In making plans to see a friend tomorrow for lunch, we exchanged the “catch up” list. What’s been happening in your life since I last saw you? She has a rare weekend free of family duties and work. While I have my sons, I am eager to make time in my world for the people with whom I feel I am allowed to encouraged to be myself. She likes my hearty sarcasm and quick wit. We share a sense of responsibility and time for “self” is often a casualty of obligation.
If I have learned anything in the last three weeks, I have learned to take better care of myself. I realized in relating all that has occurred, I’ve managed pretty well considering. I hit a major obstacle in my house building plans. It is an obstacle that initially felt like The Great Wall, insurmountable. It also felt like it rose to the surface of the moon. I was defeated. Worse then defeated. Despondent. Hopeless. Except, I am RARELY hopeless. I just need time to breakdwon the problem and formulate a new strategy. I am an exceptionally hopeful person. I am just transiently brittle. I am less resilient to adversity when dealing with something I REALLY want. But, as the days have passed and I have tackled the “to do list” from the underwriters…..I am back on track and only slightly off my time table.
To compound that disappointment, I found a LUMP. It is the kind of lump all women dread discovering. And as is typical with all things medical, I am very focused, logical and problem oriented. Gather data and THEN decided on a plan. Science and medicine (even my own) processes on a fairly unemotional plain. The emotions are there…..but I’ll deal with them AFTER the problem is fully defined and a protocol is determined. And while the lump remains unchanged and infuriatingly invisible to all diagnostic testing…..and I foresee an MRI in my future…..I am only processing that I may have to deal with on an emotional level eventually. It isn’t denial; I am just not sure how to react YET. If it is pathological, then I will address my fear. If it is NOT malignant, I will be grateful. But right now…..my emotions are suspended. And I have no impatience in this space.
And in thinking and sharing with my friend, I realized that dealing with those two things is pretty remarkable since I managed it while juggling all my ordinary stuff. My health, my children and my career are my glass balls: the ones I cannot drop. They don’t bounce easily. When I screw them up, the fall out is bad. It may not be permanent, but it is messy.
All the other stuff I juggle will (or should) bounce. If they don’t bounce, if they shatter, then they are brittle for reasons beyond my control. I cannot keep everything going all the time. Somedays…..like days I find a lump in my breast…..I am gonna struggle. I might even totally lose my shit. And I realized in “catching up” with my friend, that I have given myself the grace to have managed pretty well these last few weeks. I wasn’t always graceful or elegant. A few times it was downright ugly….but the stuff that needed to bounce, bounced. I have my three glass balls well protected and anything that shattered was stuff I can’t control.
