emptiness is like a stranger i'm beginning to know

in a sea of old, sick and dying people, my daughter has had the special honour of being the youngest, the healthiest looking and most resilient that i have seen in our journeys through chemo and radiotherapy. this is perhaps because she was not blighted with one of the usual childhood cancers, and that she was 16 when diagnosed, and was therefore always treated within the adult system.

for the last five months or so we have travelled weekly to lismore for her chemo session, greeted by smiling faces, inane chatter, and various visits from the hospital staff.  as a self protective measure we have both always approached this session with an upbeat attitude.  we talk and laugh and i prepare vegemite and butter saos and cups of tea for her in the patient kitchen.  she browses on her ipad, occasionally sharing shocking or ridiculous news stories or you tube videos, and i read a book or the newspaper, or sometimes commandeer the ipad to play a game.

we have good rapport with most of the staff, and a couple in particular, who always stop by and say hello and swap stories of kids starting high school or new christmas rabbits.

we have recently encountered a new face on the chemo ward.  with the arrival of this interloper my daughter is no longer the youngest face on that ward.  this new patient is whisked in in a wheelchair, through the public ward and into a private room, so we are foiled in our vouyerism, and so we wonder about this new young lady, who seems so sad.

in the last couple of days i have learned more information than i wanted to about this young woman, and this knowledge now sits heavy in my heart, my already broken heart, and i can never unknow this new pain.

this young woman passed away last week, aged 16, from osteosarcoma.  she was first diagnosed in may of last year.  in an eight month period she went from being the healthy, happy and engaged eldest child and big sister of a tight knit family, through various surgeries and removal of limbs, several chemotherapies, and who knows what else, until she finally breathed her last 8 days ago.

to me this knowledge is unbearable.  guessing at the grief of this family i have never met, feeling the unfathomable shock of this ride.....i am crying buckets of tears......

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this morning my youngest (8 years old) visited her psychologist and disclosed that she feels she is the only one who grieves the loss of her dad. she thinks the rest of us are not sad, and she feels alone in her sadness.

i don't know how to display my sadness around her, because my own sadness is limitless.  these tears of mine belong to such myriad losses and griefs.  these tears of mine are difficult enough for myself to bear, how can i share them with my little girl?  these tears can only come in the very brief moments in which i am alone, such is their forceful nature. i feel sure they would consume anyone who came near.....

there are days when my load seems too much for me to bear.  times when the responsibility of steering this little ship of a family is too great. times when my despair is all consuming, and still i arise each morning - whether or not i have slept well or deeply - and i make the breakfasts, and i make the lunches, and i corral the children into their school clothes, bags on their backs and off to school.  and while they are gone i clean the dishes, wash their clothes, take their sister to one of a million appointments, prepare her food and coax her to eat it, sit beside her through her long and lonely days of nothingness.....and then i pick the kids up, participate in their chatter, prepare their dinner, tidy up from their dinner, get them showered and into bed......and i am completely empty....

....this too shall pass; this too shall pass; this to shall pass...

when i first started this blog, i was aware of a condition in my life in which i felt completely and utterly unable to share and open up to those close to me about my fears, weaknesses and vulnerabilities, whilst at the same time recognising the imperative in doing just that....at this time i was experiencing a deep anguish, a fetid wound on my soul, and i knew i needed to air it, subject it to light, stop hiding it away in the murky depths which allowed it to fester...i have a sense that at times people were reading my words, and there were times when i definitely contributed to this site as a way of communicating with people, knowing they were directly getting the information.  many other times i used this forum as a way of just getting the words out of me, away from me....much like a painter paints, i guess....

at the time of this blog's conception, i had become so adept at deflecting questions such as 'how are you going?' etc, that there came a time when i felt i had lost the ability to answer honestly, altogether...and hence this blog was born : a place outside of my own mind, separate from my soul and my internal space; a place to commit the fear, the weakness and vulnerability, and to some extent excise it from myself...

and lo, here i find myself again! perhaps two years after first inhabiting this particular dark and treacherous place, i find i recognise this place. i remember what it feels like to stammer through an insightless and shallow conversation with a true and trusted and genuinely concerned friend; to slink away or avoid social events where i might come across people who actually care about my well being; to use my children as a shield which deflects attention away from myself....

