The Upside-Down, Inside-Out Undone

Posted on May 29, 2021Comments Off on The Upside-Down, Inside-Out Undone

I finished the book today (which is really 2 books in one) – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. And wouldn’t you know it, neither of the books ended with a nice little ‘wrap-up’ of this = that …there is just as much nonsense in the end as there was at the start and I’m left in the undone of what really REALLY was going on. In some ways that DRIVES ME BONKERS! I want to know what it all meant. I want to know what represented what. I want to be able to make sense of the nonsense. 

…Ah….interesting how that sounds so much like life. 

Cancer has not-so-lovingly taught me that the ‘undone’ is simply that. No answers. No connected dots. No sense of the nonsense. And it is in that that my own Wonderland/Looking Glass story is like Alice’s – it doesn’t conclude with a neat little package with a pretty little bow. It just keeps on keepin’ on in the weird. In the upside-down. In the inside-out. In the undone. 

And PS. The anniversaries of chemo days are hard.


12 of 18 :: May 29, 2018

My post on social media today:

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12 of 18. My heart is heavy and my head is full. If I quiet my body and mind, though, I can feel the infusion of chemo drugs into my veins….and it doesn’t feel good. But I trust the science and pray the drugs are doing what they are made to do.

While I’m low today, I’m also grateful to have arrived at one more appointment and get one more infusion behind me. I’m grateful to be one step closer. I’m grateful for loving people who care for me. 

On that note, my favorite oncology nurse told me today she is moving to a different cancer center and it makes me so sad, though I’m so grateful to have known her and to have had her take care of me. Miss Shanna, you have been such a light in such darkness.

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I’m not feeling well tonight. So glad I have acupuncture tomorrow. 

I felt myself really “floaty” today. Like I struggled to focus on much of anything. I mean I was present throughout my day, but I was also somewhere else. I was up in my head. I was preoccupied. I was thinking about cancer and everything I’ve walked and what I have left to walk. Today I found myself paying close attention to how I saw and heard everything through a cancer filter (as opposed to being able to compartmentalize and set certain things about my story aside). I know today was not a first in that regard, but it was an interesting experience in self-awareness nonetheless.

I am also weary. Not tired like sleepy-tired….but weary. My friend helped me more closely define my feeling of tired. My body is weary. My mind is weary. My heart is weary….. I feel low and heavy and laden. I feel burdened. 

I am not without hope…but I am weary. 


Full :: May 29, 2019

Up at 6am. Counseling (hard emotional work). Work (super bonkers). Facilitating a grief and loss group (beautifully intense). Home at 9:15pm. Shower (so I can sleep in tomorrow morning). And I didn’t put my full body suit on after my shower. I just couldn’t do it. I made it 29 days out of 30. 24/7. Only took it off to shower and wash it in all of those 29 days. So the competitive side of me is disappointed in myself for not making it to the full 30 but the at-my-wits-end side of me is just fine with 29. 

I feel like a water balloon that is nearing that point just before it bursts. 


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