I'm not comfortable here, and I'd leave it in a heartbeat if I could. I can't. I'd have a garden, hopefully a few trees I was babying and trying to get some lawn going. I'd be working the beginning of one week and the end of the next and planning fun stuff in the middle. Tweaking my camping totes to take weekend trips far enough up the mountain to be cool. I'd be picking up extra shifts at work to help cover our being short staffed and complaining when we were busy and I craved a break.
None of that is happening.
I have learned a few important things though. Nice quotes with a pretty picture in the background don't fix anything. Some of them are entirely annoying. With all respect to Walt Whitman, this one is the top of my frustration list.
My facing the sunshine doesn't have a beautiful ocean view, meadows, rainbows or anything. My facing the sun leaves me looking like this. You can keep your meme thank you very much.
I've learned a lot about listening. How to listen and how not to listen. I've talked and written about listening before, but I feel like it's been written on my heart now. I had a friend stop everything she was doing on a busy day and say "Heather, I want you to know I've thought about you every day--can I ask how things are going?" and then she just listened. In the hour before I'd been asked probably 10 times in various ways by people who really care but I was exhausted explaining and I totally suck at "things are just fine" type lies. Sharing wasn't tiring when someone was Listening instead of just hearing the words coming out of my mouth.
Hugs are okay. Hugs can say more than words sometimes. I've had hugs at work when there hasn't been much time in passing a patient off to a higher level of care or when I'm trying to get from point a to point b quickly. No time for words, but those hugs spoke volumes of care and support.
It's okay to not be okay, to not be strong, to breakdown in tears, to not always look at the bright side (see the sunburn above) Pancreatic cancer sucks. It's heartbreaking to watch Neil be so tired and sick from chemo and there is nothing wrong with acknowledging that and spending some time validating how much things suck right now. I choose to not live in that place, I get up and go about what needs to be done but I can't pretend everything is "just f.i.n.e" and paint a smile on my face and even if I could I don't want to. Sometimes I cry myself to sleep, sometimes I lay awake all night praying to wake up from this nightmare, sometimes I pull the curtains so the room is dark and I sleep too long and it's all okay. Some days I even leave the dishes in the sink and stuff on the counter or have hot tamales and a Dr Pepper for dinner because I don't want to cook.
Letting people help me has been hard. Every time someone does something my head screams "No! you don't need them to do that for you--you'll find the time somewhere" but I've started letting people help and my heart grows each time. Another hard to learn lesson from this is that I'm not in charge. I don't know what our life will be like this fall, next summer, next week. I've worked hard to feel organized and like I have it all together and now I realize it was all an illusion. I like to plan, my book of life (otherwise known as a Mormon Mom Planner) goes with me everywhere and if it's not written down it doesn't get done. All of that control is gone and it's been hard, I don't like the chaotic unknown.
I've also learned I'm not the only one going through hard things. I've had a couple of people talking about their hard things apologize because their hard things have an element of good in them. Hard things are just hard. There is no grand scale of hard things or rules about you can only complain to people who have smaller hard things than you. I'm glad to listen to other people, to talk about normal things because no matter how certain I initially was that my world was coming to a screeching halt, life goes on. Weather gets unbearably hot, people take vacations, buy new cars, or struggle with more "normal" things than cancer and I haven't stopped wanting to be a part of people's lives. I want to hear the sad, happy and in between.
I have more to say and I know this post has been all over the place, but that's okay too.
Bye for now,
Heather
