tossing it out to the universe.

I write things down frequently. In a small notebook I keep in my purse. On word documents I save with random titles in a folder labeled “Personal.” On scraps of paper in my room and on my desk at home. In the margins of my staff meeting notes.

Most nights, either in my head or on paper, I write a note to someone. I draft an email. An email to any number of people. An email I never end up sending.

Sometimes I think the reason for this is that I’m looking for something. Or that I’m trying to get to a conclusion. I’m trying to understand.

My biggest fear, this very moment, is not having that clarity. I don’t know when sometimes it’s just too much. Or when it’s not enough. Or when I’m supposed to get a hint with a friend or when I should reach out. One more time. Try again.

Most days I go back and forth.

Two days ago I would have told you my biggest fear was cancer. Two weeks ago I would have told you cancer didn’t scare me. How can it scare you when it’s seemingly inevitable, when both your parents have it? Two days from now I will find out if I can go on not being scared anymore.

Monday I decided for the umpteenth time that I don’t like the direction I’ve chosen to pursue professionally. I haven’t made any changes to fix this. But I feel like recognizing it (albeit again) is a step in the right direction.

I sat in my room the other night, floating on oyster shots and beer, and thought of the things I want. Like really want. The things that I would like to accomplish for me. What I want out of 2009. What I want before I’m 30. The simple things. The measurable ones.

I want to learn how to sew. With that brand new sewing machine I’ve never used that I got, ahem, two years ago. I want to know how to use it. Well.

I want to play a couple of rounds of golf. Because last year? In 2008? I didn’t pick up my golf clubs once. Except, well, to move them from one apartment to another.

I want to play some good tennis. And I want to watch some good tennis.

I want to go to as many college baseball games as I can. And I want hot dogs.

I want to run. Far. Just because I think I can’t.

I want all of the half finished canvases I have piled up to be finished. Done. And I don’t care that that requires me to use oil paint for one and that that takes a day or two or way more than that out of my life. I want them finito.

I want to be published. Somewhere other than my company’s quarterly magazine and the newspaper I freelance for. And I want to be published for something that is not boring. Because what I write for each of those? Bo-ring.

I want to figure out my laptop. I will finish MacBook for Dummies. And yes I purchased that for myself.

I want one person – just one – to tell me that I’m wonderful and that they love me. And that they can’t imagine their life without me. And won’t.

That’s what I want for 2009.

vulnerability.

Last night the roommate and I sat, in participation of our own weekly date night, discussing the honest truth.

“When did you go to the doctor last?” she asked me.

“Um, October 07, when we went together,” I told her.

“Kristin!”

The thing is, I’ve been thinking about it. And I meant to go this fall. But my life is different. So much happened then. Things have changed. And… and… it scares me.

“While we’re talking about this I need to tell you what’s been going on with me the last couple of days,” I told her.

“It’s a thickening – ” I started.

“A thickening can be scar tissue…” she interrupted.

“My mom used the word thickening,” I added.

“I’m scared,” I continued.

“I’m becoming her,” I added.

And I cried.

And then I realized how tired I am of being scared. Of feeling out of the loop. Of wondering and then trying to cease wonder and then feeling overwhelmed and the next minute underwhelmed. Of worrying if it’s something or if it’s nothing, or if it’s real or if it’s tissue, of thinking I’m overreacting or if I might be under-reacting.

And what it comes down to is that I’m vulnerable. And I’m really really tired of being so.

hello goodbye.

2008 was a difficult year for me. And it was for a lot of reasons.

I was given a coworker’s job (and she mine) without any salary changes. And was left to spend the remaining months being hated on by her.

I learned the entertaining way that a lot of guys out there? Well they suck. And it’s not in a wow, you’re so great (Note: sarcasm), thanks for breaking my heart sort of way. Um, more so in an I really like you oh wait I just got to know you now I can hardly look at you ew ew ew quit calling me sort of fashion. (I’m so mature.)

I recommitted myself to J.Crew. Not that that was really even in question.

