Category: health

career · compassion · fear · friendship · health · old ideas · recovery · self-love

Smalls tasks. One thing. Little pieces. Eventual mountains.

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The thing about “eventual mountains” is that we actually
have to have the presence of mind to turn around and acknowledge we’ve reached
the top of a mountain. Otherwise, small tasks never seem to add up to anything significant, because
we’re always striving without appreciating our own efforts.
I’ve noticed this week that my patience with people I come
into daily contact with is … thin. That I envelop the small irks with a
candy-coating of relish. (Not like real relish, that’d be gross.) From the
first work email I replied to yesterday morning, back from the long weekend, to the
impatience I had toward someone else, I knew that I was taking on more emotional attachment to these interactions than I truly had to.
None of this was personal. “I didn’t cause, can’t control and
can’t cure” you or your behavior. It is not my fault or responsibility that you,
woman, are a tight-ass, type-A, micro-managing, self-righteous, impervious,
judgmental bitch.
IN THIS inner maelstrom of judgment toward others, I remembered
something significant: We are only a percent as judgmental of others as we are toward ourselves. It’s something
I’ve heard again and again. If you hear someone being judgmental of others,
just know that they treat themselves with a spiked lash of self-derision
infinitely more rigid than they use on others.
And so, I’m brought back to myself. Where the only chance
for change, love, release, is ever possible.
If I’m so mean to others, so angry, and rigid, and
correcting, and impatient and punitive toward them… how on earth am I to
myself?
And, I’m reminded of something else: Every single person
who’s ever told me that I’m too hard on myself.
I never actually take this in. I brush this comment aside
like so much hippie, free-love nonsense. I don’t treat myself harshly. I’m fine to myself. Fuck you.
But. I’ve begun to see the veracity of this opinion. That
it’s not actually opinion, when I really listen to the thoughts I fling at
myself. I am very exacting and punitive
toward myself, though I’m very good enough to hide it, or to brush it under the
rug.
I’m coming to see that I have internalized a pattern of
self-deflation. Having experienced enough external feedback in response to
being authentic, I’ve become habitualized to doing it to myself. Better not to
show who you really are, what you really want to do, what talent you really
have, because it will be taken away from you. Trouble is, I’m the one doing the
taking these days.
Better to stop myself early from doing anything worth doing,
because I “know” I’ll just fuck it up, it will be taken away, it will be flawed
eventually.
It’s the reason I continue to hold on to second-rate things
(and ideas, and jobs): No use in having something really nice, because you,
Molly, will fuck it up anyway. OR, it will be taken from you, and you will be
heart-broken. Better to have or do something only half-assed, because then you
won’t be disappointed.
Nor will I actually be fulfilled.
And, by the way, did you happen to catch all that
self-derisive talk up there? It’s not actually that explicit when it’s
happening. Instead it’s a mercurial thread of poison in my water supply.
A friend told me last night that I haven’t caught a break in
a while. That no wonder I’m tired and frustrated and feverish with the “Divine
unrest.” The Universe owes me a break.
But as we spoke about self-flagellation, I replied to her, I haven’t given myself a break in a while. To which
she replied, Well, you are the
Universe.
Tis pity, tis true.
I believe we, in some ways, create our own reality. And if
there is a constant badgering of myself, a constant deflation, and a “cosmic”
interception of my touchdown passes, born of an (old) idea that I can’t have
nice things, do good things, have success, and ease and partnership and
fulfillment and joy … then of course that’s what will be reflected back to me.
Last night, I re-posted a 2012 blog of “What ifs” in the style of
Shel Silverstein. As I read it, I began to rephrase the questions in terms of
affirmations. Instead of “What if I believed I were safe,” I read to myself, “I
am safe.” “What if I allowed myself to
laugh,” becomes, “I allow myself to laugh.”
I see that how I am behaving toward others is a reflection
of how I behave toward myself. And that awareness is one of those tiny steps I
need to be conscious — and appreciative — of as I climb this mountain toward health. 

aspiration · community · fear · healing · health · recovery · self-care · self-love

I think I might be…healthy.

