You are a young adult and you have cancer. You have cells in your body that have gone haywire, that are defective, that are going to kill you. You are going to have to have chemotherapy/surgery/radiation/a bone marrow transplant. You are going to feel worse than you have ever felt, pray to die, pray to live, lose relationships, have your career/family plans completely derailed. You will have to watch for a recurrence of your disease the rest of your life. You will have to deal with the physical and emotional ramifications of treatment the rest of your life. You will wonder how much is left of the rest of your life. You will feel isolated. You will fight quietly, trying to participate in as much as you can to spite this disease. You will fight loudly, crying and yelling, laughing in the face of cancer. You will develop stronger bonds with the people who stay close. You will have small victories that lead to bigger victories over your cancer. You will have setbacks. You will see your priorities lit like spotlights on a dark stage. You will learn to stand up for yourself, speak for yourself, trust yourself. You will get to know your body better than ever. You will know your mental happy place and how to live in the present. You will channel inner strength from a well that seems to have no end.
And if you are lucky, you will go to surf camp and you will meet impossible people.
I spent a week at Camp Koru, surf camp put on by Athletes for Cancer. A4C is a non-profit that provides surf- and snow camps for young adult cancer fighters, giving them a chance to meet other fighters, reconnect with the natural world, and feel like more than a patient. My week at camp changed my life. I came home confident to start this new life, no longer scared and lacking in self-confidence. I came home with a most powerful community in my heart.
Camp was a rustic cabin set-up at Oluwalu on Maui, right on the edge of a popular snorkeling reef. I showed up nervous: would there be cliques I would have to navigate? Would my cancer journey be cancer-y enough? Would I have to (shudder) talk about my feelings? To my immense relief, I found myself in a tropical paradise surrounded by people I had been waiting to meet for years. Fighters, survivors, ass-kickers, kind hearts, warm smiles, gallows humorists. We spent all morning on the ocean and the afternoons snorkeling, relaxing, and taking trips into Lahaina or the little store up the road from camp. On my birthday, we paddled outrigger canoes and visited Paia. We ate every meal like royalty, thanks to the incredible talents of our volunteer chef... who just so happens to work at one of my favorite restaurants in Portland. In the evenings, we sat around a tiki torch campfire and talked about our lives.
This would have been a marvelous vacation on its own, but it was so much more than that. The staff was warm, welcoming, and fun. Most of them have been affected by their own cancer experience, or the cancer fight of a loved-one. My fellow participants - all of us women except one lucky guy - are the definition of strong. Strong-willed, strong-spirited, strong-hearted. We talked in the ocean, in the vans, at meals, on the beach, at campfire. We swapped war stories, jokes, love stories, and tales of heartbreak. We whooped in encouragement when someone caught a wave, we cried together when shit got real, we shared comfortable silences. All of us people who were given horrifying diagnoses, who refused to submit to tragedy, who insisted on being more than our diseases. I marveled all week at the people around me, who rolled their eyes at terms like "inspiring" despite the fact that every one of them is. We spent a week just being ourselves, fully and without being "the brave cancer survivor" of the group. I found myself talking about the things I can't name with my family and friends, and learning a ton from what other people shared with me. As the week went on, everyone pushed past their own obstacles. Everyone took care of one-another. Every one of us have been living with diseases that wanted to take our lives and our happiness, and every one of us are defiant. On our last day of surfing, I looked around at all my new friends in amazement. Here were people who would have died without treatment and walked through fire just in case it worked. People who understood like no one else the truth of their own mortality. People who were riding the ocean, laughing and cheering and spotting sea turtles. Impossible people. My ohana.
Thursday, May 15, 2014
transitional post about reality
Why has it been so hard to write about my experience at Camp Koru?
I thought I didn't have the words, that I needed to process my experience before I could give it form. But you know me, I struggle trying not to be verbose. I thought I couldn't do it justice, that I didn't possess the voice or vocabulary to honor the place and the people. But I know the one thing I can do is write.
