Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Philosophising Early in the Morning

Ideas will come in the shower it seems.  Maybe it's all that stimulation of the scalp when one is washing the hair....

In any case, I was thinking about what's coming and about the last few weeks or so of my life.  There's been the obvious crap, but there have also been some unexpected revelations and refocusing.  Call it a readjustment of perspective, perhaps.

Since all this has begun, I've realized that some things are not as important as I was making them out to be.  The world will keep spinning whether these things are okay or not.  They're externals.  I won't go so far as to say they're trivial, but they aren't the heart of who I am or what I have to have to go on.  It's been a great relief to realize this, to be able to open my hand and let them go.

The same thing can be said of people.  Maybe this is one thing that times of hardship are supposed to do, make us re-evaluate the great tide of individuals with whom we tend to surround ourselves and really look, really look, at our relationships with them.  I think I am guilty of self-deception sometimes as to what that relationship really is.  Maybe we all are.

All I can say with certainty is this:  I am grateful beyond all I can express for my friends and family who have "stepped up" to help hold me up.  It might have been a phone call or an instant message.  It might have been a goofy story, a pin on Pinterest, or something geeky on FB that made me laugh.  It might have been one sentence, truly meant, telling me they're praying.  It might just have been distracting me from this gristmill of scariness grinding away in my head all the time.  Whatever it was, those people are helping me carry this thing, whether it turns out to be the worst-case scenario or just the lesser horror I already know is coming.

As for the rest...

Well...

Maybe it's time to clear the game board of them.  It's not that they're not wonderful in their own way, but life sometimes needs to be stripped back to the essentials.  I think somehow I cluttered mine up with things that were shiny on the outside but completely hollow within. Maybe they started out real and living, and it's time and the way we all change that has robbed the relationship of its connection.  Reality checks like this are hard to swallow; I can't deny it.  Better to wake up finally, though, and acknowledge something is broken and used up, to get rid of it for something meaningful before I put my hand out expecting support and fall right through the saw-dust illusion of it instead.

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Random Bits

Today, BBC America had lots of Doctor Who with Ten in it on.  I sort of got sucked into that, and once again, I was astonished by just how good David Tennant was in that role.  Sure, there were moments that were WAAAAAY over-the-top.  The remote-controlled spinning Christmas trees of death come immediately to mind.  Even those were lots of fun, though.    The show swung back and forth between humor and absolute heartbreak.  I can't watch those last episodes, really starting with The Waters of Mars.  They are so terribly sad....  

I've spent the weekend holed up, reading mostly, watching tv, sleeping.  I finished a reread of Wicked, and I remember now why I never bothered to read the rest of those books.  I think it is one of the most depressing books I have ever read.  The Broadway show is such a perky, cheerful, and heart-lifting thing.  I cannot see how they ever drew it out of the original, to be honest.  I kept telling myself I was going to stop reading it, but I hate to abandon a book.  There's a certain feeling of accomplishment that comes from finishing something, especially something that becomes an endurance race.

I'm trying to get mentally ready for the week to come.  Friday was...a tough day.  I had to give more than I had in me.  There were several times when I just wanted to go down the hall to our little breakroom and lock the door behind me.  

Obviously, I didn't, but the thought was there.  I don't much like that.

So, I'll keep distracting myself with random bits.  Right now, it's Sherlock reruns.  Soon, it will be bedtime.  Then tomorrow will be on me full-force.  Maybe all the random bits will be enough to help me through it.


Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Shaky

I guess I'll take a minute to update the 1.5 individuals who read this on my life.  My surgery hasn't been scheduled yet.  To determine whether or not it will be done by my doctor or the GYN oncologist (there needs to be an acronym just for this, I think), I will have an MRI next Thursday.  After that, the final question should be answered.

And I need that.  I desperately need all the little slivers of hell to fall into an orderly procession.  Why it is better if I know when things are happening is a mystery.  Actually, it probably has to do with the illusion of control.  Being able to put it into my iPhone calendar makes me feel like I'm doing something as opposed to something happening to me, I guess.

Stupid, isn't it?

I'm not doing well with this.  I'm shaky.  I drive in to work, hear a song on the radio, and I'm in tears.  I hate that.  I hate not being able to maintain.  It feels like failure.  Every day that I'm able to get in my classroom and get teaching done, I feel like I've accomplished something major.

I suppose I should just be grateful that I the rest of this year has been what it has been... Venice.  Istanbul.  Good things and places that I can retreat to in my mind while my body goes through whatever winds up being next.  I don't know what else to do.  There's no running away anymore.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

And Then There Were None

It's been a long day, and I'm not going to belabour this.  I'm not up to it.

I will have a hysterectomy, probably sometime around Thanksgiving.  They're still not sure about endometrial cancer; other tests will have to be done.

The other shoe, the one that's been hanging in the air since I first walked into the student health center at IU so long ago, has finally dropped.

And I just can't talk about it anymore.

Monday, October 14, 2013

And Then There Was One

Tomorrow's the day.

There is such a tremendous relief in being able to say that.  If nothing else good can be said about it, at least tomorrow the waiting ends.

I don't know if I'll know anything more than I know right now, but at least I'll be moving forward again.