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It’s been surprising to notice how nice I’ve been to myself
this week as I crawl out of the hopeless, “what am I doing with my life,”
place.
Without real conscious intention about it, while I’ve been
wading through the mire of job postings and life meaning, I also allowed myself
to buy a silly book, read it in the sun, and then go see a funny movie. I went
to a community party, even though I still don’t feel “cool” enough to be a
member of that community. Surprise! I know people who were there, so I guess I
must be. I mean, I knew several people, wasn’t lonely, had many conversations,
so I guess I belonged, right?
I made another nice meal for myself after therapy last
night. I painted my nails for my job interview, and I’m awake again early to go
to the gym to feel strong and proud and accomplished. 
I participated in a staged reading Tuesday night, my first. And I had the
insight and perspective, as I sat in that empty stagehouse, to notice that I
was doing what I told myself I wanted to do while going through my chemo. I
could realize I was accomplishing my
dreams. Following them. They sure don’t feel accomplishy (yet) in the dim lighting of a poor cast
and poor audience. But, it’s a case of feelings aren’t facts.
I’ve had several long phone calls with good girl friends.
Went out to coffee with a co-worker and sat in the community garden nearby,
plucking a strawberry off its vine. I stood on a dock swaying in the Berkeley marina one day after work.
I showered.
Despite going through what feels like a dark time, a lost
time, I realize that I have an impulse toward self-care I didn’t know I
had.
Two friends texted me yesterday to reach out for support in
their own journeys. To ask me to remind them that life is abundant and fear is
an asshole. Which I gladly did. And it reminds me to remind myself of these
things too, but moreso, it reminds me that those are core pieces of myself,
pieces that friends see in me, and reach out to me for: I’m an uplifter. Not
always, I’m not Pollyanna or inhuman. But, I am someone who more often than not
is there to remind my friends that what we’re doing is not impotent. That life
is worth living.
I’ve been prefacing my sentences this week with, “Despite
the fact that the planet is dying…”! Despite the fact that the planet is dying,
I want to leave an imprint in it; I want my life to count; I want to move the needle of human progress forward. Despite the fact
that the planet is dying, we continue to bring children into this world because
every generation has had its reasons not
to. Despite the fact that the planet is dying, I will go to the gym today; meet
with a former theater collaborator to who reached out to me about a book she
wants to write; I will go to the farmer’s market and eat a plum off a tiny
toothpick.
My habit toward self-care, toward health, has become
something so natural in me that it’s unnatural. And if such things as this can
make seismic shifts, I guess I can remember that life is abundant and fear is
an asshole. 

action · debt · deprivation · health · perseverance · recovery · self-care · theater

Work It.

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I’m up at what I would
call atrociously early, if I hadn’t just signed up to be the desk person at my
gym at 5:30 am on Mondays starting June. That will be hellaciously early. This is only moderate.
I do a work-trade at my workout studio so I can get free
unlimited classes. Last time I was on the trade staff, I barely took advantage
of it; since I could go whenever I wanted for free, there didn’t feel like any
urgency. Now. … Well, I started back on staff just before my Boston trip, so I felt
a bit urgent in “lifting my seat”! And in hoping not to wheeze like a rhino during
any strenuous activity!
Now that the trip is well over, and schedules are back on
track, I’m trying to get back a few times a week again. It’s good for me. Mentally, mostly. Though, yes, when I go
regularly, I see and feel changes that I like. It’s nice to feel strong, capable. It’s nice to push myself
because sometimes the class is peopled with 60 year olds (along with the 20, 30
and 40 somethings who are straight out of a Marina postcard) – and if they, a
sexagenarian, if you will, can do it, can hang for an hour, then so can I.
Moderately!
I also asked a friend to meet up and do our writing together
yesterday evening, since we’re both in the study group that’s doing all this together. It
was good to see her, and we got a lot accomplished. I can already see that this
work is a lot deeper and more meaningful than the last time I did this, so I
can hope for change because of it.
It has already shown, in just the 15 timered-minute increments,
that there are some messed up ideas
around self-worth, what I can expect in this world, and what I think I deserve.
So… it’ll be nice to get them out of my reflexes and onto the page.
Also, I did show up
to an audition for a staged reading this past weekend, and in fact, actually got the
part. Like, in writing. In an email saying, “I’d like to offer you the role
of…” and then the follow-up email entitled, “Welcome to the cast.”
So, I’m now Various Roles! Ha! Yay for me. Goes on my resume.
Speaking of, I did a little more work last night – or action,
rather, and sent something out. I still have loads to wade through following my
info interview with my former boss last week, which was awesome, but I can try to take a small action every day.
In fact, I took that action last night after all that writing during which my
fears and beliefs tell me that no matter what I do or accrue or amass, it’ll be
taken from me because I can’t handle it properly, because I don’t deserve it.
SO, I told that thought and belief to screw itself and got
online to follow-up on something I’d seen earlier last week.
I also replied to the Volunteer Usher group I belong to who’d put
out feelers to see who’d be interested in ushering the Sir Paul show at Candlestick in
August. UH. ME. We won’t find out if we’re “chosen” until August, but I’m throwing my hat in the ring.
I continue to throw my hat in the ring. It’s kinda one of
the things about me. I can have all these creeping, sodden beliefs and habits
and reflexes that undermine what I do and want to do in this life, and I seem to continue to do this stuff anyway. I don’t
know what or where that came from, that same impulse that told cancer to fuck
itself, that knows this work is worth it, that isn’t satisfied accepting less than I deserve because of
reasons I learned long ago about only deserving a second rate life, job,
relationship, since it’ll be taken from me anyway or I’ll screw it up anyway.
I seem to have some bloody impulse that impels me to keep
trying. I squawk a lot about dilly-dallying at the cross-roads of my life, and
that’s true in many regards, and makes sense if I believe the above is true. But
despite my procrastination, my self-sabotage, and my self-judgment, I’m awake
at 5:30 this morning to do something that’s good for me. And my ass. 