I started grad school classes. Hated grad school classes. Cried a ridiculous lot over grad school classes. Did not enroll further in grad school classes. Sighed heavily at the conclusion of grad school classes.

And then I wondered if I should continue taking grad school classes. (Side note: WTF?)

I had a surgery that changed my life.

I stupidly and irrevocably screwed up a friendship that I can’t seem to better. No matter my efforts. And despite that I understand this completely, it has led to many a sleepless night, countless tears, and a whole hell of a lot of frustration. If I’m being honest.

I had a lot of hateful shit said to me. Notably that I have my own set of rules that are difficult to live by. That I’ve changed in a laughable sort of way. That I don’t make time for people. (Just repeat that last sentence about 10,000 times and you’ve about covered the number of times it has been said to me. Maybe. Almost.) That I do not make enough effort. That I don’t pursue.

I’ve even been told – point blank – that a guy I really really liked was just not that into me. And it was JUST THAT SIMPLE.

I quit being able to sleep through the night without fail and I picked up dreams – er, nightmares – that I never wished to have.

I learned that I apparently wear “sensitive pants”. And, well, that I hate that expression.

I got asked to be my brother’s fiance’s Maid of Honor. One of my best friends had a baby girl and named her Blakely, after me. My mom’s pet scan, just before Christmas, came back clear.

Oh! I had a boy talk dirty to me. Via text message. And it was GROSS. (Totally not for me, sorry.)

I vowed to start off 2009 differently.

I renewed my hope.

locked.

My bff in Charleston once said to me, and has repeated time and again, that I keep things in. That when it came to talking about my mom and her cancer early on I never said much, much to my own disbelief. She’d ask me how Mom was and I’d say, “Fine.” I wouldn’t say, “She’s going into surgery tomorrow, actually,” or, “She’s living with cancer, she’ll never go into remission,” or, “This was a bad week. She had a pretty big breakdown.” I just wouldn’t say at all.

I wonder sometimes if there is a reason for this. Keeping things in. If it stems from some part of me that felt a sense of ridicule at some point and is scared of getting close to people. Because losing friends? Losing friends pretty much sucks. Seeing a broken heart? Just makes me not want that for me. Feeling like you’re not worth something? The worst.

My mother was diagnosed with cancer my freshman year of college and I’ve spent the past 6 years being affected by that. Being fearful. Being scared. Being terrified.

I’m still terrified. I’m terrified of saying how I feel. Ever. And I think part of that, too, has to deal with the fact that I went to college with my two older brothers and they were still there when I graduated and left. They were there and anything I said or did would be repeated to them, just as it had been in high school. Because people thought, for some reason, that that was fun or funny or something. When it’s not. Your sister got drunk last night, they’d say. Well guess what? It’s Saturday morning and I’m fine, I would want to shout back. Your sister made out with this sketchy sigma chi on the dance floor of their house. Whoopty-freakin-do.

But that affected me. Always has.

I’ve had friends and roommates who I knew talked about me behind my back and because of, made me distrust the friendships and the roommates that followed. I’ve had first kisses that never led to second kisses that made me wonder what’s wrong with me.

And now I find myself laying there in bed at night thinking that I’ve never been in love, never said those words. I’ve never even said I like you to anyone. I’ve never told someone what they meant to me or said please don’t go.

And at the same time, no one’s ever said those things to me. No one’s ever told me before that I’m beautiful, that I mean something to them. That they want to know what I’m thinking because they can tell I’m thinking something. No one’s ever waited around for it before.

as a 4 leaf clover.

I have a good life. A really, really good life.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me to sit back and complain and be fussy and not wake up and smell the flowers and be. Be happy.

Last night I was sitting at the Rascal Flatts concert I’d arrived at late because of class. I was listening to them sing these awesome words. I turned and looked through the glass into our suite at my oldest brother, who’d come home that morning to study for a surveying test he has to take for work on Saturday morning. I looked at my mom who smiled back at me. And I thought, life is good. I mean, this is good. This is what people wish for.

