Archives for category: Marriage

Something out of nothing

July 26, 2014 //

I come from an Italian American family on my mother’s side. Her great grandparents were farmers in northern Italy who immigrated to the U.S. to raise children and work the coal mines near Seattle. In other words, they were not fancy people. They were poor. But they were smart, hard working, life loving, and resourceful. They not only loved food but had a lot of mouths to fill. They knew how to “make something out of nothing”.

My mom knew how to do this, too. It wasn’t as if we were poor but money was tight and there were a lot of people to feed in a family of eight. Mom is also masterful at re-purposing leftovers into new meals so that food is not wasted.

The week has continued to exhaust me. I rallied in the writing of my last post, only to have an extremely fragmented and stressful evening, during which my irritability peaked, and I became quite irrational. My daughter had gotten rather angry with me because she told me that she had another parade the next morning and I had reminded her that I had asked her to tell me about all of her events and she had just told me, “Don’t worry about it, Mom.” I was not able to sacrifice half of a work day to get her there. She got very angry. It was kind of a last straw for me and I mostly took it out on my husband because she had treated me extremely disrespectfully and he left the room instead of backing me up. Realistically, he was probably doing what he needed to do to keep from yelling, with which I was already doing a good job.

I spent a good deal of the early part of yesterday fighting the urge to go back to bed. I have not had a day like this in a very long time. My brain and my heart were utterly exhausted despite the fact that it was a gloriously beautiful summer day in which I had much to do. I forced myself to stay out of bed. By late afternoon, I was sitting on the couch with a head both full of everything and nothing, swirling in eddies of acute pain and numbness.

My husband came home early from work and asked what I wanted to do for dinner. I said, “I am not doing well at all. I know I will be okay. Right now, I can’t think. I can’t answer questions. I need 15 minutes to finish up work.”

Then I started on my unfinished progress notes, one by one, and with the completion of each one, I gathered a tiny but noticeable bit of energy. In about 45 minutes I was done. I had accomplished something. I told John, “Sorry, that took longer than 15 minutes. I’m going to cook dinner.”

I walked into my kitchen. I had a perfectly ripe mango, a perfectly ripe avocado, and some limes. They were not planned for a particular meal. In general, that is often the way I shop. I just buy what looks good. In my freezer, I had some large shrimp. I also had a bit of simple salad left over from another meal. It was made from jicama, radish, and lime. I thought that might be a nice textural and flavor contrast with sweet mango but I wasn’t sure but I started getting excited to try. And as I sliced, zested, crushed, sauteed, and mixed, my spirit continued to lighten and I felt myself filling up again. When I tasted, I could tell that I’d made a lovely summer salad full of good things. My husband and I had a nice meal together, which led to a nice evening.

I had been depleted and feeling in utter need, just an hour before. I needed to give myself an experience of creating from start to finish, to remember that I am capable of making wholes and not just carrying an armload of loose fragments, which keep falling to the ground, and then others fall as I stoop over to pick them up.

Remember what you have and make use of it.

That is my meditation for today.

Shrimp and mango with lime, avocado, radish, and jicama.

Shrimp and mango with lime, garlic, avocado, radish, and jicama.

Here is the recipe:

About 1 pound of large shrimp, peeled and deveined with tails left on.
1 lime, zested (put zest to the side), then cut into quarters.
1 large ripe avocado, peeled, pitted, and cut into large dice. (Squeeze one of the limb slices on it so it doesn’t discolor).
1 large ripe mango, peeled, pitted, and cut into large dice. (If you have not cut up a mango, read some directions on doing it. It’s not hard but it’s different than other fruit.)
1/4 of a jicama, peeled and cut into matchsticks.
3-4 mild-flavored radishes, peel on, sliced thinly. (I used a small portion of a large watermelon radish, which was about the size of my fist and cut it into match sticks.)
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed.

1. Put all of the ingredients into a bowl except for the shrimp, garlic, half of the lime zest, and all of lime wedges into a bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste and the juice from 2-3 lime wedges. Mix gently with your hands so the avocado does not lose its shape.

2. Heat 1 teaspoon of oil and about 2 teaspoons of butter in a large saute pan, on medium to medium high, taking care not to burn the butter. Add garlic and cook for about a minute, stirring frequently. Add the shrimp and cook for a minute or two on each side until curled up and opaque, but not rubbery!

3. Put the salad into a serving bowl and top with the shrimp. Sprinkle the remaining lime zest on the top so it looks pretty!

Tags cooking, creativity, Family, Marriage, mindfulness, Parenting, stress

Categories Family, Feelings, Marriage, Mindfulness, Recipes

Getting a head

July 23, 2014 //

Last week I dreamed about my kittens. (Yes, I know, despite my formative years as a “dog person”, I have become a “cat lady” in my middle age.) My kittens are litter mates, brother and sister, both with pure black coats.