community · death · faith · god · health · order · reality · recovery · spirituality

In Vain.

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God? G-d? Him, Her, It, We, They?
The Great What Is?
The tendency of all things toward progress, perhaps. Toward
health and order.
Cut your hand, and assuming all other things are right with
your body, it will heal itself. In a week or two, it will be good as new.
Sometimes scarred, but altogether, well.
In parallel, cut your spirit, your psyche, and the tendency
of them are toward healing and health. If we don’t hide away the wound, or habitually fiddle with it, we’re sort of compelled to heal. It’s the natural state of ourselves,
and it’s my experience and observation that the order of life will lead us
there.
In this, I can believe.
In benevolence, I have a harder time, these days.
I’m at the part in my personal work where I’m supposed to
think about “god” and my relationship to it, whatever I choose to define it as.
I’m at the part where I come to believe that it wants the best outcome for me
and all creatures. The part where I’m supposed to take a deep breath, open my
arms, and fall into the caring embrace of this power.
Balls.
Because here’s the part that snags my shirttail: sometimes
“god’s” plan includes the death of babies. Sometimes it includes the overdose of
a friend, the death of a parent before you’re old enough to know them. Sometimes “god’s plan” includes rape. And of course, sometimes it includes
cancer in a healthy 30 year old.
I will not stand with those who say it’s part of a plan. I
don’t think it is. I think you can take those experiences, and choose to
integrate them into a theology and a world-view that helps you get through
them. Mostly, you can choose to tell yourself, perhaps truthfully, that their
or your experience will benefit those around you. That others get to witness
how you struggled, railed, and got through it anyway. I do believe that we can
choose to turn our experiences into something valuable.

(Though I do have unresolved issues with being or using anyone as a goddamned touchstone on how to life your life more fully. “I could go at any time, just like him — I think I’ll learn from his pain & in homage and reverence, I’ll paint that portrait; become a doctor; take a trip.” Balls. F’ you, man. My life is not your feeding ground. — … unless of course, it is.)

But I will not say
that I believe that “god” puts these obstacles before us on purpose. I just don’t think it’s
that intelligent.

The intelligence in focusing all flowers toward the sun (or
moon, depending), the intelligence that makes all those little newborn turtles
scurry toward the ocean, the intelligence that turns felled trees into
compost: it’s order, it’s incredible, it’s inspiring, but it’s not benevolent,
necessarily, and it’s not because a force underlies all and declares some of those
turtles will be scooped up by predators in their first moments of life – that’s simply part of the order of
it.
Because here’s another side to the whole “God as
benevolence” thing: it means (or can mean) that we believe we have an ace in the hole. It means
wishful and fantastic thinking that “god didn’t take us this far to drop us on our ass” or “god is
slow but never late,” which translates to, if I hold out long enough, if I pray
hard enough, if I act well enough, I’ll be alright. And buddy, that just ain’t
true.
It’s not really about god at all. Being or becoming
“alright” has more to do with how we chose to interpret and incorporate out
life experiences. God isn’t gonna rescue me, reward me, or punish me. It just
doesn’t care like that. But I do. And you do. And together we can form a lattice of support
that feels bigger than ourselves, that carries us through and over those hard
times. Together, we are aimed toward health, and we connect to improve our
chances of getting there.
In that, I can
believe. I can believe in our collective desire toward joy. I can believe in my
desire to clear out the junk in my heart, so that I can help you
toward joy, too.
Is that “god”? Not really. Is it good? You bet. 

adulthood · adventure · anger · courage · family · fear · healing · health · hope · love · perseverance · relationships

Nature vs. Nurture.

