It’s September and it’s been a struggle to write. I’ve kept a journal since the 4th grade to mostly free write but these past few months I have needed journal prompts just to help inspire thoughts and maybe help put my brain in order. I read a Substack recently by a woman in midlife (Linda Cooper) that really resonated with me so I’m forcing myself to acknowledge this current stage of life and how I truly have been feeling. I do have to say that it has been increasingly difficult to stop the mind numbing daily scrolling and I 100% believe that is a HUGE contributing factor for my inability to focus on complete thoughts and just sit and lean in to what I’m feeling and why.
A few weeks ago I watched a Netflix movie called ‘Don’t Say Good Luck’ and I think I cried from about 10 minutes in, all the way to the end which by then was an all out sob. It’s a great movie that I’d recommend but prepare yourself with tissue, a lot of tissue. I think this was around the time I acknowledged that my normal melancholy personality leaned more into the sad/depressed state. I realize I’ve been in a funk awhile now. After being sick almost the whole first quarter of the year things finally settled down a little and now here we are in September. Here is the line in the Substack I just couldn’t shake…’white knuckling through life, I could lift a dumbbell off the floor but not lift the grief out of my cells. I could strengthen my muscles but could not pull the tension out from the years of bracing for the next big (or small) thing.’ The thing about life and living? There’s ALWAYS going to be a ‘thing’ so here we are.
Midlife and being in the sandwich generation is not for the faint of heart. Your kids are trying to launch into the world as fully independent adults but they still need a little help and at the same time you worry about your parents who are aging (and some dying) right before your eyes and also needing a little more help. At the same time, if you’re a woman, your body is changing and your hormonal changes are making you feel not quite balanced physically and emotionally; more crying, more anger, more impatience, and frankly more visceral fat added to the wrinkles and grays you’ve already been fighting for the last 5-10 years. Throw in a diagnosis, a sad kid that’s far away, a broken fridge, power outage, or even just a missing item in your DoorDash order, well, anything that changes the expectation of what was in your head of how things should be leading straight to grief. Big things=big grief, little things=annoyance, but if you’ve been white knuckling it for a while, well then, big grief.
Another line from the Substack article was this in regard to surviving and strength (paraphrased), ‘holding on, bracing ourselves for what’s next, can feel similar to strength when it is what carries us through…bracing for the next thing until eventually, the holding becomes so familiar we don’t realize we’re doing it until the dam breaks.’ Well, the dam broke when I watched that movie and I am still over here trying to repair it but life doesn’t stop and again, if you’re living and breathing, there is always a next. After my long recovery post flu I had my usual scans and they were stable back in April but I decided to consult with another oncologist at another institution because he is well known for my specific cancer and you know, as patients, we ALWAYS have to advocate for ourselves and sometimes make decisions based on our gut. Long story short, he referred me to a Physical Med and Rehab doc to look into my worsening neuropathy who told me it was from the radiation from my past and potentially could get worse as time progressed. He prescribed a medication that may or may not help that I would have to take consistently for the next two years because if I stopped I could have even worse rebound neuropathy, hmmm. What made me the most sad was the line, ‘it could continue to get worse over time’ because it’s already bad in my opinion and no, I decided not to take the med. The second thing this new oncologist did was order scans again; it had been 4 months and this was a different institution so he wanted his own baseline. Well, for the first time since being diagnosed Stage 4 in 2017, the results did not say stable. Now, the two measurable nodules were still there and stable, the ‘multiple small nodules’ were still there BUT, there were 2 new measurable (meaning bigger) nodules which were probably previously part of the ‘multiple small nodules’ part. My doc says ‘I’m not really worried about it. This is a baseline so we’ll wait and see what they look like in 6 months.’
The first maybe 5 years post Stage 4 diagnosis I held my breath between every scan, always wondering, always bracing myself for something. Eventually, with tons more stable scans, my mind and heart eased up a bit and the scanxiety happened maybe a month before, even a week before each scan as of late. What used to consume most of my brain most of my days had become the small nudge or flickering light that kept the reminder that yes there were nodules but also I’ve been stable for so long. Now, after the latest scan results, I’m back to how I was at the beginning; Are they growing? How much longer? On top of midlife, sandwich generation, aging, and menopause, I feel like I’m holding my breath for the next 6 months once again. I don’t want to normalize holding or bracing mistaking it for strength and making it so familiar that I don’t realize it. Life can feel like a giant cesspool of grief and maybe it is.
What now? Acknowledge. Ok yes, I’m freaking out. Pray. Faith has carried me. Faith=hope. Hope for me is the same as joy. Put the phone down, be present, and pay attention because today is what we have. Spend time with those you love if you can. Let the dam break and don’t wait until it’s the size of the Hoover Dam. Think kintsugi, fill those grief gaps with gold/glitter/joy moments. Life is beautiful and brutal, not alternating, simultaneous.
Inhale. Exhale. Live
Today I wear Rouge Coco Chanel satin lipstick in Mademoiselle 104. It’s a beautiful neutral pinky brown with a little bit of shimmer. The medium brown base with a pink shimmer looks like hope over the ‘normal’ neutral of everyday. Perfect for how I’ve been feeling. The formula is moisturizing and the feel is weightless. Cheers!
Anna's Lipstick Journey 
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