This year I'm SO enjoying the beautiful early fall weather. I have a hard time picking which season is my favorite between spring and fall but I seem to enjoy the same things between each of them:
- Windows-down weather
- Less bitey bugs
- Jeans or shorts - both are comfortable
- Boat rides or festivals - your choice! Or both!
- Trees are doing things
- (I feel like I was reaching with that last one so maybe I should go ahead and end this list.)
I've enjoyed several decades of fall weather in my lifetime. In fact, there's only ONE fall season in my life that I didn't enjoy. So explain to me why the memory of that one fall season (last year) literally makes me feel nauseous every time I go outside and enjoy the fall weather right now?
Within seconds of me going outside, feeling that perfect air temperature and feeling the dopamine starting to hit, the nausea comes too. Like "hey! Remember last fall! Remember how one year ago today you were laying in the bed, ABSOLUTELY MISERABLE, while your husband and kids cried in the garage? Let's think of that instead!" No!
Other things that bring on the nausea: pulling into the oncologist's parking lot (at least this one makes sense), seeing pictures of last fall (again, makes sense), thinking about one afternoon last year where John and I sat outside because I was feeling a bit better and he made me a fire in the fire pit and I admired the leaves (WHY must a sweet memory bring on the naus?).
Maybe those memories are having to get creative with how they bubble back up to the top because I have done a really good job at moving-the-eff-on. I don't think of it every day anymore. I don't HAVE to think of it. My body works differently, but it works and I still have no regrets there. And it honestly feels sort of like I imagined it all at times. It seemed to be over and done with so quickly. It didn't feel like that during, of course, but ultimately it's just a blip in the grand scheme of things. A horrible blip. I don't want to dwell on those memories. I am living to create new memories.
You know how on old VHS tapes you'd record your favorite show, and then you could record over it again? But then a few seconds of the show that was on the tape initially may pop up in between the first thing on the tape and the next thing you record on the tape because you didn't start to record in exactly the right spot? (Gen Z - just skip this paragraph, just like you pressed skip on your CD or DVD. We didn't have that new-fangled technology then!) That's kind of what it's like. I'm overwriting those awful memories with good ones but occasionally in between making one good memory and the next good memory, a few seconds those bad ones sneak in.
CT scans (I'm doing those quarterly this first year) have been good. I say good and not great because that second one did give me a bit of a scare, but the third one confirmed there was nothing at all to be afraid of. This last one was perfect - still no evidence of disease. Next one is in November.
I am struggling with my hair. I get told pretty often how much people like my curls. The compliments are coming from a nice place, I'm not complaining about that. But I don't like it, and then I feel the need to tell whomever that is giving me a compliment that I don't like it which makes it seem like I can't accept a compliment. Why can't I just say thanks and move along?
It's not even that I think it looks bad, it just wasn't my choice. I also am desperate to be able to DO my hair. For 6 solid months, my only choice for how to do my hair is to put in a headband. It's unruly on the sides of my head if there's not a headband to help hold it down. It is straight up comical the couple of times I tried to straighten it to see what I was working with. Yesterday I did try one of those zig zag headbands and that was ok. I used to love those things when they were popular the first time around. Ironically at that time I had a perm. Chosen curls > Chemo Curls
I did read that a lot of people's chemo curls stop right around 10 months from the end of chemo, which is where I'm at! ANNNNYY day now it's just going to start to be straight, I just know it!
So I'm doing good. I want to start updating here and NOT talk about that elephant any longer. Just because I like to write and I constantly have things swirling around in my head that I want to share. Really important things, thought provoking and insightful. Such as, can we please stop using the phrase photo dump? 💩
