TGIF: Feeling our feelings and the feelings are GOOD

Hello and happy Friday, patrons! I’ve been having a slew of good days over here which feels slightly unbelievable after finishing a 5th round of chemo. I almost don’t want to jinx it by writing it out, but I also wanna infect you with my excited disposition and generally good feelings! I keep thinking “I can’t believe how good I feel, I feel so normal” but then I remember I get winded walking up the steps from the front door. But that’s okay! It just means there’s so many more “normal” feelings to feel in the future and I can’t wait to furiously feel them.

This weekend we’re prepping for a Grace and Elliott Thanksgiving extravaganza. It’ll be just the two of us for Thanksgiving, so we’re going to cook every delicious Thanksgiving side we can think of/want and have a glutinous feast. I plan to throw back some Imodium and GasX before the festivities so all bets are off. Oh man, a locked up gut plus a few juicy joints? It’s about to be the best, or potentially worst, Thanksgiving ever. Neither of us has the confidence to tackle a whole turkey or potentially roasted chicken just yet so we’re still figuring out what our plan is for the big bird. But if it ends up being all sides, so be it. It’ll be a side piece feast, y’all. Those are the stars of the meal anyway. In my humble opinion. I’ll gladly gorge on a dense mountain of stuffing over a turkey leg any day. Apologies to the fowl enthusiasts out there.

We’re also getting into decorating for Christmas. Elliott is a Christmas boy and I’ve mostly never felt like bothering since we usually make the journey out east to visit family over the holiday. But this year we’ll be at home, so I’ve been making the conscious decision to buy decor. And my god is it fun. There’s so much shit out there. So. Much. Shit. And when you flip that switch in your brain that gives you permission to find it fun it’s So. Much. Fun. We might actually set up our tree tonight because we’re as impatient as we are eager and it feels like time moves differently in our bubble. And by differently I mean in all directions and at all speeds. So, we’e developed the philosophy that there’s no right or wrong way to do anything over here. It’s just our way. How saccharine sweet mushy gushy CUUUUUUTE is that!?? Yeah, the switch I flipped about the holidays has really let me indulge in the cringe of it all. If my sweat glans were working normally they’d be sweating sugar, it’s so god damn sweet over here. Which, side note, I do think my armpits have been sweating significantly less since starting chemo and, hey, that’s cool. 😎

I’ve been ignited with a light of cautious carpe diem on these good days which really is so fun. I’m going to go to the store to get ingredients to make cookies after this! And then I’m gonna come back and take a breast cancer break and then I’m gonna get back to carpe-ing some diem and make those cookies! It’s a good system.

I feel so much gratitude for feeling this okay at this point. My doc knocked the chemo meds down by 20% this last round and it’s made a hell of a difference. And in less than two weeks I’ll be doing my FINAL round of chemo. There’s so many emotions around that, that I feel protectively numb about it now, but I know I’ll be walking through all of those feelings in the coming weeks. I talk a lot in therapy about how proud I feel to have built the capacity to be with my feelings. I’m not perfect but I’m light years better than where Ive been. Who knew the girl that sold “Dressed to Repress” merch would one day actually feel her feelings and, get this, ACCEPT THEM?! And all it took was a itty bitty bout of breast cancer. Lol. Actually my therapist reminds me of how much I had been working on this before breast cancer, which is probably why I’ve been pretty okay mentally throughout this process.

You gotta feel your feelings. It always comes back to that. At least for me. You can’t run away from them, bury them, destroy them, escape them, eat them, drink them, smoke them, or outthink them. Well, you can try. And damn did I try. Still do sometimes. But feeling them is, weirdly enough, so much easier. They don’t wanna hang around forever, they just wanna pop in and say hi….and maybe help you understand that you’re not actually mad at husband, you’re mad about your general lack of control over your body and your overall situation and when he gets stressed it triggers the stress you’ve been unknowingly keeping at bay. Or something like that. 🙃

I know holidays are emotional minefields for a lot of people. It stirs up a lot of the gunk you’d like to forget. And I’m sorry for that. These holidays, for us, I’m trying to do that cliche bullshit of “focusing on the good”. And so far that bullshit is working. So I’m gonna stay on that bullshit. Who knows. After my 6th (and LAST!!!) round of chemo I’ll have a few weeks of recovery before prepping for a surgery so my holidays will be full of medical wonders but I’m gonna try to enjoy the pockets that are enjoyable. Like today. Today is a great day. Yesterday was a great day. I don’t know what the hell is gonna happen tomorrow, but today I’m gonna make some cookies and possibly put up a Christmas tree. Holy shit that’s so fun. So today, we indulge in our enjoyment of the good. And see what kind of momentum it stirs up. Because I really do feel like a good momentum is building. I don’t know what the universe has in store for me, but I’ve felt a lot of good energy lately and I’m eating it up. Speaking of eating, I gotta go get ingredients for cookies. Look at me go. I hope you guys can harness some of the ~good vibes~ and roll them into your weekends. Thanks for letting me write in my internet diary and thanks, as always, for being here! 💚G