The Future

What do I see in the future. Look. Look. You must look. You must look so you can create.

All creation happens in the now.

Look then at the now. What do you see?

Confusion, but not. A place I am, but am not. Me, but not me.

Describe.

Sitting, in this big chair, laptop on plastic tub. Dark outside. A lamp, turned on, throws light on my work and into the next room. There the cat paces, making her way here, towards me. On the floor a green sweatshirt, lazily thrown. On the arm of the chair a scarf, my favorite one.

That is where you are. Describe you.

Me or the not me?

The not you.

Not me… It is part of me that is turned off. The other day, I came to think I do not radiate anymore. I want to radiate… from the inside out. But it’s quiet in there. Strangely quiet. Waiting maybe?

Waiting for what?

Waiting to know. Waiting to know if it’s safe. Waiting to know. I hear that voice coming, the directive voice, ready to say “well stop waiting, just do it”. I want to be safe and I don’t think I ever will be. I will always have this unknowing hanging over me. It’s hard to trust with so much unknowing.

You said ‘unknowing’ instead of ‘unknown‘. Could it be an unknowing of you?

Silencing. Another version of silencing. Silencing of self. If I break the silence what will happen?

What would you say?

I don’t think I would say at all. I think I have run out of words, or there are not words there. I might scream until I got done screaming and then cry until I got done crying. And then I think I would find myself, still alone. Why is this so complicated? Maybe I’m making it complicated. Maybe simple solutions are really there, but I stopped using them, because everything is, well, complicated.

Simple solutions like what?

How about just relaxing and doing nothing. Doing exactly what I want? Taking care of small things, simple things. But then I have another appointment, another scan, and it all starts all over again.

Maybe you should wait longer between scans.

Maybe I should ask that. But would that be better? A 6 month reprieve instead of a 3 month reprieve? Or would I worry more because it had been longer? Damn this disease. I want it to go away.

What if it doesn’t?

Then I could spend my whole life in fear, like this, living in 3 month blocks.

What if it does?

Then I would still wonder I suppose, if it would come back. Maybe it makes no difference if it goes or not. I used to think that. Because if it’s irrelevant, it doesn’t matter if I have it or not. That’s where I found fearlessness. I was good in that place. Why did I get knocked out?

You tell me.

Because of chemotherapy. Because I dared to hope. Because I couldn’t be fearless.

Why not?

BECAUSE I WAS TOO BUSY BEING SICK. If you’re sick, it’s hard to be yourself. If you can’t do things, and you’re isolated, it’s hard to stay connected. It’s hard to be my normal buoyant self when I feel dragged out and sick to my stomach all the time. SICK SICK SICK. It isn’t having a disease that gets to me, it’s being SICK because I have a disease.

Isn’t that the same thing?

NO! Yes, they are related, but no they are not the same thing. Being sick means I can’t do things, I can’t live my life, I can’t have my life.

You’re not sick now then?

No, not in that way.

Then what’s holding you back now?

The fear of being sick? I don’t know. The fear that my fear of being sick will not be ok for other people in my life? The fear that my fear of being sick is not ok with me? I don’t know. Just fear. But it doesn’t feel like fear right now, it feels like a nothingness, a numbness.

Do you ever send it love?

No, I don’t. I don’t pray for myself. I don’t talk to God much. I don’t try and explain that part.

Remember what you learned, that you only have to deal with what you feel right now about something? That you don’t have to experience the whole thing over again or hash through it? You’ve already been through it once.

Yes, I remember.

Well what if you did that now? How do you feel about all this now? About the fear? About all the things you’ve been writing about?

I’m glad I’ve written the story down as witnessing. I’m glad I didn’t embellish too much or add the politics of relationships too much to it. I’m glad I was true to the difficult side of it. And really, it was BIG, but right now, it doesn’t feel like it’s still so big. Like you said, I’ve been through it once already. Now I’ve been through it again - or am going through it again - in a way that acknowledges for me, the difficulty of it, without trying to make it ok. I really needed to do that. It’s almost all written down. It will be something new to go through it all as one story.

You already know that whole story.

Yes, I do. At the same time, writing it this way has given me a coherency I missed along the way. I see connections, reasons for things. I understand better why it’s been so hard. I’m tired of hard.

What would be easy?

I don’t want easy. I want… I want to be full.

What would make you feel full?

People. I love people. I want to be around people. Work with people. Share with people. It’s all I’ve ever really wanted. It’s what I love. It’s what rejuvenates me, a big part of what fills me. And being sick, not just being sick, the way my life became structured, a big part around being sick, it doesn’t include people in that way, somehow. I’ve been alone and I am not full when I’m alone so much. I was just thinking about what I might do, how I might build my life differently to include that involvement with people in way that would be fulfilling for me. I keep thinking about women’s adventure travel or a retreat center. The retreat center would be mostly for other people doing the retreats. Or maybe I could be the organizer - like an events planner. The women’s adventure travel sounds like the most exciting, but I don’t have the skills for that. Maybe I could lead some sessions on something or be one of the team leaders? I don’t know. I guess I’d have to get experience in that - trained in something else.

Well you already have good organizational skills and good people skills.

Yes that’s true. I wonder, though, if I have an idealized version of it in my head.

Well you could go on one of the trips and see if you like it. How about this winter break?

Yes, I could do that. I should look it up on the internet, see what the trips are that out there. That might be a really good idea.

At the very least it sounds like it would be fun.

Yes, yes it does. I wonder if I could make a session or a class out of my studies? Do I have enough depth there to do that? I’m still trying to figure out what I might do for a session at the next residency. I realized what I was trying to do was find a way to help people understand what it’s like to experience chronic pain. That’s just yucky. I should be putting a positive focus on what I’ve learned. A new angle. That’s where I should be headed. I’ve been mired down in working through the sludge, trying to get the mud to settle.

