Too much to hold onto.

My journey beyond the cancer seas

And in saying that, how do we let go? I’ve just crawled out of my variation of Covid, after over a year of cancer diagnosis and the stormy seas of treatment. I am floored. Understatement of the century. I have no idea how to get this precious post cancer life back into gear right now. It seems that every time I raise my head I am knocked back down, with yet one more health issue to navigate. I try, really dammed hard to keep a positive spin on it all. But sometimes its too bloody much. And once again I fall into the trappings of the trauma response.

This instance is no different. Covid offered sinus infection from hell and tinnitus. I haven’t really been able to concentrate on anything for nearly a month with the high pitched scratchy fizz, resounding in my left ear. And a sinus inflammation that was off the chart. Enough to send anyone into trauma response. So, I have traversed some very dark waters internally. You know the ones. Those high swells of our darkest shadows. We stare at their telltale form in the sea below, as the ship of our life curls and roll under terrifyingly challenging skies.

And yet now, those same shadow horrors normally hidden from view, are appearing before us in the reality of our world: war, climate change, pandemic, the puppetry of the power mongers and, parody of a celebrity reality show in the form of a courtroom drama, is what greets us. When did the world become so difficult you ask and you know what, whispers the wiser you, it always was. Its about our humanity. Our collective humanity. Its us and the projection of that unspent trauma spilled out into our lives. Spilled out onto the world. At least that is what I believe. I have to believe this is the situation, otherwise there can be no place in the world for folk like me.

I am one those sensitive souls who was drowned in trauma long before she had an understanding of what the word even meant. It opens up some weird and unutterable places. There is a darkness inside that demands my attention and is triggered by present traumas. A darkness that brings me into contemplation of suicide and what drives people to those places. My unpalatable legacy from my mums untimely departure down that same route. A darkness that pines for the children I never had, especially the two I chose to eject from my womb believing I would become just like my mum and leave them in a similar way.

And then there is my propensity to lean into the fantasy of unrequited love stories. Whether available or unavailable, I am just wired oddly. This comes charging out of the darkness of being groomed as a child. Tricky territory indeed. And the sad truth is, no matter the positive spin that myself or others try to put upon these things, they never really go away. Do they? I mean we can all choose to become philosophical about them, but they are still there, playing out within us.

Some days I can fully immerse in my creative flow and appreciate every fantastic moment of this amazing life I have. Some days I can almost touch my divinity. And this too passes. The clouds appear for whatever reason and the dive is a deep one again. One thing I have noted on my spiral revisitation of trauma, is that having the council of good friends is essential. Therapy is not to be sniffed at either. It takes a brave person to venture into that land. And, it is useful to have a willingness to look unflinchingly into the face of your darkness and trauma within. Declaring, I see you, I see how I became me because of you. In spite of you.

It’s not an easy path, being human. There is not a person I know who walks this human life without being touched by the deepest anguish and pain. I am spent. I write this after crawling up the beach, from a shipwreck moment. I am just about through my variation of Covid. Supposedly its the milder version this year. And yet I can report back that it is a psychological minefield, on top of the physical madness. Dare I say in some ways on a par with cancer. But as I write I have a sense that perhaps there is a humbling on offer. Even if it pushes just one person to seek support, then as nasty as it is, its done is job.

I get a feeling we all need to grieve, not only the horrors from our lives, or the pandemic, but for everything that is out of balance. I feel changed.

Thank you Covid.

Fuck you.