A Broken Roller Coaster

In case you haven't noticed, I haven't been writing much. I was always told "If you can't say something nice, then don't say anything at all"....Well, I've been pretty down lately. It's crazy. Mom is doing good. Great actually. The cancer is still smaller. It's still responding to chemo. She feels pretty good (for the most part). She is eating and actually gained a couple lbs! She is completely dedicated to ALL her meds now. I couldn't be prouder of her turn around. But me? I am the worst I have been since the first day my world fell apart in April. I feel like I am on a roller coaster, that with every dip promises to go back up----but for whatever reason, I am stuck down low. My roller coaster is broken.

With every situation, every moment, every word spoken, I am bombarded with negative thoughts about my mom. About our future. Here is an example:

Nori has given us a few scares recently with allergic reactions. There was one REALLY bad one that landed us in Jackson. We have no answers. Allergies are mysterious things. We have been referred to a specialist in July, but in the mean time I have to use dye and scent-free EVERYTHING (expensive!) and I have to carry an EPI-PEN with me at all times. Well, I was bathing the girls together, as usual, tonight. I found myself thinking, "Neva HAS to have conditioner. Her hair is just like her mama's (bless her heart). Nori's skin doesn't need to be exposed to conditioner. I guess I'm going to have to start bathing them separately". As I thought this, I honed in on what was happening in the tub in front of me. They were playing together. Giggling and splashing. I was taken back to an earlier day. Nori, unable to sit up, was in her little bath chair. Neva was playing with her and tickling Nori's little chubby baby body. What great memories.I can't stop them from playing together in the tub! Not yet! But, I kept on thinking. The memory kept unfolding. Sitting outside the tub, right where I was sitting at that moment was an unrecognizable girl. My memory showed two giggling kids and a happy mom giggling and splashing with them. A mom that worried that she wasn't good enough. A mom that battled the "I'm not contributing" feeling that accompanies a person that quits work after doing it for half their life. A person that literally made up stuff to worry about. Look at her. She has no idea what the future holds. She has no idea that everything that she THINKS is okay, is FAR from it.

That's how it happens. A simple thought, turns into a depressing night.

You ever watch Extreme Makeover: Home Edition? Well, if you do, then you know it was MADE TO MAKE YOU CRY. There was a cancer survivor and her family on an episode the other night. I cried all the way through it. Even the happy parts. One cancer fighter said "You have to get busy living, or get busy dying". I can't, for the life of me, tell which one I am doing. Of course, she was talking about an actual cancer patient. I'm just a daughter. I, too, feel like I have been given an expiration date. The time just keeps ticking away. I remember when I would be at work, the clock wouldn't move for hours, it seemed. But, now that I know how absolutely precious it is, it has sped up. It won't stop. Don't get me wrong, when I am with mama, I am fine. I don't depress her or bring her down with my negativity. The bad thoughts hit me all day, but usually get me good at night, when I have nothing to distract me.

When I was making a cake with Neva earlier, and she licked the bowl, I thought of me and mom. How I watched her every move in the kitchen, until it was my turn to lick the bowl.

 When I see Nori's SASSY attitude, I think of how mom wished it on me (as payback).

When we were outside in a little summer shower playing earlier, splashing in what Neva calls "Muddy Pudds", I flashed back to me with a spoon out in mama's front yard. Whipping up cakes and pies from the finest Myrick Mud you can imagine. Mama coming out just in time to "taste test" my creations.

Even though my memories are beautiful, they sadden me. Those days are gone. Never to return.

 When I look at pictures, I curse that unknowing girl smiling back at me, she looks like me but she's not me, because she has a future with her mom, and I may not.

When I lay down in my bed, the minute my head hits the pillow, "that day" pops in my head. "That day" that my mom leaves me forever. That's sick, right? Who thinks about that? I can't stop. I worry about it all the time. I know that everyone dies, some sooner that others. But why do I have to think about my mom dying EVERY moment? It's too much. Why did this have to happen? WHY?

 I have gotten used to a up-down, up-down, life. That's just the way life is. But this broken roller coaster is killing me. I am losing me. I am scared I am already gone. I forgot how to be who I was. I need my roller coaster to go back up. I just don't know how to recover from this. I don't know how to get back to life as I knew it. Will I ever?  I know as it climbs to the top, inevitably my roller coaster  will come back down. That is fine. I can handle the ride. I have enjoyed the ride for 28 years. I just want to get back moving. I want to get busy living.