That’s contradictory. How will it settle if you’re stirring it up?

I don’t know that I’m stirring it up. More like releasing it so clear water can start running again. Maybe that it would wash away the sludge rather than settling it? A vision of clear running water… that’s nice. That’s how I picture the wind sometimes - blowing through my, through my being, in between the cells, in between what seems solid, but really is not. Blowing through me and taking away with it the heaviness, the thickness. Cool breezes seem best for this, crisp, refreshing.

Sounds nice.

Funny that so much of my life has moved away from people somehow. My son grew up. I married a man who is more of a loner, definitely not a social butterfly, even with me. I moved out of town and further away from my family and friends. The reorganizations at work left me with fewer friends at work and so readily available. The sickness was isolating. The motorcycle even is more of a solitary activity. My school work is primarily something I’m alone in doing too. How did all that happen? Or maybe why did it happen? Or maybe simply that’s part of the reason I feel empty, that my life is out of balance in this way. I feel like I need a super dose to get back to a more normal place. The opportunities I have never seem enough. I feel like it’s a bad thing to say like - like I am super needy and might suck someone’s energy dry. You know this thing I’m talking about - it’s been there since I was little. Translates into that driving need to find the right relationship, true love, a soul mate, whatever you want to call it. I think I could be quite happy if I even had one person that was my friend, that we had fun together, that wanted to be with me and do a lot of things with me. Like in high school when I hung around with my friends all the time. We weren’t doing something special all the time, but we were doing it together, hanging out, talking, sharing, figuring things out. That’s what I want. But I don’t know if that’s practical in the adult world.

Why wouldn’t it be? What might it look like?

A special relationship, living near family that gets together, stops by, does things together. Living in a communal house maybe or with a roommate that was a friend? Having a relationship like that?

Would you want to do that all the time?

No not all the time. I do like space for myself, but mostly yes, I think I would like to live like that. The residencies are like that.

But you also don’t like to be in constant demand for someone else’s attention.

Yes that’s true, like a parent of a small child is. I remember how it felt when I felt like I didn’t have enough energy to give my son what he needed - like I could never fill him up. I wonder sometimes if other people sense that about me, that I can’t be filled up, but when I ask they say no. I think I’ve said this before.

You have. Where does that come from?

Maybe from the sense that there’s never enough, like I can’t get enough myself. Like I need attention. Really I think there’s a little of that, but I don’t think that’s the underlying need. It’s really more of just wanting to do things with other people.

Is there a way you could “dose-up” on other people?

I could make more efforts to see my friends. Maybe I could do a girls weekend. I wonder if people could get away for that? We had a mini girls night last weekend. It was fun, but seemed short. A girls week would be even more fun, but maybe not practical.

Anything else?

Well, there’s dance class. Some potential for new friends there - and camaraderie. But it’s just class right now, not anything going beyond that. Funny too - I was just thinking how much I enjoyed working in customer service when we were able to help people resolve issues. That was very satisfying for me, even though it was ‘simple’ work. I liked working in the mom-and-pop store too. I used to feel like I did that in my current job too - made a difference in people’s ability to do their job well, made improvements, contributed. It’s not like that now. Now it’s more mechanics.

You’ve been thinking that for awhile now.

Yes, but it’s ok. I’m still there for other reasons and I know what they are. I’m ok with that. And I’m not sure what I want to do next. Maybe a big change. That would be fun. I just want to have fun, enjoy. I think that’s the most important thing to me. Not that there’s big meaning around everything, just that it’s fun. And I’m an easy one for fun. I mean, I can have ’fun’, feel satisfied in a lot of different settings. I think all mine just seemed to collapse at the same time.

Ouch.

Yes. But I’m still in those same structures - same job, same relationship, same everything. Most things seem like a chore.

Girl, you just need to have some fun.

Yes I KNOW! Why is it so hard to get there? Because I want people to be part of it. Because I’m so busy. Because everyone is so busy. That makes it seem more important that my work revolves around this and that I have strong relationships that I get this from. You know, I think this would be a lot easier if I wasn’t in school.

Nice time to decide that.

Well I wouldn’t quit or anything. I’m too close to finishing. But maybe I can focus some more on how to put a positive spin on this - how to take it out to people in a more refreshing, rejuvenating way. Maybe I won’t do anything with it. Who knows. Seems like it shouldn’t be that hard.

It’s always hard to take things that don’t seem to go together, but you know they somehow do, and put them together as a whole.

That’s the whole challenge isn’t it? Isn’t that always the whole challenge? Like this idea of sustainable self. It’s great that I have contributions from chronic pain and that I’m applying it to sustainable self, but there’s more to it than that. It’s got to be developed beyond that into this fun, this joy of living that I’m talking about missing so much. But then, maybe the problem is that I didn’t have the right plan for those kind of difficulties and that led me very far away from where I like to be. Maybe if I had these concepts in place sooner, I would have been able to hang on to more of me in the process. Maybe it’s about a whole new set of skills that are complimentary, an enhancement, instead of a replacement.

Sounds like an idea to me.

So it’s all about balance. That’s what I’m thinking right now. That’s what I feel. I’ve been out of balance and haven’t been able to re-institute it. I can do something about that, I think. So here’s some things I’m going to try to do:

-- Find the library and get a library card. I miss reading. I miss good movies. I can make time for some of this, even with school work.

-- Get the girls together - whether it’s a shopping trip, a meal or a pj party. It’s been awhile and it’s time.

-- Think of something fun to do with my son, a sport maybe? Or a hike? A concert?

-- Think of something fun to do with my Mom. A trip maybe? Shopping to Manchester?

-- Plan a holiday party - or even better - a relief from holiday pressures party. A theme maybe?

-- Stay in touch with family.