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Being raised by a psychoanalyst, I grew up believing pretty
strongly in Nurture vs. Nature. I believed adamantly in Tabula Rasa, and that
every aspect of my personality was developed in reaction to my environment.
Eventually, even through a Psychology Major (that switched
to Minor), I began to admit that perhaps there were a few inborn traits that one
has out of the womb, but the majority of a human’s personality was forged out
of their experiences before the age of 3.
But, I have to admit that the aggregate of my own lifetime
experiences, up to and including a Leukemia diagnosis, has begun to make me
admit that perhaps there is something more to the Gattaca within us. Perhaps
something like perseverance, courage, and visceral insistence on life has more
to do with my wiring as “human” and as “Molly,” in particular.
I would never peg myself as someone brave or bold. I don’t
charge into the fray, or head corporations, or tie myself to a tree before a bulldozer. I have few
of the outward markings I would associate with leader or change-maker.
But I am compelled to admit that my undertakings as an adult
do, in sum, mark me as someone willing to rage, to rail, to fight, to excavate all in the
service of healing.
Though perhaps if my formative years hadn’t been what they
were, I wouldn’t find the need to heal from much. Perhaps.
I had a therapist a few years ago who said something novel
to me: Your dad is not a courageous man. This struck me as apocryphal. My father, the one so quick to temper and anger and
rule of iron fist was not brave? Isn’t that what violence is—bravery? Isn’t
that what power is—anger?
Yet, her words rang so unbelievably true. Like seeing the Wizard behind
the curtain in Oz. I know now that that kind of anger does usually hide and
house one who is critically afraid. I mean, I usually wear my black leather
jacket when I’m feeling more insecure, as if its made of chainmail instead of
leather.
But, I was on the phone with a friend yesterday, answering
her question about why I was in Victoria’s Secret the other day. I told her
about my upcoming trip to meet my consummate penpal—and she squealed. She
thought it was so bold and brave, and adventurous, and ALIVE. She rattled on
that this experience is going to help so many other people down the line, help
women to see that life is meant to be
lived.
It sounded so epic when she mirrored it back like that! And
maybe it is. And maybe it’s not.
But, I do know that with every meditation, every alternative
healer, every inventory, every striving, every goddamn picking myself up, that
I am taking something back. That I am reclaiming something. And if that impulse
to charge onward, in light of all that is, is called courage, then I guess the
Wizard granted me a heart on the day that I was born. 

acting · adulthood · calm · connection · excitement · health · performance · theater

Wow. Wowie Wow Wow

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(Christopher Walken on SNL; check it out if you don’t
know; too funny)

