There's a question mark in the title of this post as I truly write this phrase with a twist (of lemon. as in, a martini. I look around my apartment, and it is NOT Martha-worthy. But I digress).
It was Sunday today, so I went to my parents, the Adult Child visiting, the Patient, the Informal Caregiver. Those are the names we get on cancer websites I scroll through when I feel the need for more information than I already have. I am the Adult Child, who will often help with such duties as paying bills, driving to and from appointments, providing moral support, all the while feeling like a non-adult child, the child that is asking..."Hey...what happened to my family?"
That being said, I felt comforted reading all of this on a cancer website this week. It gave me a sence of normalcy (seems impossible, I know. I take what I can get.)
The Patient. The Patient has all sorts of conflicting feelings, and alot of the reading about the Patient has to do with the Patient getting well, and the sections of reading entitled "Life after Cancer". There are no sections (that I have found) entitled "Death after Cancer". That's what I really want to read.
The Informal Caregiver is the person who takes care of the Patient at home. Informal is another quirky word for "unpaid". Clever.
But today we felt family-ish. We didn't dwell, cry, let our shoulders sag, or ruminate about death.
We took my dad to the movie store to pick out movies to watch on the DVD player, despite the day's unseasonably cold weather and teeming rain. My mom and I went to get groceries, with the heavier items she needs being easier for me to help her with in the car.
We entered the new Marshalls, a bit of retail therapy. Whose kidding who. It works.
Groceries purchased, new shoes in hand, we had an early dinner together while my dad rested, then the three of us looked at family photos together. Ah...the seventies. Short hair for little girls, and lots of overalls. I didn't have a princess complex then, and I don't have one now (thank you Jesus). My dad smiled the most at the photos of a young family--his and my mom's. And photos of my niece and nephew when they were babies. And our family lab Shadow, five years gone now.
I left, packing up the baking accessories my mom gave me, along with a cookbook of muffin recipes (yes, I am baking. I have to channel the anxiety somehow, and as I have a one-martini rule, it needs to come out in other ways.)
We had an early dinner, I came home early (rain still pouring down), did my nails, tried on my shoes, put my hair up, pajamas on, and caught up on my emails.
My bathroom and kitchen are completely clean, my bed is made, and there is laundry in the dryer. I have lunch for tomorrow, meals for the week.....so somehow, despite the mis-firing neurons in my brain, I have accomplished tasks that required planning and organization.
May this continue on for the week ahead.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Friday, May 13, 2011
Journal 18 Friday the 13th
It lived up to its name today.
Nothing quite went right; computer issues to boot, a total of approximately three full commuter hours (lost), an aching run, an aching head.
It's pouring out now, I feel, somehow, that I should now have some relief, but nothing is forthcoming. The rain, and the steady sound of it, coaxed me out of bed, where I was trying to read and sleep, but it would have none of it.
I sat at the edge of my bed for a while before coming out here to write, turning on lights, wrapping myself in a sweatshirt.
I sat there and pondered my own life questions, am I special enough, unique enough? Does being human alone just guarantee me that feeling of right-ness to be alive. Alive-ness, living-ness, all that business associated with it.
But really I feel like just a tiny speck on this miniscule planet, floating around in this giant galaxy, and somewhere in all of this, heaven is supposed to fit in, a bunch of stars running around, shining like mad, glowing down on us as if to say "Look...it will all be okay".
I don't feel that today. Yes, I'm still reading the L'Engle, and yes, she has great things to say about moving beyond all this fear, towards grace, the grace of living life in spite of the things that plague us, the love, the letting go. I adore her take on it all, and I can read between the lines to know that it did not happen overnight.
It's my journal, that's why these entries are titled like this. For me, to me. From me.
I wish I were more tired, more able to cope, more able to accept, but I guess that the act of even typing these words and adding them up into phrases is an act of some acceptance.
I guess that getting up from sitting on the edge of my bed, and coming out here to write was an act of turning my back on fear. Talking to M about what I want, what I feel, where I want to be; that too was something I had to reach for. The difficult. I want easy (I want it even though I know I will learn nothing from it. It's just a want. It doesn't mean that it will happen.)
Years ago I learned the expression 'there are no guarantees in life'. This is true, absolutely. But sometimes there are less guarantees than others.
Ruminating. This is journalling for me right now. It's not pictures of me in my outfit for the day, it's not running around the city with an umbrella getting cute shots of me in the rain.
It's Friday, and yes, I might be the only unmarried-childless-quirky-alone-with-a-boyfriend-in-another-city girl here at home, a veritable shut in while I experiment with just how hot I can make curry chicken in the oven, and just how patient I am with Rogers On Demand (read: zero).
But I am where I want to be.
Except right now, sleep and no headache would be my heaven.
Nothing quite went right; computer issues to boot, a total of approximately three full commuter hours (lost), an aching run, an aching head.