In my dream, they were conjoined twins. People looked at them and remarked, “Oh, look at the cute kitties!” Then the heads of the kitties started looking in different directions and the front right and left feet did the same. The kitties looked distressed. They were not working as a team.

When I awoke from the dream, I thought, “I need to use this image in a blog post.” Yes, really I did. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I am not someone who makes fancy dream interpretations. But I do think about my dreams, especially when I think they signal distress. At the time I was having the dream, I was concerned that John and I were not parenting as a team as well as usual and that we were having trouble communicating about the logistics of our lives. I think that is probably what the dream was about.

I have been pretty stressed during the last couple of weeks. I am an energetic extrovert. Nonetheless, I don’t function well if I am pulled in a hundred directions, living a fragmented life. I am not good at perpetually switching gears. That’s one of the reasons I was attracted to pursuing a research career rather than a career as a clinician. Clinical work means switching gears between people, situations, and goals, quite frequently. When I did research, I worked on one or two projects for years at a time. But I ended up being a clinician and thank goodness, I learned how to switch gears much better than I did previously.

Right now my workdays consist of switching constantly among work, driving my daughter around, getting to my healthcare appointments. My daughter has needed to be driven to one to three locations all around Seattle, every day, starting in the middle of the day. She takes the bus when she can but there are logistics to be worked there there, too.

Yesterday, I reminded her of what time she needed to be home from school (she is volunteering each morning to help with a band program for younger kids) so that I could take her to an activity at 2:00 pm in northeast Seattle. (We live in southwest Seattle.) The original plan had been for her to take the bus downtown and then take a transfer to get to the office. However, we’d tried that the day before and she missed the bus. Since it was mid-day, there was not another bus for an hour. I cancelled my annual physical so that I could come home from work and drive her. Seattle is not an easy city in which to get around. It is long, narrow, surrounded by water, and hilly, for starters. This means that there are a rather limited number of highways and streets available to get from one place to another.

As I complain frequently, I find driving to be taxing and stressful. I am a good driver and it is not that I feel really anxious when I am driving. It’s mostly that I have to think so hard. And it’s not that figuring out bus schedules and directions is that hard, especially with the Internet. It’s hard to remember to do it and to make sure my daughter has the information she needs and understands where she is supposed to be at what time and how to get there. (This is one time when I kind of wish we’d allow her to have a smartphone, but I digress.) Riding the bus involves a surprising number of steps and also, some background knowledge that a non-driver doesn’t necessarily know. Consequently, I need to break it down in my mind and then make sure she knows things I would otherwise take for granted. For example, “You have a parade after your appointment. It is north of where you will be. Do you know what side of the street to be on to take a northbound bus?” The answer is “no”. And she does not yet know north, south, east, and west. When I was her age, I didn’t either. Then there are the fragmented questions I throw out, “Remember your bus pass!” “Remember to pack a lunch!” “Remember your phone!” “Remember your band uniform. You’re not going to have a chance to come back home before the parade!”

If you are a long reader of this blog, you will know that I live with some rather forgetful people who actually need frequent reminders, even if they are not always happy to receive them, in the moment. And by the way, it is not enabling if your child is actually getting better at remembering these things on her own, which is the case for her. But she is only up to remembering these things about 50% of the time. Think about what your daily life would be like if you were not where you were supposed to be with the what you needed, half of the time. Also, you carry your bus pass in an old eyeglass case and your money in a ring box. And this is a major improvement in organization from years past. Finally, you don’t drive. See, having a nagging mom would be annoying but handy.

About two paragraphs, I was telling you about one example day. Then I veered off course. What you don’t know if that while I’ve been writing this post, I’ve stopped and started it many times. I actually wanted to write it last week when I had the dream. Right at this moment, I am fighting the impulse to walk out and investigate the bird sounds I am hearing.

When I am switching gears too much, coordinating multiple goals, I find that it is hard to stop switching gears. I find even more goals and they aren’t priority either. Instead of being a two-headed cat, I turn into a creature with an ever changing number of heads, all on one body. There is effort to do things but none of the cohesion required to get things done in an efficient way.

The first thing that happens to me is that I start getting forgetful. Then I start making mistakes. Then I start getting anxious that I am making a lot of mistakes and I am so distracted that my level of self-awareness waxes and wanes. Then I make more mistakes. Then I start a flurry of unecessary reassurance seeking. “Are you sure you have the bus pass?” “Hey, friend, did I just treat you badly?”

There is an expression that people use referring to feeling “centered”. It is a positive thing but honestly I can’t exactly articulate what it is. But what I can tell you that at this time, I don’t feel centered or “grounded”, another common description that people use to refer to a state of balance.

I don’t feel centered. I don’t feel grounded. I feel like I have an infinite number of heads and none of them contain good working brains. Now, these are subjective feelings. In reality, I am functioning. I am carrying out my life with competence. But I feel icky in the process.

