I'm Not Actually OK

This is a post about the cracks- the cracks in my positivity, my resolve, my sanity. This is a post about the fact that even despite my best efforts, I'm really not ok.

I have endured a lot of pain over the past five years. Divorce was awful and all that went with it was enough to make any person give up on love and joy. But I also watched students that I loved go through pain for years on the reservation, and it hurt. For a long time I was in darkness and I didn't know how to get out.

And now here I am with another wave of shitty sad things hitting me smack in the face. And I've tried so hard not to feel sad about it because I've been so afraid of sinking into the darkness again. Cancer is the worst, but I've barely cried about it. I've been grateful that I caught it early, that surgery was successful, that my diagnosis is considered "good." But I couldn't figure out how to couple that with true anger and frustration, sadness and pain.

And then I started chemo.

I don't think anything or anyone could have prepared me for this. I feel yucky almost all of the time. My body feels like it belongs to someone else. I am so tired and my mind is seriously like a very forgetful looney bin. If I had to say which was worse, divorce or chemo, right now its a draw. This stuff is hard.

I am so tired of going through hard things. I am so tired of having my strength challenged and my resolve bombarded. I want a margarita on a beach with a hot man next to me telling me that he's never seen anyone look better in such a teeny bikini. Or even just a milkshake. At this point, I'd just take a free milkshake.

The point is, tonight I cracked. I just got so frustrated at the lack of control I have over my own self. So I got home and I cried. I cried really really hard.

But amazingly, 4 beautiful things also happened tonight when I finally let the floodgates of my frustration be released.

1. One of my students from the rez called me. I couldn't be more proud of this kid and it was a great reminder of the bigger picture God has in mind when we go through hard things.

2. I called my warrior friend. She told me it didn't make me less strong if I wept. She said I can be grateful and mad as hell. She gave me a permission slip to feel it all. And she promised me I would make it through.

3. I got the most insanely beautiful and perfect gift box from my sister. If you know the tidal waves my sister and I have been through over the last 29 years (she will admit it too!) you will know that the beauty of this box and the love and care with which it was put together was like the final healing of a wound I think we both needed to be healed. I cried some more.

4. My other warrior friend decided to give me a call. She didn't know that today was my worst day. She didn't know that I was struggling. But she was struggling today too. And we laughed and we cried and she told me the piece of truth I had been missing.

She told me that I can feel the pain of this and not dwell in it. I can face the darkness and not let it consume me. I can be mad and frustrated and pissed and then dust off the pain and stand up to face the day. Because we have been through worse and it has not defeated us.

Ya'll, for the first time since chemo, I felt true peace tonight. My brain has wrestled with the tug of anxiety since I had to sit in that damn chair, but tonight, God spoke through my people. And He reminded me that He is the breath in my lungs and He will not let this be the end of me.

So I will go ahead and say, I am not ok. And this is hard. And I am mad and I hate it and I wish I wasn't going through it. But I will prevail, because He is stronger and His power is made perfect in my weakness.

It doesn't make it better. But it definitely makes it bearable.