Life on the hill: 2017

Sunday, August 27, 2017

I just slayed a demon (or letters to the narcissist. Same. Same.)

Thank you for the conversation. It was one that needed to be had.

You didn't ask about my daughter. She's coming back to Brisbane. 😊 This makes me very happy.

Besides yoga gym work, repeat, and doing everything possible to take care of this vessel my soul walks around in. It's all about the zen.
Like I said, I am not the same person I was 12 months ago. I look at photos of her and think I'm not her anymore.

I am truly sorry that you are in a dark place. I hope you can find your way out. And be that person I know you are able to be.
The one that takes care of his body, and soul.
The one that owns his behaviour,
The one that doesn't lie and tell half truths.
The one that does the work on becoming the best version of themselves.
The one that gets the help he needs.

I was surprised to hear you say that you had seen the boys. And when I did, I truly hoped that some miracle had happened, that you were getting help, taking care of yourself and dealing with your demons. Clean and sober. I prayed to the universe that you were telling me the truth.

I was really disappointed to find out you lied. Again. And my heart broke a little. All over again.

There has not been one day in the last 12 months that I have not thought of you. And felt sad. And heart broken. And so confused.

You know what you need to do. But don't do it. And only you can make the changes. Do the work. Set your soul free.
The truth really will set you free. But first it will piss you off.
Deal with those emotions. Ask why the truth is pissing you off. And get the help you need.

you are with someone, yet feel alone...She's not able to give you what you need to heal. Only you can do that.

I really do wish you peace. Dancing with demons is exhausting. Casting those demons off is soul freeing.

I've walked through fire. And I am a motherfucking Phoenix rising.

V

Salt water

In the past when I've been caught in the sea of emotions, and the waves start rolling in, I've tried to out run them. I'd get caught, and picked up and tossed around, turning over and over, lost in the turbulence. Or I would try to jump over them, only to get a slap of emotion across the head, the force throwing me off balance.

This time I trying something different. I'm diving into those waves. Sometimes there are only moments to catch my breath before I have to dive again. And sometimes I get to lift my face to the sun, and it dries my tears before the next set of waves arrives.

Diving under those waves doesn't feel as chaotic as trying to outrun them or jump over them.

Everything is just TOO...

The sun is too bright.
Temperature too hot,
or too cold.
Blankets too heavy.
Voices are too loud.
People take up too much space.
Clothes are too restricting.
Skin tingles too much.
Smells are too sweet,
too putrid,
too delicious,

too disgusting.

Touch is too demanding.
My senses are too heightened.
My emotions are too intense.
I'm too uncomfortable.
I'm too hard to love.
I have too many feelings.
It is all too much.

The conversations I didn't think I'd ever be having

I had to go to the ladies when I was out to dinner with my daughter and her partner, so I could let my tears fall without having to give an explanation.

I didn't want to tell my beautiful girl that I was crying because I'm terrified that I won't get to see all the magnificent things that she is going to do. That I
was crying because hearing others making plans a year into the future, both terrifies me, and makes me sad. I don't make plans that far into the future any more.

During dinner someone said to me, "You can come too." as they discussed plans for a cruise. I quipped back,"I don't even know what I'm doing next week.

Every feeling I have is often quickly followed by another. Staying in one feeling is difficult. My feelings are like a butterfly flitting from flower to leaf, leaf to flower.

The one consistent thing about cancer is that the treatment is fucking relentless. Surgery. Radiation. Chemotherapy. Medication. They all come with their own set of side effects and consequences. My life now is a constant process of managing them.

I dodged the chemo bullet. Not the others though. The one plaguing my life right now is hormone blockers. Fatigue like I've been rolled over by a steamroller, repeatedly. Aching joints, bones, body, and that's just getting out of bed. Mood swings, where the tiniest things will irritate me, or tears will roll down my cheeks, just because. Eye things, that make me clean my already clean glasses constantly, because I'm sure that it will remove the annoying visual disturbance. A decrease in my bone density, making my bones brittle. A vagina drier then the fucking Sahara desert. (Did you know that your vagina can hurt from dryness WITHOUT EVEN HAVING SEX??!!?! Who'd have thunk it?!)

I had a conversation with my beautiful girl about hormone blockers. About stopping taking them. It wasn't received very well. I'm not stopping taking them. Just thinking about it at this stage. I'll wait until I have a bone density scan in December and depending on the results, discuss it with my oncologist.

My daughter said to me today, "I don't think you'd survive it a third time Mum."

These types of conversations are ones that I never thought I'd be having with my children. I thought I'd see all the things, Do all the things. I thought i had time. Instead now I feel like a ticking time bomb, managing side effects and the potential for cancer to return. Everything I do, from yoga, to the gym, to the supplements and medication I take, to the food I eat, is all done with that in mind. Stop cancer coming back. Again. For round three.

Forget. Remember. Repeat.

A constant stream of forgetting.
Then remembering.

Clothed, I bear the shape of a woman.
Naked, a prepubescent girl, my chest a battlefield of scars.

The factitious swell of breasts deceives strangers, tricks my mind.
Then a stab of pain, like a lightening bolt through the space were a nipple once lay, shatters the illusion.

My child, feverish and in need of comfort,goes to rest his head upon my chest. He stops as he remembers, and places a cushion where my breasts should be and lays down his head to rest.

I remember how, in the before time, an infant grew, nourished by the magic manna that my body made.

A lovers embrace isn't as easy as it once was. He stumbles, conscious of not wanting to hurt scars that are numb. I'm still learning how to move in this altered body of mine. In the heat of passion I forget. Then remember, as my lover's thumb traces the scars.

A constant stream of forgetting. Then remembering.

I wonder when, or even if, the remembering and forgetting ever moves into acceptance.

Denail is a river - June

source

"It's back. It's back. It's back."

Like an endless loop, those words scream in my head, my gut, every single fucking cell in my body, screaming IT'S BACK.

"No. No, its not. Lightening doesn't strike twice in the same place."

This is an example of my internal dialogue after finding a lump again in the same breast that I'd had a lumpectomy in two years previously.

Every time I felt it, a sense of familiarity came over me. I knew in my gut what it was. But denial is a river, and I got swept up in that river until the middle of June. I went to my GP and got a referral for an ultrasound, which couldn't take place for a week. I went and saw my radiation oncologist for my 6 monthly check up. He examined me, and requested that he be sent a copy of the report when it was done.

A day after the ultrasound I received a phone call from my GP requesting I come in to discuss the results. The radiologist had requested further testing - core biopsy on the lump in my right breast, and a fine needle aspiration on a lump found in my left breast.

Apparently lightening can strike in the same place twice.

I wasn't able to get an appointment for these procedure for two weeks, as the radiologist had gone on holidays. The alternative was paying $500 up front to have it done at another centre. This wasn't an option. After feeding, housing, being a bloody ATM to the Narcissist, I didn't have a spare $500 to cough up, especially to confirm what I already knew to be true. So I waited.

And the loop continued.