5 years ago, today, I fell to my knees and stopped living. Just for a second. Everything got dark. I closed my eyes to just BE in the darkness. Then I started to hear the kids playing on the playground. I could feel the hands of my friends on my back and shoulders pressing into me. They kept me grounded. They made me feel like I could come back from the darkness.
I had just received a phone call from my doctor, who calmly explained that my biopsy test results came back positive for hormone positive DCIS (Ductal Carcinoma In Situ). It was stage 0, and that was the good news. But the next 9 months of my life, she said, would suck.
I processed it. As much as anyone could with that kind of news. I stood up, walked two steps and collapsed. Not fully. Just to my knees.
Since then, things have slowly gotten back to normal, health-wise. Then in 2020, when I was designated to be cancer-free, life was interrupted by a pandemic. But now we are mostly back to normal (whatever that really is). I am busy volunteering. I drive to soccer, art, and martial arts. I listen to golf stories and playground mishaps. I cook what feels like ten thousand meals a week and fold what feels like thirty thousand loads of laundry.
But I always know this day is coming. Since 2019, March has been a horrible month for me. It was the month I had my first mammogram. Then my second mammogram. Then my first MRI. Then my first biopsy. Then my cancer diagnosis. Every March feels like a bad mood I cannot shake. I am snippy with people I love. I can’t get out of the funk with exercise or chocolate or extra sleep. It feels like I am walking along the longest road, and I cannot see the end or find a way to turn off it.
So, with that in mind, I scheduled myself to be busy today. I have tried to fill up every single second of the day. I did not want to have one second to spare. However, a quiet second snuck in right before I dropped my daughter off at school. We were in traffic congestion around school and there was a pause between awful Britney and Christina songs she was playing from her phone, and I teared up. I was grateful to be sitting in traffic listening to her music of choice. Later in the day, while I was subbing Kindergarten, a quiet second snuck up on me again and a tear ran down my face while I was putting light purple stars across equations that added up to 10. I was grateful to be able to read the backwards 5s. I was grateful to have my last name butchered by kindergartener pronunciation. I was even grateful for my favorite kid throwing a punch at my privates. No worries - I caught his fist.
The afternoon and evening got quieter, with one kid doing homework and the other neck deep in a science fair project. It got too quiet, in fact, and the emotions rolled over me like a wave, dragging me under so I could not breathe. And this time, I let myself get dragged under. Because every other moment of every other day, I tread water or swim to shore. Every other day, I am strong. But in this moment, I am not. And I just let it be.
I feel like I can label this darkness as grief – grief for the carefree life I had before the diagnosis. It felt like I was having the emotions of the moment I found out I had cancer but without the same circumstances. This time it was while I was cooking ground beef, while I was listening to a friend talk about the difficulties of planning a trip over the summer, while I was discussing an upcoming schedule change with my daughter. It felt like I had just heard I had cancer but was in these seemingly non-associated moments.
Today was not a day to celebrate, nor was it a day like all the others. It was a day to acknowledge grief for what it is. It was a day for acceptance of where I am now because of what has happened in the past. It was a day to find small things to be grateful for. It was a day to move through.
Because five years is a long time to live with trauma. It is the trauma of waiting for test results. The trauma of knowing something is invading your body that can harm you. The trauma of fear taking you down paths you would never go down on your own. But the trauma gets better with time. I have learned techniques to ground myself. I have learned when to walk away. But the journey I went through, and all its baggage, is a part of who I am now. It did not make me who I am, but it has carved out places in my psyche that will undoubtedly affect my future.
So it is with acceptance that I acknowledge this day of wood – and I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t smile and shake my head just a little bit at the absurdity of “wood” as a symbol of celebration.
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