For many people the true crisis of cancer hits when they get through the first course of treatment and try to go on as if life is "back to normal", only to stumble upon the hideous truth that there is no normal. There is no ground under you. There is nothing to hang on to, nothing to count on. You are not in Kansas anymore, and you can never go back. Do not pass Go, do not click ruby slipper heels together(I hope you expect weird mixed references from me by now).
Anway, here's what you find out: cancer has changed you.
This hit me all at once during that first phone call. I knew life was going to change drastically (asteroid strike-drastically) forever.
I've never been one to hang on to the past, to things that no longer serve, to ideas or people that let me down. I tend to focus on Moving Onward. I've loved my life more each year as I've aged....pretty much until January.
I still love being alive, of course. I love my people and seeing spring again. I love writing and storytelling, which I'm doing as much as I can.
But it will never be what it was.
There's a kind of constant catching up with reality that my brain does through the day; for example, I think long-term health out of habit so I hesitate to take sleeping pills, but my oncologists want me to to get good sleep right now, and for all purposes going forward there IS only right now.
It's a whole new world and you get a whole new self.
R1 (The original version of Robyn/Robbie/Rob) is over and done. That's the aspect of death that already happened. I need to move on.
So, especially with all the radio wave contacts and wires taped on my head, I'm going to move ahead anew: I'm R2.
He's a really cute robot.
I wish there was a button on your blogs to say I read this. I don't necessarily have a comment but I always want you to know that you are heard and I'm with you even we we haven't talked in a while
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