nobody really around. Maybe another hot shower, and just letting myself go where it takes me. I’m not that close to breaking—just tired, and frustrated, and I want my normal life back. I won’t get that, really, for at least a year. I don’t know how sick I’ll be in the fall. I don’t want it to impede what I do.

If sickness from treatment were all that was worrying me, I could let it go. It isn’t. I say I want my life back—but I certainly haven’t even been trying to focus on anything that’s “normal,” for the past month. I'm walking the fence again, between "necessary" and "not entirely healthy."

I could maybe take a walk. It’s kind of overcast/hazy/sunny outside. I do have a hat. I would feel as if I was attacking myself, if I didn’t wear it—but my ear is still tender.

I wear hats and sunblock in the summer, always. Not 24/7. But California is different; and I am different, now.

I have bureaucratic chores to do. I have to see what I need to do to keep health insurance in the fall, and contact the social worker at Kaiser about temporary disability. I will do both of these things. I’m not emotionally up to it, right now.

Homework. Good God, yes—with what brain? I need to do something normal, and I have these two reflection papers to write before I get sick. I really can do them; I know they’re not that hard. My teacher knows what I can do—she also knows where I’ve been.

I also have to get off this box for awhile. And my bedroom… who could focus in here?

Packing. Mildly physical (no lifting unless I want to), and possible. Let alone absolutely necessary. If I could, I’d like to get out of here at the end of the weekend, though I have an extension until the 6th. That requires working right now.

I miss my friends. And I miss my faculty. I miss having people all around me, whom I could talk with. Most have gone on to summer, already. As soon as I go east, I’ll be with my best friend—but I’ll lose the physical presence of the rest.

But I know that they still pray for me, and love me.

In my core, I’m stronger than I have ever been. But I could have never, ever, ever done this by myself. I went alone yesterday, partly because I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal; partly because I wasn’t sure who was around to ask, and partly because I didn’t want even the kindness of a friend to influence my treatment decision. What I do with my body has to be up to me—even if that’s to make it sick for a year, with risky benefits. No one wants me to suffer. I don’t see a better choice.

(Would I make the same choice now, to go alone? No. I needed a note-taker, while I was asking questions and trying to assimilate information. I remember a lot, but I wish I had all the data now.)

I want my body to know that it is loved and supported, and strong enough to fight any likelihood of dangerous cells. That’s how crazy cancer is—to love and care for your body, you consent to making it sick.

One of my teachers asked me, when I told her about my wordlessness, if I’d ever had a conversation with my body. I hadn’t, except to try to reassure it that it was loved and cared for and strong. I’ve listened to it when it’s told me I was healthy; and the clean tests tell me, I can trust it to do its best to stay so. I’ve listened when my body has told me how much it loves the wind across bare feet. I’ve listened when it told me that it loves to feel its muscles move, when I walk. I remember how healing a bath could feel, when I was not capable of hurrying.

Everything in me wants to survive this. The current round, I have. Later, scares holy hell out of me. I’m going to have to get an awful lot better at self-care, both so I can love myself through this, and so I can keep health insurance. This is going to call out of me, skills and confidence that I have never yet had.

I’m going to have to find them.