Light and Shadow

June 26, 2022, 5:16 pm, Arboretum.

The language around cancer is filled with cliches, metaphors, and pithy, made-up words, and medical shorthand. Scanxiety. Chemo-brain. Dx (diagnosis). Tx (treatment). “Cancer sucks.” The “rounds” of chemotherapy slide into the metaphor of a boxing match–still swinging, etc. The “battle with cancer” shows up in a lot of obituaries. I despise them all for their kernels of truth and grim (or punchy) glibness.

I have a scan tomorrow. I’m filled with dread. That sentence describes how I feel with the same, thin accuracy as the above photo captures the living brilliance of the young buck I encountered on my walk yesterday. Online cancer forums are filled with posts from people with much more aggressive cancer than I have, people who have been told that their options for treatment are exhausted and they must transition into palliative care, people who are much younger than I am, people who have young children, people who have very little support, limited health insurance, enormous debt. I have so much to be grateful for, so much support. And all the positive thinking, clean living, meditating, exercising, supplement taking in the world will not prevent recurrence. It will help me tolerate treatment. It won’t provide what I want, relentlessly, constantly: a successful treatment followed by the certainty of no recurrence.

I write these words as if I am explaining something. That’s not my purpose. I want this impossible fixation to be understood. I yearn for the assurance of no recurrence so intensely, I want to obliterate myself in order to escape it. But I don’t. I contain my aching, soul-cramping wish. I keep my mouth closed and my throat tight. I do the self-care steps: write in a journal, meditate (I can manage 5 minutes), walk in nature (this seems to work best), exercise, disclose my anxiety and frustration to loved ones, list things I’m grateful for, take an epsom salt bath before bed, go to bed early. I suppose it helps enough. I’m not harming myself apart from the emotional eating (cheese!!) and many hours on the internet, watching drama series and videos of orphaned elephants, and reading discussion forums until I’m too frightened or angry to contemplate my own or anyone else’s future. Will that make the cancer come back?

I could force a retreat into everyday life, but the prospect of the endless tasks that need doing immobilizes me. Washing mirrors and windows. Vacuuming floors and folding laundry. Sorting closets and washing the car. Hauling electronics to the recycling drop-off. At least load the dishwasher so the ants don’t come back! There is relationship work to do as well. Reaching out to friends and loved ones who have been so generous, loving, supportive, and asking “how are you doing?” for a change. Organizing small get togethers or perhaps a large one to have the many friends and loved ones who have supported me connect with each other. I could take a trip with my mom to see my brother and his wife. Each possible course of action involves multiple steps. Planning. Follow-through.

In the past, I’ve been in relationships with people who had an aversion to my depression that was even more powerful than my own. Their suggestions usually involved “toughing it out,” which would entail undertaking the many tasks, small and large, from a space of numbed hopelessness. The reasoning: “You feel awful whether you do it or not. At least this way X will be done.” The suggestion is loaded with “should,” and I find myself entertaining it as I push through the basics of self-care. I need to connect with life to move forward, and I am apathetic about taking any steps to do so. I’m stuck in a holding pattern.

I see a wonderful health psychologist who reassures me that I’m handling my situation very well. “Stick with the self-care. Journal. Move. Let self-care work. Give yourself time.” There is no balm for the wound in my heart, the wounding of a diagnosis that will stay with me for a lifetime, shadowing every moment. My work now involves cultivating the habit of choosing to look at the shadow and look at the light, notice the fear and darkness, and notice the gratitude, love, and light.

My challenge lies in my refusal to accept the shadow. “It’s always been there,” chime those wise existentialists in my head, and occasionally in real life. I reply (to myself), “I regret sharing my pain with you.” I think about times when a loved one has confided deep grief or fear to me; and from a place of un-grieving and unfrightened “wisdom” I’ve offered questions and observations meant to be supportive. Other times, compassion has led me to sit with, walk with, weep with my grieving, frightened loved one. Sometimes I’m able to open up to the all or nothing proposition of mortality. I have always felt grateful for the privilege of sitting in the wretchedness and beauty of life facing death. Is awakening to my humanity in that space enough? Enough for a life? Enough to say I have fully lived? Is that the space I’m supposed to live in? Will anyone ever feel safe having a conversation with me again? Would I even want to talk to me?

When I am in that sacred space, standing in my naked humanity and prostrate to the universe, I am fully realized, alone, formless, and free. How does a person go about folding the laundry, cleaning the bathroom, setting up a website, while staring into the infinite, unknowable eye of the universe? No thank you. At least, not today.

If my scan is clear tomorrow, I will have another three months before the next one. I must adopt a new strategy for living with the uncertainty. I haven’t found my footing with it yet, another effing metaphor, me looking for footing where there is no solid ground.