Therapy.

I look sick.

Something shifted this week. It’s not one thing, really. I flipped on the light this morning and the face staring back at me was not the one I know. The cute shaved head is now patchy with baldness, my skin ashen, my eyes heavy. Behind my eyes, I see the burden, a weight that transcends the physical.

The treatment is intended to kill the old me. That’s what chemotherapy is. It burns away all my cells down to nothing, killing what is killing me and taking the healthy stuff with it. It burns with it my hair follicles, the moisture of my beautiful skin, the strength of my nails, muscles, lung capacity, stamina, memory. It burns my throat, changing the sound of my voice which is now thin, weak. Oh, my sweet and powerful instrument, who am I if I cannot use you? The burning down has reached my ego and attachments. I am not my voice. My athleticism. My physical body. Intellectually, I’ve begun to acknowledge these losses. But I need help to process them. I feel so far away from home and need help returning.

This isn’t happening to just me, it’s happening to you too. This thought wears on me the most. I can endure all the pain, but nothing will spiral me out quite like the powerful desire to remove the pain this is causing from others. I lose sleep many nights worried I forgot to send a thank you message, running back through the times I was short with Evan, the friends I should be spending time with, that I wasn’t curious enough about my mom’s day or my neighbor’s new dog. Those friends who have gone silent in this; I obsess that I should have been nicer to them - that maybe I need to reach out. I play and replay ways I fall short as a friend, wife, daughter, business owner, as a good citizen of the world.

The duck.

Today while I was waiting to get acupuncture, a stranger in the waiting area struck/inspired by my appearance launched into a story about how they know a friend of a friend who, against all odds, cured their cancer and they know I will too. I never know how to respond when this happens to me and it happens, a LOT. Early on I’d follow my instinct to be curious, ask questions about the friend of a friend and about them. This has been my lifelong love language - total presence and genuine curiosity about someone else’s life and perspective. I thought it was my sole responsibility to get the ball moving on conversations in a crowd, to make everyone feel comfy and seen, to create connection. What I’ve learned is in my seeking out connection what I’m really doing is pouring out my energy to someone else and usually getting a heap of bullshit back.

Bullshit, when you have cancer, takes the form of people saying they have the perfect cocktail of remedies that will cure you including repenting to our “lord and savior Jesus Christ” while slapping a cookie out of your hand and replacing it with celery juice. Ohhh, but that instinct is pulling me HARD to indulge strangers in their unsolicited feedback if, for nothing else, my own self-preservation - preventing this well-intended energy vampire from making an appearance in my insomniac replays at 3 AM of ways I should have been nicer that day. I’ve taken on a new mantra in these moments: be the duck. My mind is furiously kicking around snappy comebacks, frustration, annoyance, anger but that shit stays below the surface. On the top of the water, I’m cool as a cucumber. I say “That’s wonderful for them.” and disengage. Be the duck, Hayls.

Anybody picking up on some real intense co-dependency vibes? Ding ding ding! Yea, me too. Again - intellectually, I’ve begun to acknowledge this and need tools. I feel so far away from home and need help returning.

I got help and hired my first therapist. She is now part of the Hayley Survival Quest Team of fringe and fabulous healers joining my oncologist, Middleway Acupuncture, Mederi Center for herbal therapy, SO Om for yoga/sound baths, Melissa at SoulFire for massage, Evan as my #1 caregiver, and a small, mighty group of family and friends where I really feel seen and fill my bucket.

Mid ’demic I was on a socially distanced walk with some of these girlfriends and as we were talking about our dreams for 2021 post-demic when I shared “we’ve already lost so much, I’m fine if it all just gets burned down.” Oopsie-daisy. Maybe I should have attached a few qualifiers on there like, oh I don’t know, maybe not get cancer. Geesh, I didn’t really the universe would take that statement so literally.

But here I am. Burning it all down. While the fire is built, I may as well throw in old attachments, old stories of who I am, of unworthiness, of the desire for perfection, of my pull, to transform the world for others before I do for myself that way when the cells regenerate and I pass myself in the mirror the hair is back but the burden is not.

Burn, baby, burn.