The Tides of Healing

Wednesdays are my favorite days. I guess it isn't a bad day to look forward to-- it's Hump Day, after all-- but that's not at all why I enjoy it. I love Wednesdays for many reasons, including seeing Charlie before he goes to work and eating breakfast at Whole Foods while doing the crossword. I also love Wednesdays because it's therapy day. One hour of luxurious and painful self-care a week. It's amazing. Today was even more extra spectacularly special because I also had a meeting at the Cancer Center at Queen's Hospital. While it was weird to walk through the hospital knowing where my destination was and all the implications that visit held, it should have also been celebratory since I was not there as a patient, but a survivor.

But it's complicated.

And that's why therapy. I've always kind of been one for introspection. I've kept a journal since at least the fifth grade, and how many nights did I spend as a teenager lying down in the dark listening to the musical musings of Perry Farrell or the Pixies ask probing and relevant questions? A shy bookish girl dying to make meaningful connections with people around her spends a lot of time thinking about who she is and how and where she fits in, believe me. Anyway, through therapy and this persistent introspection, I've realized that I was thinking of recovery/healing all wrong. I keep thinking it's supposed to be like getting sick in that once you're better, it's over. You're better. Pau. Done. No need to worry anymore. It isn't. Thinking of these things as the highs and lows of a roller coaster has never been one of my favorite analogies. It confers value and puts the highs and lows in opposition to each other, which I don't think is necessarily how things rate in real life. I like the image of ebb and flow. You're less likely to think that ebb is better than flow or vice versa in the same way that you might desire more highs than lows.

So, ebb and flow. I keep setting these goals for myself, and they're pretty damn arbitrary and probably unrealistic, anyway. Once I started to feel my body kind of settle, I assumed my hormones were back to normal and I'd start feeling okay from there on out. Wrong. The hormones are always in flux, I'm always in flux, and though I felt normal for a few days, I'd start to feel funny again. And I resisted that change. I was in denial. And this kind of cycle has been pretty normal for a while, and each time I fall from that high, I feel so much disappointment in myself. But as I pondered this in the shower a couple days ago, it finally hit me: recovery is a process that happens over time. This is important because knowing is half the battle, as they say. I can be kinder to myself, more forgiving, because healing isn't going to just happen as if by fairy godmother decree. I won't see it as failure on my part if I begin to feel junk again because there's no expectation that I should be cured all of a sudden. I'm also reminded that even when things are challenging, life won't always suck.

This Wednesday, January 9th, has been good day. It also happened to be a long day that began at 3:30 in the morning and ended with a doctor's appointment for Lu at five in the afternoon. I got to drive in the pau hana traffic TWICE today! But you know, I'm not at all complaining. I feel tired without feeling depleted. I feel challenged and also hopeful.