Sunday Brunch

Tough Nuts and Too Many Cracks

I am not one to wish my life away, but I am glad this week is done. The pope passed and is now having meaningful conversations with God. My country sang hip hip hooray to it’s King, who spent the day having meaningless chit chat with random citizens of Doetinchem and TV presenters who tackle any topic at toddler level.

Cultural criticism aside, I don’t know what irks me more: organised religion, a dated institution like our monarchy or the incessant infantalisation by modern media (them and policy makers).

I doubt either a dead pope or deadbeat monarch significantly impacted my life this week. The reason I felt tempted to hurry along time and get this week over and done with is also not down to the constant doom of current affairs or a dreaded personal deadline. It just all in all wasn’t my week.

Grumpy, foggy, groggy and overall just yuck. That sums it up, but it wouldn’t make for a substantial brunch (which is late because of, well, extra long dog walks and pizza). My body and me not getting along, at all, leading to sleepless nights and extra sessions at the physiotherapy practice. Today is the first day in ages where I woke up feeling close to “normal” (and not as if I slept underneath a beached whale while a monkey played with my brain).

I get myself through the days, with the help of pets and “projects”. Winding down at the end of the day I distract myself with silly TV. Death and decay (think old reruns of Midsummer Murder) do the trick, combined with herbal tea and many sweet treats. Sugar is shit, I know, and cancer craves calories but I am not willing to starve myself to starve any potential cancer cells. I finally have a bit of bum back after my flesh dropped off my bones last summer.

Night time is a different matter. Good day, bad day, it all ends the same: with me feeling as if I am staring in the barrel of a gun that is about to go off. The bedtime rituals no longer suffice. As soon as my head hits the pillow I am in prison. I am being punished without ever knowing my crime. I feel I am at a cross roads and about to take a wrong turn. Walking the path to live or the one towards death…

STUFF N THINGS

It was Leah’s birthday yesterday (one of my glorious nieces and nephews) so I made her a birthday card and sent it to her mum. She messaged back: Leah loves it, how have you been?

I am fine. Writing a lot. It’s good for me.

Is it though? It helps, and it hurts.

Anyway. We chatted a bit more on how we spent the day, the king’s birthday. We both went to flea markets. The kids spent their pocket money on toys. Their mum came back with a jar of honey. I returned empty handed. I had given myself a budget of 10 euros and the aim was a good book or a nice dress. I found neither and left the market mumbling: I can believe I bought nothing.

Not that I need anything. Thats what this week’s journal entry is all about. I don’t even know what to do with the things I already have.

WRITE ON

Making health and writing a priority is slowly starting to pay off. I barely communicate with anyone during the week and it has given me the much needed extra brain space. I can finally entertain a thought long enough to finish it, and link it to another relevant thought. It’s pure brain bliss. Absolutely antisocial, but so worth it.

Stringing stories together for the sake of three memoirs, for the sake of some legacy, the supreme guide on “suffering?” I won’t sell myself short here. I believe I was born to be a writer (why else would God bless me with so many ridiculously challenging and otherwise pointlessly painful life events?) and I will die writing. Catharsis, meaning, resolution, redemption… who knows what I will find somewhere down the line.

But turning to the past, especially to the parts that hurt so much I can barely touch them, takes it toil, especially while not exactly on solid ground in the here and now. It is heavy to the extent that I do question, daily, if this is worth it.

I still haven’t transferred my photos and videos from my phone onto an external hard drive. Which means that in addition to finding the words to describe the indescribable, I get the accompanying images served up daily as a bonus gift. I put the phone away, screen down. As if that can somehow save me from my memories. What was seen can never ever be unseen. The lived never unlived. The lost never brought back to live. I know, I have tried, blackmails, bribes and begging. All to no avail. What’s left is acceptance, and for that I am not ready yet.

My mind went to a funny place yesterday during a dog walk. What if shit hits the van worse than expected in June with the next MRI. What if that does out my back against the wall again. I turn out to be unexpectedly vain, and weirder than I thought. Because, oh God her it comes, I thought to myself; if this is cancer and it is going to kill me relatively soon, then I will chose euthanasia before I start to look ill. I will not watch while I wither. My actual thought was: Because I don’t want to remember me that way.

Huh? Will I even remember, in the afterlife? And if for argument’s sake I grow old, very old, and wrinkly, and rickety, and crooked and wonky, will I then too jump off the train before the ride is good and truly over?

I will leave this train of thought here. Because even though I have my brain back, sort of, I have no idea where to take this next.

HAPPY CLAPPY CANCER BABY BUDDHA

I went everywhere this week, wherever my mind wandered, and it went to some creepy dark places. I am not afraid of the dark, I can handle my own creep and I have never shied away from big feelings. I did not survive before by denying myself my emotions. I mean the full spectrum of it. I didn’t go all happy clappy baby buddha with cancer before (I always think abit the song of you are happy and you know it clap your hands…) so why do that now.

Yet I find myself falling into the trap of curating myself into some Instagram version of toxic positivity. Just a little. Sometimes the insane emotional pain is awe inspiring, but most times it is too much even for me, and I do get scared. Scared of what I am capable of feeling and thinking.

When it happens, usually at night, in the dark, alone, I allow myself to indulge in whatever darkness that wants to swallow me whole. Then I talk to myself the way I would to my best friend. Because I am my best friend. I witness, I soothe, I hold. I also built in safety valves into the system.

Body, if I say I can’t bear it anymore, don’t believe me. God when I say I want to die, just ignore me.

This is the path carved out for me. Destiny maybe.

The mind hides, the heart fears, but the soul, the soul never wavers.

A writer is like God between the pages so if I don’t hold the reins over my own fate then I will turn back to fiction.

And just make it up as I go along.

XXL