I am not sure how I am feeling today...
Yesterday I took this picture of my 5 year old daughter, who hates getting up for school. She says lots of cute things, like...
''I am full of hands'' when her hands are full. And also,
''Can you inside out this for me?'' when her clothes are inside out.
When she wants more sleep she says, ''Just a little more whiles.''
Unbeknownst to me, while she was asking for a little more whiles, a few miles down the road from our house, a teacher at her school was driving to work at the exact same time that a sheriff's deputy fell asleep behind the wheel.
She died almost instantly in a head-on collision. Her husband got there before she died, but she was so torn apart they wouldn't let him see her.
I feel like there has been a lot of death happening lately, and that coupled with what would have been my brother's 31st birthday has left me feeling melancholy.
On the same day, I received some great news: I have been pre-approved for a mortgage and will receive my letter one month after I start my job, on August 25th. My birthday is on September 5th, so for all intents and purposes, I can start looking for a new house for my birthday and move in during my favorite season, Autumn. I can already see my new porch brimming with pumpkins and gourds and my then-8 year old son baking his famous pumpkin pie in our new kitchen.
I have also started filling out the legal separation form online.
Even though I am filled with hope for the future, I cannot help but feel melancholy, too.
I just want a little more whiles.
A little more time with my last baby before I go back to work. I feel like cancer has robbed me of his babyhood, that I have blinked my eyes and now he is a toddler.
A little more time getting my children off of the school bus. Once I go back to work, I won't be able to do that anymore.
A little more time with my husband before I move out. When I lay beside him, I remember all of the places we shared a bed. His old loft room in England. Our fancy hotel in Times Square after our wedding. A pink tent in India. A beach shack in Thailand. A weird European hotel in Brussels. A cute bed and breakfast in the Cotswolds, after seeing Stonehenge. Our first apartment in Atlanta. Our first house in the suburbs. Our dream house, with a view of the lake out of our bedroom window. Waking up every morning to see a beautiful sunrise from our own room and can't believing our luck.
I can't help but mourn all that I am leaving behind to eke out a new life for myself after cancer.
I can't help but feel cheated, and wondering why this happened to me.
I can't help but think I am an idiot for abandoning this life I worked so hard to create for myself.
I can't help but question walking away from 11 years of marriage, where we have barely had an argument.
I can't help but look at pictures of myself before cancer and think, ''I really miss her.''
I can't help but feeling like a part of myself died the day my diagnosis rained down upon me.
When you are faced with mortality, you want just a little more whiles. Just a little more of what makes you happy to be alive, whatever that may be.
I suppose in some ways, cancer has given me a valuable gift in the knowledge that having just a little more whiles is very powerful. Some people, like the teacher killed in the head-on collision, just die instantly, without ever having the chance to have just a little more whiles. Without ever having the chance to really ponder what life means to them, and what they need in order to be truly happy.
In the face of all of this melancholy, I still feel hope.
I feel hopeful that I will love my new job, and having colleagues, students, and a classroom again.
I feel hopeful that I will eventually be content with not being married to my husband anymore, and take comfort in knowing that won't change all of the beautiful memories we have together, and the children we have created that will go on to do amazing things with their lives. That we will still be close friends and happily live as co-parents instead of husband and wife.
I feel hopeful that I will find a little house for myself and my children, where we can have lots of lovely memories together, of holidays, and baking, and gardening, and spraying each other with the garden hose on hot summer days and building snowmen in the winter. It may not be the grand Georgian house on the lake, but it will be mine, bought all on my own.
I feel hopeful that one day I might meet Mr. Wonderful, and he will love me the way I need to be loved.
I feel hopeful that I will take my children on adventures they will always remember, like camping, or piling into the car and spending the summer going to the beaches of Long Island where I grew up, or visiting friends and family all over the country, like my Aunt who lives on a wild life preserve in Oregon, or my cousin in Los Angeles. It may not be jetting off to England anymore, but they can always do that with their Dad.
Most of all, I feel hopeful that my cancer will never come back. It will leave me alone, and I will live a long, happy life as a daughter of the Universe, where I will live to see my children well into adulthood, and become Teacher of the Year, and get my master's, and publish my writing, and help as many people as I can, in whatever way that I can. I will remain humble all of the days of my life and never do wrong to anyone, and be immensely grateful for the chance just to be alive.
Being human is about feeling it all though, isn't it? All that life has to offer. The sadness, the loss, the mourning, the beauty, the courage, the strength, the love. Even the hope and the melancholy.
Like everyone, I want just a little more whiles.