do you know, i think i may have forgotten who i am....i really can't tell you anymore, what makes me, ME. i feel i have become unifaceted....i have lost my depth.....

i have lost my depth.....to the depths....what a notion....


i am feeling unmoored, untethered......unhinged perhaps....

i commit here a verbal illustration of descent.....into madness, maybe....fact is that i don't know where i'm descending TO....just aware that this is a downward trajectory....i don't even wish for a parachute...


my eyes are dams - holding back a rising tide of water which i feel too tired, too exhausted to even shed...it all seems so pointless. what is the point of crying, in this situation? and to anyone who worries that this place is called 'suicidal' - don't worry, really, even that seems pointless and i am so lacking in will right now that i am totally safe from self harm/liberation....


it is unavoidable, i think, that i have been, am being, changed by life's circumstances....this is a process of transition, and it is a painful birth indeed...it is happening in the dark. i cannot see who or what i am becoming, where i am going, or even appreciate what anything looks like outside of this place....even my mantra eludes me.....this too shall pass; this too shall pass; this too shall pass......

there's definitely a mania manifest in my domestic sphere tonight. all day in fact. today i dusted, cobwebbed, scrubbed, swept, washed, sorted and moved things about for the entire day. and all the while my youngest kept herself busy all day, with sewing (which ended in tears), guitar playing (which ended in violence), washing the car (which she stuck with to the very end), making a banana and blueberry smoothie (yum!), time spent attempting to train the guinea pigs (not much success), a walk to the neighbours' with cake, reading three chapters of the muddle headed wombat...all manner of things she attempted today. her mood swung wildly between energetic, inspired and creative and tears, frustration, anger and violence. she took a long while to relax tonight for sleeping, her mind racing and keeping her awake.

i recognise her restlessness right now. i feel it too tonight.

and my other beautiful, middle girl has been ill for a week, and she has overnight become bony. she has barely eaten over this time. she has been weak, and hurting and requiring of constant attention to administer medicines, encourage to eat, and drink, and extricate from scraps with her sister....and pick up after!

...and somehow i must wrangle it all in to shape, in order to leave again on monday morning for an indeterminate amount of time....

drinking red wine alone...is this problematic?
it's my first day in my own home in nearly a week. i haven't seen my own children in five days. this week i found myself catapulted, yet again, into a hell not of my own making....sitting in impotence as my daughter battles intense and intolerable pain. bearing witness to her agony. there is something very wrong when i have nothing to offer her; when my only role is to bear witness to her suffering....
is it weak, i wonder, to have the thought that, in the same situation, i would opt out? seriously, i would kill myself; i would take all of my pain meds at once and just end it....i'm questioning quality of life in a very serious way....
this is a very fucked and misunderstood universe indeed...i cannot conceive of the rhyme or reason behind this, and at this moment i have a total and bewildering lack of faith...perhaps it is just drunkeness, but i just don't understand...i can't see the lesson here....i cannot even believe that there is a lesson in this...it is just plain wrong that suffering such as this exists in the world.  we think we are so advanced, so savvy but the reality is that good people suffer unimaginably....

thank god for you tube

oh

my heart is breaking

it   is   positively   aching

with the weight of her tears

she  is  too  young  to  know  this

plumbing ever greater depths of grief

such dark and scary places

she leads me

this child of mine

she holds my heart in her hand

 i blindly follow her

into darker

heavier

and altogether more 

frightening

fields of despair

she leads me to where there is nothing left to hold onto

and then i have to find something to hold onto

for both of us

together we watch him on you tube

because she can't remember

what he sounds like

thank god for you tube

an open letter to all the married or otherwise attached men in my past, present and future

if you're not capable of monogomy......

                                              ....don't get married

if you struggle with monogomy and are married.....

                                                       ....deal with it

                                                                .....maybe try therapy

if you are married and compelled to have sexual thoughts about other people.....

                                                                                            ....keep this to yourself

call it a delicious little secret if you must

though you tarnish it

(speak to your therapist if you're having trouble processing)

don't burden the rest of us with your forbidden fantasy

..............................................

mostly when i dance, i do so because of how it makes ME feel.....

                                                                    ......it has nothing to do with you

and by the way, it's rude to stare

..........................

just because you find me interesting

and clever

and strong

and sensitive

and sensual

and attractive in many and splendid ways.......