Mom came and sat next to me and held my hand as we listened. “I saw my doctor today and he behaved really well,” she said to me. “Doctor? Behaved?” I asked her, trying to understand.

“My oncologist,” she said. “I told him I’d quit taking my medications and why. He took it really well. I have to have some tests run and he said we’d talk about it again in a month.”

A month.

I think in light of things, when you strip away the stupid goings on, the stresses of the day, you figure out what really matters. Friends that want to spend time with you. A happy and fairly healthy family. A job in this difficult economy. Gas to put in your car.

I think in lieu of the fact that I may dread every Monday and Thursday night of 2.5 hour classes, and that I’m upset with myself for not basking in the fact that I have a guy to go to dinner with, or that because of class I had to miss Taylor Swift open last night and the friend’s gig I got invited to and ladies night at the Art Museum, and that I’m stressed out by a 5 page single spaced paper I have to write on something I’ve never heard of before and I have no time to write it, I need to realize.

I’m kind of lucky.

i'm whole!

(L-R) Mrs. Crews, Mrs. Vernon, Mrs. Lou, Mom, brother Will, me, Joan, brother Daniel, future sis-in-law Katie, Mrs. Lough, & Mr. Ed. Dad was the photographer, via his blackberry.

So, I did it. The Walk for Life. Or – er – mere stroll. Because that’s what it was and that’s what I was capable of. It was great Columbia weather. And I say that with full knowledge that I live in a city that is known to many as the screen door to hell.

Tomorrow I am back to work, to an email from the boss where every sentence ends with ASAP and the whole thing finishes off with a run-on “Deadline Friday Welcome Back,” to the due date of a 10-15 page single spaced paper I have yet to write for class, to a life where people I haven’t told and people I have will without a doubt be able to tell that something is different about me, aside from the 5 1/2 inches I cut off of my hair.

And I can’t lie, I’m a little scared and apprehensive about that.

check yourself.

I am watching Oprah right now. Christina Applegate is the guest of honor. Breast Cancer is the theme. My mom is standing in the den folding laundry while Molly, our 2 year old chocolate lab, barks at her side.

At the commercial, Mom looked at me.

“I was watching Oprah 6 years ago,” she said. ”And this girl was talking about her cancer. She described it as ‘a thickening’.”

“And I thought,” she continued, “Oh shoot.”

Tears rolled down her cheeks.

“You started this,” she said. Referring to the tears.

A few hours before, when the credits started rolling on Nights in Rodanthe, Mom had looked at me (with those tears dancing lines down her cheeks) and said, “What is wrong with you!??”

I’m going to quit reading these Nicholas Sparks books before I see the movies. Because 1. I get blamed for knowing the depressing ending and not warning people ahead of time and 2. they always do a disservice to the book.

UPDATE: They just showed a clip of the woman Mom saw in 2002, before she was diagnosed. “It’s been 6 years,” the woman said. Her cancer has since spread to her lungs and her brain.

by the numbers.

800 ccs taken from my left side.

300 ccs taken from my right.

All dense tissue. All what hid my mother’s cancer. All something that despite the weight I could lose, no matter if I got myself to under 100 lbs, it would always be there.

161 pages I have to read in “The Case for Bureaucracy.”

15 pages I have to write about it before Thursday.

Can I seem to get myself to read it? To start writing? No. Does this make me really wish I wasn’t enrolled in school? Absolutely. Am I starting to panic? Already there.

7 days before I can drive.

0 pounds I can lift.

Recovery, if you ask me, it ain’t been fun. Mom, to be honest, has been awesome, though.

4 prescriptions given.

3.5 hours in surgery.

And to tell you the truth, right now, I’m really really happy I did it. But let’s just see after I get out of my boxers and my great grandfather’s pajama tops (and my boobs look totally different).

this is real.

I’ve been thinking a lot about whether or not I was going to write this. Whether I was going to share with the internets, my friends, what’s going on with me. Whether I was going to put my melt down – my freak out – into words.

Words people around me seem to have.