All this stress is making me react badly to everything.  For example, right now, I:
  • have a migraine trying to attack me
  • want to get in my car and drive to Jackson for Target
  • have found myself shopping for a pair of vegan-friendly Doc Martens
  • simultaneously crave salt-and-vinegar chips, Greek food, Thai curry, and another lime popsicle
  • teared up at a commercial that wasn't sad
Maybe some part of my poor, stupid, confused, lost mind will come back when this is done.

Monday, October 07, 2013

The Day That Was Instead

Today was supposed to be the day I had both procedures.  If you have been paying attention, you know that got screwed up. Instead of hospital gowns and invasive procedures, I had a different day.

I slept fairly late and took the dogs outside for their morning walk still wearing my pajamas.  The air was incredible.  Fall is here, at least for a few days, and it was chilly enough that I was wishing for a jacket or my flannel pj bottoms.

I came in, started some laundry, took a long hot shower, opened up all the windows, turned on the attic fan, and sat down with some of the Krispy Kremes my wonderful Mom got me the other day.  I spent the day lazing around, tinkering with bits of things online and watching TV.  There were lime popsicles and Shin Ramyun for lunch.

It was wonderful.

The dogs are thrilled.  Roux has been stuck to me all day, and Chewie and Yelldo have been out and around playing in the cool air and sunshine.  I was able to put clothes out on the line.  It's hard to believe that only yesterday there was rain.

I am currently avoiding sleep because I don't want to fight the dreams.  TopGear is working admirably for this.  Tomorrow will be full of meetings and work.   I'm glad to have had this brief moment.  Maybe it can take me through to the day that will be.

Friday, October 04, 2013

Lime Popsicles

I've been holding it together with the idea that Monday would be the end of it.  Wouldn't it be nice if just for once these things went as planned?

I got a call this morning saying that one of the two things happening Monday has to be rescheduled.  I'll have to take a day.  I'll have to reset that horrible little countdown.  

I'm going to go eat another lime popsicle.  Right now, the lime popsicles are all that's keeping me going.

11 days......

Wednesday, October 02, 2013

5 Days

Five days left, and I can't stop thinking about it.

I dream about it.  My brain may not be much up to creative endeavour lately, but oh great God, is it ever still up for the nightly horror movie show.  I need peace and flight and places with dark woods and that blue-eyed boy who shows up every so often but instead, I get hospital corridors, people who are long gone, ashes, dust, and no-win situations.

Five days left, and all I want to be able to do is sing along with Lana Del Ray, want to say that "nothing scares me anymore" and mean it.  But I can't.  Because it does.  It scares the ever-living crap out of me.  Instead, I'm so much more stuck in a place where the best lyric of hers for me is "don't make me sad/ don't make me cry/ sometimes life is not enough and the road gets rough / I don't know why...."

I swear I'm trying.  I don't want to be weak or silly or hypochondriacal.  (Is that a word?  I think that's a word....)  Instead I'm striving for beatific stillness, but to be honest some part of me, some little non-productive part of me, is pulling a Heinlein.  You know what I mean.  When in panic or in doubt....

I have had both of these procedures before.  Neither of them is something a person just goes into joyfully.   One of them hurts like a son-of-a-....  You fill in with a word you like.   It's some of the worst pain I've had from something medical without a person actually cutting me open and me having to heal from that.  That includes having my knee rebuilt.  I think it was better not knowing what was coming last time.  Now, I keep thinking about how much it's going to hurt, how there's not really anything I can do about that pain, and sometimes I can't turn that stupid voice off.  It makes me want to roll into a ball underneath my bed and not come out.  It makes me wish I really could go live in a shoebox under my beautiful pianist's grand the way I always joked that I would and let the music wash over me until everything is okay.

On top of all of this, I have to go about my day-to-day life like a normal person. I have to teach and deal with the needs and behaviors of my students and the demands of my job and pretend that I'm fine.  I have to tell people that I'm just tired.  What I want to do is scream and run, scream and run, because there is some strange comfort in movement as long as it doesn't stop.  Instead, I am trying to focus on turning fear into kindness, into concern for other people.  Maybe if I can do that, I can do some good instead of just running in endless circles like Mom and Dad's kitten chasing her long fluffy tail.

It's been on the tip of my tongue, the tip of my fingers so many times to tell a couple of people special to me, but I can't do it.  It all, after all, may be nothing.  Even though it looms before me like the Reaper raising a bony beckoning hand, it may all be nothing.  I couldn't stand it if I worried them for nothing.  I couldn't stand it if they saw me be so weak and afraid if it turns out there are only shadows, no monsters at all.

I have to pretend everything is fine, that I'm like someone who didn't find herself walking off a cliff like Wile E. Coyote.  You know what I admire most about him right now?  The fact that he's always able to keep going, even when he's on nothing but thin air, as long as he doesn't look down.  Maybe that's the secret.  Maybe if you keep moving and don't look down everything is always going to be okay.

And I know I'm babbling in print.  I know what it looks like, sounds like, fingers moving across keys too quickly, images as frantic and random as the inside of my head is right now.  It's a little release of the tension that gave me a crucifying disorienting migraine three days ago.  If it bothers you, you can merry well quit reading, after all. You can walk away from it.  Again, maybe that perpetual motion will keep you safe from it as well.  In the meantime, I'm just going to go to bed and try not to have nightmares.  Five more days.  Five.  More.  Days.