My natural inclination is to think of the happy, balanced, reasonable, bright, organized, empathetic, and energetic version of myself as “the real me” and the other times are aberrant.

I am becoming increasingly, aware, however of how unreasonable this belief really is. I am always me. Who else would I be? The person who gets irritable with her husband because she is overwhelmed and fragmented? That’s me. The person who asked her husband to take care of a responsibility this morning because she was exhausted, even though she’s been irritable with him? That’s me. The real me is not that perfect and it is unhealthy for me to maintain a vision of myself as needing to meet that standard in order to be “real”.

The person who is feeling a little more grounded and centered after having sorted through her thoughts and feelings while writing this post?

That’s me, too.

I have goals in my life. Some day, my life will end. But my life, itself, is not a goal or an end point.

My life is an experience, with lines of continuity as well as flux.

What else would it be?

Tags identity, Marriage, mindfulness, Parenting, stress management

Categories Breast cancer, Family, Feelings, Marriage, Mindfulness, Parenting

Thinking tall

July 18, 2014 //

My husband is out of town this weekend. He left this morning. I came home from driving my daughter around town this evening. The kitties were hungry. I couldn’t find their food. It wasn’t where I had left it earlier today when I last fed them.

They were pestering me for food. I knew that we were not out of kitten food, having bought a large bag of it just last weekend. I spent about ten minutes looking all around my kitchen, in the cupboards, on the counter, and on the small tables that are there. Then I thought, “John must have moved it. John is a very tall person.”

I lifted my head up to the plane of my husband’s vision, where he sees and where he can easily reach in our kitchen. There it was, the kitten food. It was set on a high cupboard above the microwave. I got out a stool to stand on so I could reach it to take it down.

Perspective taking is an important part of marriage. It is not just putting oneself in the life situation of another. Perspective taking requires thinking and feeling like another, as if you were that other person, with that other person’s life view, attitudes, capabilities, likes, wishes, strengths, weaknesses, and feelings.

My husband is a very tall person. I am tall for a woman but much shorter than he. My experience of our kitchen, what I can see and what I can reach, is much different than his, just because of a basic difference between the two of us. It doesn’t matter that the kitchen is the same. We are NOT the same.

That’s just a simple example of a difference in physical stature and how that impacts our perception of the kitchen in our home, as well as what consequences that has on our kitten food storing behaviors.

Intimate relationships can be extremely complex. There are many differences between people in a relationship and mind reading is not yet possible. And honestly, I think that mind-reading abilities would make healthy relationships even less possible. I have some pretty dumb thoughts and feelings on a regular basis. I don’t want people knowing about them! Further, sometimes, my thoughts and feelings are not completely expressed, they are disorganized and incomplete. I don’t want to communicate them until I have time to process them.

John and I are currently working extra hard to communicate better with each other. We are also trying to understand one another better. This is a time of transition for us. My level of functioning has been in flux for over two years now due to my cancer, it’s treatment, and my physical and emotional recovery. My husband is dealing with his own issues, some of it related to my cancer. We both navigate the shifting tides that are our teen daughter’s unpredictable ups and downs.

The logistics of our lives in the past two weeks have been particularly challenging. We are getting better at working things out. Right now, I no longer feel like I’m jugging water, as I was a few days ago. We are talking and listening. I am working hard to focus on what I can do as a wife and my own responsibilities instead of focusing so much on how I think my husband should be behaving differently.

I am working on thinking tall.

Tags Breast Cancer, empathy, marital conflict, marital roles, Marriage, Parenting, perspective taking

Categories Breast cancer, Family, Marriage

Like juggling water

July 15, 2014 //

There’s a vaudeville theater in my neighborhood, Kenyon Hall. It’s about two blocks from where I live, located in an old house. They have an antique Wurlitzer organ, which is occasionally played as live accompaniment to old silent films. They used to sell root beer floats for a dollar each on these movie nights.

We haven’t been there in a long time. There was a change in ownership and the types of entertainment offered there has narrowed. About ten years ago we went there with friends along with our daughter for a comedy juggling act, Brothers from Different Mothers. They were very funny and excellent jugglers. I laughed a lot.

Now, when I laugh, I do so loudly and with my whole body. Kenyon Hall is a small venue with no stage. We were sitting in the front row because we’d arrived early and wanted to make sure that we could see. I was quite noticeable and also conveniently close to the two performers.

I’d not seen them perform before so I didn’t know that they used audience members in their act. When it came time for that part of the show, I was promptly asked to go up front with them. I can’t remember everything that they had me do. But I remember being a very good sport about the whole thing.