The fact is, I have been hanging on to every precious bit of that trip. Trying to describe it means analysis and definition, and for the time being I have enjoyed keeping it pure. I have enjoyed snippets of camp washing through my memory, and reliving it aloud puts it in the past and me in the present, and I haven't been ready for that. I came home to the half-unpacked apartment I had left, tired but happy. I tried to finish unpacking but kept having to nap. I went to a play, then out after with my friends and the cast, and I woke up barely able to rise. Was I hungover? I only had a beer and a whiskey, plenty of water. Maybe I was still recovering from my trip. I slept most of the day, dreaming of Maui and the ocean, missing the people I had met there.
The next evening, a spot I thought was an irritation from my bikini turned quickly into a prickly rash. I could feel it spreading. I thought it was typhus or some other tropical malady I had contracted when I unpacked my suitcase. I cried a little, called my family, got a ride to the ER. Four hours of waiting and watching a drunk college student's hand bleed three times through his bandages before they finally wheeled him back, I gave up and went home to sleep on an ice pack. My oncologist diagnosed shingles the following morning.
The post-camp glow is over. I am in bed with no appetite or energy, with the feeling that I was struck in the ribs with the broad side of a white-hot poker. This is the present, camp is the past, and now I can talk about it.
...in another post, so I don't taint it with my disgusting shingles problem.
I thought I didn't have the words, that I needed to process my experience before I could give it form. But you know me, I struggle trying not to be verbose. I thought I couldn't do it justice, that I didn't possess the voice or vocabulary to honor the place and the people. But I know the one thing I can do is write.
The fact is, I have been hanging on to every precious bit of that trip. Trying to describe it means analysis and definition, and for the time being I have enjoyed keeping it pure. I have enjoyed snippets of camp washing through my memory, and reliving it aloud puts it in the past and me in the present, and I haven't been ready for that. I came home to the half-unpacked apartment I had left, tired but happy. I tried to finish unpacking but kept having to nap. I went to a play, then out after with my friends and the cast, and I woke up barely able to rise. Was I hungover? I only had a beer and a whiskey, plenty of water. Maybe I was still recovering from my trip. I slept most of the day, dreaming of Maui and the ocean, missing the people I had met there.
The next evening, a spot I thought was an irritation from my bikini turned quickly into a prickly rash. I could feel it spreading. I thought it was typhus or some other tropical malady I had contracted when I unpacked my suitcase. I cried a little, called my family, got a ride to the ER. Four hours of waiting and watching a drunk college student's hand bleed three times through his bandages before they finally wheeled him back, I gave up and went home to sleep on an ice pack. My oncologist diagnosed shingles the following morning.
The post-camp glow is over. I am in bed with no appetite or energy, with the feeling that I was struck in the ribs with the broad side of a white-hot poker. This is the present, camp is the past, and now I can talk about it.
...in another post, so I don't taint it with my disgusting shingles problem.
Monday, May 12, 2014
fully-grown adult human becomes adult human again after years in limbo.
I have finally moved back to Portland. I have an apartment, a roommate, a gas bill. I get myself all the places I need to go. I have good blood counts and enough of an immune system to allow me to be a regular participant in life outside doctor's offices and carefully-orchestrated ferry rides and trips to the grocery. I do not hyperventilate when I see someone sneeze without covering their mouth, but I do still wipe the grocery cart handle down before I can touch it. I make sure I am taking my last couple medications. I make sure I eat. I exercise: I work out with my resistance bands and hand weights; I jog some; I hike; I surf again.
Unpacking has been difficult. I have three lives melding together in a shared apartment. There are scraps of my life before, including mementos, outdoor gear, a surprising number of CD's, and shoes. During-cancer life is full of clothes meant for someone reduced to skin hanging on a tiny frame, toiletries that were left behind and then packed into a storage unit, hair accouterments for long hair that hadn't yet fallen out, trinkets and tidbits that serve no purpose other than to remind me of a tragic romance. Unpacking has meant sifting through boxes and boxes and boxes, deciding what to hold on to and what to let go. So far, it's half of one and half of the other. Now that I am about 85% finished (aside from my books, whose bookcase broke when I moved out in November), I am becoming less tolerant of items that can't be thrown into a frame pack or trunk at a moment's notice, of those things that clutter my corners and don't move me forward.
