Living Out Loud

My panic is back.

Who says you can’t go backwards in life?

OK, I know that you can’t. This is true. But it doesn’t mean you can’t recycle your old self into the future. As a matter of fact, it’s what we do most of the time. Everyday is an opportunity to be fresh. But mostly, we just keep bringing our old stuff into the new.

Studies have shown that people have an estimated 60-70,000 thoughts a day, and 90% of those thoughts are the thoughts we had yesterday.

And unless we have a really abrupt, in-your-face reason to change them, we run on that autopilot without even knowing it.

Yesterday was my daughters’ winter play. Years ago, when I was first considering motherhood, it was difficult to wrap my head around the specifics of what that might look like or feel like. But if there’s one thing I looked forward to with visceral imagination, it was going to my child’s Christmas concert. There is something about it that represents the purity and joy and celebration of childhood to me like nothing else.

Before we left for the concert yesterday, I had to pop an Ativan.

This has been such an incredibly strange time for me. One without precedent. One in which I frequently feel like I’m dangling over an abyss, far enough from the edge to even know which direction to try to swing to find some solid ground to cling to. Even now, at home at my desk, my chest is so tight it feels as if it were in a vice grip – an invisible crushing weight from all sides, without a name. Without a reason.

When I started this blog, “The Allowance Project”, it was under the pretext that I would use it to validate my credibility to my clients and others that I “preached” my life wisdom to. Afterall, if I was going to call myself a Coach, I needed real experience in this stuff. No one wants to be coached in baseball by someone who’s never picked up a bat. If I was going to have others trust me in any way about how to “allow” change in their lives, I had to demonstrate I knew what that was all about. Not just that I read about it in a book. That I experienced the process of change myself. That I got my hands dirty, did the work, had familiarity and success of my own with the process.

Violet’s diagnoses was “serendipitous”, I suppose, in terms of this intent. At first, I wrote crap about trying to stop drinking coffee, or keep up with a health regime. And then all hell broke loose and “change” took on a whole new meaning. Living in a hospital became a kind of life lab – a tactile, authentic opportunity to figure out how to truly exercise resilience in times of transition.

But if you can’t go back again, then there’s one reality I’ve had to now honour in a consequential way. I chose to live “out loud” when I started this, not knowing just how noisy I might become. How wide the audience might grow. How awkward it might be to no longer hide behind superficiality or anonymity or poise.

I’ve never been particularly private. It drives my husband nuts most of the time. He prefers to keep things to himself, live a quieter existence. And I get that. I want that, too. But I’ve always been compelled to “tell my story”. Usually, including much more information than others care to hear or can relate to. Sometimes I’m that person on Facebook that feels they need to share pictures of their restaurant meal or the length of their workout. I know that, for me, it seemingly validates my existence. I’m aware of that psychological neediness. But after all, we all seek approval in one way or another. Better to just admit it and move on.

And then, of course, there are those things we all want to keep under the radar. The things we don’t want others to know. Maybe, things we don’t want to face ourselves. The things that others might roll their eyes at or, even worse, use an excuse to avoid us altogether. Because god forbid the people we love forsake us because we just don’t fit their mold, once they “know”. Once we’ve been found out for our flaws.

I’ve been afraid my whole life of the judgements of others and, ironically, it has become a cornerstone in the search for wisdom I am constantly on each day about how to be better in this world. I tell myself, and others (especially my children), that it doesn’t matter what people think. All you can do is be your best version of yourself and see what it attracts to you, and what it repels. If you’re authentic and honest, it doesn’t matter what you lose, because what you gain is real and sustainable.

And yet there’s still that fear. Because that’s been a point of control for me my whole life. Needing to be understood. Using words to try to convey the “depths of my soul” so that people get me. So that they know my good intentions. How much I care. How grateful I am.

As I was rushing to get the kids off to school this morning, I realized that I completely failed at doing all of the things I intended this Christmas to show that gratitude. I have not forgotten, not for one second, how blessed we have been these past couple of years. For the support we received from people from far and wide. From the love we were shown from everyone in this community.

I packed the Christmas ornaments I made for the kids’ teachers in their bags and my heart sank. There are so many teachers and guiders and friends and neighbours I neglected to acknowledge this year. So many people that I haven’t shown the “love” to. And even more so, the list goes deeper and broader to include doctors and nurses and care workers and volunteers and donors and organizations that have been our life blood all this time.