But one part of the performance actually got a bit stressful. I was to grab one of the balls from one of the guys while he was still juggling. PERFORMANCE PRESSURE. I missed 2-3 times and I noticed that the juggler was holding the ball for increasingly longer times in order to make it easier for me to grab from him. I knew that there was only so long he could do this before having to attend to the other balls in the air. I also knew that if I didn’t get it soon, the act would drag. I mean, a woman hyena-laughing while trying to grab a juggling ball gets old after a few failures. Each time I tried to memorize the timing and rhythm of the balls in the air. On the next attempt, I got it, much to my relief. I had not spoiled the joke with ball dropping ineptitude.

I know it is cliche to compare one’s life to juggling balls. We all try to keep the balls in the air. However, when we parent, we are also trying to do a hand off balls or take balls from another, all in order to make sure no one’s load is burdensome. And we do it while each of us is juggling a full set of balls.

When my husband and I have an established and coordinated routine, this can go pretty smoothly. We know what to expect, can plan for it, and we’ve handled it before.

Then there are the times when the unexpected happens or we have to learn a new routine. At these times, it can feel like juggling water. I feel all of the responsibilities but can’t put my hands around them. What’s worse, I can’t tell which responsibilities are mine and which ones are John’s. They just splash to the ground, undone, and making a huge, undifferentiated mess. “Who’s water is this?” “And who stepped in it with muddy shoes?” “Who’s going to clean it up?” “What happened to the mop?”

I have been more irritable lately. I initially attributed it to the heat as well as my hatred of driving through downtown Seattle, something I am doing at least once per day right now in order to get my daughter to activities. All of these things do contribute to my mood.

Today, I woke up feeling sad and it took awhile to shake it. I realized that part of the reason is that each day is a different set of logistics and responsibilities. Our daughter’s schedule is different, every day. My schedule is different, every day. And not only am I taking my paperwork on the road, John and I have to figure out who is doing what, every day, almost from scratch. This means we have to remember to talk to each other about logistics and texts and phone calls from each other need to be exchanged. As a couple, this is not our strong suit. I over-communicate and my husband doesn’t communicate enough. It makes both of us a source of aggravation to the other.

Our daughter has two more years of high school. She will likely be driving in a year or two. There are some wonderful things that come out of spending time with her in the car. Yesterday, she told me what a fun time she’d had talking with me on the way to and from her activity.My husband and I have more evening time together during the summer, just the two of us.

Those are opportunities I can grab and hang onto.

Tags Logistics of family life, Marriage, parental coordination, Parenting, parenting a teen, stress

Categories Family, Marriage, Parenting

The Birds

July 10, 2014 //

I remember when I was starting grad school in my 20’s. One of my classmates was from the sunny city of Miami. I noticed that although she was actually younger than me, she had crow’s feet, those wrinkles people get around the corners of their eyes. I figured that since she already had them, I would get them fairly soon. But I didn’t.

The first wrinkles I noticed were above my left eyebrow. I can lift my left eyebrow above my right, just like Spock on Star Trek. I did it A LOT as a teen and a young adult. My younger brother and I laughed about it a lot. It was something I did when I was being silly and having fun.

Wrinkles are signs of aging. The first time I looked at myself and thought, “I’m not young anymore” was in my late 30’s. I was looking at the backs of my hands. They weren’t as smooth as they used to be. In other respects I still looked young. I’ve done a lot of work with my hands over the years. Writing, gardening, knitting, cooking, and caressing loved ones. My wedding and anniversary rings are on my hands.

When I was putting on make up this morning I saw them. I have crow’s feet that don’t go away when I stop smiling.

I’ve done a lot of smiling in my life. And I’ve squinted at the sun when I was in the mountains, the tropical rain forests, and kayaking on the sea. I spend a lot of time outdoors, which makes me happy. I spend a lot of time with people who make me happy.

The lines I have, by and large, are not remnants of the bumps in the road of life, the wrinkles we have to smooth out. My wrinkles are from the best bits. They show the happy and productive moments that I have enjoyed. If I am lucky, they will continue to broaden and deepen, I hope.

When I was young my face was smooth. Now the lines tell a story, one that is meaningful and full.

Life lines is what they are.

Warning: Smiling can cause life lines! (Also, I told you that my husband puts his camera close to my face.)

Tags aging, Family, Happiness, love, Mental Health, mindfulness

Categories Marriage, Mindfulness, Parenting

Mind me!!!!!!

July 9, 2014 //

One of the gifts of mindfulness has been perceiving sensations have gone unnoticed if I did not regularly force myself to slow down and notice. Those are its gentle gifts. The tiny intricate flowers. The refreshing morning breezes. The lovely and varied bird calls. The delicious and subtle flavors of carefully prepared meals.

It is easy to be mindful when life is slow. The hard part is slowing down.

Some situations demand that I be mindful. They are not gentle at all.

Almost every morning between 4 am and 6 am, both of our kittens jump on top of me in bed and demand my affection. They do this only to me as their designated fur-free mom.

