Thoughtful consideration

It is Wednesday and I continue to feel a little lost.  One reason I feel a little lost is that I am very bad at understanding linear time.  I tend to be very early or very late going to places or having people over.  I have a terrible time knowing when things happened.  I have trouble even narrowing most things I have done into a decade.  I have been so busy my entire life trying to fill it up with doing, that I did not take the time to notice or even care when I was doing something.  I just tried to stay focused on what I was doing.  No, that is not quite right.  I was as obsessed with the next thing on my list, so there are a lot of things that I remember doing, but really missed the moment.  I can mark them off my list, but I really did not get all the enjoyment out of those days, events, moments as I could have.  I remember being torn as a young child when I could not do everything I wanted.  When I would have to make a choice on what I would do.  It was so hard trying to decide what to do and what to not get to do.  The older I got, the worse that I became until here I am at 56 still trying to do everything.  I have to say that since the cancer I have started paying more attention to the moments, but I am still terrible about having to give up something I want to do because I am doing some other wonderful thing. 

And I do get to enjoy so many wonderful moments, and get to experience so many amazing things.  But as spring rushes toward summer I am tired and have not taken the time to get out into the yard and garden.  Next to gardening I do love to read and play.  But gardening is really and truly the thing I love the most.  And there is so much to do in my yard to help it evolve into the what I see in my mind's eye.  Oh, in my mind, my yard is magnificent.  And it is the doing to make it look like my vision that I love the most.  I love to weed.  I love to plant, I love to prune and spend hours after dark looking through garden catalogs turning pages down.  I love to go to plant nurseries, especially Just Fruits and Exotics in Medart.  This is a big beautiful nursery, my friend Kim introduced me to years ago and it is always a wonderful time there, only it never fails, that no matter how careful I am, I seem to bring home a car full of plants.  I have been trying to get out there since this fall to purchase 2 apple trees, some more grapes, a male and female kiwi, a couple of pomegranates, another persimmon and some more blueberries, but I have been too busy.  The urge to put my hands in the dirt has gotten so strong lately that it just might be time to put my garden back as the priority in my doing schedule.  This next weekend is the closing weekend for The Fantastick's, but I still have the Murder Mystery to work on. 

I am not sure what all I will do in the play.  I was supposed to co-direct with Judy, but she is doing such a wonderful job directing while I have been working on the Fantastick's, that I do not want to step in and change what she is doing.  Maybe the Assistant Director.  I do love to work with her on plays.  We compliment each other so well when it comes to plays, and it is such an amazing experience to work with her in this type of creative process.  I know I will be involved in makeup and costumes.  Oh Joy, Oh Rapture!!!  I love stage makeup and costumes.  And this play, downstairs, close up to the audience, in fact, literally in the lap of the audience, it is more like doing street theater makeup, which is something I have been involved in for years.  I have tried to teach myself stage makeup, and I do that.  In fact I help to age three of the men in The Fantastick's.  It is harder because we are not aiming at people 10-20 feet away.  No we are doing makeup for people 30 - 100 feet away under blazing, blaring stage lamps.  Stage lamps fade makeup as quickly as people look 10 pounds heavier on TV.  It is just a fact of theater.  But the actors are usually a little uncomfortable at first with the grotesque lines and shading.  It looks overdone to them.  But after people comment on how old they look who are at the play, they usually relax and are more comfortable with my work.

It was absolutely glorious today.  Well, from my vantage point in the Opera House Office.  Lisa took a well deserved day off, and I baby sat the office.  I did not get much of what I had planned to do, but I am just so tired and worn down, I don't have the energy.  I think most of this is the hepatitis C, not the cancer.  Stress really affects me, good stress or bad stress.  The long hours wear me down, but the worry about remembering everything I need to do and when to do it, and to not let anyone down, or bang them in the head or throw a sword at their face and they move and take a sword to the nose, I mean this some serious stress here.  So that is another reason I feel a little lost.

