I rarely admit to being messed up in the head lol.  But seriously, the past few weeks have been a bit of a mess emotionally.

I will admit to being angry, frustrated, and anxious.  And maybe a bit depressed.  Not really a good mixture no matter how you look at it.  I’m not sure which one of the emotions was worse.  The anger was hard to pinpoint – it’s like being angry with a ghost or moving target.  It’s far “easier” to be angry with a person than a situation.  A situation can’t really be yelled at and it can’t apologize.

Several times last week, I considered calling the social worker to get a referral to a counselor and then I talked myself out of it.  I wasn’t sure it would actually resolve anything except for possibly being able to vent.  And some of what I wanted to vent about sounded entirely ridiculous outside of my head.

I opted to read some Pema Chodron again…When Things Fall Apart in particular.  This is my third read of the book and I have to tell you….I take something away from her words every time.  The basic premise of the book is that crap happens and that is life.  This is, of course, true but sometimes you just need to get slapped upside the head with it for it to sink in.

“Seeking security or perfection, rejoicing in feeling confirmed and whole, self contained and comfortable, is some kind of death.  We are killing the moment by controlling our experience.  Doing this is setting ourselves up for failure, because sooner or later, we are going to have an experience we can’t control.”  

“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.”

“Death is wanting to hold on to what you have and to have every experience confirm you and congratulate you and make you feel completely together.  So even though we say the yama mara is fear of death, it is actually fear of life.” 

And then I had to put the book down to think about these passages and the quote in the pic above.  It got me to thinking how a lot of my frustration and anger is really loss of control.  I tried to control every aspect of my life to have it stay all neat and tidy and when cancer blew it up, I was totally thrown out of the nest.  Majorly thrown out of the nest several times.

I remember thinking about how I felt like I was in a rut by last fall.  Like I was stuck running on a treadmill going nowhere.  So perhaps what I’m going through now is the Universe getting me unstuck (in a mean and horrible way, but still).

When all this started to happen, I think I wrote a blog post about how perhaps cancer was meant to be part of my story.  These passages just reminded me of that.  Perhaps there is a bigger meaning here, a wake up call of sorts.  Or it could just be total suckage but I dunno, thinking there is a bigger meaning removes a lot of anxiety and anger.  Maybe there is something better planned for me in the years to come.

These are the things I hope to contemplate at Spa Infusion on Tuesday when I go in for Round Three of chemo.  My sister in law arrives tomorrow to stay with me for nine days.  As much as I love my space, I am actually looking forward to her being here.  She was actually good company when I felt crappy.  You know there are just some people you don’t want around when you don’t feel your best.  Not sure how things will go this time since I felt a little worse after Round Two.  Looking forward to getting it done even though I have to go back for more, likely in June.  Yay.

Hope all of you are doing well these days….