The Magic Elixir and the Gentle Unraveling

The Magic Elixir

I’ve finished three weeks of radiation. I have four to go. 20 treatments left. It seems so surmountable. Undoable. Forever until January 30th. But I’m going to press forward.

The good news is, I’ve made peace with the mask. I’ve even named it Tony. (“Hold me closer Tony Danza”). By the end of the first week, I wasn’t as panicky as I was in the beginning. But I didn’t even visit with my techs. I was game face only. Now, we are all chatting and enjoying each other, mask goes on, I’m relaxed and absolutely fine. As long as it doesn’t take longer than 30. I settle right in. I have figured out what to do to get it in and off without it scratching my nose. And then, I lay and concentrate on the simple pattern of treatment. I get scanned all the way around, and then I get radiated 21 seconds around one side, and 23 seconds the other way. All this for 44 seconds of treatment. A grand total-ish of 22 minutes. I told my mom that, and she wondered if my head would just fall off if they did it all at one time. Probably so!

My throat is going through some trauma. It’s different every day. By the middle of week two, it felt like I had large, stubborn pills stuck in my throat. No matter what I did, they wouldn’t go down. Then, it started becoming sore. A weird kind of sore. Depending on what I ate, it would feel like I had chewed grass burrs and swallowed them. I admit, I’ve always enjoyed eating too much. Now, it’s not quite as fun as it once was.

I’ve armed myself with protein shakes, oatmeal, and yogurt. I still eat some things, but it takes a while. About 45 minutes to eat one slice of pizza. My dad, with his lack of teeth, and I could compete to see who takes the longest to chew.

The doctor concocted me an elixir to drink before I eat. I haven’t done it yet. It has lidocaine in it, and I figured I’d bite my tongue in two. But I’ll take it when I need those magical powers. Always wanted to find that magic elixir.

Four weeks to go, and I know it’s going to get worse. But people do this all the time. And if this is what it takes to hit remission again, I’ll do it.

Many kind, generous people have asked about my medication. It’s a specialty medicine that you have to get at a specialty pharmacy. I have applied and been approved for some programs to help cover the cost. Thank you all so much for asking.

Y’all didn’t think I was so magical. Elixirs and special meds.

I am so grateful for all the help I’ve received. The cards. The kind words. The prayers. I am overwhelmed by your kindness and generosity.

The Gentle Unraveling of 2022

As I sit here and look back at the past year, I reflect on the journey I have taken with myself. 2022 was massive for me. It was an enormously painful year. And the biggest self-growth year I’ve ever had. It was the first time in my life that I took each part of myself out, looked at the gears, found the reasons, and put them all back together. I had never really known what it was to show up for myself. To love myself. To be there for me. To make choices that were good for me. To lay down boundaries.

I am an incredibly giving person. That is my default setting. Love flows out of me freely. I care deeply about people. I feel their pain, their joy, their sorrow. I can sense emotions in a room. I always have been able to. I can remember feeling my teacher’s pain and moods when I was in the single digits. I am a peacemaker. I am a pleaser. I am a sewer of hearts. A keeper of intimate secrets.

But I have neglected myself for 45 years. Never have I used my love on me.

I slaved on the project of me from April to September. I read book after book. I listened to podcasts. I journaled. I wrote. I went to counseling in many forms. I put myself on a whiteboard and solved the massive problem with technical precision. I emerged from this past summer completely different than ever before.

Brene Brown calls it a mid-life unraveling. I completely unraveled myself in 2022. I pulled every single bit of yarn out and inspected each inch. I have been knitting since then. Pulling that yarn back together to make something more beautiful, for me.

Does that mean I’ve grown selfish? Unloving? Absolutely not. It means for the first time in my life, I took my massive capacity to love and turned that on myself. I said, “No wonder,” so many times. No wonder you hurt. No wonder this is hard. I gave myself grace and mercy for the first time.

Mental health is something so many do not talk about. It’s becoming more of a subject than it was in the past, but there are large pockets of hold outs that do not like to discuss it. So many of us pretend that we are okay. We put up the white picket fences. It’s easier. Or is it?

It’s sure easier to say, “fine” when someone asks how you are. It’s easier to hear that, too.

When I started my mental health counseling degree, I was focused on safe places. And that is still my focus. I’ve been in many places that should have felt safe but didn’t. I’ve kept my white picket fence up for myself, for others. But I want people to feel safe with me.

I gained a friend over the last five years that doesn’t flinch. I can tell him anything, and he never flinches. He never feels judgmental. He never feels uncomfortable. He takes me where I am. That has taught me so much about my daily listen. I don’t ever want to flinch. Flinching, even in the slightest, makes people feel unsafe with you.

I think it’s so important to make yourself a safe place as well. I have to feel safe with myself to feel all the feelings. I have to feel safe to give myself the same grace and mercy I would give others.

My hope for you all this year, is that you have a gentle unraveling and a gentle knitting back. It will be painful. But when you’re done, I hope you can find some love for yourself. I hope you can find some grace and mercy.

We all need mercy. We all need to give mercy.

“Mercy is just when it is rooted in hopefulness and freely given. Mercy is most empowering, liberating, and transformative when it is directed at the undeserving. The people who haven’t earned it, who haven’t even sought it, are the most meaningful recipients of our compassion.”

― Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption

We all deserve mercy. We all deserve grace. And so do you, especially from your own self.

Here’s to 2023. I was so glad to flip that month over.

One day, mountains.

Love to all.