It's pouring out now, I feel, somehow, that I should now have some relief, but nothing is forthcoming. The rain, and the steady sound of it, coaxed me out of bed, where I was trying to read and sleep, but it would have none of it.
I sat at the edge of my bed for a while before coming out here to write, turning on lights, wrapping myself in a sweatshirt.
I sat there and pondered my own life questions, am I special enough, unique enough? Does being human alone just guarantee me that feeling of right-ness to be alive. Alive-ness, living-ness, all that business associated with it.
But really I feel like just a tiny speck on this miniscule planet, floating around in this giant galaxy, and somewhere in all of this, heaven is supposed to fit in, a bunch of stars running around, shining like mad, glowing down on us as if to say "Look...it will all be okay".
I don't feel that today. Yes, I'm still reading the L'Engle, and yes, she has great things to say about moving beyond all this fear, towards grace, the grace of living life in spite of the things that plague us, the love, the letting go. I adore her take on it all, and I can read between the lines to know that it did not happen overnight.
It's my journal, that's why these entries are titled like this. For me, to me. From me.
I wish I were more tired, more able to cope, more able to accept, but I guess that the act of even typing these words and adding them up into phrases is an act of some acceptance.
I guess that getting up from sitting on the edge of my bed, and coming out here to write was an act of turning my back on fear. Talking to M about what I want, what I feel, where I want to be; that too was something I had to reach for. The difficult. I want easy (I want it even though I know I will learn nothing from it. It's just a want. It doesn't mean that it will happen.)
Years ago I learned the expression 'there are no guarantees in life'. This is true, absolutely. But sometimes there are less guarantees than others.
Ruminating. This is journalling for me right now. It's not pictures of me in my outfit for the day, it's not running around the city with an umbrella getting cute shots of me in the rain.
It's Friday, and yes, I might be the only unmarried-childless-quirky-alone-with-a-boyfriend-in-another-city girl here at home, a veritable shut in while I experiment with just how hot I can make curry chicken in the oven, and just how patient I am with Rogers On Demand (read: zero).
But I am where I want to be.
Except right now, sleep and no headache would be my heaven.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Journal 17 Looking at Photographs
My fridge is papered with photos of family and friends, literally papered. There are also my niece and nephews drawings and colourings, and a fridge farm, that sometimes randomly makes farm animal sounds for no reason when I am home alone, enjoying a quiet activity. The sound makes me jump.
I open the fridge, close the fridge, many times a day, but I don't always "see" the photos.
They are there, part of the 'wallpaper'. But they are organic to me, they live, they breathe, they tell a story.
Here is one of my sister and L., taken, I know, by me, in my condo, in 2007. My sister looks lush and calm, despite the recent birth of her second child, and the turbulence in her life surrounding that time. My friend L. looks radiant and healthy (she is), and they both exude a confidence even though we don't know what's coming next.
I have many pictures of my niece and nephew, especially the Christmas postcards my sister sends out each year--you can see them growing up in the photos, getting more hair, growing taller, smiling wider, the camera beginning to mean something.
I have photos of my own friends--here we are at a wedding shower, it's summer, we are tanned, wearing tiny tops and skirts, our nails are all done. L. is holding my tarot cards in her hands in this photo.
I have one of my family, just the four of us, taken on the cement steps of the townhouse we called home for so many years. My sister is in a baby seat, she's about six months old. I am two, standing beside my mother, in a bikini-type outfit; it is summer in this photo too. My 26 or 27-year-old Dad is looking lovingly at my sister, smiling at her baby antics, her hand reaching for his. My mother is looking lovingly at him, her face straight to the camera, but her eyes glued on him. What is she looking to him for? Reassurance maybe. In this photo, my mother has a shock of white hair, and two tiny daughters. Her own mother has just died, a few weeks before this photo was taken, and yet she pulled it together. She looks happy, if a little trepidatious.
It was this photo I took down off the fridge last night, to hold, and to look at a little closer.
To cry over.
I open the fridge, close the fridge, many times a day, but I don't always "see" the photos.
They are there, part of the 'wallpaper'. But they are organic to me, they live, they breathe, they tell a story.
Here is one of my sister and L., taken, I know, by me, in my condo, in 2007. My sister looks lush and calm, despite the recent birth of her second child, and the turbulence in her life surrounding that time. My friend L. looks radiant and healthy (she is), and they both exude a confidence even though we don't know what's coming next.
I have many pictures of my niece and nephew, especially the Christmas postcards my sister sends out each year--you can see them growing up in the photos, getting more hair, growing taller, smiling wider, the camera beginning to mean something.
I have photos of my own friends--here we are at a wedding shower, it's summer, we are tanned, wearing tiny tops and skirts, our nails are all done. L. is holding my tarot cards in her hands in this photo.