Yesterday I took this picture of my 5 year old daughter, who hates getting up for school. She says lots of cute things, like...
''I am full of hands'' when her hands are full. And also,
''Can you inside out this for me?'' when her clothes are inside out.
When she wants more sleep she says, ''Just a little more whiles.''
 |
| My daughter and I a year ago today May 16, 2017 |
Unbeknownst to me, while she was asking for a little more whiles, a few miles down the road from our house, a teacher at her school was driving to work at the exact same time that a sheriff's deputy fell asleep behind the wheel.
She died almost instantly in a head-on collision. Her husband got there before she died, but she was so torn apart they wouldn't let him see her.
I feel like there has been a lot of death happening lately, and that coupled with what would have been my brother's 31st birthday has left me feeling melancholy.
On the same day, I received some great news: I have been pre-approved for a mortgage and will receive my letter one month after I start my job, on August 25th. My birthday is on September 5th, so for all intents and purposes, I can start looking for a new house for my birthday and move in during my favorite season, Autumn. I can already see my new porch brimming with pumpkins and gourds and my then-8 year old son baking his famous pumpkin pie in our new kitchen.
I have also started filling out the legal separation form online.
Even though I am filled with hope for the future, I cannot help but feel melancholy, too.
I just want a little more whiles.
A little more time with my last baby before I go back to work. I feel like cancer has robbed me of his babyhood, that I have blinked my eyes and now he is a toddler.
A little more time getting my children off of the school bus. Once I go back to work, I won't be able to do that anymore.
A little more time with my husband before I move out. When I lay beside him, I remember all of the places we shared a bed. His old loft room in England. Our fancy hotel in Times Square after our wedding. A pink tent in India. A beach shack in Thailand. A weird European hotel in Brussels. A cute bed and breakfast in the Cotswolds, after seeing Stonehenge. Our first apartment in Atlanta. Our first house in the suburbs. Our dream house, with a view of the lake out of our bedroom window. Waking up every morning to see a beautiful sunrise from our own room and can't believing our luck.
I can't help but mourn all that I am leaving behind to eke out a new life for myself after cancer.
I can't help but feel cheated, and wondering why this happened to me.
I can't help but think I am an idiot for abandoning this life I worked so hard to create for myself.
I can't help but question walking away from 11 years of marriage, where we have barely had an argument.
I can't help but look at pictures of myself before cancer and think, ''I really miss her.''
 |
| Missing ''her'': At the Renaissance Faire in April 2017, a few days before my diagnosis |
When you are faced with mortality, you want just a little more whiles. Just a little more of what makes you happy to be alive, whatever that may be.
I suppose in some ways, cancer has given me a valuable gift in the knowledge that having just a little more whiles is very powerful. Some people, like the teacher killed in the head-on collision, just die instantly, without ever having the chance to have just a little more whiles. Without ever having the chance to really ponder what life means to them, and what they need in order to be truly happy.
In the face of all of this melancholy, I still feel hope.
I feel hopeful that I will love my new job, and having colleagues, students, and a classroom again.
I feel hopeful that I will eventually be content with not being married to my husband anymore, and take comfort in knowing that won't change all of the beautiful memories we have together, and the children we have created that will go on to do amazing things with their lives. That we will still be close friends and happily live as co-parents instead of husband and wife.
I feel hopeful that I will find a little house for myself and my children, where we can have lots of lovely memories together, of holidays, and baking, and gardening, and spraying each other with the garden hose on hot summer days and building snowmen in the winter. It may not be the grand Georgian house on the lake, but it will be mine, bought all on my own.
I feel hopeful that one day I might meet Mr. Wonderful, and he will love me the way I need to be loved.
I feel hopeful that I will take my children on adventures they will always remember, like camping, or piling into the car and spending the summer going to the beaches of Long Island where I grew up, or visiting friends and family all over the country, like my Aunt who lives on a wild life preserve in Oregon, or my cousin in Los Angeles. It may not be jetting off to England anymore, but they can always do that with their Dad.
Most of all, I feel hopeful that my cancer will never come back. It will leave me alone, and I will live a long, happy life as a daughter of the Universe, where I will live to see my children well into adulthood, and become Teacher of the Year, and get my master's, and publish my writing, and help as many people as I can, in whatever way that I can. I will remain humble all of the days of my life and never do wrong to anyone, and be immensely grateful for the chance just to be alive.
Being human is about feeling it all though, isn't it? All that life has to offer. The sadness, the loss, the mourning, the beauty, the courage, the strength, the love. Even the hope and the melancholy.
Like everyone, I want just a little more whiles.
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