You know when they (I) say “Both/And”? That life is both
this, and that. It is inimitable and gripping, and sallow and challenging? That
life is “everything all at once”?
That you are both excited for your new callback and getting
dressed to get a possible melanoma removed?
Yeah. Both/And.
So, that’s happening right now. In a little while.
I went to the dermatologist about a month ago to get a
strange new mole checked out on my back. She told me that that one was nothing
to worry about; that, in fact, it’s the kind of mole you only see on fully adult
homosapiens. So, I asked, then basically, this new mole is a Rite of Passage
Mole? That I’m officially an adult human, now? Wow. Weird to have your skin
tell you it!
You, Molly Louise, you are now officially an
adult. Instead of a parade, statue, medal, or email from the Universe, you get
this nifty little mole on your back. Holler!!! Luckily, I think it’s kind of
awesome and funny, and I’m really not concerned about the aesthetics of it –
it’s not gross or repulsive or anything. It doesn’t have a satellite moon
orbiting it or have a hair growing from it. – although the Derm said that a
hair is usually a good sign that a mole is not malignant.
(It’s this an awesome
blog topic!)
“BUT,” she said. …
“This other one…” and took out the little 6-inch ruler she
kept in her white lab coat. “Well, this other one, …”
Yeah, that one’s kind of new too, in the last year for sure,
I told her.
So, today I have it taken out. Which means, they have to dig
all the way through ALL of the layers of skin into the fatty flesh below, and
take out, like a dowel in the earth, a cylinder of my skin. Yum.
It’s a small thing, it’ll only leave a centimeter of a scar,
but for a few days, until the stitched, sewn-together skin around it heals and
seals together (our bodies are amazing), no heavy lifting or working out the same way.
Meh. C’est la vie. Small price to pay for solace of mind.
Although, when I told someone when I found this out
those few weeks ago, that it was a possible skin cancer thing, they said, oh,
no big deal, that’s simple, they gauge it out. Done. … Well, I felt like that was a tad insensitive. I mean, this was coming from another young
cancer survivor!
I’m not “worrying twice,” and it is something you just take
out (I think – I don’t know – I’m not Googling anything until the doc indicates
I ought to). But, it’s still a (what’s “less than worrying”) – Ah, concerning, it’s still a concerning thing. So, I’m concerned.
So I get it checked out.
I think my Rite-of-Passage Mole might be on to something.
And, further in the Wow category, this acting
thing. Wowie wow wow, man.
It’s so fun. Sure, I talk about the isolation it offers when
you’re practicing lines alone, auditioning alone, but, the camaraderie that it
leads to, is the point. The opportunity to turn the light on in an audience, to
share something with someone else, is the point. And this is the path to that.
I’m stoked.
I have no clue if this is beginner’s luck, if anything more
will happen, if I’ll circle around the drain of “aspiring actor” for years.
But, SO WHAT.
When I think back to what it felt like on Saturday to join into the
lobby of a group of folks, stand around awkwardly in a room with
other aspirers, to have my name called, and to walk down the dark aisle of the
near-empty theater. To stand on a real stage under real lights, state my name and my piece, and
perform it. To have the director say, “Very nice. Thank you.” To then walk back
up that aisle less than two minutes later, and gather my purse and walk back
out into the amazing Berkeley Spring day?
Well, I’ll tell you:
Wow. 

dating · health · joy · passion · sex · uncertainty

Craving Cupcakes

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For reasons unknown by me, I came home the other night and
while in my closet, took down the book He’s Just Not That Into You. It sits in a pile of books I own that I’ve taken to
the bookstore to sell back to them, but they’re not having it – it shares space
with the Twilight saga – and for
further reasons unknown, I haven’t just put these books out on the street or
donated them yet, and so they’ve stayed for several years.
Taking down Not That Into You, I read the chapter titles that at the time I bought the book I
imagined I would sneer at and laugh at in obviousness, but that on reading, in
fact, offered a swift kick upside my besotted brain. For example: He’s just not
that into you if he’s not asking you out; he’s just not that into you if he has
a girlfriend/is married; and my personal eye-opener at the time: he’s just not
that into you if he only wants to see you when he’s drunk.
But what struck me the other night as I perused the chapter titles was
the one added on after the first printing, the one entitled: Life after
He’s Just Not That Into You.
I flipped there, and the female co-author writes about the
typical stages she’d seen in herself and in those who’d taken the book’s
message to heart.
First, there’s empowerment: YES! I Get It! I see that these
mixed messages are just smoke-screens, I’ve stopped waiting by the phone, I’ve
stopped accepting “Let’s hang out” as an acceptable “date.” My life is awesome!
Then there’s loneliness: Great, he’s out of my phone and out
of my life, what do I do now?
Quickly followed by temptation: Okay, so if I know that he’s just putting up a smoke-screen, and I get
that this isn’t a relationship – then I’m in full knowledge participation, and
it’s okay, right? Then I can’t really get my feelings hurt, right, because I
know that this is not what either of us really wants, right? Besides, the door
isn’t breaking down with guys asking me out on real dates, and I’m lonely,
horny, and just give me a BREAK already!
I called this yesterday, over lunch with a friend, the
cupcake moment.
We all know this temptation. I’ll set it up for you:
It’s someone’s birthday at the office. They’ve brought in a
dozen of the most delicious looking cupcakes from the 4 dollar a cupcake place
with the clever name. Everyone stands around this offering and awkwardly sings
Happy Birthday to the person of honor, and you feel a little proud, and a
little separate as you gouge the cupcakes out of their container and hand them
to your coworkers, expressing that, No thank you, you’re not having one.
You know how you feel after you’ve eaten one, you know they’re not actually as good as they look, and it’s
not worth the calories or kicking off the sugar addiction. You’ve had SO MANY
afternoons where you’ve had half a cupcake, only to return for the other half,
another whole, and maybe, another half or two.
You know that to put one bite of this thing into your mouth
is to set off a series of woeful and painful head moments of debate,
self-derision, and self-pity.
So you’ve been so good. It’s been weeks, or maybe months
since you’ve let yourself fall into the pattern. And sometimes, it’s so easy to
say No thanks, and be on with your day. The cupcakes don’t whisper at you. The
longing doesn’t bite at your throat.
And then you find yourself in the moments when you say, I have been so good – and what the hell good is it doing
me, anyway? What kind of a martyr, saint, ascetic am I, anyway? What am I
proving and to whom?, the thoughts run. …
What kind of martyr or saint am I?
What kind of pleasure-avoiding, overthinking, “principled”-living dullness am I?
So, you stand at the cupcake moment. You’ve seen the outcome
of this moment on both sides, and you don’t know which path you’ll go down. You
stand equally torn toward “health” and “pleasure.” And you haven’t enough
experience yet to know that sometimes health and pleasure are available in the
same situation. And remember, it’s been SUCH A LONG TIME since you’ve had that
kind of pleasure, anyway. That kind of solace.
The final phase of “Life after He’s Just Not That Into You”
is Balance.
The book says, “Life, love, dating—it’s all a process. There
will be highs and lows, disappointments and temptations, and it all might take
a while. If you are just so lonely that you simply have to get into a less than
ideal situation, for God’s sake, get out of it before the guy makes you cry or
mope in bed all day… No matter how long you end up being without a
relationship, you will always be worth it.”
I stand at a cupcake moment right now. “Sometimes I think
‘health’ and ‘reason’ are the great enemies of ‘passion’ and ‘love,’” he wrote
me. And I think he’s right. However, though I don’t have much experience with
them being aligned, I do believe they can be.
Will our heroine submit to the temptation and luster to sink
into the arms of comfort and human affection? Will she turn away from the
alluring embrace and continue to march the lonely path toward an imagined ideal
of a less complicated entanglement?
Tune in to find out!