I have one of my family, just the four of us, taken on the cement steps of the townhouse we called home for so many years. My sister is in a baby seat, she's about six months old. I am two, standing beside my mother, in a bikini-type outfit; it is summer in this photo too. My 26 or 27-year-old Dad is looking lovingly at my sister, smiling at her baby antics, her hand reaching for his. My mother is looking lovingly at him, her face straight to the camera, but her eyes glued on him. What is she looking to him for? Reassurance maybe. In this photo, my mother has a shock of white hair, and two tiny daughters. Her own mother has just died, a few weeks before this photo was taken, and yet she pulled it together. She looks happy, if a little trepidatious.
It was this photo I took down off the fridge last night, to hold, and to look at a little closer.
To cry over.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Journal 16 Short-Lived
I write with tears dripping down.
Today's respite was nice. I got through a productive workday, and managed to feel some nudges of positivity. Then I get home, post-run, and am able to do some 'processing'. Like reading through my dad's emails, sorting through the medical jargon from the nurse/doctor.
I got through the day, the calls, the meetings, I did my run, I made and ate a nutritious dinner of curry-chicken wraps with basmati rice, and Glee is on, the ultimate in mindless tv, a bunch of ruminating 'normal' teenagers, crying about nothing (no, I didn't go to my prom. go back and re-read. I'm not a prom-goer. There is no judgment in this statement. I just am not a prom-going type. I never have been. I was this girl then. I'm her now).
It's the witching hour I guess, when I clean up, put away the dishes, prepare for tomorrow, and settle down to read, now that I'm here alone. When M. was here he would have me eating dinner at 1o pm, some amazing thing that he had cooked, and I would fall asleep listening to whatever movie he was watching. Now, I have adjusted back to my routine since he has returned home to Maine.
I talk to him around dinner time and we tell each other what we are having for dinner. Sometimes we each pour a glass of wine and drink them together while we talk on the phone. I know the stats and status of all the New England teams (ah Celtics. you HANDED IT OVER).
The Jays are playing the Red Sox tonight, (here, in TO!) and my loyalty is conflicted.
But I look to the everydayness of life right now, in spite of the day dread. The ordinary-ness is comforting, distracting, and only when I am alone do I give in to the dark thoughts, as I did yesterday, as I do right now.
Today's respite was nice. I got through a productive workday, and managed to feel some nudges of positivity. Then I get home, post-run, and am able to do some 'processing'. Like reading through my dad's emails, sorting through the medical jargon from the nurse/doctor.
I got through the day, the calls, the meetings, I did my run, I made and ate a nutritious dinner of curry-chicken wraps with basmati rice, and Glee is on, the ultimate in mindless tv, a bunch of ruminating 'normal' teenagers, crying about nothing (no, I didn't go to my prom. go back and re-read. I'm not a prom-goer. There is no judgment in this statement. I just am not a prom-going type. I never have been. I was this girl then. I'm her now).
It's the witching hour I guess, when I clean up, put away the dishes, prepare for tomorrow, and settle down to read, now that I'm here alone. When M. was here he would have me eating dinner at 1o pm, some amazing thing that he had cooked, and I would fall asleep listening to whatever movie he was watching. Now, I have adjusted back to my routine since he has returned home to Maine.
I talk to him around dinner time and we tell each other what we are having for dinner. Sometimes we each pour a glass of wine and drink them together while we talk on the phone. I know the stats and status of all the New England teams (ah Celtics. you HANDED IT OVER).
The Jays are playing the Red Sox tonight, (here, in TO!) and my loyalty is conflicted.
But I look to the everydayness of life right now, in spite of the day dread. The ordinary-ness is comforting, distracting, and only when I am alone do I give in to the dark thoughts, as I did yesterday, as I do right now.
Journal 15 Better Day
Today's a better day.
I don't know exactly why, maybe because I got some of my stress out on the phone last
night with M., through crying and frustrat-ing and letting my heart beat fast.
But I slept through the night somehow after a soppy, sentimental good-bye on the phone to him, and I woke up, and when my eyes opened I somehow did not feel the weight of yesterday.
I made coffee with my new french press (it makes STRONG coffee, but I love it), I wore a summer skirt that was a wardrobe staple of mine last summer (re use...re cycle...my mantras...)put on sandals and a cardigan, and shivered in the 12 degree weather that was the walk to my car this morning, but I felt...better.
Stronger, gut-sier, more optimistic, and I let my thoughts wander back to how I can make myself feel more balanced, with the right amount of downtime, and by letting the feelings just sit with me.
Not running away from them or pouting about them or battling them.
I don't know exactly why, maybe because I got some of my stress out on the phone last
night with M., through crying and frustrat-ing and letting my heart beat fast.
But I slept through the night somehow after a soppy, sentimental good-bye on the phone to him, and I woke up, and when my eyes opened I somehow did not feel the weight of yesterday.
