irony

THE WITNESS

By Micah Teruya

Each step a struggle for you today.

Eyelids heavy,

Spirit defeated.

Energy has abandoned you.

My heart sinks as I watch you.

A dark inky fear just below the surface.

I wait for the inevitable,

But pray it never comes.

Beside me you sleep,

I hear your heavy breaths,

A sleep too deep for dreams

To truly manifest.

And when you wake will it be enough

to get you through the day?

Or will the only remedy

Steal from you again?

Let me tell you what irony is, irony is writing a blog about self-love and then having to spend the next week convincing yourself that you’re happy to be alive and that you really do love yourself too. If that doesn’t put you on your humble ass, I don’t know what does. I feel like an imposter. Where did all those feelings come from? Where is the compassion for myself? Why is it so hard all of a sudden to appreciate what I have and where I’m at right now ?

I repeat my own words back to myself and try to get settled into a place where my perspective is positive and hope is alive. But the last couple of days that just hasn’t been working for me. Maybe it’s this shitty weather, or maybe it really is just getting harder to be thankful. I guess you can’t stay in one feeling forever, even the good ones even if you try really hard.

That’s the thing thing about growth right? It’s not a perfect graph where we start at the bottom and experience a perfect trajectory that is always upward. Growth has dips. Those dips suck. I have been telling myself that the negative slopes on that graph do not mean that I am on a downward spiral. Valleys, dips, crashes, they are all part of the process. I remind myself that just because I am experiencing a dip doesn’t mean I have to stay there. But maybe I should stay there for a minute, and listen to that dip. But I can’t, I press the “ gratitude” button, but it’s out of service right now. It is putting all other perspectives and feelings on hold until I acknowledge this new one.

But making room for the things that I am feeling might be dangerous. It’s already erupted in broken picture frames and holes in doors. And if I’m honest (because I said I would be ) I think I am getting a little tired of talking about all the things that cancer can’t take.

Maybe, I am a little angry about the things that cancer does take.

I can feel my body asking me to acknowledge it. It’s giving me an indicator.

But I don’t want to acknowledge this or reflect on it long enough to feel something because, if I actually get angry I don’t know what I am going to do with that anger. My biggest fear is getting angry and watching it consume me and not being able to get out of that place.

But… I feel like to admit that I am angry (which I am not admitting that I am) but, if I were to, I would let cancer win. I have been able to avoid feelings of deep resentment associated with my diagnosis, by constantly affirming the positive which has allowed me to remain the one with the upper hand on cancer (as if it cares). I haven’t let it take my soul. If I were to lose focus and actually let myself get angry I feel like I would lose the game and my poster child status of “handling this so well”. My reserves of gratitude are running on fumes.

Maybe I’m avoiding this anger because I am just trying to preserve my pride. Which at this point, I thought at this point I was beyond. I should have known that I wasn’t, when I told myself I was. Is that irony too?

I am handling a shitty diagnosis pretty well. Almost everyday I wake up I am positive, accepting my limitations and working as hard as I can to work within them and push a little beyond. I want to be that person that doesn’t let cancer make them mad, or angry or bitter. If I really get angry it’s like I let cancer finally “break” me. It must be my way of maintaining control over my diagnosis. But this emotional wall I’ve hit the last week is making it really hard.

I put myself in a game with a lifeless disease that has no soul, no feelings, no nothing, just a shitty reproducing piece of broken DNA, and if I admit that I am angry at it I lose the game. Am I such a sick perfectionist that I made a game out of not being angry at a group of defective rapidly producing cells that nothing can control?

I can’t admit that I am angry because I don’t want to be angry and have cancer. That is a double negative whammy. I am scared to let myself grieve because I don’t know what’s going to happen if I do.

I am afraid of losing control of a negative emotion I am unfamiliar with. I know my body is begging me to acknowledge it and I have ignored it. Maybe I have refused because I don’t want to disappoint other people, or don’t want to disapoint myself. No one wants to be around an angry person. If I let myself experience that anger, will my friends and family be able to handle it? Will it be to much for them to me see so disappointed and discouraged?

I am realizing I might feel angry and discouraged about everything I have lost. And I might need to give some attention to those feelings. Deep down I know these feelings of anger will not define who I am. I won’t be in this dip forever but I do need to find a way give anger it’s space. I‘ve held space for sadness and fear, but anger and resentment? No. I thought I could skip that part. But the hole in my sisters door tells a different story.

The hardest part about all of this is despite achieving a third remission the side effects from treatments and medication have gotten drastically worse, my body continues to roll backwards and get weaker despite my best efforts. I am trying to put myself back together a third time but everything is falling apart. Everyday I feel less like myself. Even though there is no evidence of cancer in my blood, my daily life is consumed by managing the side effects and damage that it did do my body and continues to do.

As I write this out I am realizing that I need to stop fighting the dip. I might even need to sit there for a little bit. I have to let myself not be ok. I just realized I am the only person not giving myself permission to do this. My pride is preventing me from reflecting and letting myself experience anger and loss. If I don’t give myself permission I will become completely disconnected from myself. I’m learning that part of the growth is giving attention to all the feelings even if they’re ugly and I don’t want to experience them. Anger is an indicator, I know it has something to show me, I just don’t want to see it.

It’s ok to be angry, maybe it’s even ok to feel ungrateful sometimes. I am finding out I’m not beyond those feelings as much as I have tried to convince myself that I am. I know I could only have a few months left due to my diagnosis. The clock ticks loud some days and because of that I feel like I can’t afford to have a bad day. I can’t waste it on any negative thoughts or feelings. But I have to loosen my grip on the idea that everyday has to be a good day, it’s ok to be disappointed. I don’t have to make everyday perfect, its too exhausting. I want to be present, even for the dips. Sitting in the negative emotions is sometimes necessary, I don’t always have to chase them away, especially if they keep coming back. The only thing worse than anger is suppressed anger, and if I don’t want that I have to give myself permission to have a bad day.

Acknowledging anger does not mean I have to dwell on it, staying there is a choice. I know it has something to reveal, I just don’t want to get stuck there. I have to trust myself to give anger and disappointment the time it needs to exist and then move the fuck on.

It takes real courage to feel all the things, and is neccesary if we are going to move beyond them instead of suppress them. I can’t cherry pick just the happy ones if I want genuine growth and freedom.