change · community · friends · gratitude · health · perseverance

Time: in fair and foul

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Oops, I did it again — I changed my clocks on the wrong day! (Last time, I changed them in the wrong direction!) I don’t think I’m cut out for this. 
In speaking of time, tomorrow will mark one year from my
final day of chemo. Last year, today, March 8, I was in Kaiser hospital, 6th
floor, on the “off day.” Since I had Leukemia, the
treatment is different than you hear for outpatient breast cancer treatment or
even lung cancer (not that they don’t go through hell, too). How the treatment
went is that each month I spent a week in the hospital (after the initial first month in),
and would get chemo on days 1, 3, 5, and then on day 6, if I looked healthy
enough, I could go home. 
“Healthy enough.” Sheesh. What a thing.
A year before that, I was probably working on and
procrastinating on my MFA Poetry thesis at Mills College.
There was a moment after my diagnosis during which I was
sitting at this same kitchen table, likely in these same pajamas, when I looked
out this same window at the cypress trees that grow over the roof of the
building next door. I’ve always watched them, since I’ve lived here. They’re
one of the few trees in my area that loses leaves, and then regrows them in
full regalia in the spring and summer.
I sat at this table, and as it was October/November, I
watched it shedding the last of its leaves for the year. And I wondered if I
would see its leaves return. If I would be alive to witness it.
And I was. And I will be when, once again, the brown tree suddenly sports those green buds that never cease to surprise me, like an overnight graffiti
artist.
Perhaps some people think my marking of this time is morbid.
And maybe it is. But, it’s impossible for me to turn away from. I don’t always
think about it; in fact, over the course of these few months, the “this time
last year” thought has become pretty scarce. But sometimes, there are moments to remember, to recall, measure against, and
praise to high bloody heaven and hell and all the imps in between that *I made it,* through all of it — the terror, the loneliness, the unknowing, the isolation of it. I made it through alive, and healthy, my eggs still ticking in my ovaries, my blood producing what it ought to. I made it through the arguments with doctors, through giving myself injections, through Christmas in an inpatient bed. 

I made it through with your soup waiting for me in the hospital fridge, with the cup of coffee you went out of your way to Peet’s to buy, with the fuzzy blanket and the neon socks you brought to keep me warm. 

