I keep reflecting on my time through the last few years dealing with illness. I find myself telling people a lot more “ I should’ve been dead…” and I guess that is true in some peoples minds about me. I can honestly say that I personally never felt it was close, though I could feel the doom thoughts rolling off of some like a bad cologne on the subway. I do like to say that I shouldn’t be here right now, I think because it makes me feel a little bit like a bad ass, like what I have experienced so far didn’t have a chance of getting me…I know luck has been on my side, not that I want to devalue my own tenacity and resilience but seriously, the wind has definitely blown in my favor thus far in some ways.
Day 6 of the hyperbaric chamber and I am beginning my 2nd week of the IT program which I don’t know if I like or hate, it’s too soon to tell…I worry about being a sell out, it’s a struggle of the mind for me to picture myself working let alone working for a corporation…I wonder what it could look like not being tied down by cancer. My mind would wonder thusly a lot more in the HBC if I didn’t get to watch movies, it’s kind of nice to receive a therapy in the hospital that doesn’t make me feel bad or judged in one way or another and being confined in that way with a screen overhead and volume blasting from behind me kind of forces me to escape…I actually enjoy it even if I do have to wear Depends for my wound seepage, I am kind of like a really big baby in an incubator.
I saw my sister and her middle child today…Family has a way of making me feel both connected and like I want to run away and hide, at least whenever I see any of my siblings and it’s not their fault. The intensity of the guilt and sadness I feel is less than it used to be but I don’t want to be sucked into the old role I played before, I have retired from being “The Golden Child” a term my mother bestowed upon me though really I was more of an “Enforcer” who had to dole out advice, orders and punishments. I was supposed to be the savior but I wasn’t. My familial experience was often very dark and extremely dramatic and I will not do that kind of relationship again.
Well…THAT went in a weird direction and honestly, though it is interesting looking backwards, I want to continue to move forward.
The picture below (Courtesy of Whitney Young) captures my inner turmoil, ha!
Until next time ❤️
That photograph of you is magnificent! Fierce, fiery, hyperfocused like a lazer-beam of pure adrenalized attention!