My Pity Party

Maybe I need to secretly up the dose of my "I don't care" pills, maybe it's the change in season, but I'm not in the best frame of mind. The following unrelated events have been nagging at me lately:

• I've been more forgetful: Some would say not to worry--that it is just because of my age, and it happens to everybody, or "at least you have an excuse." But I do worry, because of my cancer. When I have a "brain fart", it reminds me that I am disabled, and like everyone else, I'd rather forget that. But today, I forgot an appointment. Yesterday (Wednesday) I thought was Thursday. My Friday volunteer job has been maxing what brain I have left. I would like some small sign of competence, but I don't have it (competence). I should continue to be grateful I have an excuse (for my lack of competence), and grateful I'm not dead yet, which brings me to my next point.

• My husband lost his job, and doesn't know what he's going to do: He's not feeling competent either, and I remain very frustrated at my inability to help him. He applied for a job at Dell, and is considering a change in career from Software Manager to Financial Adviser, but right now is having too much self doubt. Not good when I'm in that space too.

• I have a pre-teen with a "tude": On top of everything else over which I have no control, there is my son, a smart boy who wants to be just like his dad, and like his dad, thinks he knows everything. I'm not supposed to parent him, you know, do things like tell him to wear a coat, pick up his room, which resembles the contents of my head. I'm supposed to wake him up, so he can do the homework he should have done the night before. Some decisions I make about him are vetoed. For example, my husband and I both wanted him to go to grandma's funeral, but at the last minute, husband decided that Austin didn't have anything appropriate to wear, so dropped him off at school instead. But I'm digressing.

• I'm having too many thoughts about death: Watching my grandma fight death made me think about how I want to die. Of course I don't have control over the circumstances of my passing. In all probability it will be from my tumor, but back to grandma. Despite having faith and being told by her favorite priest that she is okay in God's eyes, and despite the fact she lived for 95 years, she didn't want to go. It got me to thinking: Do I want to slowly deteriorate, or would it be best to die suddenly, like in a car crash? Will my passing be made any easier for me or those I leave behind, if I become a person of faith? After watching my grandma, I would have to say my answer to the first question is that I would rather die suddenly than the way I most likely will die, and regarding the second question, faith didn't seem to help my grandma. Also the notion of my husband or son having to feed me, change me, remember my appointments, and so on scares me. I wonder if it scares them?

• What it all boils down to: I don't know but at 42, I'm going through a transition in my life, and I will be happy again when I've made it through--made peace with my illness, and the uncertainty and depression it can bring.