About one second after they land on me, they are already purring. It is anticipatory purring. Basie touches my nose with his nose, REPEATEDLY. Then he starts licking my eyelids. I start petting him for about a half a minute, at which time he starts biting my hands and the rings on my fingers. Then I put my arms under the covers because biting turns into playful scratching and what I call “rabbit footing”, which is when cats grab you with their front claws and start scratching you furiously with their back claws. Rabbits do this when they are picked up by the scruff of their necks, at least ours did when I was a kid, and they were not pets.

Basie continues to try to bite me through the covers and if he is being really persistent, he crawls under the covers. Meanwhile, Leeloo is feeling left out. She is the gentler of the two but she is very affectionate. If my hands are under the covers, she climbs right under my neck on my clavicle. If I don’t start petting her right away, she will try to move EVEN higher. She also likes to groom me affectionately by licking the insides of my ears.

It is hard to be mindful of the gift of affection when I am busy doing something else, in this case SLEEPING. At these times, it can actually be annoying. But the kitties charm me nonetheless. They have tiny brains and I cannot ascribe negative intentions to their behavior. They are just babies and adorable ones, at that. I kick Basie off of the bed when he won’t stop being rough. I keep their little kitty nails trimmed. Their nails are less needle like and they are learning not to bite so hard.

Right after the kitties decided to leave the bed and run around the house, John turned over, put his around me, and nuzzled into the side of my neck. He will sleep like that for a long time. I was trying to go back to sleep. I typically have a hard time falling asleep with a lot of weight on me and I get overheated easily, too. Consequently, I usually say, “Get your arm off of me, please.” (I know I am very romantic. It is a miracle that the man still makes attempts at spooning after all of these years.)

Today, I thought, “It’s really nice that John is being so sweet to me. I’m going to try to enjoy this.” So I did and had a lovely snuggle for several minutes. Then I was really hot and asked him to move, which he did.

My usual response is to anticipate that there is going to be a problem and “nip it in the bud”. I realize that I miss a lot of affection that way. Why not instead be mindful and enjoy the part that is enjoyable instead of working so hard to avoid a minor discomfort?

There are times I need to slow down my thoughts. I need to be mindful of thoughts like, “Oh, how sweet” and not race right to “Oh, John’s arm is so heavy!”

I’ve been REALLY busy lately. Summers can get that way fast because I do a lot of driving to get my daughter to daily summer activities. At her age, she typically has to be somewhere in the middle of my work day. It’s a lot of shifting gears for me and cramming my work into small bursts. It also means extending my work day so that there’s a hole in the middle for transportation. She is now able to navigate public transportation but has trouble with making connections if there is a transfer. Further, the buses run only occasionally during mid-day. She can’t always take the bus and we don’t really like the idea of her wandering around for hours so I try to drive her as much as I can manage. Today there are three places that she needs to be, all in different parts of town. It’s a paperwork day for me and I am doing it at different coffee shops around town while I wait for her.

Needless to say, we’ve been spending a lot of time in the car together. My teen daughter doesn’t talk to me as much as she did when she was younger but when she does, it’s usually while I am driving her some where, often in heavy traffic.

I love talking to her but I must say that sometimes it takes a great deal of concentration I don’t have because there are subjects about which I know little that she loves to talk about. And she loves to ask questions about them, too. For example:

The Girl: “Mom, what is your favorite episode of Dr. Who with the 10th doctor?”
Me (crossing several lanes of traffic on a Friday during rush hour): “I’m sorry, honey. I’m trying to concentrate on driving. These conversations often make me feel like my head is going to explode.”

It may be that my mind is not up to the detailed nerd girl conversations while driving in Seattle traffic. I have to concentrate a lot to drive. I have a poor sense of direction and I am easily distracted. I am intimidated by aggressive drivers.

Maybe I will try a little harder today to be engaged with my daughter while we are in the car and see what happens. I don’t get a lot of opportunities to talk to her. She knows that I would like to talk more frequently and I think it is confusing to her that when she tries, I am sometimes not receptive.

It may be too hard to do but I will try it. The fact that it could get too hard is not a good enough reason to try.

Sometimes opportunity knocks softly. At other times, it licks you on the eye.

Often the kitties just love/bother each other.

Tags Family, Marriage, mindfulness, Parenting

Categories Family, Marriage, Mindfulness

Just an in-between

July 4, 2014 //

I was quite an awkward 11 and 12 year-old, as many girls are during those ages. I was and I still am very close to my mom and I remember talking to her about that stage of not being a young child but not quite being a teenager. Mom had suitable song lyrics for this and sometimes responded by singing, “Too young for boys, too old for toys, I’m just an in-between.”

“In between” is a phrase that has been popping into my mind frequently. I feel like an “in-between” as a cancer patient.

