There are 740 unopened emails in my inbox. I used to blog at least twice a week; this year I’ve posted once, all year. I can’t remember when I last scrubbed my toilet, mostly because I forgot where I keep the toilet brush. I know I have one. Somewhere.
It’s probably not a surprise that I spend an inordinate amount of time staring blankly into space. Thoughts come and go, but the energy to shape and communicate them coherently remains elusive. I have wondered if this is depression. But it seems nothing like the dark heaviness that others have battled through. If anything, I feel emotions more sharply: incandescent joy, crushing sadness and chilling terror – and that’s just a night of Netflix. Don’t get me started on American politics.
There is so much right now. So much everything. And I feel unpeeled.
Which sounds like one of those dire, but vague status updates on Facebook. Obnoxious with its lack of information and obvious in its desire for sympathy. I apologize. Listing my every struggle and concern seems equally distasteful, but it does make me feel better. After all, writing is cheap, accessible therapy for me.
I have teenagers. I have special needs children. I have chemotherapy to administer each night and a marriage to maintain. I have homework from a university course (Spanish) as I inch toward my English degree. I have four children in three schools; two only part-time. I have physiotherapy exercises and pounds to lose. I have meals to make, friends to call, medical appointments and therapy sessions to coordinate, laundry to fold, lunches to pack… all the side effects of a wonderful, overwhelming, messy life.
And the driving. Oh, the driving.
It’s exhausting.
Life is very much right now. Small and urgent and in the moment. It reminds me of our brand new baby days, when my own identity was wrapped in and around the life of another; when ‘survival mode’ became normal.
Last month they wheeled my baby girl out of the operating room after injecting chemo into her spine. As they hooked her up to oxygen, a SAT monitor, a blood pressure cuff… I calmly ate my apple. She isn’t able to eat before a procedure so I’ve learned to snack while she’s getting her lumbar puncture. She has one almost every month.
It used to be a nightmare. I’d cry every time they ushered me out of the room and wait on pins and needles. The oncology nurse looked at me oddly as I crunched away on my snack. There was nowhere to put it down. I considered throwing it out, but it was a particularly good one, crispy and sweet. Ambrosia, my favourite kind. And I was hungry. So instead I shrugged my shoulders and kept chewing. I told her, “I’m pretty sure you can get used to just about anything.”
In the room next to us a mom was crying her heart out. Her child had been diagnosed that day. There seems to be at least one of these each time we visit. The other reason parents might be crying in the oncology department of Childrens Hospital is something I cannot bring myself to consider.
Here I am, in the middle of all this, eating my damn apple.
© 2012 Patrick McFall, Flickr | CC-BY-SA | via Wylio
So here’s me.
So Here's Us... 
February 27th, 2016 at 4:37 pm
Somehow, to ‘like’ a post such as this from a stranger seems odd. I don’t like what you are going through. I don’t like the challenges you are currently facing day by day and moment by moment. I don’t like the grief that must accompany such a journey. I don’t like the pressure you are feeling. I don’t like that life’s edge has been so excessively raggedy for you. So the like wasn’t for that.
But please know I have read what you wrote, and while I have no pat answers to offer, please know that in the big picture, you and your story matter. And for what it’s worth, I have said a prayer for you for strength to carry on your journey.
Although I must admit, I am glad that your apple was so delish. Ambrosias are the best.
February 28th, 2016 at 9:12 am
Thank you for the encouragement. And the liking, but not liking which somehow makes perfect sense to me 😉
February 28th, 2016 at 5:37 am
I echo the sentiments of the comment above. My heart goes out to you as it sounds like you are deep in the trenches, fighting a battle not of your choosing. Don’t be afraid to ask others for help, and know that laundry, dishes, and dust bunnies are infinitely patient. Be good to yourself and remember that this will not be your life forever.
February 28th, 2016 at 9:14 am
Sometimes it does feel like forever – this is a good reminder. We’ve got some wonderful helpers in our corner and I’m learning to accept this more graciously. Can’t imagine life without them.
March 1st, 2016 at 1:34 am
Everytime I come to your blog, I am humbled by your love and strength. I am a cancer survivor who then watched my younger brother-in-law lose his life with his cancer. The strain and heartache doesn’t leave, but normality returns. My niece and nephew had family birthday parties in his hospice room, when he was at home, family life revolved round him in his bed, in the living room. We laughed together, cried together, discussed the future together.
Life was normal, it had to be normal to give us hope, to remind us that everyone has to continue to live.
Please take time in your busy life for yourself. I know it is an easy thing to write to somebody, especially when you only know them through the most breath-taking blog posts, but it is important for you and your family.
My love and prayers are sent to you.
March 2nd, 2016 at 10:51 am
Thank you. I wish I wasn’t one of those over analyzing, struggles with guilt, kind of people. But I am. And for some reason it always helps to have permission… I mean, encouragement, to give myself a break.
March 11th, 2016 at 8:32 pm
So there you have it lots of good reasons why it is good for you to eat an apple a day! I like apples so much that when I started living by myself I substituted those sugar laden cereals with an apple.