Mush

Yesterday was Boxing Day. I know it has nothing to do with the sport of boxing, but I felt like I was in a match. I spent the day doing nothing. My body was incredibly wiped from the day before, recovering from all the activity. Today was much of the same. In fact, I didn’t leave my bed before noon. 

My stomach still aches with reflux and has trouble digesting, my taste buds defy me and make everything taste horrible, and my eye is so swollen from the dry eye that it’s sore if I close it tightly. But the harder part is the mental load of these symptoms. See, I’m “cancer free” but still in treatment, still healing from my surgery, still struggling with these side effects. My eyes are so dry I haven’t been able to shed a tear in a month! I haven’t been able to feel my feelings. And I’m scared…

I start work next week, full time, feet to the fire, and yet I can barely get myself off the sofa. My desire to stay alive is so strong, yet my drive to live is weak. And that scares me. I don’t recognize myself right now. From the outside looking in, I look lazy, wasting time, doing nothing. I keep judging myself. But I’m tired, deeply tired inside. My breathing is slow, my appetite is weak, my stamina is nonexistent. The person I was, the things I did, they feel like a distant memory, and yet they haunt me, taunting me to get up and exercise like I used to, or even approach life with the joie de vivre I’ve always had. I’m more melancholy and indifferent. And I wish I wasn’t. I just can’t seem to help what’s happening to me, and everyone says to show myself grace…and I do…but every time I open that door, I keep losing a part of myself. I’m in the cocoon and I’ve become that gooey stuff. I’m no longer a caterpillar and not yet a butterfly. I’m just mush. I think I need to start talking to a therapist…I have so much to process.