Actually, when I really think about it, I’ve felt like an “in-between” during this whole process and I see my friends going through the same thing. I remember in the early days of breast cancer I was shuttled back and forth between assessment and treatment. And even some of the treatment, that is surgery, was also used for assessment. There are blurry lines. It is a systematic process but there are many data gathering and decision points.

Other than my tamoxifen and Lupron shots, I am not in active cancer treatment. My oncology appointments are more spread out. I don’t even see my surgeon any more, I just see the nurse practitioner in the surgery office who works with “survivors”, the ultimate “in-between” status. Actually, there’s another in-between because if I am to need to have a breast cancer surgeon again, I need to see someone else. Dr. Wonderful not only “broke up” with me for being too healthy, he also retired from clinical practice, just last week. He is remaining at my cancer center doing research and in a leadership position regarding improving patient care. At least I can still send him a Christmas card later this year. He will not have moved back home yet. (He is Canadian, from Toronto, and I’ve always figured that he and his wife will move back to be with their sons and grandchildren.)

My current “in-between” balancing act is juggling my responsibilities. Okay, this is not a new balancing act as I have done it throughout my entire experience with cancer. However, as my energy is increasing, I have been able to work more. During 2013 my income, after deducting my expenses, was 50% of what it was pre-cancer. 2014 will not be a year like 2011 but it will be a much better year. I can see myself getting out of debt. My husband and I celebrate our 25th wedding anniversaries along with our 50th birthdays in 2015. We would like to take a trip to Turkey along with our daughter, to celebrate. We have a lot of saving to do if we are going to be able to take that trip. I certainly can’t contribute to that kind of expense without getting out of debt.

I am feeling the tug of responsibility to my friends, especially my friends in the breast cancer community. I know that I am not as available for communications as I once was. Some of my friends I know only through online conversations. I don’t like to distinguish them from IRL (in real life) friends because all of my friends are real life friends. Great distances as well as time differences can make communication difficult, though. And further, I confess that I am less likely to ask, “how are you” to friends who are having emotionally and physically difficult times. I don’t like to ask that question unless I am prepared to respond with the kind of time someone needs if the answer is not, “I’m fine, thank you. And you?” I am frequently pulled away to other responsibilities at home and at work. I don’t want to do a half-assed job of supporting my friends. I’ve had too many times in my life when a friend has asked “How are you?” during a hard spot in my life and my eyes tear up with the anticipation that I will be able to share my burdon with someone only to find out that the friend really does not have the time or mental energy just right then to tend to me.

I am also worried about losing my connection with the breast cancer community. I write frequently, but when I am really busy, I have fewer ideas. I don’t want my ideas to dry up and then the social connections to dry up as well.

Most of all, I am worried about losing my connection to the opportunity (not “gift”, mind you) breast cancer and my emotional recovery have given me to truly cherish life. I want to be connected to and mindful of the full richness of life.

I suspect I will work my way through this. I also suspect that I will not run out of things to communicate, even if not through blogging. And as far as blogging goes, I think I still have much to write here on this page. But I also want to respect and take note of the anxiety and fatigue I’ve been feeling lately. The anxiety is of the “lurking in the shadows” variety and not the spinning top anxiety I get when I go into overdrive.

Maybe the “new normal” that is talked about is actually a radical acceptance that life is always in-between.

Tags Breast Cancer, breast cancer survivorship, Family, Friends, life transition, Marriage, mindfulness, work/life balance

Categories Breast cancer, Marriage, Mindfulness, Parenting

What’s wrong with this picture?

June 27, 2014 //

My daughter is away at camp this week. John and I decided to go out for a nice dinner last Wednesday. I just happened to have a salon appointment scheduled that day so I knew I was going to have “special occasion” hair. I chose a dress out of my closet that was inappropriate for work but appropriate for a date with my husband. We had a lovely time. I recently bought him a new camera so he was taking photos of me. A LOT of photos. He said it was because, “You look so pretty.” Yes, he is very sweet and he is the only person I would let put a camera two inches from my face in order to take close-ups.

This is one of the best photos.

Photo by Elizabeth’s hubby. 2014.

When I first saw it I thought, “That’s a nice photo of me. I look really happy, relaxed, and in love.” And those things are all true.

Then I noticed that I still had hair dye on my forehead near my hairline but I thought, “Who’s going to notice?”

Then I saw my crooked cleavage. I thought, “Oh!” I said to John, “My cleavage is off center!” He said, “Pfff, you look great.”

Now I’ve known about this asymmetry for a long time now. But this was the first time that I’d seen the unevenness in a photo of myself out in public. I had been wearing a low cut dress, displaying décolletage in all its cattywampus splendor.

Then I realized something. I didn’t really care all that much.

I am happy.

My husband loves me.

I’m still in the picture.

There’s nothing wrong with this picture.

