I spend too much time thinking about my tits, AKA sometimes I wonder if I have breast cancer, or will.

I mean, like, non OBSESSIVELY, but more time that I would if my mom hadn’t died of breast cancer and her sister (my aunt) hadn’t had it too and her other sister (my other aunt) hadn’t had ovarian cancer, and her mom (my gramma) hadn’t had uterine cancer, and her grandmother (my great-gramma) hadn’t died of ovarian cancer.

Soooo, on occasion I worry that my lady bits are trying kill me. 

On the one hand, I have used this in a healthy way to stay on top of my yearly lady torture and I’ve had genetic counselling done at the University of Washington. I am on file there in case new genetic links are discovered but for now there is nothing terrifying in my DNA (according to current knowledge, I have a 15-30% higher chance of getting breast cancer that your average chick of my demographic but that isn’t terrifying, it is just vaguely discomforting). I also dropped 50 pounds and have been cutting most of the sugar and processed crap out of my diet. I quit using antiperspirant too… mostly, opting instead for natural mineral and baking soda formulas because there is some research that makes something more than tenuous connections there. I check my breasts for lumps regularly and make a point to try and pay attention to all those things they tell us to be mindful about. So that is the upside.

On the other hand, on occasion I find myself, particularly after reading about someone else’s ordeal with breast cancer,or dealing with the loss of someone from it, or when I hear about the Komen 3 Day, or when I hear about someone, like Angelina Jolie, taking preventative measures, on those occasions I catch myself sometimes feeling a bit like maybe my tits are out to get me and I should do them in before they get a chance to do me first. 

Now, my kids both breastfed, so the girls have served their official function,  and although they’ve never been record holders they do a fine job of holding up sweaters and whatnot, so it’s not that I find them aesthetically bothersome, they are cute enough, I guess. I just don’t like the whole “secretly plotting your eventual demise” vibe that I get on occasion.

This is not a conversation I can have with Honey Badger; it weirds him out, which I can understand, if he wanted to talk about prostate cancer and his chances of getting it I would want to be re-assuring and then I would want to change the subject to sunshine and lollipops, and cute, fluffy bunnies and topics that are not touching on deeply unhappy things like possible causes for a great deal of pain and perhaps even the eventual death of my spouse.

So in lieu of discussing the subject of my potential breast cancer, potential preventative steps I might someday deem necessary, or the possibility of my tits eventually murdering me with people who get uncomfortable with that subject matter… I am posting it online for the whole world to ignore. 

I know feeling a lot of this is normal, and I know that lots of people have these concerns and other similar to them, and I know I am probably going to be fine, and I GET all that, but sometimes a gal just wants to give voice to these concerns in a forum where it can just be ok to say it and have it acknowledged without anyone feeling the need to minimize, or poo-poo, or reassure. I don’t NEED reassurance or minimizing most of the time…

it is what it is, and I live with it, and I try to be smart, and I don’t need sympathy or bullshit, or sunshine blown up my…anything.

 

So is there a point to this? I don’t know, I guess “beware the boobs, they are deadly little biotches sometimes, but they still need love, so don’t skip your monthly self-exam.”

For my Limey

♫  We can dance if we want to…  ♫

The galaxy tastes like raspberries.

I remember hearing a report about it on NPR. I think it was Science Friday.

There is something so whimsical and brilliant in that detail.

Today I bought a raspberry milkshake and tasted the Milky Way.

 

B-b-b-baby, you just ain’t seen nothing yet!

I heard someone say they had the realization,

“this is the best it is ever going to get.”

I refuse to believe that.

I prefer the Inspector Dreyfus approach (Coue method);

“Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better!”

That must have been very lonely.

Sooooooo,

I’ve been going to a therapist.

Between mom dying,

dad nearly dying,

husband struggling with PTSD,

husband out of work for a year,

one teenager,

one preteen,

etc. etc. etc.

it seems I rather hit the wall regarding what I could handle without an assist.

So I let the social worker from hospice (who helped us care for mom) talk me into joining a bereavement group and going to see a therapist.

The bereavement group was amazing. It was an 8-week, closed session group and although we officially ended two months ago we have continued to get together for dinner periodically. We had a Autumnal Equinox dinner party on September 23rd. I may discuss more about my gals later but the title of this post is something my therapist said to me this week.

In discussing my teen years, after I told him about some events and various aspects of my life at that point, he said, That must have been very lonely.”

I instinctively wanted to deny that, immediately, but… in the quarter second I thought about it, I realized,

it was!

My immunity (bordering on disdain) for attempts to manipulate through disapproval or guilt, and my extreme sensitivity (and disgust) for hypocracy, especially among ultra-conservative Christians, could probably both be attributed directly to situations in my teen years. I regard these as positives that came from negatives, but I’ve never really thought much  about how living it through it felt, retrospectively.

