Island Girl

I am not going to question it but I am still feeling okay. And nothing has changed. Everything I went crazy over on Saturday is still the same. None of it has gone anywhere. I don't want to delve too deeply into the whys because I am afraid that I am standing on a very tenuous plateau in this newfound okayness and not solid ground; definitely not solid ground.

I guess in trying to explain it I have to think about myself. I love change. I crave change. I hate feeling stagnant. I hate routine. Not only do I like change; I like changes that I don't make. I like surprises. I like when things don't go the way I thought they would. I like being thrown into situations. I like challenge. I like adventure. All of that makes my life interesting and fullfilling for me. All of that should have set the stage for this illness being all the more exciting and something I should be able to tackle with gusto.

But here's the biggie; I like control. I am a control freak in a way where I like to be able to say when. I like to be able to say the jig is up and curl back into my cocoon. And in this situation, there has been no cocoon to curl into. It's been me out there blowing in the wind unable to see a finger in front of me, soaked to the skin, with no food and no idea when and if I am being rescued. I am Robinson Crusoe or Tom Hanks in Castaway. I need to make the island mine or the island will own me. And that is a slow process.

This experience has me utilising a new skillset; one that I never possessed. Me who likes to spread myself thin and is always late and always in a rush and always says yes and wants to fill her plate with everything now has to be in the moment and take things a little slower. Enjoy what I have right now. Be where I am right now. Don't be a control freak and need to know what's going to happen or orchestrate the future. Am I going to have kids with flippers? Am I going to be able to have children? Am I going to ever find someone who loves me enough to risk having kids with flippers or not at all. Because I don't know if I love me enough for that. Am I going to meet a guy who will be okay with all of my newfound 'special needs?' I don't even completely know what those needs are but I doubt watching someone you love take the amount of drugs I take is ever a big turn on.

I can't go there. There is unknown. This, where I am right now, is known. And I could just as easily be back in remission and all of this hell could just be something I went through in the few years between 29 and 30. Even the bad moments are important to drink in. I never was able to fully appreciate them before. Who would want to. I used everything in my power not to feel them. When Illinois and I broke up after my two miscarriages I don't think I fell asleep sober for months. I couldn't handle being conscious. I couldn't feel my feelings; they were crippling and unbearable. Now when I think about the last two weeks and how for the most part I was in that uncomfortably depressed despondent place, I know I was in it. I think that facing it and processing it was what enabled me to wake up feeling deep-cleaned and depleted and alright on Sunday AM. I was open again. I wasn't bogged down by the effort it took to suppress these awful emotions. I was open and available and able to get joy and feel love from my cousins and then AC and C later on that night. I was still there on my birthday. I am still there now. I am open and available and aware and alive; for the bad, the good and the ugly. Thankfully for as dire as my health situation is (my doctor actually said today, "excuse my language, but you are on a shitload of drugs right now," and then his assistant told me after drawing my blood that after today we need to switch veins for awhile.), that is not my entire universe. I am not stuck on that island. That island is only a tramway away from the rest of the world. And I am now ready to travel.

My world is the 'fearless' gold necklace I now wear which is empowered by D., A, V., and BE. They are tangible and with me always, I wear them around my neck to remind myself to be fearless which will enable me to be open to all experiences and life in general and not let the disease infect the rest of my life with fear of the unknown. I am open to spontaneous nights with C and AC at panino'teca, to calling 31 and asking him to walk around the neighborhood with me, to burgers at the Parker Meridien with Twinkle at lunch, to cutting out of work for Bikram yoga as often as I can, to buying the sexiest shoes I have ever seen today, to expanding my lingerie collection, to trying to lure LG to get away from the Hamptons for a night and come see me, to going to Mexico in three weeks with C and trying to get my sister to give me a real hug. My brother can! To seeing my Roosevelt Island peeps as often as humanly possible. To saying yes. And to saying no when I need to.