Re-Occurrence and Relapse

For the past few days, I've just been staring at my screen. I've known I want to write, but every time I sit down to, I lose the ability. Because thinking about it and knowing about it is one thing, but once it's in writing, it becomes real.

It's the same reason that it took me so long to tell people - to warn my professors that I may be out every once in a while. Because talking and telling and scheduling and warning, all of that makes it real. Once everyone knows, it can't be dreamt away and forgotten about. It becomes the center of conversation - it's the greeting (I'm so sorry), it's the body (How's your mom? How are you?), and it's the conclusion (We're thinking about you, if you ever need anything...).

It hangs in the air like a dream-catcher, woven so intimately into our lives and decorated in support and fear and stress and sleepless nights.

Even now, as I've finally started typing, I keep moving away from the page. Keep going back to my various social media accounts and distracting myself. I keep looking away and then gravitating back because it has taken over our family.

Last week, my mother's cancer reoccured. This week, she started treatment.

There it is, stuck onto a page and into reality in virtual black and white.

Last week, my mother's health relapsed. This week, I've lost my ability to sleep.

I've been trudging around, a smile on my face and a "thank you, it means a lot" on my lips as I ghost my way through classes and conversations and work and play. I'm not about to break down. Honestly, I'm not afraid. I don't need to cry. I'm not in mourning, I'm in fight mode.

If you've ever had someone close who goes through cancer and treatment - and I know that's probably a small amount of people, at least, the number is small in regard to those who have experienced it by the side of said person with cancer (they are not victims, they are warriors) - then I feel for you, deeply. If you've never experienced, I hope it always stays that way. But let me try and explain to you the experience.

Cancer does not just affect one person. It affects everyone around them, too, especially their family. You're stuck in this cycle of positivity and exhaustion. You just keep looking forward, because looking back is useless and staying in the moment draining. You bond together in love and light and kinship, grow closer and closer to one another. When the days are good, it's amazing. When they're bad, there is nothing worse.

Your life becomes lived in moments - snapshot of things that were once normal cut and pasted between things you instantly cast away into the forgotten part of your mind. So, you float through days, string time together with a thread that is already fraying when you first start to sew.

You always say that everything is okay, even when "okay" is hardly the right word. What you're trying to portray is that everything could be worse, but for the moment, it's stable.

So, I thank everyone in our lives right now who are doing everything they can to keep us up and going. Thank you for those who are already taking my arms and pulling me forward. Thank you for every embrace and meal and surprise coffee/tea. Thank you for watching over us and supporting us and keeping us standing.

-HC