Monday, August 16, 2010

Forgetting.....

Remember in my last post where I said that I was checking out this weekend camping? Well, I really did check out. As soon as we hit Mt Rainer National Park, my sick stomach went away, my anxiety melted away, and I was, well, me. Not worrying about my schedule, how is it going to work when Mason is in Kindergarten, how will my parents cope with driving him to and from, how hard will be be on Nolan without his brother, etc. I forgot it all. We went with Karissa and her family. It was a pretty lazy weekend and even though I had a few bad hours where I was close to the campsite and closer to the bathroom, we had a great weekend. Grant even took the rain fly off the tent (which is like an act of GOD - it is like he needs to always have the rain fly on and I am like, "Really? This weekend? Really?") and I got to just look up at the trees because the top of our tent is all screen. There is actually no better place in the world then in our tent on my air mattress with all of our sleeping bags, blankets, etc protecting me from the great outdoors (ground, rocks, tree roots, etc.), but being in the great outdoors looking up at the sky. I was just there - no worries, no cell phone, no hospital, no doctors, no Kindergarten, nothing. Nolan and I spent a long time looking up, talking about the shapes of the branches, what there story was, and how life was going to be for them. Don't really know how he got there, but hey, I went with it. When Jane was here, she read an article on the importance of "forgetting". We talked about it a lot and what it meant for both of us. I was so checked out that when I came home, I just started doing my thing. I got tired, but rested and then kept going. This morning, I thought nothing of taking Africa to the vet for her teeth cleaning, taking the boys to Joannes to pick up a couple thing Jane and I talked about, and then going to Old Navy to get jeans for Mason. (ALL of his jeans have a hole in the right knee, not the left, all on the right. He is also past the point of accepting patches on his pants. He used to love them - now, NOT GONNA HAPPEN. Whatever!) I got home exhausted, but I wasn't nervous, or anxious, or anything, I was just me. I even started thinking about dinner......like what I was going to make and then I saw a cooler at my front porch and I was like, "OMG, it is Monday and dinner is already here." I totally forgot. Good thing Jill was on top of it, with a cooler and everything. She even brought what I thought about having. Now, that is WEIRD. Well done Jill - you are now clairvoyant!!! So, what do I think about all of this? I think I need to forget more. Let go. Hang it up. Forgetaboutit. How do I plan on doing that? Well, being the type of planning/project manager person that I am, I am going to reinstate "No cancer days" where I don't talk about it, I don't blog about it, I don't do anything with it. It really worked last time. So, if you call me and want to talk about, I may have to tell you that I can't. If you come by and want to talk about it, I may just change the subject. I need to forget. The blog is good for that. I can put my feelings down and then I am done. People can see them if they want and if there is no new post, please assume that everything is fine, that I am just forgetting, or perfectly happy being with my boys and trying to suck every last minute out of summer. If I am in chemo that week, assume that I am sick for at least four days usually more like six. I love the emails that people send, I love to posts to the blog, I love the visits when people drop off food or clean. The part that is hard is when my phone calls and conversations are dominated by cancer. That exhausts me. I know that people are curious, they want to know, help, etc., and I can talk about it for hours - there is a lot to it! When I go somewhere and all I do is talk about cancer, I leave feeling defeated like I don't know anything about the real world - their world, but everyone knows everything about my butt and, worse that "it" is winning by dominating my life. And that I just cannot tolerate. So, here is to NOT talking about cancer, here is to the blog being my engine, and here is to forgetting more!!!! Happy Monday, Ang

2 comments:

Kari George said...

Forgetting? WOW...that's a huge thing! Way to go Ang! I need to do more forgetting and just go with it! Glad you had a great time camping...I'd love to hear all about it!

Maureen Wolfson said...

Angie,
This is Maureen... friend of Jen Clarke's. Just wanted to post a note saying that I was following you and sending all the good vibes your way that I can. I appreciated your advice to me back when I was goign through chemo. I found that denial has worked really well for me. I still went for treatment, took care of myself but mentally, sort of denied the cancer. Hard to explain... like, I'm sick, i need to go through this crap, but I WILL BE BETTER.

YOU WILL BE BETTER :-)