I also feel a little lost because my watch must need a new battery and it keeps loosing time.  a few minutes here, I reset it and it is fine for a week, then a few days in a row I have to adjust it again, and then it will work okay for a few more days.  And well, I just simply have not remembered to get a battery when I am in places that have them.  I really need to wear a watch or else I get so lost in the day and it simply slips away. 

Yesterday I did so many different things.  I did laundry, cleaned the hummingbird feeders, made nectar for the feeders, filled them and hung them outside.  Filled the bird seed feeder, spent time with the chickens, vacuumed, changed both beds, cleaned the kitchen and emptied the dish washer, baked cookies, fixed lunch for a friend, walked around the yard clipping back dead wood from winter.  I also got to play with the dogs and cats, read a little and spend time just walking around the world with my rose colored glasses.  I hope to get some pictures of some of the beautiful flowers in my yard.  There is plenty of room for more plants and flowers and lots of TLC.  But what a wonderful day to just do the small projects that always get pushed back.

I am going through lots of mind games right now.  I am breaking away from my life focused on cancer.  I am wanting more out of life.  Cancer has given me a lot, but while I am still strong and healthy I am getting ready to move past the little c, and quick waking up each morning thinking about cancer.  I mean I take one little pill a day.  That is it.  Okay, once a month I give blood and a week later I see the Doc.  Soon a new doctor.  And the only way I can move past my fear and trepidation of learning a new doctor, is to say good bye to the amazing Dr. M, to let him move on to bigger and better things in this world.  He will make a difference wherever he goes.  I wish him well.  But I am ready to take back my life into my own hands out of the doctors.  I am not sure I want to give my life over to a new doctor.  I want to be in charge of my life.  Okay, that is pretty scary.  It is not like I don't push myself beyond where I should.  I mean I have a couple of tiny splinters under one of my finger nails now, and I am just dreading calling my GP and have him see what he can do to remove them.  I had hoped that if I ignored it, they would simply go away.  Nope, now the end of my finger is staring to look not so great.  Not bad, but I obviously can not ignore this minor situation unless I want a major situation.  I do not want a major situation. 

So who will I be?  I don't know, but I think I am ready to be more then just Kathleen with stage 4 lung cancer.  I want to be more then my diseases.  I want to be more then my doing.  I want to be happy.  I want to have opportunities to continue doing fun things.  I want to do the Easter play with Jack and Jan at Ron and Pat's church.  I want to go to the passover sedar at the Episcopal church with Jack and Jan.  No, I am not religious, but I love tradition, and this sedar tradition goes back more then 2000 years.  How cool is that?  I want to ride on motorcycles and garden.  Yes, I really want to garden.  I want to have a yard that when I look at it, it looks more like my mind's eye.  I want to work with Judy and our friends on the murder mystery.  I want to watch the video Hugo with Carolyn and go see a play in Tallahassee.  I want to go to the full moon vegan meditation next month.  I want to spend time with my cousins.  I want to think about all of these things and experience them in the moment.  I don't want to see myself as I see myself now.
I am the only one who sees myself with cancer.
The people I love still see me.
I wish I could still see me.
I have grown bored and tired with the cancer.
I have realized that my life can be different.
It is so much better and different than it has been,
but I want more.
I want to have a life where I have something to offer someone that I care about.
I want to not hold back out of fear that I am cheating them by having cancer
No one thinks like that
but I do
and I want to shift that perception
to what?
I don't know, but it is a time of shifting and changing.  A time of great opportunities and possibilities.  I hear the metaphysical people say this. 
I see it in my own self, my own life.
It is a time to set goals outside of my own little cloistered self who is swimming and reveling in my cancer.
It is time to climb out of that pool and jump into a new one. 
Hopefully one that is deep enough to not crack my head,
but shallow enough that I don't drown.
I can tread water pretty well
I have been for the last couple of years.
Now to swim.