The things I don’t remember

I giggle because the idea of it is funny to me.

Not funny in the actual sense of the word.

But funny in the sense that it isn’t funny at all.

“Some people think that getting their blood drawn in the worst thing that could happen to them”.

She said it to me after a perfect insertion that I didn’t feel at all.

“I’ve had so many of these it’s ridiculous,” I said back to her.

“And this is not nearly the worst thing I have experienced”.

In my head I was thinking, “that didn’t hurt even a little bit, so this really wasn’t the worst thing”.

“The port was much worse. The biopsy in my chest was worse than that. The bone biopsy in my hip was pretty bad.”

I have never recounted the horrors of my cancer treatment out loud with a stranger before.

Especially not in a place that we are laughing about them.

But it feels good to laugh about them a little bit.

To have someone understand that there are far worse things to experience in the medical field than a little ole blood draw.

I feel disconnected from the things that I went through last year.

Like I was present, but not really there.

My brain was so overwhelmed with the whole situation that it feels like it took a hiatus from recording memories and it all went by in a blur.

Nothing was imprinted on the folds on my brain and it all feels lost to the tick tick tick of time flowing on by.

I was there.

I know that I was.

I went through every day of my cancer experience.

But I don’t remember the ins and outs of all of it.

It’s like the feeling of giving birth.

The whole experience is so traumatic that our brain pushes away the horrors of it all and replaces it with the wonders of holding out baby for the first time.

I feel like my brain has replaced all the emotions and exhaustion and terrible days of pain with…

Emptiness.

I wanted to say something more, but that is what my mind came to.

It didn’t fill it with something else.

It simply left that space a blank.

Like it has been erased from my memory.

Like the days of treatment aren’t present within my mind.

I remember that they happened, but I don’t have a grasp on what they felt like in my body any more.

I imagine that is from the chemo.

Because it was tearing everything down to the very core of it’s cellular beginnings.

Everything in me feels like it’s starting over again.

Like I’m back to being a toddler in this grown person’s body.

I find that my sense of playfulness has come back.

Like I am a little kid learning how to move and think and feel again.

And that comes with some challenges as well.

The patterns and coping skills I had learned over my lifetime suddenly have vanished and I feel a little dazed and confused at times.

Like I’m standing against a wall and being bashed in by a tidal wave of my own feelings.

And my previous relationships and memories are still their in my mind telling me that I should feel shame or guilt for experiencing emotions.

It feels like the work that I had done to learn new patterns has somehow fallen apart around me.

That menopause has taken me over and is dragging me through a new beginning.

And the only way I can describe it is as entering the age of the crone.

I have this picture in my head of me sitting on a porch in some far off cabin in the woods somewhere.

The sun is shining and I have my blanket wrapped around me.

I can feel the softness and warmth of it around me as I think about it.

I have my cup of lemon water and I feel free.

There is no one around.

I am comfortable in my solitude.

I don’t think of anyone else.

I don’t care for anyone else.

I am just me.

No one needs anything from me.

Not because they don't love me.

But because, for one quiet moment, everyone is okay.

Including me.

And I keep trying to figure out how to bring that vision to life in the life that I am currently living.

Because I love my life and I don’t want it to change.

But I want that vision to be true as well.

I want that level of comfort and peace.

I want that acceptance and freedom.

I want the people around me to feel loved and cared for.

Without me having to do so much caring for them all the time.

And I know that transition is a hard one to go through.

Not just for them, but for me.

Letting go of the expectations of a lifetime and setting new boundaries with myself and my energy.

I read recently about this idea that we as women spend our lives pouring love and care into the people around us as an act of love.

And we feel deeply connected to the people around us through these acts of nurturing, because we are present in the work.

But the truth of it is that the people that we steal the work from do not feel the love of our intentions through the work, because they are not present in it.

And so I am adjusting.

I am doing less caretaking of the people around me in the way of literal tasks.

They are capable of cleaning up after themselves.

And I am nurturing and caring for them in ways that they can be present for.

Through my words.

Through my presence.

Through my work.

Maybe for the first time in my life…

Through simply allowing myself to be with them.