Great Expectations
I am at chemo this morning. It’s raining, and I just finished Colleen Hoover’s It Starts With Us after reading It Ends With Us. I’m hooked and will be going to the bookstore after chemo to get a couple more of her books for an upcoming trip to go visit my daughter. It’s the perfect day to relax and read and get refueled. It feels good to read again, something I never seemed to have time for while raising my kids. I’m embracing time to relax and read again as an empty nester, and I’m trying to embrace resting more as I seem to need more and more rest the longer I am on treatment. Or it’s probably just that I am trying to live like I don’t have metastatic cancer or that I haven’t been on treatment for the past four years. I need to embrace rest, and I’m still fighting it.
Still just living life and not thinking about cancer, except when Jill Martin said on the Today Show a couple of days ago that she has breast cancer. She said that she feels bad for her parents who are dealing with her having cancer. It resonated with me. I have always tried to stay strong, and I haven’t cried too much over my diagnosis, but it’s the thoughts of my parents and sister having to deal with my diagnosis that gets me. I don’t want any tears around me because I do not feel sorry for myself, at least not yet. I do not want to fall apart with this. I want to deal with this peacefully. But I forget that they are dealing with this too. If they lose it in front of me, I am afraid I will lose it too. But I have to realize they are going through this too and that everyone deals with things differently. I need to be there for them and understand where they are at and what they’re going through. Anyway, what Jill said made me think about my parents and sister, and I needed to get out in this post a truth I’ve been holding in and that I will struggle with eventually. I don’t want tears from anyone because tears scare me. I need to allow others to feel what they need to, but I fear I might lose it and won’t be able to hold it together when I see other’s tears fall. I guess I will just have to deal with it when it’s time.
But now is not the time. Everything has been going great. I am living normal life and trying to live in the present, one day at a time. I’m trying to relax more and not obsess about trying to pack too much into my days and stress over not getting everything done I want to accomplish in a day. Time just seems so precious. And rather than worry about it, I’m trying to just be grateful for it.
Life is good right now. My kids are all happy and adventuring. One is going to fight forest fires next week, one is deployed, and one is hiking, paddleboarding and biking her way through the mountains and the summer. I’m one proud, happy, healthy momma!
Will write again from chemo in two weeks. Stay safe and healthy, everyone!