A January Hibernation
Hello, my friends. I felt the need to post a follow-up to my last blog. I wanted to reassure you that I’m okay. Just a little lost. And that feeling is not something I’m resisting. On the contrary, I’m allowing it to just be. Give it some breathing room to process everything.
Each January begs me to slow down, settle in, cozy up under the crisp, grey winter skies. After a season of hustle and bustle, spending sprees despite my best efforts, and Christmas chaos (especially those of us with young kids), January always feels like it’s asking me for the opposite. And this January for me is the same… just much, much more heightened. As if I was asked to rest last month but didn’t/couldn’t/wouldn’t. And now my heart is screaming at me, flailing its desperate arms in front of my face. Can you see me? Can’t you hear me? Please, I beg of you. You and I… we need to rest and recover our weary soul together.
I’ve received the most incredible, encouraging notes from people around the world. A college friend of mine wrote me about her own traumatic experience after brain surgery, validating the emotional and psychological conundrum I’ve found myself in recent weeks:
“I never anticipated the emotional side of healing to be so difficult, and it really caught me off guard. It took me about two years to fully recover emotionally and physically. I saw a neuropsychiatrist during this time and she was the one who gave me permission to rest. I was trying so hard to push through (this was six months after my surgery) and I was SO TIRED. She told me ‘Resistance is futile.’ Up until then, I thought, ‘My health is fine now, so I should be able to move on.’ But everything happens so fast and there’s just no time to process anything. Suddenly you’re just left sitting in this big mess with no idea how to process any of it. It’s so important to give yourself SO MUCH time and space to grieve and process this in whatever way you need to, and SO MUCH rest – like, more rest than your son had when he was an infant!”
Her words, along with the encouragement of many others, filled in valuable holes of explanation I didn’t even know existed.
Another friend recently told me, “Your brain has served you well during this journey. Now, it’s time for it to take a back seat and let your heart catch up. Don’t judge it. Don’t stop its flow. Just go with whatever it’s asking you to do.”
And so, after Henry returns to school on January 8th, I’ll endeavor a January Hibernation.
Apart from childbirth, I’ve never in my life felt my body more urgently beg for rest as it – and I – attempt to make sense of what happened. Just as I tried to honor it during chemo, I will try to honor it now, allowing all parts of myself – mind, body, soul – to calibrate and realign
I’m writing this for two reasons: a.) To assure everyone I am truly okay and b.) Perhaps you or someone you loved recently experienced trauma of some fashion… cancer or otherwise. Remember what I said in my last post? Your hard. My hard. It’s all hard. And I, for one, habitually do not sanction myself – my body or my heart – the rest it often deserves. I hope that these words will encourage you toward rest.
The latest musings of Leanne Elliott, a dear friend and brilliant writer, resonated deeply in my heart.
THE NEW YEAR does not want a bang.
No going out loudly or ringing on your way in. Its ears are sensitive, drawn over with heavy curtains to keep out the cold.
The new year asks for a gentle start. For the dark hours that come early to be an invitation to turn in and whisper to your heart with poems and song.
Be gentle, it whispers back. We are becoming, which is a slow process that gets bruised by too much doing.
Light more fires.
Drink your tea sitting down.
Bring a real book.
And the cat.
Let yourself bump into emotions and dark thoughts. Put them on the page and then burn them, if you must. Make friends with what they want to tell you and then decide if they stay or go.
Your heart told me today that it was more fires lit in your soul. To drink this life like raindrops on a leaf, your outstretched tongue catching cool pearls of water, your face turned up to the sky, your heart open to feel.
There is nothing to be afraid of here. I have seen your strength. You have endured more than this.
The fire.
The rain.
Your own thoughts.
These are scars to prove it and they are singing of your precious will to live.
Then live. This is the singular wish of this new year. To see your life and live and live again. To gently beat the drum of your own heart. To stick out your tongue as you reach for the sky.
And so, when I say Happy New Year, I’m really wishing you… me… us… a gentle, quiet easing into this next chapter so that we can hear its whispers of guidance into all things new.
A few concluding thoughts:
While my infection, unfortunately, continues in my right breast after three rounds of antibiotics, the resulting stomach pain I was struggling with has almost completely dissolved thanks to probiotics, GI support supplements, and the suggestions and prayers from people like you.
Hair, eye lashes and eyebrows are coming back! That feels mighty good.
I meet with my radiation oncologist tomorrow to determine a radiation plan for January. It may be reduced due to my pathological complete response, which would be wonderful.
I’m inclined to begin planning for the hysterectomy/uterus removal but think I’ll wait ‘til February in honor of my January Hibernation.
Thank you to all who donated to Lillian’s cancer journey as she pursues integrative cancer treatments. Lillian’s journey is personal to me because it could have been mine. She is simply an inspiration. Let’s keep supporting her in any way we can.
Happy Gentle New Year, my friends.
With love always,
Evie