I moved in at the end of April, but I went to surf camp for the first week of May. I only got half my unpacking done before I had to leave, and the emotional process was perhaps what I needed going into camp. It opened up a lot of things I had locked down in order to get through the transition from Cancer Patient to Regular Adult Human. I thought I wasn't ready to deal with any of what I still hadn't let go of, that the things that hung on needed to be suffocated. I heard, "you are so inspiring" and it made me want to start a bar fight. Not inspiring. Fawn-legged, lost, uncertain. I was far away from myself and stuck on the fact that the BMT had taken so much from me. But then I went to Camp Koru run by Athletes for Cancer and closed the book on feeling less-than. That is a whole other blog post.
Now I am back and chucking piles of waste out of my life. Bags of garbage, boxes of donation items, a steady stream of what I don' t need. Just in time for summer. Just in time for something new.
Unpacking has been difficult. I have three lives melding together in a shared apartment. There are scraps of my life before, including mementos, outdoor gear, a surprising number of CD's, and shoes. During-cancer life is full of clothes meant for someone reduced to skin hanging on a tiny frame, toiletries that were left behind and then packed into a storage unit, hair accouterments for long hair that hadn't yet fallen out, trinkets and tidbits that serve no purpose other than to remind me of a tragic romance. Unpacking has meant sifting through boxes and boxes and boxes, deciding what to hold on to and what to let go. So far, it's half of one and half of the other. Now that I am about 85% finished (aside from my books, whose bookcase broke when I moved out in November), I am becoming less tolerant of items that can't be thrown into a frame pack or trunk at a moment's notice, of those things that clutter my corners and don't move me forward.
I moved in at the end of April, but I went to surf camp for the first week of May. I only got half my unpacking done before I had to leave, and the emotional process was perhaps what I needed going into camp. It opened up a lot of things I had locked down in order to get through the transition from Cancer Patient to Regular Adult Human. I thought I wasn't ready to deal with any of what I still hadn't let go of, that the things that hung on needed to be suffocated. I heard, "you are so inspiring" and it made me want to start a bar fight. Not inspiring. Fawn-legged, lost, uncertain. I was far away from myself and stuck on the fact that the BMT had taken so much from me. But then I went to Camp Koru run by Athletes for Cancer and closed the book on feeling less-than. That is a whole other blog post.
Now I am back and chucking piles of waste out of my life. Bags of garbage, boxes of donation items, a steady stream of what I don' t need. Just in time for summer. Just in time for something new.
Sunday, April 13, 2014
left it all at the top
My body is on a weird sleep schedule lately. The Ambien they put me on in Seattle has been perfect for the last six months or so when I wanted eight solid hours of sleep. The last few days have found me awake at 4:30 in the morning to use the bathroom, though. Then, of course, I am wide awake despite attempts to bury my face in my pillows and get my body in exactly the position it was in when I was asleep. If I know anything about me, I know this is a good time to write in this-here blog and free up some brain space.
New birthday is July 19th, so I have my long-term follow-up visit at SCCA scheduled for the week before then. I am actually excited to go to Seattle. July is a nice time to be there, and tests to see where I am on the righteous path of bodily healing are the same as the tests to determine my fitness for a bone marrow transplant, but the psychology is different. Everything about this year is different. I'm taking steps and leaps in the direction of my optimum health instead of bracing against the onslaught of surgery after surgery and the inevitable transplant. That is all behind me and I keep shedding the hang-ups of that experience like layers of clothes on a sprint to skinny-dip.
