I recently posted on Facebook about how I'm currently living the life of a (relative) hermit and I just love it. What it boils down to is that I've grown to prefer my own company to anyone else's. I just prefer to be by myself than with anyone else. At least just for now. And I think that's totally allowed. I'm not going to get together with people just because it's their birthday, for example, or just because they happen to be in Toronto. I mean yeah, it sucks to miss seeing you for a special event, or if you've happen to be out here in my city, but if I don't feel like doing something with other people, why should I? How will it benefit them to hang out with me if I don't want to be out in the first place? And it's nothing personal; it has nothing to do with those people. It has everything to do with me. Like I started at the beginning of this paragraph, all it is, is that I prefer my own company right now. I'm in the mood for solitude and that's the road I'm taking, for the time being.
People can be insulted, and that sucks. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. But at the same time, I don't want to constantly drag myself around, making myself do things I don't want to, just to keep other people happy. I've done that for so long, and life's too short to do that all the time. It's time for some ~me~ time, and I really hope other people can understand that. I'd regret it if I didn't do it, I think. When I got sick, I was thinking of the things I'd like to change in my life. Thankfully, there weren't many; I've actually been living my life pretty much as I wanted to, with some exceptions--the other things I really want to do are just out of my control right now, as they cost so much money (such as TRAVELING). But other than things like that, there's not much in my life I feel the need to change. Generally, in life, if I want to do something, I'll just do it. "No day but today", a line from my favourite song from my favourite musical (Rent) is genuinely a motto I live by!
However, I realized that I spend a lot of my life living to please other people, and even sometimes spending time around people whose company I don't necessarily particularly enjoy, just to spare their feelings. This needs to stop; life it too short for this. I need to come first. You know what they say; you gotta take care of yourself before you can take care of others.
I want to make it clear that I'm not adopting an attitude of "oh, too bad for everyone else, I don't care what they think!" I don't feel that way at ALL. In fact, I really do care what they think; it hurts to think that someone will think I'm an asshole for taking some time off for me. That stings. But ultimately I have to make a decision; what's more important to me? A.)Taking care of myself, or B.) exhausting myself to make others happy to spare my feelings lest they think I'm a jerk if I don't always myself available to them? I finally opted for option A. Even if it means dealing with my feelings possibly getting hurt, it's still the better choice here.
By the way, cheers to anyone who got the reference of the wonderful lyrics I used as my post's title. It's from the one & only lovely, talented, totally quirky queen Bjรถrk. :)
Wednesday 10 February 2016
Tuesday 9 February 2016
OK//not OK
Nah, forget what I said last post. Everything's definitely not OK. I'm not OK.
Well, the last post is still true. It's certainly easier dealing with cancer here than in Montreal, or at least it has been so far. But I'm not feeling great all the time. There's the bad days too.
I'm OK, I'm not OK, I'm OK, I'm not OK; it switches all the time.
I keep reading articles about cancer survivors. Apparently all my feelings are totally normal. I guess that's a good thing. There's people out there who understand.
I'm so angry and on-edge these days. I think one of the worst things anyone has ever said to me through this whole thing was once, awhile back, when I said I was angry all the time--one friend responded by saying "Oh, all that anger isn't very good for you." Not "oh I'm sorry you're feeling angry" or "I'm sure having cancer must make you feel angry". No, none of that; just a condescending "anger isn't good for you!", as if a) I wasn't already QUITE aware, and b) it were my choice and I could just switch it off. Like ohh, why didn't you tell me anger was bad? Guess I'll just stop being angry about cancer. Haha silly me. Anyway, it was so patronizing & unhelpful. I'll remember that comment forever. It's enraging.
Yeah, I really hate February. I think.
Well, the last post is still true. It's certainly easier dealing with cancer here than in Montreal, or at least it has been so far. But I'm not feeling great all the time. There's the bad days too.
I'm OK, I'm not OK, I'm OK, I'm not OK; it switches all the time.
I keep reading articles about cancer survivors. Apparently all my feelings are totally normal. I guess that's a good thing. There's people out there who understand.
I'm so angry and on-edge these days. I think one of the worst things anyone has ever said to me through this whole thing was once, awhile back, when I said I was angry all the time--one friend responded by saying "Oh, all that anger isn't very good for you." Not "oh I'm sorry you're feeling angry" or "I'm sure having cancer must make you feel angry". No, none of that; just a condescending "anger isn't good for you!", as if a) I wasn't already QUITE aware, and b) it were my choice and I could just switch it off. Like ohh, why didn't you tell me anger was bad? Guess I'll just stop being angry about cancer. Haha silly me. Anyway, it was so patronizing & unhelpful. I'll remember that comment forever. It's enraging.
Yeah, I really hate February. I think.
