Today is my birthday! Well, July 29th is my birthday...this is getting submitted after midnight so it isn't technically my birthday anymore, but you get the general idea. I am officially 34! I had a wonderful day, spent with my Little Bear and the husband. I had no shortage of smiles and laughs today...which means I had a great day!
Little Bear, you made my day super special. This morning, when I went into your room to get you up, you greeted me with a huge smile. You said, "Happy Birthday, Mommy" because we told you it was going to be my day when you woke up. And you showed me your new trick...twirling your hair around your finger! You said, "Watch this, Mommy, I have a surprise for you." Then you wrapped a piece of your hair around and around your pointer finger...then you said "Da da ta!" In Bear Speak that means, "Ta-da!" Then you did it again with equal fanfare. It was the best birthday gift. I was so lucky to spend the whole day with you and then Daddy came home and made a delicious dinner and then we all went out to the Cheesecake Factory for some yummy dessert. Today, life was so, so good.
Of course, today I've also been thinking about my day five years ago. Life was definitely not very good for me then. It is not too dramatic for me to say: it was the worst birthday I had ever had. I was also scared it might be my last one. For the entire day, I was assaulted with unwanted, terrified thoughts such as "Is this my last birthday? Will I live to see 30? Will I live to see 35? When will cancer get me?" I was also in pain, physical pain. The further I got from my surgery, the worse the pain got. It was like I could feel the cancer eating me from the inside out. Sometimes the pain was so bad that I was on the floor, in tears, clutching my middle trying to keep myself together. This led to more unwanted and unhelpful thoughts. I felt like I had an alien inside of me; my body was not my own, it was foreign. I was scared of it. The otherness was overwhelming. I wanted nothing more than to rip the cancer out as fast as possible. Unfortunately, I was playing the waiting game.
I remember thinking it was so ironic that this, my 29th birthday would be my worst. For the months leading up to this day, my best friend and I had joked that this was my "magic birthday." I would be 29 on the 29th. That only ever happened once in a person's life. We had joked that we should have a big party to celebrate this magical milestone. I had looked forward to the day, thinking that 29 would be better than 28. I only had good things to look forward to. As you know, that all changed on the 22nd, one week earlier. Now I struggled to imagine my future. I was filled with fear when I even thought of my future. I also started torturing myself with the "what ifs." What if I died before I turned 30? What did I have to show for myself? What had I done in my life that brought me true happiness and joy? I started going over my life goals and wondering why I postponed them to go to school. School felt so trivial. I was suddenly embarrassed that I had put so much time and so much effort into something that I, now, would probably not complete and had, in the process, denied myself a life that brought me true happiness. I would never have children. This was a fact, regardless of whether I survived or not. I had missed my opportunity to be a mother. How could I ever possibly adopt? Who would give a child to a person with a history of cancer? How could I possibly afford it? It just seemed impossible (like everything else under the specter of cancer).
As you can probably tell, I was spiraling. I was spiraling down towards the dark. I honestly cannot remember anything about my 29th birthday other than all the negatives I was feeling and thinking. I don't know what we did. I don't know who I talked to. I don't know what gifts I received. I just remember that that was the start of "the funk." The majority of the phone calls were done. The plans had been set in motion to handle my work, social, and personal responsibilities. There was nothing left to do but wait. Wait and feel the world crushing down on me. My birthday was just another painful reminder. I wanted to hide, I wanted to numb the fear and the pain. So, I slipped into "the funk" where everything was so heavy and so hopeless that I just felt: nothing.
So, here I will end with how I feel today: a total sense of wonderment. Wonderment that in 5 short years, my life could be so incredibly different. Not only have I been granted that which I coveted on my 29th birthday, time, but I have my Little Bear. I have the family I thought I had lost to cancer. And you know the truly amazing part? In a way, cancer gave me the family I thought it took. I just had to make it through the funk and the fight and kick cancer's butt to get it. Onward and upward.
And that is the story of my 29th birthday, Little Bear.
Til next time...Always and Ever After.
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