Angel's Rest was a good place for me to leave a lot of that behind. A few dear friends and I hiked the 5-mile up-and-back in the Columbia Gorge last Saturday. The hike is 2.5 miles up with a 1,500' elevation increase along the side of the Gorge that switchbacks through deep green forest and along exposed boulder falls. Every turn of direction opens a view of the Columbia River or Cooper Falls, and this time of year sprinkles much of the lower part of the trail with trillium blooms in white, pink, and purple. I have done this hike quite a few times, and I usually ascend without stopping until the half-way point amid one of the rock falls. We must have stopped three or four times on the way to the summit, which was mildly frustrating for me as a reminder that I am not yet where I want to be in my physical fitness; my friends are gracious and kind and helped me see that being up there was a major accomplishment in of itself. All the way up, I pushed myself to climb a little further than my comfort zone. It's always been my way, at least as an adult. I was a timid kid but as an adult I have found the only way to get what I want is to shrug past that initial discomfort to see what the limit really is. The more life I have, the less interested I am in coddling the little voice inside me that wants me to stay within the confines of what is easy and comfortable.
The last few years of surgeries and my transplant have forged that in me deeper: taking on more pain than I wanted so I could be stronger than a potential painkiller addiction; letting go of long-held, unhealthy, imbalanced relationships so I could increase my exposure to my own good nature and appreciation of the caring, brilliant people in my life; walking miles' worth of laps around the BMT ward to keep my muscles from atrophying; taking ballet to rebuild the muscles prednisone wasted by 25 percent; wading back into my hobbies a little at a time, even when my cognitive skills were impaired, because I was depressed without them. The pushing past where I was to get to where I am trying to go has led to a lot of growth, but it's also saddled me with some empty- and half-full baggage to drag around with me. It made the climb up harder, but I left a lot of it at the summit. I left the "Cancer Patient" identity on the bench at the top of Angel's Rest because despite my bi-weekly oncology check-ups, I'm not much of a patient anymore. Sure, I am on a few medications, but I am not the sickly thing I was before my marrow went into remission and my new immune system started destroying the HPV. I left "needing a caregiver" on the bench because I have taken every step to being an autonomous adult again and have the strength and faculties to take care of my own life again. I found an apartment and a roommate, I take Amtrak and Trimet with only a little bit of germ-related hyper-vigilance. I can cook again, read without getting tired after three pages, take crazy long walks for no reason again, knit complicated patterns, maintain a conversation. The last bit is actually still a little hard but not because my brain is healing from being poisoned; I haven't had much in the way of conversation for a while, and less in experiencing life outside my bedroom or a hospital or cancer clinic. It's a practice thing. I also have a hard time talking to attractive people, which is new for me and something I left most of on that bench. I have felt "undatable" for a while, even though that worry has been fairly irrelevant most of this time. I went through a needlessly dramatic break-up, gained a little belly pooch from the prednisone and all the sitting, part of my vulva was removed, and I've been largely mystified at how I am going to get back to being a contributing citizen of my community. The drama of the break-up is over, I exercise five days a week, I'm going back to school, and I know how to make the new landscape of my bikini area work for me. I left "undatable" on the bench. I won't take the leap from "datable" to "dating" until I am settled back in Portland completely ...and even then being able to feel things about people in that way is a new development in healing and will have to be reciprocal and not some surprising crush feelings that turn me into a big idiot dummy when I try to converse with the object of my interest. Nonetheless, I felt my mojo coming back on my way back down Angel's Rest.
The hike down was light and springy. My friends and I chatted happily and I felt all these hang-ups that have been waiting to molt flutter off my back. This time last year, I was in Seattle for my initial testing. I spent a week there before they decided I needed a right-side radical vulvectomy and sentinel node biopsy before I could have my transplant, in case vulvar cancer had metastasized. This time last year, I was a ball of anxiety over the unknown and the imminent, clouded by pain medicines and constantly worried about the balance between my health and my partner's declining ability to deal with everything happening. It was not a good place. Now I am getting back to my old life, a new life, a life with strength and hope and excitement about what is ahead. I am proud of how far I have come in this little bit of time, and thankful for everyone and everything that have contributed to my being here and being unstoppable.
This, like so many other blog posts I put up, is mostly a stream-of-late-night consciousness, so I am not going to bother editing it. I think one day I will actually go over all this brain dump and feels-baring and edit it with my personal journals (on paper!) and make a book out of this experience. I don't feel a distinct theme or thread when I look at it all now, save for my constant need to find homes for the ideas and thought fragments and images that crowd my brain. We'll see. I'd really like to make this into something real and whole.
