Stories

A few recent emails have reminded me that I'm supposed to be writing about my breast cancer here. I don't think I've been consciously avoiding the subject, it's just that there is not much more to tell.

My attitude lately has been: I didn't have cancer, then I did, now I don't anymore. (And thanks to friend Joann for letting me borrow that very matter-of-fact phrase). It's strange to think of it that way, even stranger to integrate it into daily life. I've figuratively been handed my hat and coat and been told the party's over. Some party, I think ruefully, but there it is.

After the initial elation of being told "no chemo for you," and the subsequent let-down of "what'll I do now?," I sleep too much, do too little and eat probably a little more than I should. I feel like I've been gradually crawling out of a foggy miasma similar to a post-concussion recovery. Life does indeed just move on and keeps going, with or without me. I just glide through the days, listening to whatever the internal dialogue between mind and body wants to tell me.

In the meantime, I've enjoyed writing a little piece of my world each day. Memories, tickled by the weather ("Ice!") or by the anniversary of an event ("Thanksgiving Day") provide an opportunity to look at and express a retrospective view of the experiences that brought me to this point. If seems like an appropriate time for reflection on the past.

Perhaps I should be more focused on the future, but I don't feel ready to do that yet. Hauling out the old-hat boxes of what came before is entertaining to me. I get to savor the sensory feelings and reach deep for the details as I write. I have so far resisted the temptation to go back to the journals I wrote at the time these events actually happened, because I want to have the voice of perspective rather than the immediacy of original-source facts. The important part of these stories for me is what I remember as being significant, not necessarily the journalistic narrative itself. And, the discipline of daily writing provides the structure that I crave so badly while I wait patiently to regain my balance.

So I guess I'll just continue to write about whatever the spirit moves me to write about, and trust that the process of getting on with it is indeed taking place.