Phew. I haven't written like this a awhile. Raw, honest, unafraid. I love writing poetry. I love hiding behind my words, leaving it up to you to figure out what I mean.
I am confused.
I've cried more in the past week than I have since diagnosis.
Weird, because I don't cry. (Sometimes I joke that cancer used up all my tears, or maybe it's the meds that suppress my emotions. I don't cry.)
I saw a show last Thursday titled Sarah and the Dinosaur: A play about a girl, her cancer, and a dinosaur.
Cancer used up all my tears? Ha.
Nope. I cried for about ten (?) minutes after the show ended. It was honest, and real. I related to almost every scene. It was uncanny how similar our experiences were, or maybe it's just a survivor thing?
The cryptic phone message? Check.
Quitting your job? Uh-huh.
Being one of the few who doesn't lose their hair and "look sick"? Yup.
I could go on. In fact, I will.
There are the best intentioned people who try and try to heal you. A fridge full of lettuce, weird diets. Your mom having to do all the gross stuff. Bedpans, bathing, it's like you're an infant again. Except this time, you can talk, and have been independent for the past 18 years of your life.
In the last scene, Sarah dances with her dinosaur. She's realized he's never going to leave. She has to learn to live with it.
Sometimes I forget it happened, then in movement, I'll point my toe, and my scar rudely reminds me, "Hey, Esther, your last surgery was in June!"
Can I say this? Me, the tower of hope and optimism, (well, sometimes) can I say that I'm scared?
Frightened that Cancer might get hungry again, and find my cells tasty.
Again.
Sometimes I wonder if where I am right now is the eye of a storm, and I'm holding my breath for. . .
Don't think about it.
These are the things I didn't know, until I sat down and wrote.
I'm confused.
Why did the play make me cry?
Am I wallowing?
Shouldn't I be okay by now?
Why am I still talking about this?
I recorded an album, for crying out loud. Isn't that therapy enough?
Why can't I put this all behind?
Why did the play make me cry?
I cried, because folks, I'm dancing with a dinosaur.
Or, as I put it in a post last year: There Was No Funeral
Yes, I acknowledged that things were different, but then I released an EP, had surgery, performed in two Winnipeg Fringe shows, and moved to Rosebud.
I was determined to prove myself, to show that I had overcome huge obstacles, and could do the program.
I talk about it; everyone asks how you came to Rosebud, The staff knew. I've been waiting three years to get here. Everyone knows I had cancer.
But I left the theatre last week burning, aching to tell my story. To be asked how the play impacted me. I wanted to explain that what we witnessed on stage had also taken place in my living room.
I've told my story on radio, TV, and in newspapers. But they only want sound bytes, the encouraging stuff, so that's what I focused on.
Have I told you about the ugly parts?
Read back over my blog, and you'll see them.
When can I talk about it? I'm afraid of my story, in it's entirety, being too much to handle. I use humour to diffuse the truth.
Nobody really wants to know all that stuff.
But, what can I do with all the memories that have been stirred up?
As my acting instructors would say, bring that into the room with you.
How?
Now I'm rambling. I don't have answers. Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow, and wonder what the hell I was thinking to post this. But, I've been challenged lately to be honest, so here it is, the dis-jointed sentences, confused, tired, ugly-honest.
Me.
