My mum was diagnosed with incurable cancer in July last year. Every month we're getting to spend with her feels special and is definitely a gift.
She's stubbornly independent, traits which I definitely take from her! She's tired but getting bored of sitting in the house so I decided to take her out for a wee coffee to a garden centre. It felt nice to be able to spend time with her, just the two of us. Half way through a bite of cake she suddenly started to talk about her treatment. That's when I realised that there is no escaping this cancer, it's a part of who we are now and what our lives have become.
It also suddenly dawned on me that I have spent the last months trying to hold it together for everyone and supporting everyone else that I've been bottling my own feelings up most of the time and making myself ill. Sometimes I think I was born too sensitive for the world. But I'm no use to anyone bottling things up! I look after and support mum and the rest of the family but who will support me? And it clicked, I miss being in a relationship. My ex has been really supportive and we still talk a lot, he knows me inside out and we can still talk about anything. But it's not a relationship we're in the best friend zone - new territory. I miss the closeness we had - the walking down the street hand in hand, the wee day trips, the way we used to dream and talk about the future. He hurt me more than anyone has ever done before, so much that I know we'll never have an actual relationship again. I didn't want to talk to him ever again but weirdly he became my best friend. He persevered to get me to pick up the phone to him again not because he had a hidden agenda but because he knew I was struggling and wanted to try and help. And when you're going through something like this that's exactly what you need a best friend - one who doesn't care if you have to cancel that coffee at the last minute because they know your priority is your family, one who's there for you because they want to be. I told him the other day that I just wished everything could go back to normal but that nothing would be normal every again - his response wasn't to put me down, he supported me.
Some of the people I thought were my best friends have really let me down, which hurts because I have supported one in particular through a lot. maybe they're too busy getting on with their own lives or maybe they just don't know what to say, maybe I haven't told them I need them enough or maybe they weren't really my best friends in the first place. What I have learned is that everyone needs that someone who they can talk to, and that someone can be anyone. You can bottle it up and stay strong and pretend that everythings ok but the reality is even you need someone to look out for you too. It's not about being needy or selfish, it's about looking after your own mental and physical health so that you can be as strong as you can be for your family. Take care.