Then I think,

so what if it was lonely? I wasn’t being sent off to death camps or killings fields. I wasn’t being sexually or physically abused. So what is the point of dwelling on this? Beside provoking maudlin self-pity, anger, or fresh annoyance at the adults in my life at that stage, what is the benefit?

I tend to think therapy is only a benefit when you are using it in a cognitive-behavioral mode. As in, how you think effects how you feel, how you feel and think effects how you act. If you change your mindset  and your focus you can change how you act and how you feel.

So I had some unhappy experiences as a teenager, hello, is it possible to survive those years WITHOUT some? 

and, what am I supposed to do about it NOW?

This is why I’m not a big fan of talk therapy.

8/24/1967

Is the day my parents were married.

Today my papa was with my brother-in-law, niece, and nephew camping on the coast.

I am glad he had something fun to do.

I’ve just read some books.

Shocking, I know,

but the content of both of them have my brain working overtime to coalesce the ideas of  them both into something that is tickling at the edge of my brain and yet will not be still and take shape when I try to look at it.

Non-Violent Communication and Kitchen Table Wisdom were suggested to me from two different sources and acquired from two different sources without a set timetable dictating their arrival. The fact that I ended up finishing them one after the other was not planned but certainly seems fortuitous now.

There are ideas about honoring the life within us all and supporting wholeness, in attitude and action, and taking the time to heal, love, and honor the life in others that I want combined and recorded so I remember how to live these ideas when annoyance with family, irritation with strangers, and pressures of daily life crowd into my mind and make it easy to react with no awareness of the healing or harm engendered by my words and actions.

It’s nearly 2 am now and my brain won’t be still and let me sleep, instead it keep working on how the idea pieces of these two authors fit together to form a puzzle that details daily courses of action as well as an overarching philosophical framework that seems suitable to integrate into principles and practices I’ve already chosen as priorities in my life.

It may well be that the unexamined life is not worth living but I wish my brain would save it for day light hours!

Talking it out

I remember wanting you to hold me and being frightened when you yelled. I didn’t want to be left alone with you and I hated your control games.

I remember hearing your conversation with a friend in the car when you thought I was asleep. I was about 13 or 14 at that point. You told her you had always loved me, of course, but hadn’t liked me for many years. You were trying to show her that kids need to be accepted and allowed to be who they are, so you were talking about how you learned it. I’m glad, now, that I helped you figure that out, but it just kinda hurt at the time. Having an independent child who wanted to think for herself and didn’t want to discuss her feelings with you must have been challenging for you. It often felt as though you saved the best of yourself for everyone outside our family and we were left with the anger, frustration, and unpleasantness. There were wonderful momentstoo though, and good memories.

I felt like you spent my childhood pushing me away and my teen years yanking me at close as possible and I didn’t like that. I knew you loved me though, and that I had your support. It meant so much to have your support with some of the craziness that happened in the school and church during my high school years.

I remember when I noticed you were asking my opinion on things and repeating it to others. It felt so good that you admired how and what I thought and valued my input. I think that was the beginning of feeling healed. You asked me to forgive you for the hurt you caused me as well, and how could I not?

By the time we were expecting our first child you were so wonderful. It was like you were growing into the mature, wise, kind, generous person you were always meant to be. Thing One had an awesome gramma. You were amazing to the people around you, to me, and especially to my son. You lost over 100 pounds and your selfishness and discontent seemed relagated to the past.

When Thing Two was on the way you had your first breast cancer diagnosis. Your gratefulness journal really helped you find a way through that process that was graceful, and strong. I was so impressed. It was a scary time but then you had it beat, and we were so relieved.

In June of 1999 you had your first seizure. In November you were diagnosed and told you couldn’t drive anymore. All the negative emotion you had channeled and handled so well before seemed to start pooling and overwhelming you. That horrible cancer support group seemed to just make things worse, not better. The seizures seemed to actually change your personality, and the emotional effects contributed to what seemed like regression. Gradually, it seemed nothing anyone gave was quite good enough, people didn’t visit as much as they could, nothing was quite enough for you.

By 2006, when your breast cancer reappeared, your memory loss and other troubles seemed to provide you excuse for many behaviors I had seen you overcome. In 2008, the cancer spread to your brain. It was the beginning of the end and I cannot imagine how it felt from your perspective. I only know what I saw and felt. I reminded myself constantly  that change was not something I could expect from you.

The last two years were exhausting, emotionally and finally physically as well. Thank you for always loving us, no matter anything else, with all your heart you loved us, and the rest was just details.

Well, doesn’t THAT just figure

I’ve recently discovered David Foster Wallace.

He is a grammar geek, or SNOOT as he would have it. I’ve been giggling and fist pumping, and generally rejoicing in the find of a brilliant, hysterically funny author.

Now my heart is broken. I decided I wanted to research him a little and discovered he hanged himself a couple years ago. He struggled with depression and evidenly he didn’t win.

How depressing.

I’m not Buddhist, but

I swear I will stop wanting things if it will make life never hurt again.