Kaleidoscope
During the fortunate moments, I find myself rooted in the present, surrounded by nature, like when perched on a rock in Joshua Tree or ankle-deep in the fresh waters of the Hyalite Reservoir. I find myself. I feel the edges of where my fingertips end and the licks of wind begin. I listen. I feel.
Today I’m listening from my balcony rocking chair. Bare feet on cold concrete. The chirps of birds in the trees just out of arm's reach, battling against the whirs of a nearby leaf-blower. It’s a different swath of nature.
What I hear today is a spinning wheel of various thoughts. Just as one hits the flapper of my consciousness, another one moves into place. What I feel is a kaleidoscope of emotions. Shifting into focus only long enough to catch my heart and then morph into a new sensation.
And so I write…
Shattered open - Yesterday, I had the privilege of recording an episode with Paul Churchill for the podcast Recovery Elevator. I’ve been a part of the Recovery Elevator community since my first year of sobriety. We talked about the moment my world shattered open (not the first or last) in October 2020 when I got sober. We mused over how this cancer diagnosis caused another sort of shattering open. Like the Japanese practice of kintsugi, the broken pieces, though sharp, are before me to piece together with light (or gold).
Scared - What if some of these broken pieces stay broken? What if the treatment works, and then it doesn’t? Or are there complications? What if I’m ‘cured’ only to trip out of remission? Can I handle all of this again?
Future-trippin’ - One of my most prevalent cognitive distortions during all of this. I’m choking on the ‘what if’s’. My therapist helped me remember a grounding technique to help me swallow. Look around the room and name everything you can see. Name everything the color red. What do you see that starts with the letter ‘G’?
Enamored - I see George, and not too far away, there is Fred. My home and another capture of nature. Watching them stretch across a patch of carpet. Hearing their tiny teeth crunch on treats.
Wanting Distraction - Fearing the silence and the empty space where thoughts flop around like thirsty fish. I tote around my iPad (even in the bathroom) so that RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 10 may fill the air.
Restless - It’s noon on a Thursday, and I’m not at work. The cycle of my chemo treatment runs: 1 week in the hospital and 2 weeks at home for recovery. Rinse and repeat six times. In the hospital, time doesn’t really exist. During the second week, I’m too tired and uncomfortable to feel guilty. By the third week, I begin to feel ‘normal’ and wonder - what am I doing, again?
Hyper-alert - That’s right, I’m battling cancer, and there is a home nurse due in an hour, and lab work tomorrow, and I need to make my packing list to go back into the hospital this Monday, and there goes the phone again because I’m waiting on the additional paperwork to extend my short-term disability.
Capable - The organizational skills this all requires, shit, I got ‘em. I live, laugh, and love by my planner and chorus of alarms. This is my work right now.
Lonely - Not in the pink-love sense. I’m surrounded by so much love from friends and family. It’s the red-love. Something I honestly haven’t desired for over 6 years. What would that even look like?
Sexy - Yesterday, to shake through the flush of dopamine after recording the podcast, I danced to one of my favorite songs: You Got the Love by Florence and the Machine, and felt desirable in a way that felt brand new - even when it ended with a light coughing fit.
Complicated - My appetite fluctuates. My body softens in some places and hardens in others. Someone once told me that having an eating disorder is a little different than an addiction. If you personify your addiction as a tiger, and you decide to quit, you lock that beasty cat in a cage and call it a day. With an eating disorder, you must navigate opening that cage ~3 times a day to survive. My body needs me more than ever right now. I find myself leaning on old tools like having a meal and movement plan, and sticking to it. Ever-wary of that sickly voice still in the mist of my mind.
Empowered - I’m so glad to be with her, the her being me. With my filo-folder of resources from surviving other scary things, like an eating disorder and an addiction.
Overwhelmed - Envelopes, swollen with medical bills, show up. Numbers blur across the pages.
Hopeful - This treatment is working.
Sad - This year, I won’t be able to attend my annual trip to Bozeman with the Recovery Elevator community. Treatment and my return to work coincide with those dates. I hold that loss in the palms of my open hands. Allowing the child in me to miss something even while the parent in me knows it’s for the best.
Grateful - Every time I reach for the cat food I can afford to feed my loves or reach to blow my nose on the 600th piece of tissue, I feel lucky. I say it out loud. I’m so lucky. I have not only what I need - I have comfort.
Dysmorphic - I’m so bald. I catch my reflection in the mirror and feel like a performer caught mid-wig change. Who is she?
Curious - Before me is another opportunity to answer the call of my birthright as a woman. Who am I without my hair? In the absence of all those curls, the round face of a girl looks back and asks, with light in her eyes, "Who are we in our womanhood?”
I find myself — changed. Changing.
With love and all of the above,
Nutmeg