                                                             ......doesn't mean you must imagine fucking me

it is possible to like someone's company without needing to sexualise it

and it's also possible to sexualise without needing to share it

..............................................................................................

yes, of course i am an archetype

but how dare you diminish me?

i am more than you will ever know 

.......so long as you cast me in this role of interloper.......

............................................................

don't make me be the spotlight you're afraid of seeing on your own life.....

                                               .......unless you're prepared to shine your light back on me

come to me radiant,

bring me your light.

.......or don't bother coming round at all.....

i'm no longer enamoured of the shadows

your struggle....

              .....confusion

                      .....torment

                                 ....desire

they hold no interest for me

..............................

i don't want your compulsion

...............................

don't you see?

don't you see that when you WANT me in some way

you close your eyes to what you actually HAVE?

if you are a married or otherwise attached man in my past, present, or future, you are the luckiest man alive....

......you have a wife you have chosen to share your life

who has chosen to be with you...

....as well as a fabulous

clever

interesting

and altogether attractive friend to spend time with....

so leave your struggle at the door my friend, 

come in by the fire, 

and raise a glass to untroubled waters....

gratitude.....again!

i've had a few issues with my water supply this week (among other things!).
my water tank lives up the hill, a couple of hundred metres walk up a stony, quite steep gravel road.  not a big deal, but a brief and brisk heart starter which also reminds me of the existence of my leg muscles.

i'm curious to note that whenever i have issues with my water, my petulance emerges. i have been known to stamp my foot in fury and irritation.  why do i have to sort everything out?! that's the voice which emerges whenever i run out of water.

when the tank runs dry, which it did this week, the walk becomes longer.  past the tank and through the orchard, down the slippery hill through the bush - towering gums and clingy lantana - round the big tree and   across through the knee high weeds around the top of the dam, to the pump house.....about a 15 minute walk all up, and mostly down hill, and carrying a jerry can full of fuel.  it's a beautiful walk, which i've done about 6 times in the last few days.

the walk back is harder, as it's uphill all the way until the very end.  yesterday, as i trudged up that hill, after a couple of hours of hard labour clearing the lantana from around the pump house and the top of the dam, i tuned in to the pattern of my thoughts as i walk.

i really love the forest around my place.  the walk downhill towards the dam and the pump takes me most of the way to the house of an ex lover, who lives on the neighbouring community.  we had secret assignations in that forest, in the distant past.  oftentimes we would walk to each other's houses, through the forest, in the dark, with the wind whipping the tops of the trees, and moonlight illuminating the path. it was almost unbearably romantic....one time, he laid a trail of lotus leaves from my door to his, all the way through the forest and over the creek.  i often think wistfully of those times, as i head down the hill on the first instalment of my walk.

on the way back, however, my thoughts are different.  the way back is uphill. it is a challenge. i challenge myself to go all the way up in one go, without stopping for a breather.  i notice that when i am walking back, i don't tend to look around me at the scenery, i look down, at the ground in front of me, and my thoughts are focused inward, rather than what i am passing through physically.  i tend to think about those circumstances or relationships which are troubling me, challenging me, in the same way as i am being physically challenged.  this walk allows my thoughts to flow unfettered, and i often find some clarity around situations which have been confusing me.

yesterday was no exception. i undid some knots which i had tied in my consciousness and found some clear space in my mind, and into this clear space flowed thoughts which made sense, which unravelled the mess of my emotions, the confusion i have been feeling about a particular situation in my life.

as i trudged up that hill i thought, i have walked miles of grief over this land.  i have shed a tear or two, but i have quite literally walked myself sane out there.  i am so grateful to have that opportunity, literally on my doorstep.

it's funny that my petulance emerges when i have to fix the water, when the truth is that, each and every time i do it, i experience such a sense of satisfaction that i have again triumphed in meeting the needs of my family.  we go a few days without running water and the sense of gratitude when we have it again is immense.  my kids think i'm really clever when i fix a water leak, and, secretly so do i.  that walk through the forest gives me time and space, an opportunity to reflect on my internal life. an opportunity for satisfaction and triumph over adversity.  such opportunities are actually not so easy to come by in every day life.

i am grateful for this reminder to be grateful!