Fortune Teller

Fortune Teller (Robert Plant + Alison Krauss)

TGITT (Thank Goodness It's Therapy Tuesday)


On today's agenda for discussion with my therapist was my need for control.  We all enjoy a sense of control, or the belief that we have control over our lives.  There's a whole genre of self-help books out there to motivate people to take charge of the direction of their lives and be the master of one's own destiny. I wrestle with this a lot.


How can you be the master of your own fate, if fate is something completely out of your control?  Or, how can life be unfair and rough for some (even/especially for those who don't seem to deserve it), while easy peasy for others?  Not everyone gets tossed the same curve balls.  Some of us are born into loving, school-pushing, literate, relatively wealthy homes with middle class values, steamed vegetables, and organic breakfast cereal.  Others are born into slums, washing pots with newspaper and water, no choice but to ignore the bugs crawling up the walls.  


I miss the more enjoyable illusion that I had control over my life, waaaaay back when I thought I had everything under control:  family, job, finances, travel, food, health (a-duh), etc...  


This morning, I laid it all out for my therapist (FINALLY found a good one!) and told her I would be okay with all of the current transitions - the job adjustment, the 2nd child questions, the financial stress, yadda yadda - if I just knew with certainty when things would settle down.  Like for instance:  my cardiologist said, a bunch of weeks ago, that he believes I will be able to sustain a pregnancy (heart-wise) at some point in the future, but just not now. And not until we get some stability in the heart rate department.  Well, that's nice and hopeful and all, but it doesn't give me a heck of a lot of certainty.  "Yes, you will be able to someday.  That day is not today."  I want someone to tell me that next April, my heart will be healed.  A magical healer will have appeared at my door, waved a wand and made it all better so I'll be able to have a boring, uneventful, healthy pregnancy and we can all THEN pick up where we left off.


Having to lose hopes and dreams is a tough reality that comes with cancer.  That's hard for people (non-warriors) to understand because the loss is invisible.  If you're here and you're somewhat healthy, then that's reason enough to celebrate and let's forget all those other things you thought you'd have going on in your life by now.  Forget that your peers are all moving on with their ever-growing families and careers while you're stuck in the in-between place.  Just enjoy each moment as it comes.  One day at a time.  

What a load of male cow manure.  


There's a pile of grief loaded into the cancer goodie bag, even when the diagnosee survives the disease.  And that grief is for the life that was supposed to happen.  There's no memorial service or condolence card sent for this kind of grief, but it's there all the same.

Now that I've come to the end of this post, I realize I've been wallowing a bit in a pond of self-pity.  I know I am lucky.  Things could always be worse.  But I will grant myself the opportunity to be sad once in a while and save the sunshine for tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow, I've got another post planned with some top secret predictions about the future.... stay tuned.