I made it through with the green shakes you made for me, and the protein drinks you sought out at Whole Foods. With the burritos you bought and the chicken you made. I made it through with our conversations about leaving your store, leaving your soon-to-be ex-wife; about polyamory and the ’89 fire. I made it through when you held my hand as I bawled into your chest, heaving the Ugly Cries because I knew you could take it. 

I made it through when you brought a big book and a 12 and 12, and we sat and talked about other things anyway. But the praying helped. 
A year ago tomorrow, I will have been awoken at 6 in the
morning. I will have had my pee measured, my temperature and blood pressure
taken, and swallowed the pre-medication meant to stave off nausea. I
will then have gotten dressed, eaten whatever plastic-wrapped breakfast they’d
provided, done my morning pages, meditated, and perhaps written my blog if I
could get it in before I got hooked up to the IV pole.
The nurses will have come in in yellow apron suits over their
scrubs, and thick blue gloves and goggles. The two, always two, would call
the numbers of my ID back to each other, the volume of the chemo, confirming
the three hours it was to drip into the port line that entered my chest and
pumped into my heart.
A year ago tomorrow, in the evening, they would do the same
12 hours from the first one. And by the time the bag of clear but ominous
liquid was empty and the machine was beeping loudly for the nurse, I will have tucked into the stiff hospital bed with that fuzzy blanket, curled up maybe with a book, maybe too tired to
read, and they would come back in their yellow suits and thick gloves, and
unhook the tube from my chest. 
And I will have had my last round of chemo. (Ever.)

calm · fear · healing · health · spirituality · the middle way · theater

Lumps & Bumps

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Show of hands: Those eager to exchange brains with me.
Anyone? Bueler?
Yesterday afternoon, I called my cousin Leah. She’s a
doctor, an ally, and a friend. I gave her all the information I’d gathered at
Kaiser yesterday, and asked her if I should be concerned or if I should, as all
the doctors advised, not be concerned?
What they told me is that, no, it’s not adult acne
that a ProActiv commercial would fix; and, yes, this strange lump is indeed a
swollen lymph node, another part of our immune system. They told me this likely
has nothing to do with cancer, that it’s just something to note, and that it
would go away in a few weeks, tops. That swollen glands happen. They told me I likely accidentally
cut myself while shaving under my arm, and got a minor infection that’s causing
this swelling (“but I didn’t cut myself.” “it would be smaller than you could
see. this is normal.”).
They told me we could do imaging on it, and then biopsy it if I insisted.
And so that remains to be scheduled. But after all of yesterday being told it’s likely nothing, and my insisting that you prove to me
it’s actually nothing… I called my cousin.
She said, “Normal life is full of lumps and bumps.” That “someone with your history” is bound to go to the far side of fear, but she was not
concerned.
In fact, no one really seemed concerned except me. But then, I’m the one with the history.
If I could dampen or soften the reaches and depths of my
emotional swings…
Well, I don’t think I would. I’m not bipolar, I’m just me.
Fully feeling, fully emoting.
However, I think the Ship of Emotional Life fell off the
edge of the ocean yesterday, and I am tired from that.
I left the hospital, several hours later, parting with my
dear and kind friend who spoke of shoes and ships and sealing wax, not to
distract me, but just be normal with me. To listen to me say from my plastic
hospital waiting room chair, I hate this. I just want you to know I hate this.
And for her to say, Yep. That sounds about right.
I left, and I went to the hot tubs. I live near a place that
has saunas and hot tubs, and I soaked for a half hour. My head was with me, so
it wasn’t “relaxing” per se, but it was nice, sort of. The hospital called to
tell me the Radiology department would call to schedule a CT scan to see
what this is, if anything.
And on the way home, I called my cousin. Because my poor
exhausted brain, my hyperactive adrenals, and my weary fucking heart needed to
hear from a doctor who loved me.
She said, she’s not here, she can’t see what’s going on, but
if it were her—and she knows my reactions are different—she wouldn’t be
worried.
Life is full of lumps and bumps.
I came home, watched about 5 hours of Netflix, and finally
said aloud, Alright, that’s enough, got up, made tea, and read through the play
for the audition I have tonight. I’m not secure in this monologue, but I’m
doing it.
I had a moment of, Remember who you are. Remember what you
do. Remember what you can do, and I showed up for an hour for my dream and my
vision.
Then I went back to Netflix.
Because, that’s what this process is like for me right now.
It’s remembering who and what I am, what I’m capable of, and it’s numbing the
fuck out because who I am and what I can do can run me into the ground.
In meditation the other day, my advice to myself (or my
“intuitive thought” or “intuition”) reminded me to Rest: “As to your fatigue,
my only instruction is to rest,” it said. To rest and play with ease.
The taught high-wire act of my emotional life is not easeful.
So, I need to come back down, touch the ground again,
fill up with images of trees and covens and auras and love. And remember who I
am can be easeful, too.
Ha. I, Molly Louise,
can be an easeful human being! Who can walk with equanimity in this world. I
can have highs and lows, and dash myself upon the craggy shores. And, I can bend
my head into the silken lap of Divine Calm, and let her stroke my hair for a while as I
take a long-forgotten full & present breath.
Life is full of lumps and bumps. Life can be normal. Not devastating. Not harrowing. Life can be okay.
Have both trip-lines and benches overlooking a sunset. Life, my life, is going to
be okay. 