New birthday is July 19th, so I have my long-term follow-up visit at SCCA scheduled for the week before then. I am actually excited to go to Seattle. July is a nice time to be there, and tests to see where I am on the righteous path of bodily healing are the same as the tests to determine my fitness for a bone marrow transplant, but the psychology is different. Everything about this year is different. I'm taking steps and leaps in the direction of my optimum health instead of bracing against the onslaught of surgery after surgery and the inevitable transplant. That is all behind me and I keep shedding the hang-ups of that experience like layers of clothes on a sprint to skinny-dip.
Angel's Rest was a good place for me to leave a lot of that behind. A few dear friends and I hiked the 5-mile up-and-back in the Columbia Gorge last Saturday. The hike is 2.5 miles up with a 1,500' elevation increase along the side of the Gorge that switchbacks through deep green forest and along exposed boulder falls. Every turn of direction opens a view of the Columbia River or Cooper Falls, and this time of year sprinkles much of the lower part of the trail with trillium blooms in white, pink, and purple. I have done this hike quite a few times, and I usually ascend without stopping until the half-way point amid one of the rock falls. We must have stopped three or four times on the way to the summit, which was mildly frustrating for me as a reminder that I am not yet where I want to be in my physical fitness; my friends are gracious and kind and helped me see that being up there was a major accomplishment in of itself. All the way up, I pushed myself to climb a little further than my comfort zone. It's always been my way, at least as an adult. I was a timid kid but as an adult I have found the only way to get what I want is to shrug past that initial discomfort to see what the limit really is. The more life I have, the less interested I am in coddling the little voice inside me that wants me to stay within the confines of what is easy and comfortable.
The last few years of surgeries and my transplant have forged that in me deeper: taking on more pain than I wanted so I could be stronger than a potential painkiller addiction; letting go of long-held, unhealthy, imbalanced relationships so I could increase my exposure to my own good nature and appreciation of the caring, brilliant people in my life; walking miles' worth of laps around the BMT ward to keep my muscles from atrophying; taking ballet to rebuild the muscles prednisone wasted by 25 percent; wading back into my hobbies a little at a time, even when my cognitive skills were impaired, because I was depressed without them. The pushing past where I was to get to where I am trying to go has led to a lot of growth, but it's also saddled me with some empty- and half-full baggage to drag around with me. It made the climb up harder, but I left a lot of it at the summit. I left the "Cancer Patient" identity on the bench at the top of Angel's Rest because despite my bi-weekly oncology check-ups, I'm not much of a patient anymore. Sure, I am on a few medications, but I am not the sickly thing I was before my marrow went into remission and my new immune system started destroying the HPV. I left "needing a caregiver" on the bench because I have taken every step to being an autonomous adult again and have the strength and faculties to take care of my own life again. I found an apartment and a roommate, I take Amtrak and Trimet with only a little bit of germ-related hyper-vigilance. I can cook again, read without getting tired after three pages, take crazy long walks for no reason again, knit complicated patterns, maintain a conversation. The last bit is actually still a little hard but not because my brain is healing from being poisoned; I haven't had much in the way of conversation for a while, and less in experiencing life outside my bedroom or a hospital or cancer clinic. It's a practice thing. I also have a hard time talking to attractive people, which is new for me and something I left most of on that bench. I have felt "undatable" for a while, even though that worry has been fairly irrelevant most of this time. I went through a needlessly dramatic break-up, gained a little belly pooch from the prednisone and all the sitting, part of my vulva was removed, and I've been largely mystified at how I am going to get back to being a contributing citizen of my community. The drama of the break-up is over, I exercise five days a week, I'm going back to school, and I know how to make the new landscape of my bikini area work for me. I left "undatable" on the bench. I won't take the leap from "datable" to "dating" until I am settled back in Portland completely ...and even then being able to feel things about people in that way is a new development in healing and will have to be reciprocal and not some surprising crush feelings that turn me into a big idiot dummy when I try to converse with the object of my interest. Nonetheless, I felt my mojo coming back on my way back down Angel's Rest.
