Grieving the woman I used to be

My therapist thinks I should spend a couple of days by myself somewhere.

Put away my work.

Spend some time alone with my thoughts.

She says that eventually I should build this time into my weekly schedule.

But right now, I need to get away.

I told her that everything makes me want to run and hide.

That every moment of every day feels impacted by the last year.

That I feel like a vase with cracks running through me, and no matter how hard I try, the anger keeps pouring out.

I am tired.

Tired of trying to hold it all together.

We talked about how I spent the last year with my head down, just getting through.

And now that treatment is over, I realize I am doing more of the same.

I put my head down.

I do the work.

I move from one day to the next.

Trying to get to…

I don't even know where.

There is no destination anymore.

I think cancer stole that from me.

Every day I keep trying to be the woman I was before cancer.

But she doesn't exist anymore.

I am grieving her.

Because she isn't here.

Every time I lift a weight, she isn't there.

Every time I reach toward the sky in yoga, she is missing.

Every time I take a deep breath, she's gone.

The person I used to be has vanished from this world, and I am left with the fragments of her body stitched back together.

I used to be so strong.

I am strong now.

But it is not the same.

I used to move so fluidly.

I move well now.

But not like I used to.

I used to breathe deeply into my belly.

Now I am lucky if I can get the breath past my chest.

Every piece of me aches for the woman I used to be.

Every inch of me hurts for the woman I thought I was going to become.

I feel so lost.

Like I am wandering through her life.

Like I don't recognize myself anymore.

And I just keep carrying on.

Because everyone tells me I am doing so well.

"You're doing great," they say when they see me.

They don't see me on the inside.

Struggling to feel like myself.

Crying every other moment because the edges of me feel so raw that I can't handle one more thing.

Today, for the first time, I allowed myself to consider that maybe I am living with a disability.

My life has been forever changed.

There isn't an inch of me—mind, body, or spirit—that hasn't been impacted.

There isn't a single moment in my day when I feel like the old me.

I don't even remember what she feels like anymore.

I just know it isn't this.

This sad, angry, falling-apart version of me.

The one who wants to run away.

Who wants to sit in the dark.

Who wants to hide from everyone and everything.

Who can't handle any more noise.

Who feels overwhelmed by clothes, by sounds, by scents, by feelings.

I don't want to be this person anymore.

And maybe that's exactly why I need to leave.

Not to escape.

To grieve.

Because the longer I avoid this part of my life, the longer it asks to be carried.

So I need to go.

To the forest.

Or to the beach.

Anywhere I can sit with a book, a notebook, and a pen.

Anywhere I can be quiet long enough to mourn the woman I once was.

And meet the woman I am becoming.