I have struggled with whether or not to share this much insight.
Because I don’t want you all to really think I’m crazy. But, honestly, have I ever really tried to play up the image of perfect sanity?
Nope, I don’t even try to fake it.
I can talk about my crazy. I can divulge some of the surface crazy. But this is the down-to-the-bone crazy that sneaks up on me and smacks me down ninja style when I least expect it.
It doesn’t have to make sense…more often than not it really doesn’t.
Let me see if I can walk you through it.
I try really hard to live this life with the belief that things happen with a purpose and a meaning. I believe God has a plan in my life and although there are times I go down kicking and screaming, THAT’s the plan that ultimately comes to fruition.
Looking back over the past years of our lives, I can pinpoint moments when choices were made or taken from us that impacted everything in our lives…for better, for worse…they were right.
The disbelief that stunned both Peter and me when the doctor came to us four years ago and explained I was having a stroke was almost comical. Dude, I’m 30! I have 3 little kids! This is the first day of our FREAKING vacation! I can’t be having a stroke. Check again.
But it was true. I felt trapped in my body for so long, weighed down by the medications and the depression that followed. I got up at four AM every morning to watch the sun rise, to make myself some breakfast, to let my body move…before I took my meds…because I knew that after I took them, I would no longer be able to carry on a conversation, I would be sitting in a chair watching my children play around me, unable to play and respond as I should. Shortly after I came home, some friends came and got me to go out for breakfast. I was devastated to realize I couldn’t even participate in the conversations around the table, by the time I’d processed what was said and figured out what to say, they were far gone to something else…I just sat there silently trying to understand if this was the new me. Every day the part of me that just wanted to die got bigger and bigger…I didn’t want to be this person, a shadow of the mom and wife and friend and Anissa that I knew I used to be. I wasn’t strong enough to be this broken version of myself.
With time came changes in medicine, a near-death moment when I know in my heart I chose to live, therapy, recovery, strength, faith, and a newfound belief.
I’m so glad it happened. No, really, I am. If that had never happened, I truly think that we would have fallen apart as a family when Peyton was diagnosed. I didn’t know it at the time, none of us ever could have, but we were in training for the crisis yet to come.
After the stroke, the recovery and the drive to better our lives, Peter decided to look for a new job. He was ready to move. He wanted to move. Every day was a new possibility, a new opportunity.
And nothing. He couldn’t get a phone call, an interview, nothing. He was so discouraged. I remember that just before he started his vacation in July 2006, we had a conversation about how he wanted a new job so badly, but that we knew if it was meant to happen it would. It was a bitter pill, easier said than to accept.
Less than a week later, again on the first day of Peter’s vacation (which you’ll all be relieved to know that we’ve made a pact to NEVER vacation in July ever again as long as we live), we found ourselves in a hospital AGAIN, this time getting the news that Peyton body was full of cancer.
We were meant to stay here, Peter wasn’t meant to find a job somewhere else. I was meant to have my stroke, it made me a more compassionate and understanding mother to what Peyton would go through. We even shared some of the same medications, I KNEW how she felt when her body raged out of control and she hurt to her core. It all came together in a way that, looking back now, fits and makes sense and feels right.
Our choice for Peter to take a job that would move him 400 miles away from his family was a hard one…but made with confidence that it was the right choice. The signs were there, doors opening and paths smoothed to make the transition work.
And we’ve felt that as we plan this final move, to bring our family back together, those same doors would open and the paths would smooth again.
Yet, they haven’t.
It’s been frustration after disappointment and a lot of feeling as though we’re banging our heads against the wall.
I feel this urgency to move, to GO.NOW!
(here comes the crazy, stay with me)
I feel this rattling fear that if we don’t move now, something bad is going to happen. I can almost phsically feel the ties tightening around us here, and if we don’t break them and go, we are going to be here for a long time. Why is everything seeming to work against us? Is there a greater meaning to what feels like doors slamming shut?
Some part of me thinks we can outrun it. I don’t even hesitate to say how nutty it sounds. If Peyton’s going to relapse, she’s going to relapse regardless of WHERE we are. I KNOW that!
But for all the joy we’ve experienced lately, the happiness at her end of treatment, and the overwhelming relief at seeing her successfully go through her port surgery…I AM still a cancer mom in my head, with all the irrational panic that goes with the label. It doesn’t go away because she’s in remission. It doesn’t go away because we stop the chemo. It doesn’t go away because the port comes out. I don’t know WHEN it goes away. If it ever does.
When things go as planned, when it’s almost too easy, I know in my heart that we are on the right track.
When things are hard and we have to fight for every step forward, our experience is that it’s not going to happen.
I’m so frustrated…with the being separated, the not knowing what’s happening with our move, with the living under a cloud of doubt and fear…I’m tired of it.
I think we can outrun it.
If we can just get a house, she won’t relapse. If we can just start packing our boxes, the cancer won’t come back. If we can just find the first foothold into our new live, we CAN outrun the fear.
Yeah. CRAZY. I know it.
She had her monthly clinic visit for blood counts and a checkup…the one we’ll be doing every month for the next year…then bi-monthly the year after that…and so on and so on.
Her counts were good, exactly what they should be and fine and perfect and just FREAKING.NORMAL. She looks great, everyone says so.
But I need something to start working out, something to go right with this move. Because I’m tired of feeling like we’re being kept here for a reason.
I can’t deal with what that reason could be.
