absence

so long, fare well, it's been too long. my creative juices have dried up in the midst of laundry, dishes, snotty noses, toys on the living room floor, pee on the living room floor.

is it possible i have nothing left to say? i doubt it. i have to look for it. start typing and see what comes. remind myself of who i am, who i was, who i am yet to be. this is not all i am. not all i am capable of. there is more. more than laundry, dishes, snotty noses, toys on the living room floor, pee on the living room floor.

( there are no capitals. i don't know why. where is the red pen correcting this enormous error, oversight, gross abuse of the english language? )

little people run around, making noise, making messes. where are all the big people?

fear and letting go

i have to release. trust. have faith. in his ability to get through a day without me. that other people can care the way i do. that he won't be hurt. bullied. lost. treated cruelly.

that everyday will be filled with newness. learning. exploring. joy.

i know that there will be pains. i know that he will survive. but i have to learn to let go. so that the ache in my belly will go away.

fear.

anxiety.

a limb has been cut off and i am trying to trust that it is not being dismantled. all my hard work.

it's birth again. outside of my body. where i have no control.

my baby. MY baby.

love

10 years.

joy. love. support. kindness. friendship. companionship. dispute. conflict. recovery. joy. joy. joy.

i am grateful.

i am in love.

i have a friend who is obligated to me for life.

awesome.

happy anniversary to my legally bound, emotionally entangled, completely enamoured love of my life.

love.

torn

obligation. choice. love. friendship.

i was taught to stand by my family. family first.

friendship means everything to me. true friends. forever friends. faithful friends.

torn between the two.

loyalty. truth.

hurt.

grey day

today i want to wallow in my own self pity. i want to lay in bed and feel sorry for myself. i want to obsess over my failures. i want to cry.

my kids won't let me.

my previous self would have watched tv, had a bath, laid in bed. complain. whine. be depressed.

my mama self has to get up, get moving, entertain, feed, nourish the mind and body. no time for self pity. ignore it. forget it. get over it.

i don't want to get over it, forget it. i want to wallow. let me wallow.

sometimes i miss the old me, the previous self. she did not appreciate the time she had. the indulgences. i want one day of her life back. maybe i would appreciate it more. take advantage of it. get the most out of a day of doing nothing. sleep in. watch daytime tv. eat when i want to. lay in bed in the middle of the day.

*sigh*

conflict

why does my trip have to be filled with conflict? my own and others.

i hate conflict.

i avoid conflict.

but there are times when it's absolutely necessary and during those times i am better with the written word. avoid face to face conflict with me, i'm terrible at it. write an email. compose a letter. hire a plane and write it in the air.

better yet, don't be a bitch or an selfish asshole and then we won't need to have conflict. why can't we all just get along? give peace a chance man.

in three days i can return to my life and hopefully **fingers crossed, knock on wood, pray, ask my spirit guide, wish** there will be no conflict for a while.

energy

it's back. i have it again. i am efficient. working reminded me of how much i could get done in a day. now my expectations are higher. now i do more.

i was lazy.

now i'm not.

it's good.

it's sad that i need to be reminded of how efficient and organized i can be. i can be the person with the organized closets. i just have to find the time to do them and do it. my time is well spent cleaning, organizing. my life runs better. my heart beats normally. i am at peace.

i like clean closets.

pit

there is a pit in my stomach. i do not know what is causing it. i know that the stress is leaving. i'm waiting for the other shoe to fall.

go away anxiety. i don't want you to dictate my mood. i want to shove you down and be full of joy. face my day. enjoy my blessings.

today i will be full of joy. i will ignore the pit in my stomach. i will force the anxiety to go away. i will be full of joy.

if i will it, it will come.

friend

i have a friend i love. she brings me joy. she brings me peace. our friendship will withstand time, distance, kids, husbands. we will be old, wrinkled ladies together, drinking martinis and checking out all the 70 year old men. we will be forever.

i know this without a shadow of a doubt.

how?

because we are true. we are honest. we have morphed our friendship from single girls to mamas. i respect her as a mama. i think she is amazing. i believe that we look at the world similarly. that we view our relationships with our children and our husbands the same. but we are different. different enough to be interesting.

i love knowing that she is in my life. that she's not too far away. that she loves me too.

i love that she writes letters. that when i see that return address my heart is happy. a little bit of joy. light. love.

i love you my dear friend. you mean so much to me. and i can't wait to sit and be old and crochety with you.

