Post Turkey weekend cheer

I had an absolutely marvelous long holiday weekend. I relaxed, ate, and laughed...a lot. Twice I had people say, "cute hat!" and I felt young and sassy. This might be the beginning of me looking for the bigger picture for why this happened. God always has a really good reason for everything and the problem is usually that I cannot see his logic or see beyond the pain to the positive outcome. Was I too dependant on my hair to give me confidence? Had I been subconciously critical of appearances? Did I need to let go and grow some more? I can't ever really know but it is all good.

Hats

At the risk of sounding like a cliche, read this high and lilting, with the voice inflections of Shirley Temple - I dare you.

"Say! How about, instead of getting a butch hair cut and being depressed, I pull out all of my old hats! I used to wear hats all the time. Hats are swell and they keep your head warm and - golly - winter is just around the corner. I have cowboy hats, knit hats, baseball hats, vamp hats, voyager hats, skunk-skin hats, Amish hats, pillbox hats, top hats...why you name it and I probably have one. Golly Gee sure! That's what I'll do."

OK, yes, maybe so. Not a bad idea. OK, but without the accent.

Obsessive vanity

My hair has been a pretty hot topic lately (in my mind anyway). I have been trying to decide if I should cut it short - like pixie short - and wear it that way for a while. That's not a big deal, right?

Except that I have lost about 60% of the volume in the last 30 days and although it is just a temporary loss as a result of the stress my body underwent last July, it rattles a woman's vanity. Just a couple years and it will be back...or so I hear. At least it isn't all falling out from Chemo ... it could have been that.

For most of my life I have had a lot of hair and all the way to my waist and I enjoyed being able to bun or braid or mop or whatever it. I like variety. I have never liked the maintenance of daily curling iron regimes - just not me. My husband trimmed off a foot so it is shoulder length now but really thin. If I cut it short I will need to style it or something and besides, I am heavier and older and wrinkly now and short hair will be so radically different for me - and it will be thin and wispy to boot. I am now obsessing about it and that is just vanity!

I never thought my hair defined me but I guess whatever becomes our norm becomes who we are and we build some degree of confidence around it even if it is on a subconscious level. Maybe I need to reinvent that part of me?

For now I think I will just cry some more, OK?

Need a roadmap.

I am processing emotions ... and reality ... and ethereal fears with such wild abandon that I can barely make sense of it. A friend told me to journal it out. That makes sense but the act of writing usually has so much baggage for me that is rooted in process such as spelling or sentence structure I usually loose inertia. Any previous attempt in my life has proven that, be-it journal, blog, or sketchbook. I also have a bad tendency to worry about someone seeing this at some point. But, if I am speaking the truth and about myself then it cannot be misconstrued as detrimental to others, right? Whatever tool I DO end up using, there is the definite need to process - and with more speed and clarity than is presently happening.

Don't misunderstand this post. I am not sick again or in some kind of traumatic spin - I just am in transition and need to decide on and act on the question, "who am I and who do I want to be tomorrow?" I feel like a 12 year old again.

Grateful

I am OK. I just came from my oncologist and my tests confirm that I am officially "disease free". My blood count is now at 14.3 - up from 4 in mid July. I am told it may take a year to be 100% and that I should not be so hard on myself, or impatient. OK. I was also told that this mood swinging malaise bordering on full blown depression is actually a result of coming off 2 months of mega doses of steroids - with the optimum word being OFF! Yea. I just need to find happy buttons like my art or some other creative outlet, and use them before I hurt someone at work. Hee heehee.
I am OK, and I am grateful.

Emotional sit-ups

Rather than be hard on myself (my natural reaction) I have got to be a little more realistic, and therefor forgiving. I keep assuming that my present physical condition-or state of mind-or work status is something that I have full control over and that if I were a stronger person, a wiser or more spiritual person, a better worker, everything would be great, right now!

Well, I am not in control and it is unrealistic to assume it could or should be fixed instantly. Besides, what is fixed, or even normal? It is this kind of skewed thinking that made me, an intelligent and self sufficient woman, become ensnared in an abusive relationship years ago and I should know better as a result.

The reality is - I am a woman, with all of the wonderful pros and cons of an earth bound biological creature ranging from physical maladies to emotional imbalances. Oh, sometimes I do it better - much like being more fit when I have been doing sit-ups or riding my bike. Other times I am out of shape because it is late winter and the holiday eating and the cabin-bound activities have left me that way - or I have been sick and it takes a day or a week or a month or several months to get back up to physical norms...or emotional norms. It takes time ... and discipline ... and patience ... and self forgiveness.

I am battling depression. I read the articles that told me that this weaning process from the medicines will cause depression but I still internalized the emotion. And I got mad at myself for it like I had control over the effects of powerful drugs, and their withdrawals. And I expected myself to be instantly right again without the long process of getting back in shape. Somehow I forgot that I would need to build my body and my mind back by doing exercises. I would need walk and do emotional sit-ups. I would need to find a new balance and a new normal.

And I am annoyed with myself because I just realized that I had told myself that if I were a stronger person, a wiser or more spiritual person, a better worker, everything would be great, right now!

Perservere to endure ...

I am struggling to maintain my calmer and more positive, newly re-acquired emotional continence - and it scares me.

I cannot tell if the problem is that my new optimism was merely a chemical vapor built on medication that I am now being weaned off of, or a genuine flicker of my true, positive, core self that retreats when confronted by negativity. Either way, I need to get control pretty quickly or I am going to revert back to the angry and unhappy person I had become.

I want calm. I want optimism. I want balance. I realize that I should not expect either the people or the environments that are a part of my daily activities to change because I want them to. In all actuality, many do not need to change at all. Even if I could become a positive catalyst to those elements that are negative in nature, change is not fast. Leaving the negative environment is not the entire solution either because if part of the problem is my own control over how much negativity I internalize, I would only take it with me when I go and reinfect the new place. Besides, if leaving is the best plan for me, doing that would also take time and I need to stop the decline now, before it becomes entrenched again.

So I sit quietly and try to glue little handles to the good thoughts and feelings that remain from my near death euphoria so that I can hang on tight ... for dear life.