That's what I've been telling myself as I try to convince myself to go to sleep - just close your eyes and go to sleep - it will be tomorrow before you know it and tomorrow will be different. You will get up and you will walk 5 miles for breast cancer with your colleagues and you will pretend to be strong and you will tell the story of your own survival as if you are amazing. Mostly you will just hope you get through it. I don't want to tell this story tomorrow. I don't want to re-live it. I don't want to talk about it anymore. I don't want to answer anymore questions and I am tired of pretending that I am okay about what happened when the truth is, I have not even begun to comprehend it. I tell the story the way I tell it because I wouldn't be able to tell it otherwise. And the truth is - when people say to me - you must be such a strong person to have gone through that, and to have kept working 50 hours a week - how did you survive - how did you do that? What I feel like saying is this - I survived because I had no choice. Because I couldn't figure out how to kill myself quick enough and there wasn't anyone to take care of me. I did what I did because I had no choice. I had no disability benefit because I had been employed by my firm for only 3 weeks when it happened. I had to pay the bills, no one was going to pay them for me. Neither of my parents even showed up for me. I just did what I had to do - it wasn't because I wanted to, and it certainly wasn't amazing. The truth of it is - if I dig deep enough - if I really dig for something relating to this whole mess that happened to me, I am so angry that I almost can't stand it. The last place I want to be is surrounded by people and talking about it.
I knew there was a reason why some part of me didn't want to walk tomorrow. It wasn't conscious or anything, it's just that on most days I try to pretend it didn't happen. I try to just live, you know, but I am surrounded by breast cancer awareness month and constant fund raising at work. When I let myself be talked into walking tomorrow - I didn't realize that I would have any emotional reaction to it at all. I thought I would be fine. I thought I would just show up and be one of them, but I am not one of them. I am different. I didn't realize that to show up for an event surrounding the very thing that feels like it destroyed my life, would cause me an emotional upheaval.
1 comment:
Wow -- I can completely relate to this post. I know I didn't have breast cancer, but our experiences regarding our tumors are so similar that it astonishes me. I have to deal with those same questions: how did you do it? how did you manage? you must be such a strong person, etc. And most of the time I just nod my head and agree, but deep down, I want to scream. I didn't have any other choice, other than to kill myself, and I didn't want to do that (because of the kids, if for no other reason). I'm sorry the walk dug up all this stuff for you, but maybe it helps that I understand what you're going through -- at least you didn't do what I did during my brain tumor walk, which was walk to the side of the path and hide behind my kid's stroller so no one could see me sobbing. Namaste.
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