cancer.

y’all knew it was happening. i mean, you probably set a clock. honestly, i am surprised i didn’t sit down and write this sooner. oh wait. when have i ever sat down to write? certainly not at a normal hour. nope. it’s after three. my husband is literally snoring next to me. and my heartburn is raging because i just ate three bites of pasta as my dinner. it’s been a hell of a week. oh my god. when is that phrase gonna stop being so freaking true? anyways, we rapidly went from the virus and recovery and healing to this new journey. and let me tell ya, it’s one heck of an everest. i am being so serious when i say that i am so beyond twenty twenty. like beyond it. ready to break up with it. will happily ghost it and not even bat an eye. like byeeeeee. but the truth is, i can’t. and even if i could, i probably wouldn’t. and i mean that. seriously. while i am a little on the fence about the whole ‘everything happens for a reason’ situation. in fact, two years ago i wrote a blog post that literally calls bullshit on that saying. because i don’t believe things happen for a reason. i believe that shit just happens. it happens to the wrong people; it happens at the absolute worst times. sometimes it even happens when it shouldn’t happen at all. and when i first knew i had cancer; and let me preface this by saying that my brain is super weird. i often dream big things that then manifest themselves the next day. so i knew it was all gonna go down over the last few days. but when i first knew i had cancer, i went through the whole ‘why on earth is this happening to me?’ because i was racking my brain. i send birthday cards to literally every person in my phone contact list. i try to fold fitted sheets because my mom would die if she saw them shoved all wrinkly in my linen closet. i change my toothbrush after i have a cold. and i always see the dentist regularly. i have never called out of work without actually being sick. i make my bed every day, even if it’s right before i crawl into it. i sometimes unload dishwashers at other people’s houses and i always pet my dog and give him a hug anytime i walk into my front door, even if i just went to check the mail. i try my hardest not to be a shitty person. it doesn’t mean i am not an overwhelming one or a lot to handle. i got married after being engaged for two years. i never wear casual clothes to work unless it’s a friday. and for the last thirty one years, i have been working my ass off to be a good person. and in reality, i think i have done a pretty good job. sure, there have been some spots. i could’ve done better in some situations but overall, i think i’m a solid eight. and i will take it. so i really don’t get it. the whole cancer thing. kinda like i didn’t really get the virus thing. like why me? what did i do? why did ya pick me? not that i am saying someone else deserves this personal hell. it’s more just me being a little self preserving. so this whole cancer thing just feels a little bit like an extra kick when i was already a little down. and that’s cool and all. like i get it. some karma or cosmic bullshit here to tell me what’s up. okay, okay, i see you. and i remember entering recovery from the virus and feeling a little bit like this. being thirty one and feeling like my body had been swapped with someone else’s. angry and frustrated and feeling like everything was unfair. and i think it’s hard sometimes to watch shit happen that’s unfair. not just in my personal space but just in general. but i also remember the days laying in this exact bed with the highest fevers imaginable thinking to myself that this must be the end but physically urging my body to try harder and to keep going. i remember walking for hours in the early days of recovery, practicing deep breathing exercises from a nurse forum i had found. i remember being mad as hell and feeling betrayed as hell and going through so many body dismorphic moments. because it is a new body post virus. yeah it’s still me. hi, what’s popping? but it’s not. because the fight was what changed me. from the core right on out. and i know that is coming soon. and i think that’s what leads me back to unfairness. because in my heart of hearts, that’s where my anger comes from. from knowing that i don’t deserve this and knowing that the last five months have been hard and full of feelings and fear and anxiety and changes to my entire body and life. and it tears me down a little. and then i start to feel a little small and weak. which i absolutely hate. because i have done many hard things. and some of the hardest things i have ever done have been in this same exact god awful year. and maybe that’s what needs to happen; just the acknowledgment of how much this sucks. and how much i wish it were different and allowing for that to happen.

because at the end of the day, i really can’t do a damn thing about any of it. which is why sometimes i am like, okay, then what’s the point of being sad? like get it together. but it’s late at night right now and this is when my brain seems to operate the best. so counterproductive. but i think there is something super validating {that’s one of my favorite things- validation} about acknowledgement. of saying that it sucks. about recognizing the changes in your body and yourself and moving on from it. i am kind of a therapy junkie and also kind of a therapy expert. and maybe that’s because i walked into my first therapy session before first grade had even started and i never ever looked back. i have had two cognitive therapists my entire life. one from age five to age nineteen and one from age twenty to now. and i have had the same psychiatrist since i was eleven. and i just welcomed a new trauma therapist to my team two months ago. and so i am a self proclaimed expert in the area of figuring your shit out. even though mine isn’t always figured out. and this feels a little tangent-y so lemme jump back to my point. in all these years of therapy, there’s always been a direction for me. and it’s pretty simple and concrete. i always walk into therapy and have been walking into therapy for the last twenty five years in this exact fashion- overwhelmed. and so the direction has always been how to descalate and take some of the bigness {new word alert} away from all the things in my life. whether it be friendships or boyfriends or failure or fear or college or weight or life. for the last twenty five years, i have become an expert of reigning in the massiveness of my feelings, emotions and my overall life. and before you try to come for me, never did i say i was a badass at the actual successfulness {another new word alert} in doing so. just an expert in the process. in harnessing what makes life hard and figuring out if it’s worth being worked up over. and honestly, in the last twenty five years, i have been worked up and angry and sad and mad and a million other things over a million different things. but what’s here right now. takes the freaking cake. and that’s the truth. but it would be super lame of me to sit here and cry about it all the time. because even though crying is one of the most therapeutic things i can do; sometimes it slows me down a little and keeps me from trucking on. so there’s a space for that. and there’s a space for the rest. the fight. the journey. the battle ahead. and i recognize that.

because at thirty one, i never ever ever thought i would be saying: i have cancer. but here we are. here’s to the next year. nah. here’s to the next four months. actually, nah. here’s to the next twenty four hours. something my infectious disease doctor used to say. literally. he would come in at four in the morning and wave to me from behind four surgical masks and i knew he was smiling because his eyes would crease in the corners and he would say ‘let’s make it the next twenty four’. so let’s just take it twenty four at a time. i am serious. that’s the motto. that’s the energy. right now as we crest four thirty in the morning. here’s to what each day brings. maybe it’ll be absolute garbage {but that’s pretty on brand for twenty twenty} but maybe it’ll bring something else. like strength or good vibes or something like that.

here’s to the fight. this sucks. cancer sucks. but i ain’t letting anyone steal all my hardwork. let’s crush it.

xoxo.