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Wednesday, April 1, 2009

I figured it out

Phew! These steroids are making me hungry this time. Bizarre! Last time I was on Predisone they didn't make me hungry at all. I didn't sleep well without a pill, but I didn't wake up starving. I am not letting myself eat out of ordinary times right now. So I am just sitting with the hunger. I am sick of being heavy. Over it. Totally.
As a watchful young woman, I have witnessed all these beautiful women in my life get old. Or I have met them once they are old, and lamenting on the "good old days, of being "hot" I understand, more than ever know. But I understood before cancer. Vanity, and pride are huge ego boosters. And so not what is real, nor what matters. Before cancer, I understood this, I did, and so I always had a little less patience for it. Hearing all these grown women gawk at their arms, their wrinkles, their thighs, their whatever wasn't up to their par. As a young woman looking at these women, and hearing them, I always do and have seen their power that comes with those changes, and personally felt their beauty deeper than the peripheral they were grieving the loss of.
Basically, I wanted to say to them, " Get over it. Its not what lifes about. Love yourself, accept yourself."
I think one of the hardest parts of being a woman in America/Canada/Europe, wherever, is that we have a lack of ritual to guide us through our losses and our rites of passages. We have long ago let that go, and I think it makes it harder for, in this case, a woman to "change".
I've changed. I took down the pictures of myself two days ago. Pictures of my once beautiful, long hair, in various shades. The joy I had kills me to look at now. I am joyful, no one, not even cancer can take that away from me. I was born spastic for life, not crawling, but got up and ran at 7 months. I'm still there. But there is (oh, i'm starving, I might have to eat) no point making and pointing out to myself daily, constantly throughout the day, of the old carefree that I so long to reunite with. Those pictures of her, of me, have been helpful up to this point. And now that I am nearing the end of my battle, I don't want to see them. So I put all the pics away, all the wedding photos. Can't stand to look at them. I hope D and I make it through this. But honestly, its been incredibly hard. Words cannot express how hard. I just feel very thankful I have had him to go through this with me. To get me water when I couldn't move, to get me meds, to care for me the best he could.
Its easy to want and expect someone to love you the way you would to them. But that is not truely loving someone. I believe. I believe it is loving the person for who they are and accepting what it is they are able to give to you. At times like these, and in life, though I never could imagine it, and now I do, this is how people can grow apart. The giving, the needing, in my case, changed. It grew to an intensity, that no one wishes for. But I needed to need, and I deserved to need, and it was and is all encompassing. Its a beautiful thing to grow.
Back to me changing. Body stuff. So, its hard. The wise young woman has to say to the "chemopausal" "menopausal" 34, how fucked up is that? that its okay I have lots and lots of gray hair coming in, where before cancer I had blond/brown hair. Its okay, that I am swollen and huge. Its okay. Yesterday, since I just sold a house, I went and bought myself a new outfit, that fits. The super-sized Heather pants no longer fit, yeah! And the 1st time out of hospital pants I bought don't fit, they're too tight right now. Wearing pants that don't fit, sucks. I have never had to deal with this, and I realized waiting to fit in to the smaller ones was ridiculous and a form of not accepting myself and loving myself. I was in costant torture, or I was constantly walking around with super baggy pants. Ick!
Those are the two ways I decided to love myself more this week. Take down the old pictures that were torturing me, and get a pair of pants that fit.
Two last thoughts. One is that I spelled the therapists name wrong, for those of you that googled her. It is Janet Abrams.
And the last, is that maybe my left eye (its getting better, by the way) want to be weepy because it is reminding me to cry more often.

1 comment:

apriljahns said...

Yesterday I was able to finally pull out my "one of these days" clothes that I've hoped I would get back into and put them in the Goodwill pile. Now I don't have to feel guilty every morning when I see those tiny clothes when I grab a pair of my now size pants. It feels good and sad at the same time.