The New Reality

Selfie - hugging a tree in the Sierra Nevadas

I had five targeted doses of radiation over ten days in late June, during which I turned 63. I'm not feeling the latent fatigue they forecast, though I experienced it during treatment. Then I started the medication designed to reduce risk of recurring breast cancer or developing metastatic cancer if I take it five years, called anastrozole. At first I thought I was lucky -- no noticeable side effects in the first couple weeks. Alas, a month in, I'm experiencing what the obliteration of estrogen does to the body. Most prominent is joint pain, sore muscles, and stiffness all over. I feel it especially in my hands and wrists. This brings me back to the misery of my pre-weight loss era; I had so enjoyed pain-free movement the last few years. I experience restless legs while trying to fall asleep, as well as 4 a.m. awakenings. My thoughts are slower -- brain fog. And I feel, on a cellular level, an absence of energetic capacity. The shrunken reserve requires careful choices and an acceptance of the current reality, so I feel some grief too. I have a good life. What's occurring to me is normal. Aging happens, health declines, or is otherwise compromised. I don't love it. Then I look up from writing and glimpse six-point buck wandering through the yard! He lingered long enough to delight me. I hear my child singing upstairs in this rented cabin. No sweeter gift than that.

It's NOT a Journey

Last Tuesday I learned that I have breast cancer. It wasn't a surprise, since it runs through the maternal line of my family. However, I'd hoped to be at least in my seventies before I heard the words. Because it does run in the family, I've been getting annual mammograms and MRIs for the past 15 years after a suspicious development was found and removed in 2011. The cancer was found via MRI.

Even though it was caught early, even though the tumors are small, even though I've been told it's slow-growing and have an excellent prognosis, the fact is that I have an illness that could eventually kill me.

I need to get genetic testing, because apparently there are new ways to identify vulnerability to cancers. I need to decide whether to do a lumpectomy + radiation + 5-10 years of medication (with gnarly side effects), or to get a bilateral mastectomy (major amputation surgery) and hope that this eliminates the risk. The problem is, cancer can come back in other locations. One stray cancer cell that evades treatment can migrate somewhere else and not be identified until it's quite advanced. Additionally, my mother had metastatic melanoma as well as breast cancer. She had both at the time of her death. So, I have a 50% chance of developing melanoma.

While we all die of something eventually, knowing shifts and hits different when you are told your body has been overtaken by renegade cells.

I'm 62, and I've worked hard over the past four years to get healthy, including losing 75 pounds, doing strength training and cardio regularly, and eating nutritious food. I appreciate my body and all it can do. I've cherished the improvement of my health; I made this change because I witnessed my mother's drastic and painful decline, which resulted partly from neglect, and I want a more functional elderhood. I was looking forward to launching my kid to college this fall and having an empty nest and new adventures with my husband.

Now all that comes to a screeching halt. 

I loathe the term "journey." It romanticizes an experience that is fucking traumatic. This is not a journey. Nor is it an expedition, a trek, a trip, a safari, or a passage of any kind. It is a goddamn inconvenience. It is frightening and painful and difficult. It is an obstacle to joy and thriving. If you want to help, don't use that word when communicating with me. I'm slow to anger, but these days my tolerance is paper-thin.

The Ogre and the Girl Who Nevertheless Persisted

From an exercise in Your Life As Story, Chapter 3: My Fairytale and Letter

The Ogre and the Girl Who Nevertheless Persisted

Once upon a time there was a girl who was born to an old-fashioned father in an era of feminism. Growing up she displayed aptitude for language and writing and did well academically. However, there were problems: she was raised in the Catholic church, in which females did not have a prominent role. She was drawn to religion even as a young child, but as she grew up her perception of God was shaped by her view of her father. Another problem was her parents’ perception of her ability, especially her father’s. She expressed interest in becoming a teacher; he negated it, saying there was a glut of teachers. She said she wanted to be a writer, a journalist, but was told she wasn't competitive enough to succeed. She revealed a desire to be a psychologist but was told she was too emotional. Because she could not declare without hesitation exactly what she wanted to do with her life that fell outside these three interests, because he was conservative and would not support her in pursuit of a liberal arts education, and because he had the money, she adjusted her educational goals to suit him.

