I spend a lot of time thinking when I am at work. I have to. Work is, at times, pretty mindless. Stock this. Sign that. Move those. Damage these. File that there. So, while I am doing all these tasks, my mind wanders here and there. Today I spent my day dealing with my truck and thinking about an incident that happened earlier in the week. Bear with me... My thoughts are still not very organized.
I have been trying to get in to see a doctor at MD Anderson for over a month. I have been talking about this with my wife and my mother. We have a friend in Houston who we wanted to visit. Since we are going to be there, it seemed like a good idea to kill two birds with one stone and try to get in to the number one cancer hospital to talk to someone about my options. See... I am a very logical woman. It just makes sense, right? I finally heard back from someone at the hospital this past week. In my excitement, I posted about it on Facebook while I was answering a million questions on the phone. (Uh-Oh... Facebook posts... how many "issues" in families start with an innocent status update?) I don't really think anything about it. I never do. I have relatives and friends all over the place who I like to keep informed about what is happening with me medically. FB allows me to inform everyone at once, without having to make a million phone calls, answer the same questions over and over and repeat myself over and over and over... To me, this is logical. Saves time and energy, two things that I have a finite supply of these days. Well, apparently I have some family members who do not think this way. Rather than conserve my time and energy, I should be using extra time and extra energy to inform people individually. I should be thinking not about what is most convenient for me ( the person who has the terminal illness), but I should instead be more concerned about the feeling of others (the people who do NOT have a terminal illness). Which brought me to my next set of thoughts as I spent 4 hours lifting boxes of candy onto the top shelves of the stockroom bins.
It's hard losing someone you love. Having someone in your life who is dying is hard. You want to spend as much time with them as possible. You cling to them, imagining what life will be like when they are gone... how sad and lonely you will be. How much you will miss them when they are gone. It's stressful and scarey and painful. All of this is true, and all of this is valid. It is understandable that when you have someone who you know is slipping away, you just want to be with them, to be a part of every day they have left. BUT...
Stop for a second and think about something. You think this is hard on you? Imagine for a minute that you are the person who is dying. What would you want?
See... having a terminal illness, I am aware that my days are numbered and you know what? I have some things that I would like to do. Once upon a time, before I really realized that life itself is a terminal experience, I had a list of things I wanted to do. We all have a list, whether we call it our bucket list and have it clearly laid out or maybe it's just a lot of dreams in our heads... things like backpacking through Scotland, or taking a cruise to see whales in Alaska, or learning to play guitar. Whatever it is, we all have something that we want to do at some unspecified point in the future. The difference is... my time is running out and my options have been severely curtailed. Once I dreamed of visiting other countries, of seeing the Hindu temples, of walking the Great Wall, of riding a camel in a desert. Those things will never happen for me now. I will never learn to play my guitar well enough to play in public (even among family) and have people enjoy it. I will never visit all 50 states and complete my refrigerator magnet collection. I will never compete in another dance competition. In fact, I could spend a long time listing the things I know now that I will not get the chance to do because of time, health and money, But that would be wallowing in self pity. Instead, I am reworking my list of things I want to do and trying to do as much as I can within my limitations. I can see New Orleans. I can try to see the Grand Canyon.
Unfortunately, my desire to try to experience as much as I can before I am forced to be at home is in direct conflict with some of my loved ones desires. I know this because I am constantly be reminded by others that I "need to think about how this affects so and so", or I really should be more considerate of other's feelings. Funny how the people who advise me that I should spend my last years/weeks/months being concerned about others don't see that I have needs too. Or maybe they just don't think about what they are saying, because to me it comes out sounding like I owe it to my loved ones to give up what little life I have left to make someone else happy and forget about making myself happy.
This led me to the next train of thought, which was that if the above is true, I completely understand why some terminally ill people begin cutting themselves off from others. It's hard having to deal with your own mortality, the loss of your dreams and then deal with the guilt imposed on you by others. You can't say anything to them because that just opens another can of worms as they get mad or defensive, so you either make people mad by trying to fulfil your dreams, or you make yourself mad by giving up all your dreams to please someone else. So, rather than deal with it, you just shut everyone out. Lately I find myself at odd times just wishing this would hurry up and be over with. And then I get mad. And then I feel guilty. And then I wish this was all over with. And the cycle continues until I tell myself to stop. Somehow I will find a way to make this work.