The hike down was light and springy. My friends and I chatted happily and I felt all these hang-ups that have been waiting to molt flutter off my back. This time last year, I was in Seattle for my initial testing. I spent a week there before they decided I needed a right-side radical vulvectomy and sentinel node biopsy before I could have my transplant, in case vulvar cancer had metastasized. This time last year, I was a ball of anxiety over the unknown and the imminent, clouded by pain medicines and constantly worried about the balance between my health and my partner's declining ability to deal with everything happening. It was not a good place. Now I am getting back to my old life, a new life, a life with strength and hope and excitement about what is ahead. I am proud of how far I have come in this little bit of time, and thankful for everyone and everything that have contributed to my being here and being unstoppable.
This, like so many other blog posts I put up, is mostly a stream-of-late-night consciousness, so I am not going to bother editing it. I think one day I will actually go over all this brain dump and feels-baring and edit it with my personal journals (on paper!) and make a book out of this experience. I don't feel a distinct theme or thread when I look at it all now, save for my constant need to find homes for the ideas and thought fragments and images that crowd my brain. We'll see. I'd really like to make this into something real and whole.
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
writing frustration vomit
My writing hang-ups:
I am not very funny. I am not great at pop culture references, outside of certain punk- or alternative acts, from the 80's and 90's; the questionable content of similarly-aged children's programming; mid-to-late-90's internet culture; 75% of the works of Miyazaki, plus nerd times like FLCL and Cowboy Bebop; weirdo movies like "The Young Poisoner's Handbook." I am protective of people in my life, which conflicts with my strongest asset: my willingness to be candid. My candidness is confined to my little lens. I don't know enough about one thing to write on a theme with any sort of regularity. I could, I suppose, with a task ahead of me. The task ahead of me lately is to write down all the feels and the events and keep it minimally gross and reduce dramatic nonsense in writing to the bare bones because though raw wounds and old scars attract a certain type, this blog is not as anonymous as I pretend it is. I save Tumblr for that. I can write personal accounts and objective accounts, but creative stories and shorts balk me. A blog like mine feels like the natural evolution of the study of poetry and prose that filled stacks of notebooks in my younger years.
When I write in this blog, my audience is me. I have a vague idea of who reads this blog, and it's a decent number of family members and friends, some of whom are better off not knowing everything buzzing around in my head, so as soon as the shrubbery gets pushed away from the candid shares, there is a semi-ineffectual guard there in the shape of my internal editor who chooses suits from Men's Warehouse and has a bachelor's in creative writing. He is not helpful; he is an obstacle. I wish my editor was more like me when the floodgates open and raw shit just goos out all over and I have to shape it into something intelligible. I like that there are a reasonable handful of people who read this when I update, but though my heart says I get the most hits when I let all the real happen without bumpers, my head wants to keep the close people I have within arm's reach from moving to just past that.
This is all a lot of bullshit, to be hung up when I write. I hate the tepid results I get when I try to swing a pen behind a shield. I do better with blood on the table, adventure in my veins, a drop of poison on my tongue. I am not going to abandon this blog. I can't. But I need a venue to write boldly and I need permission from myself to do that harder, better, and more creatively than usual. I want to feel like my voice comes through distinct and unusual. I hate feeling like I'm not growing, just finding ten different, similar ways to talk about the same old crap. I don't want to be just another whisper in a bedroom that gets eaten by the internet and abandoned. My blog was started as a way to keep up my end of a multi-person conversation about how I was faring, but my mental acuity comes back stronger every day and I miss writing like fighting, like love affairs and hitching a ride with strangers. With the mental acuity comes a lot of emotion of all sorts, and I am getting twinges that I thought were gone. Little fires I want to feed on paper in case they burn out in the world.
But I don't know what the hell to write about.
