I’ve been terribly lazy about blogging lately, mainly because I’ve still been trying to process some things. And if I can’t get my thoughts straight in my head, how in the world will I be able to convey them well here? I think that I’ve been having a bit of an existential crisis, which I can only assume is perfectly normal in situations like this. So there’s a lot that I’ve been trying to wrap my head around, and I think I’ve maybe finally figured some things out.
As far as a medical update goes, my TSH level is still too high, so we’re trying to get my synthroid dose high enough to get the TSH suppressed without giving me heart palpitations again. But despite my level not going down, my energy has been good overall, and other than that, there’s not much to report.
At this point, I am a cancer survivor – although I don't have the all clear to be downgraded to the low risk category yet, I am not considered to have cancer anymore. But I’m having trouble with the phrase “I had cancer”. There's a level of finality with the word 'had' that I'm not yet comfortable with. To me, saying "I had cancer" sounds like it was a long time ago, that it's all over, that everything is fine now, and that everything is back to the way it was. But the reality is that it's never all over and life will never be the way it was before (see "Lanes"). There's daily medication, regular blood work, and additional scans to make sure the cancer hasn't come back. But the bigger piece is the emotional struggle that doesn’t just go away because I’m now “cancer-free”.
I do believe that everything happens for a reason, and as hard as it may be to believe, I think getting cancer has been good for me in a lot of ways. I’ve learned a lot about myself in the process and discovered a level of strength and resilience that I didn’t know I had. I learned a lot about my husband and about our relationship, and I think that we are closer than we were before. I learned that sometimes, when you share your weaknesses with someone else, you both become stronger as a result. Most of the time, I'm so much more grateful for what I have now. Most of the time, I feel like I am more present and better at living in the moment than ever before.
But truth be told, there are still times when I don’t feel like myself at all: when I feel like the life that I was living and the future I was meant to have were stolen away and I can never get them back. There are still times when I get very angry, and there are still times when I get very upset. And sometimes, those moments of anger and frustration hit me out of the blue.
My brother-in-law got married this past weekend. It was a beautiful wedding, and I couldn’t be happier for him and his wife. But I got very emotional listening to their wedding vows, feeling the intensity of the promises made and knowing that just a year and a half ago, my husband and I stood before our friends and family and made those same promises – to be faithful and true no matter what trials or tragedies should come our way, to love and honor each other in sickness and in health. Part of me wants nothing more than to be able to go back to that time, when those promises referred only to hypothetical situations and weren’t already a reality. Part of me is jealous of their happiness, unchallenged by illness. Part of me says “why couldn’t that still be us?”
Another thing I’ve been struggling with is work. For the most part, I enjoy my job. I like working in the lab and I appreciate having a job that lets me be fairly active. But what I do really holds no meaning for me (synthesizing polymers? meh), and I’m finding that the topics and projects I get most passionate about are a far cry removed from chemistry. So I wonder if I’m just wasting my time.
At the same time, I actually love where my life is overall. I just feel like I have a bunch of pieces that I need to put together but I can't seem to figure out how they fit. I'm just struggling with reconciling who I used to be with who I am now, with merging the past and present.
I recently received some beautiful words of advice regarding my current identity crisis from a very dear friend. He told me “All I can say to you is realize who and what you are. You are not a chemist - that is your job! You are a wife, daughter, sister, friend and countless other things. Do your job. Take pride in your work. More importantly find joy in all those things that you are, because that is what makes each day worthwhile and a reason to get out of bed in the morning.” Some of the best advice I think I've ever received.
So I think what I’ve figured out is that it’s okay that I don’t have everything figured out. That I need to stop trying to have it all together all the time. That it’s going to take some time to get used to the new normal. That it probably won't be easy and I'll probably keep struggling for a while. That even though I sometimes get angry or upset or frustrated, it doesn’t mean that I’m not happy. And that all of that is okay. So I'll keep moving forward, one step at a time, one day at a time. At some point, maybe the pieces will all fall into place. Until then, I'll try to remember that through all of this, I have been braver than I expected and that I can continue to be so.