I suppose the biggest thing is that I need to decide what is most important to me... making mysef happy or pleasing others? That, my friends, is what I think about when I unload a truck...
I have been trying to get in to see a doctor at MD Anderson for over a month. I have been talking about this with my wife and my mother. We have a friend in Houston who we wanted to visit. Since we are going to be there, it seemed like a good idea to kill two birds with one stone and try to get in to the number one cancer hospital to talk to someone about my options. See... I am a very logical woman. It just makes sense, right? I finally heard back from someone at the hospital this past week. In my excitement, I posted about it on Facebook while I was answering a million questions on the phone. (Uh-Oh... Facebook posts... how many "issues" in families start with an innocent status update?) I don't really think anything about it. I never do. I have relatives and friends all over the place who I like to keep informed about what is happening with me medically. FB allows me to inform everyone at once, without having to make a million phone calls, answer the same questions over and over and repeat myself over and over and over... To me, this is logical. Saves time and energy, two things that I have a finite supply of these days. Well, apparently I have some family members who do not think this way. Rather than conserve my time and energy, I should be using extra time and extra energy to inform people individually. I should be thinking not about what is most convenient for me ( the person who has the terminal illness), but I should instead be more concerned about the feeling of others (the people who do NOT have a terminal illness). Which brought me to my next set of thoughts as I spent 4 hours lifting boxes of candy onto the top shelves of the stockroom bins.
It's hard losing someone you love. Having someone in your life who is dying is hard. You want to spend as much time with them as possible. You cling to them, imagining what life will be like when they are gone... how sad and lonely you will be. How much you will miss them when they are gone. It's stressful and scarey and painful. All of this is true, and all of this is valid. It is understandable that when you have someone who you know is slipping away, you just want to be with them, to be a part of every day they have left. BUT...
Stop for a second and think about something. You think this is hard on you? Imagine for a minute that you are the person who is dying. What would you want?
See... having a terminal illness, I am aware that my days are numbered and you know what? I have some things that I would like to do. Once upon a time, before I really realized that life itself is a terminal experience, I had a list of things I wanted to do. We all have a list, whether we call it our bucket list and have it clearly laid out or maybe it's just a lot of dreams in our heads... things like backpacking through Scotland, or taking a cruise to see whales in Alaska, or learning to play guitar. Whatever it is, we all have something that we want to do at some unspecified point in the future. The difference is... my time is running out and my options have been severely curtailed. Once I dreamed of visiting other countries, of seeing the Hindu temples, of walking the Great Wall, of riding a camel in a desert. Those things will never happen for me now. I will never learn to play my guitar well enough to play in public (even among family) and have people enjoy it. I will never visit all 50 states and complete my refrigerator magnet collection. I will never compete in another dance competition. In fact, I could spend a long time listing the things I know now that I will not get the chance to do because of time, health and money, But that would be wallowing in self pity. Instead, I am reworking my list of things I want to do and trying to do as much as I can within my limitations. I can see New Orleans. I can try to see the Grand Canyon.
Unfortunately, my desire to try to experience as much as I can before I am forced to be at home is in direct conflict with some of my loved ones desires. I know this because I am constantly be reminded by others that I "need to think about how this affects so and so", or I really should be more considerate of other's feelings. Funny how the people who advise me that I should spend my last years/weeks/months being concerned about others don't see that I have needs too. Or maybe they just don't think about what they are saying, because to me it comes out sounding like I owe it to my loved ones to give up what little life I have left to make someone else happy and forget about making myself happy.
This led me to the next train of thought, which was that if the above is true, I completely understand why some terminally ill people begin cutting themselves off from others. It's hard having to deal with your own mortality, the loss of your dreams and then deal with the guilt imposed on you by others. You can't say anything to them because that just opens another can of worms as they get mad or defensive, so you either make people mad by trying to fulfil your dreams, or you make yourself mad by giving up all your dreams to please someone else. So, rather than deal with it, you just shut everyone out. Lately I find myself at odd times just wishing this would hurry up and be over with. And then I get mad. And then I feel guilty. And then I wish this was all over with. And the cycle continues until I tell myself to stop. Somehow I will find a way to make this work.
I suppose the biggest thing is that I need to decide what is most important to me... making mysef happy or pleasing others? That, my friends, is what I think about when I unload a truck...
This is your life. You only get one chance at it so make yourself happy and forget about pleasing others. You can't make everyone happy so forget about that and work on making yourself happy.
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