In a mood…

I’m in a mood tonight.  Tonight I have decided I really don’t like cancer.  Right, like I like it any other time.  But tonight I’m having a moment.  I’m not looking to be cheered up, coddled, consoled.  I just needed to voice it, here, on “paper”, where I come to sort all things.  Having cancer sucks.  I have no doubt I’ll be fine.  It’s not that, it’s just inconvenient.  I’m thinking of the holidays ahead and how much Kenzie and I love them.  Thanksgiving is my favorite, and I’m thinking about how much I want to invite my cousins Jeff, John, Crystal and her kids, if they’d all like to come, and I’m thinking, best case scenario I’ll be starting radiation right around then.  Will I feel up to entertaining?  Will I be too tired?  Will I want people around me?  It sucks.  And tonight I feel a bit angry and annoyed at the whole thing.

It is what it is.  I get that.  I get that God’s got this.  He has a plan and I’m not doubting in that.  Today’s sermon was just what I needed to hear.  It was on Peace and Patience.  I need a lot of both, especially right now.  And tomorrow I’ll ponder those things further, but for right now, I feel cheated.  Like there’s a good time to come down with cancer, right?

I’m sitting here tonight, knowing things could always be worse, and I don’t mean health-wise.  No secret, I had a tough childhood.  I’ve lived a lot of life.  I have a friend from my earliest childhood who didn’t fare as well as some of us did.  Robert made some very, very bad decisions, and then given another chance, made them all over again.  He is in prison for another 20 years.  I correspond with him.  How I came to the decision to reach out is a long story in itself, but doing so gives me some unique perspective.  It could have been me had I made some different choices along the way, had I not allowed God’s hand in my life along the way as I was making decisions.  It is not lost on me that I have cancer and it is temporary.  That tonight I sit here on my back porch, enjoying the sound of crickets and my outdoor fireplace while indulging in some pretty fine Riesling.  I get that my life is a privilege.  But tonight I am human, and tonight I am a little angry and I think that’s okay.

A friend came over on Friday night and she brought me some information she had come across on breast cancer from a grass roots foundation called “nothing pink about it” I believe.  I don’t have the pamphlet here next to me.  But the sentiment is right.  There is nothing pink and rosey about cancer.  It’s not about walks and pink hats with bling and pink flowers.  Not at the beginning anyway.  In the beginning, it’s overwhelming, and heavy and a lot to take in.  And though I have Frank and my family, and a tribe of friends uplifting me and God at the helm, I still carry the burden of it on my own shoulders, if that makes sense.  I don’t get to escape it, not for very long anyway.  The thought is always there, permiating every thing I do, every new experience I have.  As my mom would have said, and actually did say many times while she fought her own battle, “Damn Cancer.”  Tonight I feel that sentiment in ever fiber of my being.  And you know what?  That’s okay.