For my mom, it’s excitement. She’s in bliss I’m taking some time off. Starting tomorrow and through next week. “I’ll just tell people that ask that you need a vacation and we’re going to spend some time together. If people want to know why we’re not going to the Clemson/Maryland game, that’s what we’ll tell them. You needed a break anyway. This is making you do that.”

People will talk.

“And when it’s my birthday? And I won’t answer anyone’s calls? And I won’t go out and meet anyone for a drink?”

Sometimes it’s just better if you tell them what’s going on. It gives them a whole heck of a lot less to say.

***

My mother’s breast cancer is Stage 3b, meaning it had metastasized to the size of a golf ball before it was ever detected, even though she hadn’t been sleeping for 9 months because of the pain. The mammogram? Kept coming back clear. The doctor? Said it was nothing. Her friends? Yea, that lump seems unusual. Me? On my Christmas break, home from my freshman year in college, when she made me feel it? “OH MY GOSH MOM YOU HAVE CANCER WE HAVE TO GO TO THE DOCTOR NOW.”

We were standing in the driveway. I don’t remember why. My hair was wet and I didn’t dry it until we were downtown, at the doctor’s office. Until the doctor told us, “I’m worried it is something. You need to go across the street to the Cancer Center and get a biopsy.” Until I called my father at his office around the corner and said, “We need you here. Now. Where? Oh, the hospital.” Until he met us there and I headed over to the gym in his office building and stuck my head of hair under the hand dryer to gain back some warmth and to keep it from being sopping wet all day long.

And I freaked out.

In little bits. Every now and then. A night I couldn’t sleep where I got down from my loft and sat in the hallway in my freshman dorm and cried. A car ride where I called my best friend in tears and she didn’t answer.

For the most part, I just didn’t talk about it. Everybody has their own ghosts and their own burdens. This was mine. The big C. And I’m not saying it in any way compares to the person next door’s or the guy in line behind me at Starbucks.

So I took it day by day and I handled it.

But she’s my mother. And what affects her? By god if it doesn’t affect me.

***

Sitting at The Gourmet Shop at lunch with Mom on Monday, she said to me, “I think I’m going to stop taking my drugs.”

“Wh-what? But you just started that new one! That 5 year one? That miracle drug, they say, that they didn’t even have 5 years ago!”

“It’s for life, Kristin. You take it forever.”

“Yea, but that’s the one you start taking when you get to the 5 year mark, right?”

“It is, but it doesn’t help. It always hurts. I’m always in pain. That’s why I exercise all the time. That’s why I run and play tennis. The more I do, the less the pain.”

Then keep doing, I wanted to say.

3 days earlier I had scheduled surgery. The day after, and the next day, I had cried. “I may have several small breakdowns over the next week,” I told the roommate. That’s okay, she said to me. On Monday, on the phone with Mom after I was back at the office, I cried some more. “I have to go,” I told her. I wouldn’t be able to work.

On Tuesday morning I felt like I was going to throw up.

“Will I be able to walk in the Walk for Life?” I asked Mom. It’s a week from Saturday.

“It’s okay if you can’t,” Mom told me. “What you’re doing is honoring it. What you’re doing is preventative.”

Tomorrow at noon I go under.

the one i wrote while i was crying.

Last weekend, sitting at our tailgate, Mom started talking about how she didn’t read.

I was sitting next to her in my chair, under our tent, the hot sun beating down all around us.

“What did you get your Masters in, again?” I asked her.

She didn’t make a face or a pause in her speech. “Reading,” she said.

Since chemo, she can’t concentrate enough to get through a book. And since chemo, the books she skims have gone somewhere in the direction of medical, macro, and prevention. Shelves and shelves of them which could wage an even war against my fiction.

Sometimes I wonder about the affect all of this has had on me. The way this disease has impacted us, shaped us, changed us. It has brought many of my family together. It has brought fear to all of us. It has changed the girl I was in high school, just as much as these last 6 years themselves.

As I talked to my mom on the phone this afternoon, sitting at my desk, I heard words from her I’d never heard before. “You’ve never had a self image problem,” she said.

“I don’t think you could be more wrong about anything in the world.”