Cracks In The Facade

This is the week where I finally hit the emotional wall.  Where taking that next step and maintaining a sunny disposition has become too much.  Where looking on the bright side and keeping my chin up feels like a load of malarkey that I'll never be able to sell to anyone else, let alone myself.

And yet?

We keep moving forward anyway.  Keep putting one foot in front of the other and trying to find a silver lining in the enormously piled up clouds on my horizon, clouds filled with toxic chemo and radiation and all sorts of physical and emotional nasties.  Clouds so heavy and full that they are threatening to drag me under today.

This week is the first time in all of this morass of breast cancer where the undertow of fear and grief and the unknown is threatening to drag me down.  And that scares me, not just for my own sake but also for my family.

I could literally lose myself altogether in this fear. 

It is definitely going to be a day of taking long, deep, cleansing breaths and figuring out how I can allow some cracks in my cheery facade, some fear and grief and tears to seep through, without drowning myself in all of this.  But I cannot afford to start off next week feeling this shaky.

It's time to put on my big girl panties and find that inner core of strength again.  Not just for my sake, but for my family as well.



So I'm going to do the thing that I do when the road ahead gets bumpy:  take care of my family, reach out and hold them tight and pull my strength from how much we love each other. 

No idea what we'll end up having for dinner tonight, but it needs to be something comforting and also healthy, to nurture all of us through this fear together.  I'm feeling the need for some refuge and care today, and I know they are feeling it as well.

The road is about to get a lot rougher next week when the chemo begins.  We could all use a little respite beforehand.

Perhaps today is a good day to try out a good Julia Child recipe, light a few candles for the dinner table, and take a sojourn to Paris via some culinary slight of hand. 

Cancer has taken enough chunks out of my hide the last few years.  It absolutely doesn't get the rest of me.  Finding a way to live with the same comfort and joy that we had prior to all of this is tough, but I will find it:  life is too short to live it in fear, especially when you have as much to live for as I do.

(Photo by Christy Hardin Smith, of our daughter on Hilton Head Island during a sunrise walk along the shoreline.  This picture takes me right back to that moment:  the crisply cold breeze, the seagulls following us hoping we had snacks, the crash of the waves, and holding my daughter's chilly hand to help her warm it along the way...I can almost smell the salty tang in the air just thinking about it.)