In high school she became involved in a teen Catholic prayer group. She became a vocal, “born again” Christian, a role which defined her life for four years. She lived in dread of making mistakes. Her parents were experiencing relationship problems, notably her father launching into rages at her mother. The girl felt it was all because of her not being good enough, so she tried even harder to be good and perfect. Because of her eldest sister’s departure from college after one year, he would not allow her to go away to school. She received supportive feedback from teachers about her intellect, but felt there was no point because since age 12 her father told her he wouldn’t let her go away to school. Because of her second-eldest sister’s reneging on a parental loan for a car, he would not allow her to get her driver’s license while she lived under his roof. Her life was bound in negatives. In 1981 she applied to the community college under one major, human services; her father repeatedly told her she would only end up working in a welfare office, which sounded depressing. So before school started she switched to food service management, thinking it would at least provide a creative outlet. She quickly learned that cooking was not her passion and changed to business administration. She was miserable. She felt underused, dissatisfied, not academically challenged in any way. She had to take the bus two hours each way daily, or scrabble rides from classmates. After one year, she recognized the waste of time and money involved, and she told her father she would withdraw and seek work.

One week after informing him of her decision, he asked her if she’d gotten a job yet. She replied she had not, and he assumed she hadn’t been looking. He flew into a tirade about how he would not permit her to leech off of him. He stated she would have to start paying rent at $100 a month plus her own groceries. Shortly after, she found a job as a dental assistant that paid a low wage; she could not afford to move out of her parents’ house. After eight months the dentist decided to take a seven week vacation and laid her off. She quit (she needed income) and searched for another job. In 1983, desperate to become competitive in the job market, she entered a business school to pursue a degree in secretarial studies. She didn’t want to, but again, financial aid depended on her father, who only supported practical, clerical subjects for her; the government required he report his income to assess aid, and he resisted. She pushed and he relented, and she ended up borrowing $5,000 to fund this. The school was a diploma mill, not totally legitimate, and again, she loathed the classes. After six months she quit and, using the money from the loan, moved out on her own. She then got a job as a secretary at Syracuse University in 1984. It was an awful job, where the Dean of Students required females to wear skirts and dresses only, where she was given menial tasks and was rebuked for wanting to take on more work. She spent many hours looking busy, which exhausted her. 

Still unsure of what she wanted to study, and struggling with her sense of self and place in life, she meandered through the days. She had remitted tuition benefits, but she started courses and dropped them. After a year, she transferred to a job at the university library, where she immersed herself in reading and books. Her job bored her, and she barely made ends meet. However, she at least could wear jeans and casual clothes and spend many hours getting paid to read and research, which she did love. Gradually she became more serious about her education, and she grew stronger in her sense of ownership over her own life. She took courses she enjoyed and recognized the spark of intelligence within her. She decided in her mid-20s to study psychology, despite what her father would think. She knew it wouldn’t guarantee a job, but she also knew she had skills to at least feed herself. She wanted to study what she loved, a subject that engaged her and made her think. And despite the fact she’d lived on her own for over five years, she felt compelled to explain her decision in a letter to her father. She also wanted to go away to college and have the typical college experience.

In 1989, she applied to a couple of state colleges and was accepted. However, she had no savings. She would have to borrow student loans, but she didn’t know if that would be enough. Her father offered to provide some funding, a loan of $8,000, to be paid upon graduation. The conditions of the loan stated she could not marry, get pregnant, buy a vehicle, or take a vacation while in school, and that she would work temp jobs on her breaks. The arrangement of the loan filled her with foreboding, which she expressed to her mother. Her mother’s response was that if she really wanted the education, to swallow her pride and sign the contract. She did, with reluctance. Off she went, and she did well her first semester. In her second semester, concerned about the amount she borrowed and her father’s implied timeframe for repayment (within five years of graduation), she attempted to adjust her course load so she could graduate sooner. She and her brother were both home for spring break. Her proposal violated her father’s sense of the contract she had signed and was met with his rage and refusal; he grilled her about her expenditures. He behaved as in the past, like a despot. During this encounter, she had an epiphany. At age 26, he was still treating her as if she were 8, and he acted as though he owned her. He said ugly things to her about being a failure, a quitter, and not being his daughter, and he lunged toward her. His emotions were so apoplectic that her brother had to physically intervene to keep their father from reaching her. She decided that her dignity and autonomy were more valuable to her than an education, and she left his house. She finished out the semester (spring 1990) by living with a friend and commuting to the college (100 miles round trip in a borrowed vehicle) and returned to her library job with one year of credits left to earn.

