trigger (un) happy

I’m back to my morning walks… sometimes alone… sometimes with a neighbor. Yesterday’s was alone. Just me and God.

With no active decision on my part, suddenly my mind went back to December 20th. It’s crazy how our minds work. How we can instantly, internally, teleport back in time. There I was… in the bay (hospital, not water)… the curtains, the doctors, the words… It was truly an out of body experience. I was watching. I heard myself saying “no, no, no, no, nooooooo”. It wasn’t out loud…it was … nowhere… It wasn’t us. It wasn’t me. It was inside of me.

Looking on.

It wasn’t us.

Except it was us.

My heart is racing as I type and try to remember how long ago that day was. Almost ten months ago.

Ten months.

I have been an unwilling participant, along for the ride. Going through the motions we have to go through to survive.

To live.

To keep on “living”.

For the first few days I couldn’t stop crying.

Then fear quickly added itself in to the fold. Fear stuck with me for what seemed like forever… maybe it was days, weeks, a month …. More? I don’t know because time stopped. And I was moving in some kind of thick fog.

I don’t know what happened next... Acceptance? Was I in the stages of grief?

Unwilling participant.

Unable to control anything around me. Or inside of me.

What I notice now is how easily I am triggered.

Here’s the thing. Sometimes we just don’t know… until someone tells us, right?

The tricky part of that is that “someone” (me, for example) doesn’t always know what the “something” is going to be.

I am all over the place. One person can say something to me and I’m OK… another person can say the same thing and boom. Triggered. THE SAME THING said. Different person saying it.

I can read about someone dying, who I’ve never met, and be knocked down for days.

Days.

Not only am I knocked down… I find myself trying to track down their diagnosis, and their lifestyle (so easy on social media)…because if I can find a difference…then it’s not us.

What’s great is, I know this isn’t logical. I also know I’m similar to a runaway train mentally. So, give me all the logic you want. And depending on the day, I’ll be grateful or ticked off.

I can see something on Facebook. A post regarding a friend of a friend. Off I go on my search to find a difference.

And then a search for survivors.

And a search for foods they should eat, and oils they should use.

Because I’m also trying to save the world in my spare time.

Days.

I thought I understood cancer until it came into my home. (My adult home. My chosen home.)

I didn’t understand.

I now deeply grieve when I hear that someone has received a diagnosis (even if I do not know the person). And oh my goodness, if someone dies… ?

Days. Weeks.

Knocked down.

I wish I could tell you (and me) what the right thing to say IS … but, I don’t know. Truly.

I do know that I hate when people tell me they are “sorry”. Yeah. Yup, “sorry”, so, good luck with THAT one folks.

Also when someone uses an apostrophe. Like “Ted’s cancer” (yup. This week. Subject line of an email I received. NOT from a medical professional). Um. Please. (Reminder that an apostrophe is something we use when someone is in possession of something). We don’t own it. We are trying to GET RID of it. We are… say it with me …

UNWILLING PARTICIPANTS (along for the ride).

Understand that I do not live in this trigger (un) happy place… it’s just sometimes. I am triggered sometimes. And knocked down sometimes. Many days I’m good. We’re good. Somedays? Nope. Over all though? Blessed. Sometimes? Totally scared.

And I may just need to check in to some kind of facility come January when we get all the “one year” mark testing. Either that or maybe I should just walk around with a Camel Back full of red wine (Because red wine is on the “good” list for us. It is really. You can check. And if you read that it isn’t? For the love of all that is holy – do NOT send me the link).

Before any of you start wondering if I’m talking to you, I’m not. It was really the apostrophe email that got me thinking about triggers. I wanted to get tee-shirts made that say “Don’t apostrophe s me”. I think they’d be funny. We’ve been pretty fortunate because really – most people – have said entirely the right thing.

And oh my goodness the resources. Thank you ALL for guiding us and flooding us with information. When I pray in the morning, this is often on my “thank you for” list. All of that? Good. Good stuff to say and to pass on.

I suppose this is a good guideline for all of us: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.” – Philippians 4:8

And maybe we speak these things too. (I am SO talking to myself as well, just FYI).

xo
K.