Saturday 6 February 2016
3 years later...
Well I no longer work at the SHIT JOB, so that's done with, at least. :P I still plan to make another post in which I finish writing down all the insanity that happens there. I haven't forgotten! ;)
For now I'm just thinking about the fact that it's February and my birthday is coming up in a few weeks. What's more important than my birthday itself is what it represents; I was diagnosed with leukemia around my birthday. Too sick to move the day of, slept for 24 hours straight 2 days later, and was hospitalized 3 days later. Oh, the horrid, horrid nightmare-tier memories. Now what's extra monumental this year is that I'm approaching the 3-year-mark. This is big news, to put it mildly, because with leukemia, your life expectancy exponentially increases if you can make it to 3 years without a relapse. I'm almost there. Well, to the 3-year-point of being *diagnosed*. I'm not sure if my life expectancy goes up after 3 years of no relapses from the point I was diagnosed (so, end of February), 3 years of no relapses from the point I went into remission (that'd be April 2nd), or 3 years of no relapses from the point I finished my treatments (so that'd be late in July). I have to find out. Still, I'm approaching the 1st step in this stretch. So that's something. But thinking about it is freaking me out still, because, well...why wouldn't it, I guess.
I have to say, so far I seem to be handling the freak out barrage of terror that February usually brings me, simply because I'm in a different location with different surroundings, here in Toronto. I don't have the snowy familiar street of Jeanne-Mance to look out at every day, which looked & felt the exact same way that time I was getting sick. I don't have the same balcony door whose window I desperately I tried to keep opening when I was getting night sweats from (what I thought was the flu), or the towers of La Cite staring back at me from the window, the same towers I would stare at from the hospital and think about how I could sort of see home just by seeing those towers, and how homesick I felt, so beyond homesick, as if a new word needed to be invented to describe that degree of homesickness.
Haha, it all sounds so dramatic, but it's true! Without all that here, and without the Royal Victoria looming out there in background as I walk down the street every day, it feels a little bit less like it's "THAT time of year again". It's only February 6th, so we'll see how it goes as time passes and I approach those horrid dates toward the end of the month. But I only wanted to say that lately, at least so far, the indescribable feeling of deja vu-ish foreshadow-tastic impeding doom hasn't really been on my mind, at least not quite the same way it had been these past two years in Montreal when February rolled around.
We'll see, we'll see. I understand I can have good days and bad days. But so far? Much better than usual. Change of location has seemed to have helped so much. Fingers crossed!
For now I'm just thinking about the fact that it's February and my birthday is coming up in a few weeks. What's more important than my birthday itself is what it represents; I was diagnosed with leukemia around my birthday. Too sick to move the day of, slept for 24 hours straight 2 days later, and was hospitalized 3 days later. Oh, the horrid, horrid nightmare-tier memories. Now what's extra monumental this year is that I'm approaching the 3-year-mark. This is big news, to put it mildly, because with leukemia, your life expectancy exponentially increases if you can make it to 3 years without a relapse. I'm almost there. Well, to the 3-year-point of being *diagnosed*. I'm not sure if my life expectancy goes up after 3 years of no relapses from the point I was diagnosed (so, end of February), 3 years of no relapses from the point I went into remission (that'd be April 2nd), or 3 years of no relapses from the point I finished my treatments (so that'd be late in July). I have to find out. Still, I'm approaching the 1st step in this stretch. So that's something. But thinking about it is freaking me out still, because, well...why wouldn't it, I guess.
I have to say, so far I seem to be handling the freak out barrage of terror that February usually brings me, simply because I'm in a different location with different surroundings, here in Toronto. I don't have the snowy familiar street of Jeanne-Mance to look out at every day, which looked & felt the exact same way that time I was getting sick. I don't have the same balcony door whose window I desperately I tried to keep opening when I was getting night sweats from (what I thought was the flu), or the towers of La Cite staring back at me from the window, the same towers I would stare at from the hospital and think about how I could sort of see home just by seeing those towers, and how homesick I felt, so beyond homesick, as if a new word needed to be invented to describe that degree of homesickness.
Haha, it all sounds so dramatic, but it's true! Without all that here, and without the Royal Victoria looming out there in background as I walk down the street every day, it feels a little bit less like it's "THAT time of year again". It's only February 6th, so we'll see how it goes as time passes and I approach those horrid dates toward the end of the month. But I only wanted to say that lately, at least so far, the indescribable feeling of deja vu-ish foreshadow-tastic impeding doom hasn't really been on my mind, at least not quite the same way it had been these past two years in Montreal when February rolled around.
We'll see, we'll see. I understand I can have good days and bad days. But so far? Much better than usual. Change of location has seemed to have helped so much. Fingers crossed!
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