Broken

Creator: menonsstocks

Copyright: sunil menon

Broken.

I’ve used that word so many times in the past few weeks that it’s losing any meaning. It feels like everything is losing meaning lately. I’ve been so diligent, so deliberate in managing my mindset, that I got almost cocky. “I’ve got this,” has been my mantra. “It’s all the attitude you bring to things.” With the right story, you can create any reality you want, and make magic out of the most miserable of contexts.

But today, I am broken. I am out of energy. Out of creativity. Out of resources to find a place to make this into anything meaningful. Anything valuable.

Today this is just a pile of shit.

It’s hard to write this, let alone post it, but I need to. Because this journey has been one of honest reflection. Of real-deal emotion and expression and growth. And if I don’t acknowledge this part of the experience, I am missing something critical. Solutions, after all, need a problem, and for once I need to just let this “problem” raise its ugly, disgusting, terrifying head out of the sand and show itself to me in full precise view.

When Violet and I were released from the hospital on Christmas Eve, I thought “of course – everything is always working out for us. Perfect timing.”

But we walked out into a shit storm. Lucy had just picked up a cold. And Violet, only days after our release, threw up her nasogastric (NG) tube for a seventh time, leaving us out of the clinic and without an option to give her meds comfortably and unnoticeably in her sleep (along with 800 calories in Pediasure that was being pumped into her belly through the night). Not wanting to put her through yet another NG insertion trauma, we fought hard to compensate, working to get food and medicine into her that her body and mind wanted desperately to refuse. Over the following weeks, I spent literally 75% of the day sitting on Violet’s bed, begging her to take just one more sip of her chocolate milk, one more spoon of her revolting chemo medicine, one more bite of her bagel, so we didn’t have to go back and shove that hose violently back into her nose and down her throat.

Meanwhile, with coughs and runny noses, we hunkered down in our 200 square foot room as a family for over two weeks, myself leaving only to carefully sanitize dishes and bring them back up. A 5-year-old full of fire and energy and a 9-year-old just out of a month and a half in a hospital bed, confined to a small space with little air circulation and absolutely no privacy, along with two parents, war-beaten and sleepless from almost 8 months of agonizing stress – you can just imagine. Happy New Year and Ho Ho Ho.

But I digress. To be honest, as has been the case throughout this whole ordeal, during this time I found every positive possible, including and especially that we were together as a family for the first time in months. And (hallelujah) I was sleeping in an actual bed…beside my husband, at that.

My intention was to use these weeks out for intensive and critically needed self-care. But this did not happen. In fact, the stress of being out of the hospital and on full-time nursing duty proved to be quite the opposite. My energy, my mood, and my positivity waned.

As did the seeming sanity of the world outside.

I don’t know if it has been a good thing or not that we have spent 8 months of this COVID drama within these walls, hidden from the world. I’ve been able to avoid media and melodrama to some extent, and aside from having to wear a mask almost all hours of the day unless hidden in a room, I haven’t had to really obsess about where I stand on protocols and perspectives and approaches to this ongoing issue (though I do obsess – I always do, for fear my opinion will prove hypocritical down the road).

These kinds of situations bring out the best and worst in all of us. For me, it has shown me that I have strength and resilience beyond my wildest imagination, and that I can handle the most horrifying of situations with grace. With positivity. With faith. But it has also revealed the ugliest, darkest corners of my character, and highlighted an infinite number of hypocrisies and resentments I hold in my heart.

My family has been through a lot, and it is starting to wear us down to the bone. This is a process of breaking down and rebuilding, but as all of us lose our old layers, it is uncovering things about us all that we aren’t entirely comfortable with. I, for one, have had to come head-to-head with anger in me that I have never wanted to truly own and deal with. Deep, violent, repulsive anger that I have spent years trying to hide from the world and from myself.

And, I think, this COVID crisis has had a similar effect on all of us. It has tested us, uncovered our own biases and judgments. It has revealed our insecurities and fears, and how far we have let that dictate our decisions. It has pushed us past our limits and made us question things we would have never questioned before.

Fear puts us into survival mode. It takes away our humanity. It shifts our priorities to ourselves and protecting our own interests. When we are on a fear program, we are unable to truly think of the big picture, focus on the positive, and opt for the greater good.

I have lost the plot of all of this. I think a lot of us have. We are scrambling to keep putting together a narrative that, by necessity, should be flexible. This is true for me in this cancer journey, and all of us in this COVID battle.

I have gotten stuck, and that “stuckness” has nailed me to the floor, bawling in hysterics and desperate for relief. It has put me at war with those I love, angry and defensive and scared. Scared that I just can’t take any more.

There is a potential COVID outbreak in the oncology ward, the day before we are to be admitted for another round of high dose chemo. The Ronald McDonald House, where Lucy and my mother were to live for the next few months while Violet and I get through this next leg, has informed us that without vaccinations we will be kicked out. The viewpoint I have tried to discover and define and own for myself without the influence of the outside world is now, again, being tested and put into question by everyone I love. And I now have to make decisions that I am incredibly uncomfortable with that continue to divide my family, my community, and the entire world.

…but here we go again. Writing is my medicine and my therapy. I cannot stay stuck. I WILL NOT let this take me down. Because I can’t. Because my family needs me. Because, at the end of the day, there is no other option but to press on and to keep the faith at any cost.

At this point I have no idea any more what the “universe” is trying to teach me, but I will keep looking for the message. I will keep mining this for the gold. I will keep identifying the opportunities to improve my perspective and find forgiveness and nurture compassion and kindness and love. Otherwise this virus wins. Otherwise cancer wins. Because if I, the eternal optimist, lose faith now, what does that mean in the grand scheme of things? There is no situation that can’t be seen with hope, and nothing that can’t be overcome. I know this. I feel this deep down. And when I pull myself off the floor again, I will be a reminder to everyone else in this family that we’ve got this. We’ve all got this.

Today, or maybe every day, I simply need to remind myself.