Tags Body image, Breast Cancer, breast reconstruction, mindfulness

Categories Breast cancer, Feelings, Marriage, Mindfulness

Put a cork in it

May 5, 2014 //

As I mentioned last week, I am dealing with anger. I am pretty sure that it is about my stupid cancer. Getting sick for my New Orleans trip was really disappointing. I had seen it as an opportunity for a romantic “second honeymoon”. Adding to the frustration, the trip almost didn’t happen and was also quite expensive.

We still had fun but I’ve got to tell you, sitting on the plane on the way over was pretty uncomfortable. I was coughing a lot, I mean A LOT. I believe that I was the least popular person on the flight. The man sitting next to me had his body turned as far away from me as he could. A kind woman behind me handed me a cough drop. I already had one in my mouth not to mention the fact that I was fully loaded up with cough and cold medicine. And then I started having abdominal muscle spasms, which made me cough even more. That was a new one for me. I wonder if it has something to do with the abdominal muscle that was re-purposed for my TRAM reconstruction. I think that by the end of the flight, the man next to me was wishing that he’d sat next to a screaming toddler instead of next to me while I spewed my plague all over the coach section of the plane.

We arrived to New Orleans at about 3pm on Saturday. I took a short walk to the French Quarter with John. We walked down Bourbon Street until I finally said, “Yuck, I’ve gotten enough of an anthropological experience.”We walked over one block and had a delightful change of scenery to art galleries and such instead of Hustler clubs with horrible names like, “Barely Legal” with young and not so young scantily clad women standing in the doorways.

Sunday was our only full day without any band performances to attend. In the morning, I felt like I’d been run over so after John brought me some breakfast, I went back to sleep and didn’t get up until 4pm. I know I felt a lot better, showered, and got dressed for dinner. I have no recollection of where we went or what we ate though I know we walked there from the hotel, at my insistence and John’s objection. (I was still going to get in my 3 miles of walking in each day.)

On Monday, we went to a band performance, which went well. Then we took the street car to the Garden District to soak up the ambiance and to tour one of the cemeteries. We did a lot of walking that day. There were definitely some positives but I must admit that I was in a foul mood and complained a lot. Then John complained about my complaining and I said lamely, “But I’m sick! On our vacation. Waaaaaaaaaah!” (Okay, I didn’t really say, “waaaaaaaah!”) His suggestion was, “So you’re sick. Can’t you just make the best of it?” “But I am!!!!!!! I am out of bed!!!!! Also, your wife is sick and cranky. YOU make the best of that.”

So at this point of reading this post, you may feel sorry for my husband. And if you do not, you probably should because although I snapped out of my disappointed child routine for the couple of days following, once we’d gotten to the day after the fashion show, I was exhausted and mad again.

I was annoyed about every little thing. I have not been in a nasty mood like this in quite some time. And I don’t remember the last time it lasted an extended period of time like this. And John got the brunt of my perpetual dissatisfaction. I actually felt a lot better after I wrote my post complaining about how John often doesn’t answer me when I talk to him. Writing has a way of doing that for me. But by last night I was exhausted and fuming again. “Why is this house such a mess? Why do I have to live like this? This isn’t the way I want to live!”

Truth be told, although my husband is not the best at housework, he is a really hard worker. He is really bogged down with work and helping our daughter keep on top of her schoolwork. She missed nearly an entire week of school for that band trip and she takes a very difficult schedule. John spent many hours with her over the weekend sorting through what she missed, what she has to turn in, and what assignments needed to be done over the weekend. She is not easy to help, either, and is prone to getting frustrated and losing her reasoning skills. “What do you mean I have to answer in paragraphs? What does that mean? This is so stupid!”

He was so patient with her all weekend and here she and I were providing grumpiness in stereo. By the end of the night, I was feeling pretty remorseful. Today, my first thought was, “Put a cork in it, Elizabeth.” I know that my anger is very understandable and that I need to process it. Managing anger is tricky, though. There are ways of dealing with it that make it worse, for example, constantly complaining to one’s husband.

Maybe writing this post will help. Maybe I need to keep reminding myself that my anger, just like sadness and fear, do not last forever.

Even though all feelings are right. Anger FEELS wrong and I find myself looking ways in which I feel that I have been wronged in order to justify its expression. And then once I realize this is what I am doing, I feel wrong again.

Tags anger, Breast Cancer, displaced anger, grief, Marriage

Categories Breast cancer, Marriage, Mindfulness

The Silence

May 3, 2014 //

When I talk to my husband, he often doesn’t answer. This is not new to our relationship. It has been true for decades but waxes and wanes depending on his stress level.

Sometimes, he is just spacey and lost in thought. Other times, he is feeling anxious. He is very sensitive to rejection at these times. I may actually be annoyed or mad at him. I may not be mad, at all and just trying to get the business part of our lives done and coordinate household responsibilities. I am an organizer and a “big picture” person when it comes to administering a household. John is not. After many years, he asked me to start writing tasks on a “honey do” list, a little white board in our kitchen. I don’t really like doing this. I think he would be more likely to remember to do the task if he wrote it down himself. For some reason, that is something he just won’t do. He wants me to write it down. Sometimes this feels like a face saving move on his part. I wouldn’t mind writing it down if I didn’t know that a number of the things I’ve written down, stayed on that little board for years. So it filled up with tasks, most of which never got done. And every time I worked in the kitchen, I would see it and it was a visible sign of my frustration.

