I have a compulsion to write this evening but, you know how you get stuck on a sentence and it just won’t fit? I’m there right now. So here I am, just spitballing it, trying to find the correct word to start this machine up again.
Oh, that’s right. Elation.
Over the past week or so, I had to face a fear. I say “had to” like I’m forced into it, but – in truth – it’s me that forces me into it. I don’t it for sadistic reasons though. I do it because I have a future-thought in me that says I’d like to feel some level of assurance that I’m going to be around for quite a while yet. And I say “fear” but what I really mean is “thing that is scary enough for me to be concerned, but not scary enough for me to actually be scared of it and run away like some kind of ninny”. I am not built like that – I have to run towards that stuff, or else it just haunts me. I will run towards it every year – heck, every day, if I have to – just to know that it does not control me.
I wasn’t always like this. Call it getting older, responsibilities, parenting, life purpose, whatever… I spent many years, just gently prodding a stick at the mist in front of me and half-hoping I wouldn’t bump into anything. I’m a lot not like that nowadays. I like to have a plan, even if my abilities to make them extend only so far as the next fortnight. I like to know if there’s something about to bump into me.
But to get that reasonable sense of assurance, I had to be prepared to face an uncomfortable notion that I hold deep within me, but actively share with other people. When it comes to my health… this is probably the near healthiest I’ve ever been in my life, and I like it that way. I like everything that’s going on right now with this face and person, and it’s bloody liberating to *finally* feel that way.
Except, of course, when the alarm bells go off and you’re suddenly standing in the bathroom trying to ignore the dog barking at a bird, because you’re trying so hard to think about when last you updated your Last Will and Testament. In my situation, you would go there too. I’ve had a lot of conversations with the air around me over the last week. At one point, I genuinely, loudly, asked my mom to just “show me something because I actually can’t with this.” (Yes, I’m a bit of a woo-woo-head, so what?).
I tried very hard not to think like this, but life has thrown me a little too much evidence in loss to prevent me from taking a trip to Mopeville (Population: Me; Location: My Head; GPS Coordinates: You have your own ones) now and then. In these particular circumstances, anything that threatens to derail me on that level, is a big one I have to gulp back and push on.
Time Limits
I allowed myself one day to not feel okay with this notion. Sitting with facts and figures, statistics and the like, I wallowed. Wallowing is good for you, sometimes, because it’s a way to process stuff you don’t want to face up to – but it has to have a time limit. I played “worst case scenario” for 24 hours, didn’t sleep much, couldn’t eat and annoyed my dog by having an epic staring competition with him. He won.
Taking Control
After that though, I had to take control. By the time I met the nice man (he looked like a mashup of Leonard from Big Bang Theory and a friend of mine… like, if they had babies, this guy was it), I was ready to just get it all over with and keep moving. Heck, I even cracked five jokes while I was lying there, watching them poke needles into me. I know I cracked five. I counted. They laughed. It wasn’t pity laughter. My family tree laughs in the face of scary stuff… I was just carrying that lineage on.
The Leaning
I leant then. I just leant. I knew after I’d come home that it wasn’t really up to me anymore. It was up to science and good people who do their jobs. Which is when it really hit me – Science! I have it on my side. While I was lying in bed, pondering these wonders of science and realising how flipping great it is that I’ll actually know if there’s a problem, and it can be dealt with. But beyond science, there’s an army of people for me to lean on. So I did, like it was a wall and I had 97 pictures to hang up, but no hooks.
An interminable wait
Waiting is the hardest part. A friend had warned me that this wait would feel like I was treading molasses and that I’d jump every time the phone rang. I thank my lucky stars for her, because she got REAL with me, FAST, and I needed that. I really, really needed that. I trod, I jumped and I spent a few days feeling like a startled cat, but trying very hard to be one that purrs when its belly is rubbed.
Elation
Thing is, those results came back… they came back good. They came back so good that my doctor got a barrage of relieved noises and grunts I could only counter her conversation with. I stared out of the window as she spoke to me, feeling the extremities of my body tingle and shout with glee. Once I’d put the phone down, I felt so very, very free. I could’ve floated.
I am so intensely grateful for the past week of my life. Not because it made me wobble, but because I wobbled beyond it. For those of you who were with me through this, I cannot, ever, thank you enough.