the yin and the yang of things

it's a funny thing, that this blog space taunts me sometimes. knowing it is a commitment i have made to chronicling this time in my life, and the life of my family, gives it a gravitas - it demands prioritising, at the same time as every other damn thing in my life demands prioritizing.

i get my head into a tizz sometimes, trying to successfully weave together the many threads of my life, into a coherent whole, dealing with snarls and breakages as they occur, holding it all together in crude knots at times....

so there have been many times over the last three weeks or so, when i have felt into a small moment in time, and wanted to document it in this blog, but lacked the necessary energy to sit down at the computer, compose my thoughts, and share them. it seems somehow deceitful to not check in, knowing that the last blog was written at a time of such weariness, such deep exhaustion, and that this blog is stuck at that moment in time, whereas my life, my attitudes and daily experiences are ever changing.  i have lived a thousand small lifetimes since the last blog post....

there were many times i wished to make account of the slowly grinding wheel of time, acknowledge it's movement through space, it's progress through my stumbling blocks and flimsy defences, it's relentless movement forward....ever forward.

for i am forever moving forward. much as i sometimes want to freeze the moment.

i reached a milestone recently.  my eldest daughter turned 18, and i celebrated 18 years of motherhood. the party seems to go on, and on. we have celebrated in every conceivable fashion.  my life has been a whirl of friends, music, dance, laughter and reminiscence.  it has been really, really lovely, and i have felt so blessed to have this joy and warmth in my life, to be surrounded by loved ones, nurtured, celebrated, and really actively loved and loving in return.

the milestones keep appearing and receding behind us - finishing school, granting of a driver's licence, starting uni, turning 18, getting first car.......recurrence of cancer.....all of these things have happened within the space of only about three months. we are on a roller coaster.  as i witness my daughter's complete and unabashed joy at her new found independence, i also witness her hair falling out, moulting like a favourite dog. i bear witness as she shops for a wig, has her hair cut short for the first time in about 13 years, and then her unflappable acceptance of the head wrap - a fashion she has NEVER been a fan of.

this child is grace in action.

and again, in the midst of the gut wrenching sadness of the thing, i glimpse beauty.....

i had an epiphany one night, the details of which i won't bore you with, but the realisation was this:

we are never COMPLETELY devoid of darkness
we are never COMPLETELY devoid of light
the two coexist, always and forever

it gave me great relief at the time to understand that i can always choose to look for the light within the darkness, because it is surely there.......phew......IT IS ALWAYS THERE!

as we approach the second round of chemo, my anxiety has increased, my sleep has become disrupted, my mind is racing. every day i am striving to achieve more, to get more DONE, to fit more into each day, to make these moments, each and every one of them, LAST and contribute as much as possible to the journey, to the whole.

every little thing i do demands my focus, and i am drawn in, drawn down, drawn here, to this present moment, where i aspire to find the divine in every single thought, every encounter. to sift out the wisdom in each moment, to glimpse the light in the darkest of hours.

we die a thousand deaths each minute, and a thousand times we are born anew.

chemo - day one, ground zero

what an unbearably lonely place i find myself in.
any parent can easily imagine the abject heartbreak of having one's six year old offering comfort through her own tears.  there are no words to answer the question, when it comes - 'mummy, what's wrong?'.  i can't infect her with my own cynicism and misery, biting back the answer -'darling, what's right?'.

tonight, i couldn't breathe through my tears. i literally had a moment of suffocation, when i was totally unable to inhale.

and the worst part is this: we're only at day one of chemotherapy.  the hard stuff hasn't even kicked in yet.

i just feel so incredibly helpless.  the patient herself is unable or unwilling to articulate what is going on for her, how she's feeling, what she wants or needs.  so i'm reduced to the status of an observer, jumping to attention if she asks for a drink, or needs a window opened.

as the little girls fight over how many pieces of toast one should have with her soup, i want to scream - who cares about the fucking toast??!!! in fact, though i don't scream, i do shout; but i don't swear....

i'm struggling with how to articulate all of this emotion.  raised as i was by a woman incapable of sharing her emotions (i didn't even realise she HAD them!) this is an extremely uncomfortable reality for me.  if i share my fear with my kids, will they take it on? if i express my sadness, will they too become sad? can i possibly burden them with this?

and if i keep it all hidden, push it down inside until the dark, quiet, sleeping hours when no one can hear me - what am i teaching them? am i perpetuating this familial dysfunction, this generational inability to express, to share? am i cementing myself in their psyches as a cold, closed, unemotional, distant being.....?

and, lo, it's raining.....again!

it seems all the world is water. and here am i testing the theory of bouyancy........will i float? or will i sink, and drown in despair?