You're so brave!

Why do people often tell me I'm brave? Is that a knee-jerk reaction to someone with cancer? I genuinely don't mean to dismiss anyone's comments if they are heartfelt, nor trivialize them, but I really want to know. I'm clearly scared all of the time to the point that it's taken over my life. Though many say being scared has nothing to do with bravery, how about the fact that so much of my day revolves around waiting for it to be late enough to justify getting high off sleeping pills? Is that something a brave person does? What is their definition of brave? Does it involve someone who needs to get high to feel better? Someone who stresses themselves out to the point they can no longer reason properly? Someone who rants daily on social media? Other people I know on Facebook have cancer. None of them rant about it. I'm the only one. How is that brave?

From no hours to too many!

I keep wanting to come here to write about how down/anxious/angry/upset I am but then I'm not always sure what to write. Hmmm, this is not the first post where I've said exactly this!

I'm tired of nightmares and spooky dreams. No nightmares last night, but my dreams were definitely on the creepy scale. Ahhh. Tiring. I've been waking up exhausted all week.

I called in sick super last-second to a subbing job on Friday. I was just so beat, totally wiped-out. It wasn't at the school I normally work at, and in fact I work a LOT at "my" school next week, so I want to save all my energy for that. I feel like I'm going to faint soon. I'm so overwhelmed. I went from not working at all to working TOO many hours. Subbing is exhausting. It's just so draining. It definitely has its moments, and I'm incredibly grateful to be able to sub, and work with children in a school setting and be paid for it. But, it's not like teaching at all. At all! I really miss teaching. For some reason, I'm having a more difficult time with subbing this year than I was last year, which was my first time back on the job since the hospital. It could be for a variety of reasons, I guess.

Anyway, it's just so taxing. I can't imagine doing this 5 days a week, nor would I. 3 days a week I think is OK. It's such a demanding job. For what it's worth, at least I can make my own hours. A little perk to this job, I guess!

The thing is, I'm happy when I'm at work. Even if it's not a good day, it's still better than staying at home and stewing in anxiety. But at the same time, it requires a lot of mental AND physical energy, which I simply don't have. So I can't keep working full days every day, or else I'll have a full burn-out for sure. So I can't accept every day offered to me. But I kind of need to, because I really, really, really, really need the money. But I shouldn't, because health comes first, and if I tire myself out too much, I really won't be able to work! So it's just a never-ending, nonsensical circle of bullshit.

So much anger

I think one of the main emotions that has stewed during my remission is anger. Not so much anger at the cancer itself, but the almost constant anxiety and frequent fear I've been experiencing during remission tends to settle into a kind of demented stress that elevates into the most intense rage I can't describe. I have noticed that anger is easier to deal with than fear, so I can't help but wonder if my brain turns the fear into anger for at least partly this reason.

That being said, I'm fed up of people telling me how I should feel. That anger isn't good for me or that I should be positive. Do you have cancer? No? THEN SHUT THE FUCK UP. I mean that sincerely. So I guess this post is a note to all of those people who have told me that I shouldn't be so angry all the time. To those who talk about choosing to be happy and not dwelling on fear or dark thoughts, as if that's something I've chosen to do. I can't choose to be less angry, less scared, or less stressed, but you can certainly choose to mind your own fucking business and be more tactful.

That is all.

Waxing poetic, Zopiclone edition

This post will have such a different tone than my last one! In my last post, I had just returned from Miami with Mike, and Christmas vacation was just beginning! But now it's long since finished, and I'm back at work (as much as I can be; I'm starting to get called in often, but perhaps not as often as I would like) and my lovely husband is back on tour and I miss him so much, it's awful. The loneliness is crippling. I found it so much harder to part ways this time around for a number of reasons. Well, on the bright side, at least I'll be seeing him again in just under one month's time, in Calgary. Maybe not the most exotic of places (haha!), but still, it's a place I've never been to. I've never been to Alberta, period! And this is part of my own country this time. Good ole Canada. It'll do me some good to see more of it. In the meantime: working whenever I can! I just wish it were more steady work...

Well, I love my life overall and I'd say that generally I'm certainly a happy person. I'm just going through a time in my life that's quite rough. I know it'll pass but the interim is just so miserable. Being so lonely while I'm so anxious about every little cold or flu symptom I get (as one might imagine, at this time of year, can be quite common), just makes the anxiety inflate about tenfold. And with the ballooning anxiety stems the incapacity to think properly, which is only feuled further by "chemo brain", something a lot of people don't understand. The combined result is just such a toxic mixture of the most frustrating melancholy, something I could maybe attempt to begin putting into words, but only when sleeping pills haven't already been scrambling my brain to such an intense degree.