lists

the lists are what make the day go. without them, i leave without everything i need. how would i know what to do, bring, say, accomplish, make, eat, cook, wear.

example:

-pick up paint for living room
-weed back patch of dirt
-get american money
-make mortgage appointment
-paint spare bedroom
-paint living room
-paint kitchen
-make presents
-get rid of old barbeque
-make list for seattle trip
-make list for this week

lists of lists to be made
crazy
orderly

beauty

watching my boys play together, without me

sun

blue skies

blossoms

friendship, new and old, lasting and fleeting

clean windows, a fresh canvas for dogs and kids

real mail, in my mail box

the anticipation of something, anything, trips, visits, a field trip, summer, family

change, progression, improvement

the sound of a toddler asking for what he wants, using real words

silence after all the talking has finished

love, real, lasting love

freshly baked carrot cupcakes cooling in the kitchen waiting to be iced and eaten

a child reading

today

biopsies and scars

This is an article that I recently submitted to Island Parent. I have no idea if it will be published, but I'm putting it on here to share with my two readers.
______________________

“There is a sizable lump here on the side of Ryen’s neck. I think you need to see someone about this. I’m going to refer to a paediatric surgeon. He’s going to want to biopsy it.” I stare dumb founded at my doctor. Seriously. We are only at the doctor for his one year check up. He’s healthy in all ways. She makes me feel the lump and once I have I can’t believe that I haven’t noticed it before. It’s visible from the outside. Enormous.

I stopped in to see my husband at work on the way home from the doctor. He can’t believe that we didn’t notice it either. It really is large. Are we neglectful parents? How long has it been growing there? And what is it?

I immediately get online. Google is a terrible thing for a scared mom. Cancer. Everything I read is saying cancer. Then I research the surgeon. Oncology. Words I don’t want to associate with my 13 month old. I admittedly lost it. My husband had to come home from work. I couldn’t breathe. My heart was racing. I held my baby and realized that this might be the beginning of something terrifying.

I’m not ignorant when it comes to cancer. My mom, Grandma and aunt have all battled and beaten breast cancer in the last 2 years. But we have never had a kid with cancer in my family. Things like this don’t happen to us. We are blessed. These things happen to other people. We know families that have had this happen to them and we feel compassion but never imagined that it would be us.

Things move quickly. There’s an ultrasound the next day with the radiologist saying that it’s an infection but significantly large, 3.4 cm to be exact, the surgeon 2 days after who says that it has to come out and an emergency room doctor who says it will go down on its own. There are too many different opinions, contradictory opinions. How are we supposed to know what to do? There is no way to know what it is and if it is cancer, specifically lymphoma, we could lose valuable treatment time waiting to see if it goes down on its own. The surgeon schedules surgery for two weeks later. In the meantime, I’m left to research options, possible outcomes, contact Children’s Hospital, seek second, third and fourth opinions and stress out. While we face the scariest possibilities, I still have to parent my kids. I pull my oldest out of preschool because I’m scared of the boys getting sick before Ryen’s surgery. I become a hermit, going only to doctor’s appointments. I cry. I blog. I worry. I talk to every person I know.

My fears are many. I’m scared that my baby will have lymphoma and will have to face terrible treatments, surgeries and possibly the unthinkable. I’m scared that our lives will be defined by this event and we will always refer to pre and post cancer when discussing our lives. I’m scared that our fun, silly and carefree (relatively speaking) lives will be changed forever. I’m scared that my husband and I will never be us again. I’m scared for everything. I can’t face the realities so instead I start planning. I plan the logistics of Ryen and I having to be in Vancouver for treatment. I plan who will take care of my other son. I plan so I don’t have to think. I won’t plan for the holidays one month away. I can’t buy presents when I don’t know what our lives will look like in one month.

Surgery day arrives. My little baby has to have a general, a local, morphine and Tylenol. I am so grateful that I am breastfeeding so that after his surgery he can have mommy milk and not juice or formula. He does well in surgery. We are able to go home that afternoon. The surgeon is cautiously optimistic. Some relief.

It takes a week but it’s not malignant. We are not a family with cancer. My son does not have to face chemotherapy and more surgeries. He gets to continue to develop, grow, learn. I am relieved. I am full of thankful joy. I have had to face the unthinkable and get to walk away knowing that my son is healthy. We might never know what caused the infection or why his lymph node reacted that way but we know what it is not.