I made coffee with my new french press (it makes STRONG coffee, but I love it), I wore a summer skirt that was a wardrobe staple of mine last summer (re use...re cycle...my mantras...)put on sandals and a cardigan, and shivered in the 12 degree weather that was the walk to my car this morning, but I felt...better.
Stronger, gut-sier, more optimistic, and I let my thoughts wander back to how I can make myself feel more balanced, with the right amount of downtime, and by letting the feelings just sit with me.
Not running away from them or pouting about them or battling them.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Journal 14 Dark Thoughts
"Some people learn through suffering" --A.
If this is the case I must have lots to learn. But I know it must be, for me anyway.
I am simply incapable of doing anything the easy way.
I mean, I'll figure it out eventually; but for now I seem intent on f(cking things up in the grandest of fashions, and in maximizing my self-sabotage. Can't have it now? Don't want it.
Have to wait for something good? Don't want to.
I hope when I wake up tomorrow I see the world in a new light, even just a shade of one, and that I can stop doing the fighting, because I should stay in my corner, but I can't seem to do that.
In the book I'm reading L'Engle talks about how the meek will inherit the earth; as they should, they'll do a good job of it.
How I will hate that.
If this is the case I must have lots to learn. But I know it must be, for me anyway.
I am simply incapable of doing anything the easy way.
I mean, I'll figure it out eventually; but for now I seem intent on f(cking things up in the grandest of fashions, and in maximizing my self-sabotage. Can't have it now? Don't want it.
Have to wait for something good? Don't want to.
I hope when I wake up tomorrow I see the world in a new light, even just a shade of one, and that I can stop doing the fighting, because I should stay in my corner, but I can't seem to do that.
In the book I'm reading L'Engle talks about how the meek will inherit the earth; as they should, they'll do a good job of it.
How I will hate that.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Journal 13 Sunday girl
Memory lane, drove down it today. In the form of two client meetings/dropping-off-of-product, I was in my old neighbourhood, the one where I spent most of my twenties/all of my early-thirties, the traffic-clogged, streetcar-tracked roads of midtown Toronto. Bathurst street, St. Clair, then turning left onto Davenport (three people brazenly running the red light, no change in the temperment of midtown drivers I'm here to report). Davenport to Avenue ....the flower shops where my friend L. and I spent many a happy Sunday walking into, purchasing said flowers, then flopping onto the nearest patio for a few springy-summery drinks. Then I moved, but we still met at the Ave-Dav area, she lived just north of that intersection. Cross the border over to Yonge and we had the best LCBO (whose kidding who, that Summerhill train station building is one of the best in the city) where we would buy wine ( I am old enough to remember when LCBO's were NOT open on Sundays...) and traipse to my new place downtown, heat up frozen pizzas for dinner, work on our photograph albums, and talk.
That was to contend with the stress that was '07. Again, a damning start to a year, and our Sundays helped us cope with all that we were both dealing with.
I return in thought to how simple things look against the backdrop of NOW.
I flip-flop between trying to keep it light (it's not) and then ultimately giving in to how dark it really seems right now. I don't know which place my writing wants to come from.
Just completed an email to my Dad, in the spring of now, here in '11, a year I'm sure I will look back on as the real end of my innocence. He is having a difficult day. My mom is too. She doesn't know what her life is going to look like next. I know what mine looks like, it will look different in a short while, but it won't look as different as hers will, and there is no sugar-coating that.
I try to remember the years of "not this" , the bbq's, the sitting in the backyard, the bike-rides, the dog, the anniversary party, the jokes. Not the trach, the feeding tube, the f*cking stealing, robbing, destroying disease, the medicines, the waiting, the fear, the dread.
My guilt that I am not doing enough, that I will never be able to do enough, because there is, ultimately, nothing I can do to stop this.
That was to contend with the stress that was '07. Again, a damning start to a year, and our Sundays helped us cope with all that we were both dealing with.
I return in thought to how simple things look against the backdrop of NOW.
I flip-flop between trying to keep it light (it's not) and then ultimately giving in to how dark it really seems right now. I don't know which place my writing wants to come from.
Just completed an email to my Dad, in the spring of now, here in '11, a year I'm sure I will look back on as the real end of my innocence. He is having a difficult day. My mom is too. She doesn't know what her life is going to look like next. I know what mine looks like, it will look different in a short while, but it won't look as different as hers will, and there is no sugar-coating that.
I try to remember the years of "not this" , the bbq's, the sitting in the backyard, the bike-rides, the dog, the anniversary party, the jokes. Not the trach, the feeding tube, the f*cking stealing, robbing, destroying disease, the medicines, the waiting, the fear, the dread.
My guilt that I am not doing enough, that I will never be able to do enough, because there is, ultimately, nothing I can do to stop this.
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