I haven’t disappeared, or
given up blogging… but the husband’s gone back to Italy and this means two
things: I am the children’s number one entertainer and my photo editor,
organizer and transferer from memory card to computer is gone. Hence, no
writing and certainly no photos. Alas (or thankfully, depending on the points
of view) we are flying back to Italy next week and we’ll be back to our regularly
scheduled programming.
I wrote this post last week
(or the week before, have completely lost track of time) and though it is long
and rambling and not completely coherent I felt bad just leaving it sitting
there so am posting. So for now, I leave you with this, and I’ll be back to
writing and commenting (and tweeting, pining and what have you) next week if
the jet-lag and my two kids don’t kill me.
The question I hated the
most at the beginning of the whole leukemia saga was “how are you?”, with the head tilt and the concerned expression. And my
answer was always “fine”, because what the hell else was I supposed to say,
right?
I certainly couldn’t answer: “I feel like something large and slobbery
ate me, digested me and shit me out and I was just barely conscious enough to
experience it all”, because, well, who wants to hear that, and what could they
possibly say in return.
After two years nobody asks me that anymore, people go
on with their lives and even though the husband actually was re-diagnosed this
year and had a second transplant, the news was old and trite and simply didn’t
elicit the same sensationalistic reactions. Which kind of surprised me, on the
one hand, because obviously with cancer if someone relapses pretty quickly
after treatment the odds of them surviving kind of start going down. On the
other hand, I had fewer questions to answer and fewer people to reassure and
that was definitely a good thing for me.
Now, though, I’m seeing
lots of people that I hadn’t seen since before the illness so the how are yous have started all over again.
And this time around, with a teeny bit more maturity and distance from the fact
I’ve started giving it some actual thought. How am I? The first thing that popped into my mind when I thought this
was, well, I’m way better than I would be if the husband had died aren’t I? Certainly on the more
positive side of the spectrum as far as possible attitudes go, but not quite
comforting either.
How am I?
I’m a little sadder,
generally, than I used to be. Not about anything specific, I just used to be
more happy-go-lucky. I’m a little more distant I’m trying to let go of my
expectations. I’ve had some disappointments, throughout these two years of the
husband’s illness, from people I thought would be closer to me, from people
that really should have been closer to me, but I’ve learned something very
important in the process. Most of our disappointments are the result of our
expectations, if we can let go of those
our lives will be much easier. I hope I learn to do this in this lifetime.
I also have a more
developed sense of what’s important in life. Not that I don’t often find myself
wasting time and energy on futile feelings and actions but I’m learning to
recognize them as unimportant, and I hope to get to the point of just letting
them go (soon).
So, how am I doing? Better than I would have thought, worst than some people think. It isn’t all water under the bridge yet, unfortunately. Every day that passes that the Husband doesn’t relapse is a good day, but we don’t know it’s a good day until it’s over. It’s like you wake up and hold part of your breath, and you hold it all day, and at the end of the day you breathe out and think phew, one day further from the transplant. Every day we’re a little more optimistic, but the illness is still very much a part of our lives. Even though the people around us forget, and thank goodness that they do, we don’t forget. Not ever.
So this makes me more
emotional and I have a shorter temper especially when I see people close to me
getting angry and upset over stupid little things. I want to tell them, you’re
alive, you’re healthy, you’re loved, stop fucking worrying about what people
think about you, or stop getting mad because that guy cut you off or who the
hell cares that this or that wasn’t perfect, but this is what people do and who
am I to say they shouldn’t.
I find I’ve distanced
myself emotionally from many of the people I love, but that happens I think
when you try and let go of your expectations. With no expectations there are no
disappointments, but there’s a certain, necessary, emotional aridity that’s a
direct result.
So, how am I? Well, I haven’t really figured it
out yet, but at least I’ve started asking the question too, and maybe,
hopefully, someday soon I’ll know and I’ll start feeling normal again.