Seems like the people near me who write do so in the form of comedy or music reviews. Like I said, I am not funny and I am not so great with volumes of pop culture, so it's hard to get a read on what wisdom I could glean. My old life was a much more prolific writer. New life is stockpiling ideas and nervous notions but not really moving down any stream yet. I have forgotten how to write a rich story or a play. Maybe I need to go back to 15 and fill notebooks full of poetry.
Meanwhile, I will listen to Ida Maria and writhe and strut and get reacquainted to the feeling of my soul being inside my body. I need to be patient while the linguistic part of my brain catches up with the emotional, creative parts.
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| Spooky Self Portait |
Friday, March 14, 2014
precipice of great or modest change
To start things off, I should mention that R and I broke up sometime last summer. For me it was sometime around the week I started my chemo-based marrow conditioning. For him, maybe it was when I had the first shred of my mental acuity back about a month after chemo and sent him the letter explaining why it wasn't healthy for me to be with him. I haven't discussed our break-up here because there has been a lot of heartache on both sides and a lot of drama that should stay off the internet for both our sakes. The long and short of it is this: I needed him to be calm, kind, and empathetic; he needed me to be emotionally present and manifesting strength for the sake of our relationship. Neither of those things could happen, so there was no longer a foundation of trust and respect between us that was strong enough to hold the kind of relationship we wanted. The end.
That was almost eight months ago, and we have tried to remain friends in that time but it was just too difficult. Our expectations of that friendship repeatedly didn't match, and no matter how badly we both wanted to be past the pain of splitting apart it was just too soon. We don't talk now, but I wish him well and hope he finds happiness and a much less stressful lifestyle to relax into after the last few years.
I am a silver lining kind of person, and what I see growing out of this particular sad event is my opportunity to look at this new life of mine as being truly mine, with only my needs and priorities to consider. I am afraid to date after everything that has happened in the last three or four years, but I think that works in my favor. I can cultivate relationships as an individual, make plans as an individual, and set goals for myself that have baring on my life, only. I want to return to theatre, I want to spend more time outdoors, I want to try new things that this new self might enjoy. I feel like the Doctor regenerated. Still me, but a different me. I want to find out the hard way if I am too old to dance again or start playing soccer. I want to get to know this changed body better, become a single entity again after so much time feeling like an alien consciousness trapped in an irregular shell. I want the people I care about to know that I want to find one of their deepest threads and hold on to it, protect it, celebrate it because I like my fiercely loyal streak, even when it hurts and I have to let go. I want to put my heart and my brain power into a cascade of projects, ideas, adventures, and people and grow it all until I reach the very last step on my path, whenever that is, so I can turn around and see a wild, tangled wood behind me full of light and shadow and color and mist. I want to step like Shishigami and leave life sprouting in my footprints. I am going to do so much more than I have been able in the past.
That was almost eight months ago, and we have tried to remain friends in that time but it was just too difficult. Our expectations of that friendship repeatedly didn't match, and no matter how badly we both wanted to be past the pain of splitting apart it was just too soon. We don't talk now, but I wish him well and hope he finds happiness and a much less stressful lifestyle to relax into after the last few years.
I am a silver lining kind of person, and what I see growing out of this particular sad event is my opportunity to look at this new life of mine as being truly mine, with only my needs and priorities to consider. I am afraid to date after everything that has happened in the last three or four years, but I think that works in my favor. I can cultivate relationships as an individual, make plans as an individual, and set goals for myself that have baring on my life, only. I want to return to theatre, I want to spend more time outdoors, I want to try new things that this new self might enjoy. I feel like the Doctor regenerated. Still me, but a different me. I want to find out the hard way if I am too old to dance again or start playing soccer. I want to get to know this changed body better, become a single entity again after so much time feeling like an alien consciousness trapped in an irregular shell. I want the people I care about to know that I want to find one of their deepest threads and hold on to it, protect it, celebrate it because I like my fiercely loyal streak, even when it hurts and I have to let go. I want to put my heart and my brain power into a cascade of projects, ideas, adventures, and people and grow it all until I reach the very last step on my path, whenever that is, so I can turn around and see a wild, tangled wood behind me full of light and shadow and color and mist. I want to step like Shishigami and leave life sprouting in my footprints. I am going to do so much more than I have been able in the past.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Minor update on life
Happening in my life right now:
1) My infant niece was born! My older brother and sister-in-law welcomed their second beautiful child into the world just over a week ago, and now my nephew has a little sister as his newest audience member. I just so happened to be visiting when SIL went into labor, so I have been staying with them since the 20th to help around the house and with Nephew so the new parents can get some rest. SIL has to get back to wrapping up her last few terms of nursing school next week, so I am going to go back to my mom's today and up to Bellingham to visit a dear friend on Thursday before I come back for another week of domestic life and hanging out with cute kids. My niece is crazy cute and is the most chill baby I have ever met. Niece is healthy and adorable, and her parents are doing well. Nephew has had his whiney, stubborn dial turned up a little, but is otherwise dealing with this change in his family dynamic like a helpful little champion. I love this family and it's quite cool to be able to be here to help.