Shortly after leaving, she received a memo from her father through her mother. In this she learned that her father had intended to forgive the entire debt upon her graduation (a decision he declined to share because he thought knowing would make her squander the opportunity), that he wanted the house-key returned, and that he did not want to see or have any contact with her until he decided he wanted it. This was cold, but typical of him. The woman just decided to let go of the desire for a college degree for awhile. She was very, very depressed, more so than she had ever been. Too much was in flux in her life; she didn’t even have a place to live. So she focused on acquiring the basics, on regaining stability, so she could rest and reassess the situation. She sorely needed a means of reliable transportation, and she needed money to pay for classes that the college required she take on campus.

In spring of 1991, she managed to find a deal on a new little car and arranged the loan. This was freedom! Her world opened. With this exhilarating change she felt renewed. She spoke to her boss about changing her work schedule to accommodate the classes she would need to take during the day. Her boss supported this; the endeavor would demand much of her, in that she would work in the morning, commute 100 miles in the afternoon for class, and finish her job in the evening. But it was possible, and she embraced this. In the summer of 1991 she took classes at Oswego, and coursework in the fall at both campuses. In spring of 1992 she took more courses at the university where she worked to transfer to the Oswego. Exhausted but nearly finished, she plowed through more summer and fall courses, and finished her studies in December 1992. Her goal had been to get her B.A. by the day she turned 30. Her birthday was June 24, 1993; she garnered her achievement six months ahead of that deadline. After ten years of hard work and struggle to overcome emotional, financial, and academic obstacles, our heroine prevailed. With the degree that society claimed was necessary to find advanced work, she could move ahead.
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My dear child,
I know I started parenthood quite late in life, and it is my hope that I gained some wisdom to share by waiting. My life was not problem-free growing up; nor was my early adulthood easy. I had to fight for my opportunities. Lacking money and moral support, I spent many years confusedly searching for my path. Sometimes I am wistful, wondering what else I might have accomplished had my life been different, but this is a waste of time. Besides, there is a central message here, in my life: persevere. No matter that your dream is scoffed at, or that you fear you lack the ability. If your heart whispers to you about what you love, if you harbor a dream, believe in it. And then do all you can to manifest this dream, keeping it in sight as life takes you hither and yon. As long as you hold this dream and nurture it, it will grow. It may not flourish all the time, but it will grow. As I look back on my life, this is one clear lesson it taught me.

Crucifixion

Crucifixion

She wills him to leave.
He shred her with words and now
she is every slut who ever lived,
the Levite’s worthless concubine from Bethlehem
as she stands scrubbing under
stinging, steaming needles of water,
as she cooks him out from under
her flesh, now banana tender,
welting purple at the wrists, breasts, thighs.

He permeates her head, the
musky mushroom scent stubbornly
remains regardless how much
she retches and spits;
she bites the bar of soap as though
taking communion, seeking its promise
to trade cleanliness for evil.

She stands, trembling and heaving
from gut to fingertips
shaking bone deep cold,
and the blood,
the blood won’t stop,
evidence of a sacrifice
that was not his
to make.

-Kathryn Harper

“crucifixion” by Colectivo movimente, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 

Emotional Education

Knowing Experience

"Because here's something that's weird but true: we don't actually know what a positive or negative experience is. Some of the most difficult and stressful moments of our lives also end up being the most formative and motivating. Some of the best and most gratifying experiences of our lives are also the most distracting and demotivating. Don't trust your conception of positive/negative experiences. All that we know for certain is what hurts in the moment and what doesn't. And that's not worth much."

--Mark Manson