fear · friendship · health · honesty · love · self-care · vulnerability

Welcome To The Jungle–We’ve Got Fun & Games

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Dear Blog-Reading Community & The Inside of Molly’s
Head,
Don’t Freak Out.
Dear Suspicious Lump Under My Right Shoulder Blade,
Don’t be an asshole.
Be a mutated muscle, embarrassing adult acne, a rogue tooth stem cell that formed in the wrong place in utero; even be a benign
cyst that I have to go through biopsy limbo to confirm. Just don’t be an
asshole.
Today, I go to the doctor. I am grateful and lucky to have
the community who shows up for me, available at 6:30am-text notice. One of them
is coming with me to the doctor visit–though I didn’t ask, I just “wanted to inform someone who isn’t my mom and wouldn’t freak out,” she offered. I wanted to
ask, but asking for help… especially help to attend to an amorphous, “Am I just
paranoid?” symptom…
Yesterday at work, I spoke with someone who also has
intimate experience with things like this. She said, it’s not paranoid. It’s
not hypochondriac. We have reasons, and good ones. She said she gets alarmed
too. And so, what do we do? We get things checked out.
I was trying to play it cool. Sure, I’ve just been really tired; it’s normal, you’ve
seen my lists of activities. It’s nuhhh-thing. And MAYBE IT IS. But you know how I tongue the other
side of “maybe.”
So, I went to get labs drawn yesterday afternoon. My blood
is all normal. Leukemia Negative.
But, this lump. I noticed a few days ago.
Is this too much information? Is this too soon to tell you
anything? Is this just me mental-masturbating onto the page to diffuse some of my worry by spewing it onto you?
Maybe.
The same friend who will accompany me today once said,
“Don’t Worry Twice.” It’s the best advice I’ve ever been given, and a thousand
miles toward following it.
But, I remember it. I try to do that.
I’m as worried as the situation warrants. Which is, hmm,
this is suspicious. I am not a doctor, I should get this checked out. The end.
It’s why I got my blood tested finally; and glad that I did. It’s why I’ll see a doctor today, who may really seriously in fact tell me, this is just a really bad zit
under your skin, Moll. Use some ProActive and get on with your life.
The thought that occurred to me this morning, waking up and
deciding to get this zit-in-sheep’s-clothing checked out, was “Rule 62.” Don’t
Take Yourself So Damned Seriously.
A thousand thoughts go through one’s head when….
No.
One thought went through my head when, yesterday morning, I
wrote my blog to you, got ready for work, and broke down crying in my closet. I’m
so tired of being brave.
The thought that follows that is: I won’t go through this
again.
The thought that follows that is: Of course I will.
Because tired of it or not, bone-weary or not, to gain a
year of hell, perhaps five years of health, perhaps one perhaps twenty, I would do it.
I hate that I would. I hate that I love this all so much. I
hate that I have such a burning, singeing ambition to do more. I hate that I
want to have my own life story to hand to someone to type. To have someone
record and note my life, my legacy, my
experience of living a full and long life.
I hate that I love myself and most especially you and all of
this so damned fucking much, that I would do whatever it took to stay.
And then, of course, I don’t take myself so damned
seriously, I eat my daily eggs, and I don’t worry twice.
Dear Blog-Reading Community & The Inside of Molly’s
Head,
Don’t freak out. 
Reach out. Follow up. And get back to the business of being awesome. No.Matter.What.

P.S. It is a nice change from the 25 y.o.- should I/shouldn’t I argument. So there’s that. #SilverLining