2) The time has come to find a place to live that is not my mom's house. Mom and B have been welcoming and hospitable having me in their home for so long, but now I need to re-enter the outside world where I am a grown-up who can get herself to oncology appointments and the grocery store, pay her rent and bills, and live with people who are not family. It has been a while since I last felt independent, and I am nervous but ready to to be that person again. The one real barrier is the state of the rental market in Portland now, compared to the last time I was apartment hunting in 2010. Rent in Portland has jumped up substantially, and development has happened so rapidly in the city core that formerly affordable neighborhoods are overrun with units on the higher end of the price spectrum. Relying on disability until I am cleared to work full-time again (sometime in July, after my one-year assessment) is not helping my dismay when I look at my options. I am patient and not being forced out of my current place of residence, so I can be kind of picky… but being picky and low-income is not a great combination. Renting a room in a house or apartment with strangers is so far proving to be my best option. High-traffic, crowded houses are not an option, and I need to be somewhat close to the hospital where I have my oncology appointments (and by close, I mean I need to be within an hour's bus ride because they like to schedule me at 8am), so I see ads that fit my needs and personality about once or twice a week. Keep your fingers crossed for me.
1) My infant niece was born! My older brother and sister-in-law welcomed their second beautiful child into the world just over a week ago, and now my nephew has a little sister as his newest audience member. I just so happened to be visiting when SIL went into labor, so I have been staying with them since the 20th to help around the house and with Nephew so the new parents can get some rest. SIL has to get back to wrapping up her last few terms of nursing school next week, so I am going to go back to my mom's today and up to Bellingham to visit a dear friend on Thursday before I come back for another week of domestic life and hanging out with cute kids. My niece is crazy cute and is the most chill baby I have ever met. Niece is healthy and adorable, and her parents are doing well. Nephew has had his whiney, stubborn dial turned up a little, but is otherwise dealing with this change in his family dynamic like a helpful little champion. I love this family and it's quite cool to be able to be here to help.
2) The time has come to find a place to live that is not my mom's house. Mom and B have been welcoming and hospitable having me in their home for so long, but now I need to re-enter the outside world where I am a grown-up who can get herself to oncology appointments and the grocery store, pay her rent and bills, and live with people who are not family. It has been a while since I last felt independent, and I am nervous but ready to to be that person again. The one real barrier is the state of the rental market in Portland now, compared to the last time I was apartment hunting in 2010. Rent in Portland has jumped up substantially, and development has happened so rapidly in the city core that formerly affordable neighborhoods are overrun with units on the higher end of the price spectrum. Relying on disability until I am cleared to work full-time again (sometime in July, after my one-year assessment) is not helping my dismay when I look at my options. I am patient and not being forced out of my current place of residence, so I can be kind of picky… but being picky and low-income is not a great combination. Renting a room in a house or apartment with strangers is so far proving to be my best option. High-traffic, crowded houses are not an option, and I need to be somewhat close to the hospital where I have my oncology appointments (and by close, I mean I need to be within an hour's bus ride because they like to schedule me at 8am), so I see ads that fit my needs and personality about once or twice a week. Keep your fingers crossed for me.
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