fine print.

it’s a bit before midnight and i am in the middle of a full mental breakdown. my husband is obnoxiously snoring beside me and honestly, it kinda just further fuels my current state. but right now, the spiral is what’s flowing through my stream of consciousness. the spiral. the one where everything begins to unravel. pretty challenging to see the beginning or end of it right now. but the main theme- it’s failure. super. there is just something in my brain right now that is firing off all the neon letters in the word ‘failure’. that word. it’s just firing on all cylinders. i can’t seem to get it out of my brain. everything feels like one gigantic mountain of failures. everything happening in my life just has me feeling like i am behind or stuck. and i guess i just keep falling onto this feeling that i should be further than where i am. that even though time felt like it stopped completely for the time i was trapped in my own personal hell; the world marched on. and now, i am back to square one. figuring it all out. who i wanna be. where i wanna be. who i wanna be around. and it falls hand in hand with this other feeling. this massive feeling of defeat. because earlier today, i cried for twenty two minutes in the parking lot of a grocery store. i knew it was gonna happen. it almost felt calculated. like it had been building up the whole ride there. and honestly, the defeated feeling is coming from a post cancer medical debacle place. where you signed on the dotted line to have your life saved but the fine print was too much at the time. but the fine print is important. it’s the part that no one talks about. the fine print is how your life is never the same. your body is never the same. your organs, your skin, your body temperature are never the same. you’ll never sleep again. you’ll never be free of it ever again. it destroys your whole body in an effort to tack on years at the end. you’ll spend hours on end trying to combat the numbness in your feet. you’ll buy six sets of sheets in the hopes it’ll cure your night sweats. you’ll start putting tylenol in every bag and bin. one in your car. one in your purse. one for work. might as well buy acetaminophen in stocks. nothing is the same. nothing will ever be the same. and the damn fine print. it’s raging right now. i have sat on a medical exam table five times this week. had three different doctors touch my chest. four tubes of blood drawn. two injections. a freaking ekg or whatever letters.

and one stupid voicemail. ‘your surgery has been cancelled. call me to reschedule. the doctor has a ten month wait list’. i cried for twenty two minutes in the parking lot of a grocery store today. before the voicemail came. i already knew she would call. i got a text with my lab work and i just knew. that the fine print continues to remind me that there is still so much further to go. and that things will never be the same. and the body that i live in now- is not the body i fought for. it’s this messy, post cancer disaster. it feels unfit for survivorship most days & leaves me feeling defeated. it feels broken and misshapen and half finished. and i know no one else can see that. but the fine print is the hardest part. living now; lucky to be alive but unlucky still. and it’s this ugly balance between cancer and the fine print. trying to understand that this is it. this is survivorship. and it’s lonely and scary and it’s exhausting. because i just wanna scream. IT WASN’T SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THIS. sorry, caps lock. probably shoulda warned ya. but in all seriousness, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. it was supposed to be easier. it wasn’t supposed to be this mountain in front of me after just descending freaking everest. it’s probably stupid to be complaining about it all. but my life is just not meeting me where i was. everything feels massive and overwhelming. and every doctor or therapist just tells me that it comes with the territory and to hang in there. but i am feeling trampled by my own health. i feel small and broken. i feel like a failure and some days, i feel like giving up. all these appointments and medications and phone calls make me feel like it’s impossible and like i can’t do it. that every suggestion or remedy leaves me one step further behind. that i am eighteen months into remission and into a life in a body that i refuse to claim as my own. the fine print. i didn’t read the fine print. i didn’t sign up for more heartache on the back end of this.

and i keep trying to remember her. the body before. the one that was amputated and destroyed last february as the only measure to make sure i could be here right now. i miss her. i miss how sure she made me feel. i never questioned her or how she made me feel. she was strong when she needed to be and held me in weak moments. she went through a lot and she couldn’t be saved. and that breaks my heart everyday in this body. this broken and unfinished piece. i feel defeated. and i feel like i am failing. i feel tired. and i keep pedaling. i feel overwhelmed. and i keep climbing. and the mountain is still there. looming. and i should’ve read the fine print. although, it wouldn’t have changed a thing.

the fine print. the smallest words. it will never be the same. and that’s true. it’s not the same. it never will be. and maybe that’s the universe’s way of telling me that after this mountain, it’s just valleys.

xo.