I’m messing up the space-time continuum of my blog to jump ahead to the previous couple of weeks instead of sticking to the current linear pattern of my posts. I am aware that I haven’t written in a while and the main reason is that very thing Rihanna sings about: –
No. This is not an error. Yes. This is the version I wish you to see. Go forth and Elmo.
I’ve been back in the office I work in for what seems like forever but I think is only just a month. The universe seems to have different sets of times; work time, illness time and holiday time. Illness time goes slower than regular time while holiday time goes exceptionally quicker. Work time is a weird hybrid of both – goes incredibly slowly until you look at how much of your life is spent doing it and then you realise it’s the quickest of them all.
My plan is to get back doing this with more regularity but I have been finding my feet and a new way of being which is a conflict between remaining exactly the same way you were before and most definitely not remaining exactly the same way you were before. Come onboard my ship, I call it the SS Confusion and it has no captain or proper navigation system. I am just about steering.
It was during the past few weeks that I experienced the incident known as ‘The Blip.’ This is also known as ‘The Moment Gerry Lost Her Absolute Shit at Work, Told Her Friend that She Hated Her Life and then Cried About it at Her Desk Before Being Escorted Around the Building for a Brisk Walk Whilst Sobbing Continuously and Uncontrollably.’ It’s not particularly catchy hence, ‘The Blip.’
The problem was, in that moment of time, I genuinely did hate my life. I don’t know where it came from. A minor problem that would have been calmly and swiftly resolved had popped up but instead of dealing with it calmly or swiftly my mind collapsed in on itself and I thought, for a split second of time, I should have just died.
Now I don’t think that. Of course I don’t. God no I don’t. My top three fears are these: –
1. Reoccurrence and eventual death from a cancer that didn’t kill me first time round
2. Sharks
3. Heights
The last thing I want is to die of anything, ever! I would happily live like Doctor Who but regenerate into younger and more beautiful people each time. Sadly though, in that horrible, pitiful moment, the acknowledgement of everything that happened, of everything that might happen and of those multiple moments in the whole life I have ahead of me where I will worry over something that might never happen came to an ugly boil. The problem was it came to a boil at work and so I got to snot over my desk and my frolleague.
Considering what occurred I think she deserves this picture…
That horrible, pitiful moment passed and I moved on. Upon reflection, how I felt was exacerbated by a combination of these three things: –
1. A significant lack of sleep – never ever underestimate the importance of sleep. Everything is worse when you are tired. I’m not saying a nap will cure the world of its problems but it sure helps you accumulate those resilience points.
2. Overfamiliar people and probing questions – yes when you are back in the working world you deal with two things: –
o Your job
o People you work with
The first can be predicted to a degree. The second? Not so much. People are a mixture of fascinating, boring, wonderful, turd faces. Some are more turd face than others. Some know they are being a turd face but just don’t care, others really don’t know they are being a turd face.
Because of my openness, a lot of people are aware of what cancer I had. This means that in the past few weeks I have been asked probing and invasive questions into my fertility and ability to have children, whether I have now changed my mind on having children, my sex life and how that’s going, whether having sex could have caused the cancer in the first place, what caused my cancer – was it my lifestyle or diet, would I now consider making changes to my lifestyle or diet.
I have also received comments about the treatment I had, about how I should be happy that it’s now over and that I’ll never ever have to think about it ever again, how I should be lucky that I ‘only had surgery,’ about alternative cures to cancer such as some dude that went to Germany and got cured by a green tea herbal supplement, about how someone was concerned about something on their smear test but luckily it came back ok! (I mean I am glad on that one but c’mon).
My favourite was when a colleague (male) got extremely close to me in bodily proximity and proceeded to ask me if I had symptoms and could I please detail them to him so that he could know what to look out for. Yeah, wrong body parts dude. He then asked me if I had any advice to give him to avoid him getting cancer (er…. replace every bit of organic tissue in your body with machinery?) before finishing with the request for me to keep him updated about all my reoccurrence appointment results (er….. NO?!)
I started to worry that my openness was a massive mistake that was going to continually backfire on me and questioned whether I should continue writing a blog and maybe should just pull everything I’ve done so far but I’ve since that let bird fly. I’m owning the openness.
The third factor: –
3. Being too hard on myself for not being exactly the same person I was before. Yeah pre-cancer Gerry is gone. It’s ok, post-cancer Gerry is pretty much the same with some minor differences that reveal themselves in new scenarios. Sorry for those of you who wished I would have a mass personality transplant. That was a lie – I’m not sorry.
I don’t know what I’m doing. Please understand that. I was told by a friend that I would have to make allowances for how others felt. No. I don’t. I’m not even asking for anyone to make allowances for me. I don’t get to be a turd face.
What I have learnt is that I need to make allowances for myself otherwise I’m going to end up snotting over a lot more than my desk.
This, and learning better how to shut people down, is my lesson for the week!
This is your lesson for the week: –
Next time you speak with someone who has gone through something (anything) and you feel like asking questions that may make you uncomfortable if you were in the same situation, stop. Have a think. Do you want to be that week’s winner of this award…
Let’s face it, all of us have a good few of those on our shelves. I should have probably received a Lifetime Achievement Award by now.
PS. You have no idea the shit I google for this blog. Pun very much intended.
