The Dark Places

I am not sleeping.

My mind wanders into so many dark places when I close my eyes.

My dark places are great places for things like guilt, sadness, fear, anger and grief to hide.  I pretend things are OK and then close my eyes and my brain reminds me that things have not been so OK for me.

These are some of the things that haunt me when I close my eyes:

• Guilt of not saving my precious Tboz. 
• Guilt of not being able to go pick up her remains. 
• Sadness of the loss of my best pal.  
• Grief over the loss of my boobs.  
• Loss of hope for my future with a partner - I'm so scarred physically and emotionally and can no longer bare children.  
• Grief of the loss of my ability to conceive (they want me to have a hysterectomy).  
• Fear of losing my parents because they are all I have left.  
• Disappointment with my appearance.  And by appearance, I mean fat.
• Anger over how hard I worked to not be disappointed with my appearance just to be right back where I started with extra scars, no breasts and lesbian haircut to go with it.  
• Fear and anger at more surgery ahead (see above re: hysterectomy and boobs). 
• Fear that every little ache and pain is the cancer coming back or a new cancer forming.
• Anger that my house was burgled and now somehow because my 14 lb deaf little watchdog is gone, every noise is a burglar.  It is weird how that works.  I felt protected just because she was here with me.

But I try to spend equal amounts of time validating how shitty life has been for me the last year (of course, you are (sad, angry, scared, disappointed), life handed you a shit sandwich) and telling myself things could be worse (I am so very lucky to have such supportive parents and friends, a flexible job that has allowed me to have a very shitty year with little repercussions for having to miss work or work from home and good insurance - health and home) so buck up.

But dammit some days I need to spend extra time in the yeah, shit sandwich alright.  Today seems to be one of those days.

In other news, my eyelashes are beginning to grow back and I think I officially have a head of hair.  It is no longer an "is she sick?" haircut, but a "is she a lesbian?" haircut.

I feel better after typing this out.  Thanks blog.