I need to quit smoking and the sudden onset of winter here has sort of kicked that to the forefront of my brain. I really don't want to though because if you know me at all you know that i fucking love smoking. i've given up most of my bad habits; i rarely drink any more and i never was much of a drug doer. but smoking is the one bad bad thing that i just can't quit. Mark argues that my brand is so low in nicotine that the addiction should be easy to control. and while i 'm undeniably addicted to nicotine, it's not really the point. i really love sitting out on the back porch for five minutes with eliot when he tags along and watching him spin around the yard or make up games or crack jokes or try to teach me something. and when he doesn't come with, it's become my respite. i go out alone and sob until i can't breathe anymore. thank god my neighbors never use their backyards for anything more than a passageway to their garages or they'd think i was completely crazy. sometimes i sob so loud i can hear it echoing back from the alley. mostly i just crunch into a ball, left arm crooked out with the smoke and cry into my lap. it helps. inside the house i'm Mom and "Housewife" and Completely Together. Outside, with my expensive but consistent bff, i can let go and crack apart for a few seconds.
i know i'm still in denial about my mom's illness, but i think i'm transitioning into anger. i waited until pms was over to write bc if you know me you know that me on pms is like a cornered raccoon with a score to settle. i take no prisoners and i'm happy to crush anyone in my path. but that's all over and i'm still angry. i'm angry at myself for not seeing the clues to my mom's illness before the diagnosis. she's been tired for a long time. but i thought it was a side effect from the heavy drugs she's on for her mental illness. i'm angry that it never even occurred to me to get her to go in for a colonoscopy. colon cancer doesn't run in my family. i know *now* that that doesn't matter, but i was far more worried about breast cancer, which killed my maternal grandmother, and melanoma, which killed my best friend when we were 25. colon cancer wasn't on my radar at all. and i'm angry at myself for making deals with god and not keeping them. i can never tell if god is forgiving or vengeful. i can never tell if god likes me or hates me. i get amazing things, yes. truly fantastic things have happened to me. but to balance it all out, every time something good happens, something devastating always follows. i mean, like soul crushing devastation.
and yeah, i'm angry at god. i'm trying to work it out with him/her/them/it, but i'm a terrible church goer. as an introvert and a closet agorophobe, getting myself to leave the house for anything not absolutely necessary is usually difficult. it's easy for me to talk myself out of sacrificing a couple hours, especially since i wasn't raised in a church, so it's not a habit for me. plus i like to think the unitarian god might be as lazy as i am.
i'm also angry at what a lot of people having been saying to me or near me. a surprising number of people have been giving me my mother's diagnosis, giving me a time frame, a likely life span. i think that either takes an unbelievable sense of cruelty, or shocking cluelessness, or outright arrogance. not one of these people are a doctor. not one. sure some of them are vaguely related to the medical field, but none of them are my mother's oncologist, so telling me what they "heard" or what they guess or what the believe from reading webmd is just appalling. it would never occur to me to go to someone whose family member has cancer and say, "Yeah, the life span for that one isn't very long." or "she has one month or six months or maybe a year to live." who does that? is this information they think i really need to hear when i'm reeling from a triple diagnosis? when i'm stewing in guilt for moving? when i'm in shock and trying to process what this all means? yeah, the diagnosis isn't good. i got that. yeah, cancer is typically fatal. trust me, i'm aware. my best friend, my sister in arms, the only person besides my mom who ever truly understood me and tolerated me, died a very swift death from the most curable cancer there is. and they *caught it* in time. but they missed a mole. one tiny little off-color mole. and she went from telling me in January that the cancer was back to being dead in early September. so if you think i don't know the speed at which cancer can kill and feel the need to educate me, thanks, but i'm good.
the second batch, and i'm not so much angry as depleted, are the people who want me to allay their fears. i can do that for my mom. i can do that for eliot when we tell him. i can sometimes even do it for myself, though it tends to smack of denial then. i just don't have it in me to tell other people, people that i don't even really know, that it's going to be okay. i know it's only five little words. i know i should be able to do this. but i can't. i can't make other people feel better about this. two of my aunts have told me they are scared, and that's okay. they don't tell me wanting me to soothe. i don't think. but other people have come to me, wanting something from me that i just don't have. and i'm sorry for that. i'm trying to be magnanimous and loving and all "carpe diem" but it's really hard when i'm awake all night in stomach churning anxiety and then can barely function during the day. trust me, taking eliot to school, getting the dishes and laundry done and getting him home fed, bathed, homeworked, cuddled and to bed is about all i can do right now. and i'm kind of angry at myself for that too.
i'm kind of angry at the friends who have abandoned me. i'm not sure of the motivation behind that. my mom says it's because they don't know what to say. as long as it's not, "Hey, let me tell you my layperson's diagnosis because it makes me feel smart" then just about anything is fine to say. some friends however have really stuck with me. and they are awesome. they ask me once in awhile how my mom is & how i am & if eliot knows (no). they aren't in my face, and i try not to be with them. i understand that everyone is busy and this isn't really a problem for anyone who doesn't know my mom, but i don't think it hurts to check in once in awhile. i don't need a shoulder to cry on necessarily. i have the back porch and pall mall blues for that. it's just nice to have an emotional touchstone. to have someone let me know that they are thinking of me & my mom. to tell me what their mom or sister or cousin went through and *not* have it be basically "start planning the funeral now bc your mom's gone by christmas". There is very little hope in a situation like this. Very little. and i am grasping and holding on to any shred of it like eliot holds on to his rag of a security blanket. those tiny anecdotes are balm on the giant sad panicky shadow of dread and impending death and doom that follows me around.
i'm going to slip out for a smoke now.
No comments:
Post a Comment