Category Archives: stuff

a very important day

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19

I missed it. 3 January was my 5 years. I am officially 5 years cancer free. I was officially cancer free for 5 years, 2 days ago. The day I have held as my goal without really meaning to, yet yes counting and being subtly aware of. And I missed it. It was a damn important day for me, a day I wanted to mark and rejoice and give thanks and smile and be still and light a lantern and gently weep, looking up into B’s eyes with wonder and love at all we have achieved. Ohmigod, I think I’m going to vomit. And am seriously considering romance novels as my next outlet. But, how simply fabulous that I missed it. I love that. Even though I made B squirm cos he missed it too. I haven’t told him I had too. Well, I have now. Seriously though. Life is great, life is every day, every little thing every day is as important as everything else, nothing is more important, it’s just the importance we attach to things that makes them so.  I am here, I am loved and I love. With all my heart and I am thankful and grateful for every day. And not especially for 3 January. I have grown, I am brave and I look forward to every day with courage and excitement and gratitude. As must we all.

happy families

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My mom and dad just celebrated 50 years of marriage, my father just turned 75, I am 46, my elder brother 48 and my baby sister 42.  We are all blessed with wonderful partners and daughters, we have forged our own way in this sometimes challenging but always wonderful world. Being together for Christmas is always a highlight, especially as we are all spread far and wide. So, why is it that within less than a day, we revert to our familial role? I become the cheeky opinionated outspoken controlling quite emotional and actually quite insecure middle child, my big brother lovingly puts me in my place with a slightly superior smirk, which just pisses me off, my mother puffs out of frustration and my dad gently keeps the peace. My baby sister chuckles quietly from the safety of Oz. Don’t get me wrong, I love it.  Feeling safe enough to just be less than perfect. I love being loved no matter what. I love that no matter how old I am, it seems I am always someones daughter, someones sister and secure in the knowledge that no matter how hard I make it to love me, they do. It is a rare gift. I hope one day I get to spend christmas with my daughters and their partners and their families, seeing how much they’ve grown but knowing at heart they are still our little girls. But also not.

fraud

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I just realised I’m a bit of a fraud. I just had surgery. And it was cosmetic. Well, not really. Actually not at all, but it was a lift. Of sorts. An internal one. To my bowel. Shudder. I’m a fraud because as you all know I am a tad anti cosmetic surgery, because of how weird women ultimately end up looking. And I think women are beautiful, all women, old or young, just as they are. So now I’m wondering. It’s all just the same really. To stop the sag of life. In my case caused by childbirth, a lifetime on my feet and hastened by chemotherapy. You’ve just got to love how cancer is a gift that just keeps giving. I do try to embrace the passing of time and relish every little moment, punctuated by gratitude, but the last couple of days have been delightfully challenging. Those who know me well, know that I have privacy issues when it comes to that area of my anatomy. We all do, but it seems me more than most. Well, clearly no longer. And to be honest, do with me what you will, the knowledge that nothing sinister was lurking, made it all worthwhile. So, to anyone contemplating any form of surgery to rectify the sag, I say, go for it.

warrior woman

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I met a wonderful friend of a friend of mine yesterday. I can’t stop thinking about her. You see she is a warrior woman. A gentle tenacious bright funny warrior woman, who has a brain tumour and was given 14 months to live. She was told the doctors could do no more for her. So she pursued her own path. She is currently on 27 months and counting. She has been dealt many blows by life yet is positive, witty and real.  She is self effacing and humble. She is an inspiration and she is my fear. Was my fear. You see she also had breast cancer and a mastectomy and chemo and all the stuff they scare you into having to make sure you are here five years later.  She made her five years and had just decided against a big celebration of life party when they discovered her brain tumour, a secondary from her breast cancer. I have no doubt the irony did not escape her. That meaningless silly bloody goal of 5 years that we hold like a beacon of hope, living in limbo, counting the years, months, weeks and days, definitely even if not obviously, believing that on the stroke of midnight of our last day of being 5 years cancer free, we will finally be set free. Free from cancer. Free from fear. And whilst I booted fear a while back, meeting her made me face it for real. She gave me goosebumps and her matter of fact retelling of her tale reduced me to tears. But not for me, but for the wonderful inspiring human being I was graced to be in the company of. I would be proud to be her. I am honoured to have a daughter named Kate just like her. May she grow to be just like the warrior woman I met yesterday. Strong and present and true.

great expectations

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I’m really starting to wonder if maybe it’s me. I seem to have fallen out with a friend, two estate agents, our conveyancing attorney, our immigration agent and our local bank manager. Most of them because they just don’t seem to do what they say they’re going to. Maybe it’s my tone? B suggested that whilst he absolutely agrees with the content of my oh so efficiently worded emails, he just wonders if maybe the quite short sentences which clearly signal my irritation, the clipped I would appreciate your response at your earliest convenience and my obvious exclusion of kind regards, is maybe not the way to go. He says it very gently because I know he can feel the menopausal embers just waiting for something to ignite them. Damn. Is it me? The thing is though, despite my slight, ahem, volatility I do struggle with people who don’t do what they say they’re going to do. Maybe my expectations are too high. But then really how can they be when I’m only expecting people to do what they say they’re going to do. And I know life intervenes and often despite our best intentions we can’t do the things we said we would.  But then I just wish people would own that. Would say that. And wouldn’t try to duck and dive. And make excuses. And lay blame. And if they do that I promise I’ll work on my tone. I will. Or am I maybe expecting too much again?