And then there’s the children. The families. The friends that are still battling or are right where we were last year, agonizing over the loss of Christmas magic and hope.

It’s all so much this time of year. So intense. So escalated by time crunches and expectations and acknowledgements of the need for giving. For generosity. For help.

I used to have panic attacks regularly before all of our “drama” started. And let me tell you, there is absolutely nothing more excruciating than that feeling of total terror and disempowerment. There are things in life – sickness and loss and death – that are, in theory, the things we “should” fear most. But FDR was bang on. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. And when you don’t even have a source for the fear – nothing to rationalize yourself out of – you can’t escape. And you can’t explain it to anyone who isn’t feeling it themselves.

Something old has been recycling itself in me lately. Something scary and pervasive. And I’ve been trying to figure it out. Because, after all, I keep reminding myself that this is a time of celebration. I just watched my two beautiful girls dance under stage lights with their classmates, for crying out loud. Last year at this time, Violet couldn’t breathe on her own. Her face was so swollen that her eyes were completely shut. She couldn’t eat. Couldn’t speak. And the scale was teetering back and forth, teasing us with terrifying possibilities.

And here we are. A beautifully decorated home. A school full of friends. Birthday parties. Tobogganing. Christmas trees. Epic Peachland vistas to savour each morning on the drive to school. Warm smiles from all of the people that have been behind us. A seemingly perfect time to wrap up this story and move on to the next. To let go of the drama. To get on with things. Start a new chapter.

I’m not sure what the cause of the panic is. I’m trying to reason it away because it’s all I know how to do. But when it’s triggered by ghosts and invisible hands, it’s tough to wrestle down and stifle. And it’s even tougher to explain.

I lost it in that dark gymnasium as they kids sang “Fight Song”, happily distracted by the lights and the possibility of spying their parents in the crowd. That was Violet’s song - the one she played over and over again at the hospital, the one the rest of the sick kids sang at RMH when the Music therapist got out her guitar. The tears were impossible to control, which meant it was impossible to control how I would be perceived when the lights came on. What others might think. If I might be misunderstood.

I realize now that this “living out loud” process has made me vulnerable in a way I didn’t intend. But I also think that perhaps that was the trajectory of this all along. This has been about more than therapy for me through a crisis. It has been about sharing – exploring – what it means to be human. To be vulnerable. To be scared and flawed and trying to figure it out.

I don’t have the luxury of hiding from things anymore. We have a story. It’s out there. Violet may have opted out of the photoshoot that would have put her, too, on billboards around the Okanagan, without hair, as a symbol. A “cancer kid”. But it’s still part of who we are, now. I say to Matt all the time, “I’m so glad I didn’t take on the Cancer Mom identity in the way I could have.” But I still did. Because I had to. It has been a big part of who we are and what we’ve had to overcome.

I think now that these things all add up. The panic. The illness. The generosity of the community. My need to write. It has all been about sharing something that needed to be shared. I want to get on with things. I want to be “normal” again, and I get jealous and heartbroken at times that I can’t go back to just being another person at the party. Life moved on, and I opened up, and the anonymity and normality is gone.

But I need to own it. And maybe that’s where the panic is coming from – trying to go backward and hide from things. To control them. I never had one single panic attack the whole time Violet was in treatment. And one thing that was certainly different was that during that time I let go of the reins. And now that I’m latching on again, I feel like I’m bucking a serious current.

We don’t have a lot of resources at the moment. We are trying to get back on track after a very tough time, and right across the board, the well is dry. We don’t have anything, really, to give this year. But I can be generous with my words. With my experience. With my heart. We can only use what we’ve got, and even if this TMI-communication strategy of mine is too much for some people, it might help a few. It might resonate with someone and make them feel a little less – crazy. Alone. I don’t know. If not, then I accept it at pure self-indulgence. But I do know one thing. I am grateful that the world keeps reminding me to let go. To let it be. To trust. To release the grip. And to be authentic in this world so that others feel safe to do the same. Ativan aside, I’m excited for the holidays. For all of the intensity. The emotions. The realness of it all. This time of year, it’s tough to be complacent. And it’s tough not to feel alive, and grateful for it.