I hate the silence. The non-answers that could mean many different things. But even when my husband is merely lost in thought, the silence hurts. Relationship intimacy doesn’t just come with the package, it is something that must be continually nurtured and protected. It is important for marital happiness, for sexual health, and for emotional well being.

I nag, it is true. It is not a super power but I am also not an evil villain. I often feel caught between a rock and a hard place. John tells me that he is going to do a task and then he doesn’t do it. An excellent example might be doing the dishes. I’d say that between 1/3 of the times that John says he will do the dishes before he goes to bed at night, I wake up to a sink full of dishes. About half of the time, most of the dishes are done but some are either still on the dinner table or on one of the kitchen counters. And almost 100% of the time, either the table, counters, or the stove top are dirty.

If I say something, he probably won’t finish the job because he’s already gone to work. If I need to use the sink, then I need to clean it out. Later, when we are discussing dishes, because they are never to be taken for granted because they are not yet a habit, I might clarify that what I am asking is for him to do ALL of the dishes and if the kitchen stove top needs to be wiped, I expect him to wipe it. By this time, I am at my best, using a businesslike voice and at my worst I am doing nothing to conceal my annoyance.

The follow up discussions almost never go well. John feels criticized. And you know what? I am criticizing. I am complaining about the job he did. I understand why he doesn’t like it but he often communicates to me an expectation that a loving wife doesn’t ever criticize or complain. Although I don’t think he 100% believes this, it is an ideal he has and I even think he believes it to be attainable. These are the the times when my husband’s dreamy romanticism conflict with my pragmatic realism.

Relationships are full of noise. Some of it is like beautiful and romantic music. Some of it is not. Some of it is disagreement, some is problem-solving, some is negotiation. Relationships are also full of silence. But this kind of silence, the not answering with clear words but instead answering with confusing actions or lack of actions, is not helpful. These are the times when I feel that I am to match his silence with my own. And sometimes that is what I do because I have already tried to make my point and failed time and time again.

These are the time I feel silenced, that my job is to pick up after the many unfinished tasks in my household and not say a word. Just do other people’s work and carry through on other people’s promises. There are times in my life I am resigned to this. There are times in my life when I know that my husband has many other wonderful qualities that compensate for these shortcomings.

At other times, I feel alone. I feel like there is work that I have to do and for which I will never be appreciated. If I say something, I get a negative response. If I am silent, I get no response. To have to have no routine between the two of us to take care of these things is a perpetual stress to me. Routines can make life a lot easier and require a lot less higher order thinking. I would like to preserve my mental energy for things other than working and reworking the daily household routine as well as keeping track of so much of the family’s schedule. People who do not have organizational skills like this, the skills for carrying out and managing the most boring and perpetual household tasks just don’t get it. They don’t get the value they don’t get toll that it takes on the very most developed part of the human brain. My husband and I do not have a traditional marriage but my brain works like a housewife’s and his does not.

When it comes to managing my cancer, I am even more alone. And that’s one of the main reasons that I blog. I don’t need my husband to attend my appointments any more. He has no idea what my schedule is like and how it impacts the rest of my life. He can read about it here but he can’t experience it. And when I talk about the anger I feel, the fears I have, or my annoyance with the inconvenience of it, I know he gets afraid. He wants to do something. And there’s nothing for him to do but there’s a great deal he could say.

I empathize with him, really I do. I empathize with him when I don’t know what to say to one of my friends with mets, when they speak of incredible pain or fear or anger. Every once in awhile, I think I rise to the challenge and say the “right” thing. Other times, I just do my best to communicate the fact that I care. It never seems like enough but I also know that I can’t solve the problem of cancer. I can just do my best to be present. Sometimes, and I’m ashamed to admit it, I feel negative toward my friends’ cries of pain. I have thoughts like, “She must have waited too long to take her pain meds.” It doesn’t happen frequently but at those times, I understand why so many of us have lost the support of friends and family. Our brain tricks us into blaming someone with a painful and life ending disease to protect ourselves from our own helplessness and guilt. At these time, I am forced to stare at hard truths about the vulnerability of life and that fact that people I love are in excruciating pain and experience incredible isolation.

I am a loving human being. I am also flawed. I do, however, commit to keeping present with my family, my friends in face to face and cyber worlds. In our relationships, I will make noise.

Tags communication, conflict resolution, death and dying, division of labor, Marriage, mindfulness

Categories Breast cancer, Feelings, Marriage, Mindfulness