roar

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My friends and I have often discussed moms and their kids. Throughout the years.  As in lionesses and their cubs.  And the one thing we have all always recognised is that the one thing that you can never ever do is criticise another child’s behaviour. Even if you believe it’s warranted. And I believe that. I can say my princess is damn cheeky, but if you say it I dare say my lioness hackles will rise. So I get it. And then there’s the behaviour itself and what we find acceptable in our kids. And in others. Or not. And here we all differ. But one thing I find very hard to stand by and not respond to is ganging up, bitchiness, meanness. Unkindness. And I don’t care who is doing it. Two against one. Even if the intention is not to hurt as much as it sadly does. Not in my own home and not out in the world. And I’ve seen my own daughter have a hand in someone’s pain, in our home. And maybe not really knowing exactly how unkind her seemingly innocent disregard of another was. But I made damn sure she understood. As a mother should. Because this lioness protects all cubs not just her own. I simply cannot tolerate unkindness in my midst. Ever. And while I can’t fix the whole world I can speak up when it happens in my little world. And yes, to my cubs. Consequences be damned.

respect

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Yesterday was a good day. A day filled with much laughter, far too many margheritas and good honest fun with lovely and at times delightfully mad friends. But a day that also left me quietly deflated. I saw so many sad women looking for happiness, in what was obvious to all but themselves, the wrong places. Beautiful successful women sadly clearly not realising quite how innately beautiful they are by selling themselves short. Women so desperately and so sadly needing reassurance they’ll take it no matter where it comes from. You all know how much I love women, how much respect I have for our inner strength, how deeply capable I believe we all are. How much I know we all care. But you also know how sad it makes me when women let each other down. And that I believe it’s usually due to fear, fear of not being good enough, fear of being left out, fear of being ignored, fear of being alone, fear of not being loved. But what makes me the saddest of all, is seeing women letting themselves down. I wish every woman could know her worth. And know that it’s not to be found in a bottle or with someone else’s husband or by accepting dismissive or disrespectful treatment by others. I wish all women the respect they so dearly deserve, the only respect that really matters. Their self respect.

i know i know

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I have come so far and yet sometimes not at all. I realised this as Jem and I were chatting on the way home from school. We might have bought a house and Jem who has the biggest ears in the world and has heard us discussing finances, wanted to know how much we had offered. I used the opportunity to mention that it was not really necessary for her to know, or to discuss with anyone. And furthermore (you can hear the annoying mom tone can’t you and we wonder why they switch off) at her age there is no need to ask or discuss issues like how much her dad earns,  how much I used to earn, how much rent we pay ….  Yip, didn’t get past her. She smiled at me, you couldn’t resist mom could you. Shit, I am so bloody transparent. And damn, it does still bother me that they might not see me as the financial contributor I used to be. Damn that it still bothers me. They could care less. But I have got a lot better. I have. When filling in forms I refused to write housewife, or home executive or whatever. My stuff. So I used to write n/a. As in not applicable. Now I write mom. How far have I come.

fuck yeah

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I woke up with a feeling of anticipation today. And I know why. Because today feels like the day I finally start to take my power back. I had my last Zoladex implant today. I have had one every three months for the last nearly five years. This keeps me in menopause, which is essential for the aromatase inhibitor, Femara I take every night and have for nearly five years. My cancer was oestrogen receptive, so all production needs to be suppressed and blocked. I have three more months of Femara and then nothing. Nothing. Then I will become me again. A different me, but a me free of anything but what should be. I can’t wait. I am in awe of my doctors and of the courage I have gained through the efforts of others. I was just too fearful to go it alone. I together with my doctors and my family chose a course of action. A course of action me and my family needed me to take. To do everything I could to make sure I was here January 2013. The ultimate goal. Being here 5 years after chemo. Then we hit the down curve in the bell curve of efficacy of treatment. So no more. I am excited. Especially to discover what the medication has masked. Because I am different. Everything changed the day I was diagnosed and will never be the same again. In many ways it is better, way better, but in other ways not. I feel I’ve also let my cancer control me the last five years. I have been in varying stages of disease, surgery, treatment and recovery. But I know it’s also been a process of acceptance. And growth. Only now can I start to feel a frisson of a personal victory. I am seeing that whilst it occupied a lot of me, and changed me, it hasn’t defined me. I willingly handed me over for a bit. Now I’m ready to reclaim me. But I am proud of how I fought for my life. And I’ll do it again if I have to. So for now, all I can say is yay me.

vanity

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2

I am trying not to be self absorbed. Surrounded by all the beauty here we all do pale by comparison. But I have become obsessed with my face. The bugger with beautiful photography is you can’t escape yourself. The reality of you. And especially with B. Always with a camera, a lingering loving camera. Not so much. I look, and try as I might to focus on the entire shot, my gaze finally settles on me and how I look.  Everyone does it, and lies if they say they don’t. And then invariably never mind how gorgeous the view is if we look crap, the shot is deleted. I see it with my girls too. A gorgeous pic of Queenstown, but the first thing they look at is themselves. Okay, I admit, it is more a girl thing but still. I so wish I could lead by example but oh my word, my face has suddenly collapsed. It feels like it happened the past month. I have become completely obsessed by it. By the lines and furrows down the side of my mouth. Those ones that make you look like a puppet. I’m suddenly a little bit less dismissive of major intervention. Growing old gracefully, accepting the beauty of age and wisdom and experience etched in deep grooves on your face? Sounds wonderful and noble and true and no doubt I will get there because ultimately I do believe it. But right now there is nothing beautiful about seeing my granny’s mouth on my face. Especially when I feel twenty nine. Max. Shit. So, whilst surrounded by heaven, I have become a little obsessed by my face. Damn photography. I was loving the illusion. Less so Kate and Jem tickling my wattle. Very funny girls. Leave mom alone, she’s having a moment.