I frequently remember how thankful I am to live here. Not once through this entire process did I have to consider how much this was costing. Specialists, testing, surgery, hospital visits, more testing. So much medical care and no cost to us. It has its faults but our medical system can work incredibly well and quickly when it needs to.

130 new cases of childhood cancers are diagnosed every year in BC. Most of these children survive cancer and go on to live complete and full lives. Research is always improving the treatment and survival rates for those diagnosed under 17 years old (source:  BC Cancer Agency). That is still 130 families who do not get the news that we did.  130 families whose lives will never be quite the same. 130 families who have to face terrifying options.

To say it changed me as a mom is an understatement. I don’t want to work. I don’t want to be away from them. I want to be around for everything. I make decisions differently. I feel like his life is precious, fragile and I have to be grateful for it. I look at his scar and remember what we went through. I remember all the fear, stress and anxiety. It gives me perspective when he is driving me crazy, crying and holding onto my legs while I am trying to make dinner. My child is healthy and I will always remember that and be thankful.  We are on the other end and moving forward.

efficiency

today this was me. existing in the world. doing my job. doing it well. no one went hungry. everything was done.

i am a well oiled machine. i am able. i can do it well.

if only every day could be so efficient. if only every day could be so beautiful.

going around and around. creating something invisible. something that will improve the world. something that has an impact. something from nothing.

i am a windmill. i do my job. i do it well.

healing

tomorrow marks the end. the end of treatment. the end of sickness. closure.

16 months ago my family changed. illness crept in and made itself comfortable. fear took over. cancer took over. I learned the intricacies of mastectomies, portacaths, herceptin, chemotherapy, blood counts, tram flap, reconstruction. I become comfortable with medical lingo.

I don't want to be comfortable with medical lingo.

tomorrow it is over. cancer leaves my family officially.

note to cancer: you are not welcome here, please do not return. I will not make up the bed for you or put out clean towels, I do not want you in my life. go away.

illness

My child is sick.

when illness comes to my door I shudder. leave. don't come back. I am done with illness. done with disease. done with drugs, prescriptions, x-rays, tests, biopsies.

My child is sick.

he will not die. he will survive. but for a moment I did not believe that. for a moment I believed that this was it...again. I am fearful of the darkness that disease brings. it is familiar.

go away. leave my child's lungs in peace. extricate yourself and let him breathe.

breathe.

breathe.

femininity

I do not want to pull through life like a thread that has no knot. I want to leave something behind when I go, some small legacy of truth, some word that will shine in a dark place.  Nellie McLung

she paved the way. she fought so I don't have to. she made all things possible.

is feminism dead, over, done?

or is it fought every day, everywhere?

every day we fight for equality, safety, rights. women around the world are beaten, neglected, subjugated, terrorized, raped, killed, confined and controlled. who gives them a voice?

it is my responsibility to continue her fight. we have won at home. can we win in iran, darfur?

I am a feminist. I follow in your footsteps. I fall at your feet in gratitude.

People must know the past to understand the present and to face the future.

Contentedness

I search for you. I yearn for you. You often elude me.

But sometimes in moments of calm or chaos. In moments of family and friend. In moments of sun and spring, I find you. You calm me down. You remind me of the joy. The bliss.

I find you in my home. You live there. I find you in nature. You live there.

I am content. I have what I need. I have what I want. I am spoiled rotten.

Joy is sitting on my lap with a snotty nose, laughing.

Bliss is being home, my home.

I am content.

familiarity

something is calming when you're around. you make it easy. you remind me of something. it's comfortable.

The day you left, we said see you later. I walked home and cried. It was the end of the availability of friendship. It was the end of quick drop ins, tea, phone calls and dinners. It changed things. I appreciate you more now. I am grateful for your rare presence. Grateful for your touch. Grateful for your conversation. Grateful.

If you had stayed we would have changed. Now it is glimpses. Perfection.

I still would rather have you here. But I will settle for the visits.

Just for me

There is very little that I do on a daily basis or even semi daily basis that is just for me. This is something that I want. Somewhere for me to write. Be creative. Not about the kids, at least not all the time. Not about the house, dog or husband. It's mine.

Welcome.

I want/seek/need to write. I need to find my voice again. Send it out there. I used to have thoughts. Imagination. Now it is blank...gone...missing in action. This is my attempt to find it again. If you build it they will come. If you open it you will fill it.

Hopefully this doesn't become a scary place of weirdness. Randomness. Or maybe that is exactly what it should be.

In eager anticipation we wait to see what will arrive. Like opening the mailbox of the unknown. What will the mail bring today?