Mistakes

I made 3 mistakes today.  In the midst of an otherwise perfect day.

One was that I mistakenly thought the piece of jewelly I was gifted was a necklace, when it fact it was one of the most beautiful tasbih (prayer beads) I have seen.  Mind you, it fully qualifies for jewellery...just not to be worn!  Thank you D&G :)

However, it was a mistake because it showed how far away I had drifted....lulled by the glitter of this life.  Lately, my thoughts are often occupied with the mundane, the materialistic, the superficial, the illusionary.  The filter that I thought would always be separating me from the rest of the world has, through neglect and temptations, been lifted, leaving me to mingle with the world.  That is dangerous.

The second mistake was earlier in the day when I talked more than I should.  My tongue said things that baffled my soul.  I regretted it of course.  But it was too late. The harm to me was already done.  I realise that sometimes the need to fill silences get me yapping awkwardly, saying all sorts of uncharacteristic things.  But it is not just that.  It is a need to fit in, to be worldly, to be normal.  I give out too much information, most of it quite unnecessary.  In so doing, I defiantly test boundaries, I play with fire, I tempt the devil.

The third mistake was later in the day when I allowed an old version of me to surface.  The impatience, the fault-finding, the curtness.  It was a mistake because it could have been avoided today.  All I had to do was find my way home and bow my head. 

I must be careful.  With my thoughts and my tongue, my eyes and my ears, my heart and my soul. 

I have already lost one life.  I cannot afford to lose the next one.

Cancer fatigue

Okay 2 blog posts in one night.  But it's for the record really. 

I am sure that what I am experiencing is Cancer Fatigue :(

I am exhausted. Constantly.  No amount of sugar or sleep seem to be helping.

As for the pain, I am avoiding thinking it is chronic. 

http://cancerhelp.cancerresearchuk.org/coping-with-cancer/coping-physically/fatigue/what-is-cancer-fatigue

It was good to have a name put on this state. 

Now, time for sleep.  Let's see what the fatigue-o-meter says tomorrow.

The challenge

The challenge, I believe, is to pay attention.  To both what is visible and what lies hidden.

Too often I get caught in only one of those 2 states and I end up with an incomplete picture, a half-finished puzzle.  This disturbs me terribly.

I am in pain tonight.  My back aches.  My head is heavy. My eyes sting. 

What am I missing?

Good and Better

I caught myself being impatient tonight...for something as simple as geography!

And the next thought that flashed through my brain was: how can you forget?

Indeed, how can I forget?  Forget that not so long ago, I was a better person.  More indulgent, more compassionate, more willing to give of myself.

The danger with thinking  that I am normal is precisely that: my normal self requires some serious fine-tuning.  Don't get me wrong!  On any given day, it is pretty much okay, except for the odd bits that annoy even my own self!  But hey, there is still some road to travel to perfection.

I believe the good is still very much here, but why settle for the good when I've had a taste of better?

PHD signs...they are everywhere!

The signs that you are cured of PHD (post heartache disorder) are many.  One of them is that you look at the happy family picture on facebook and check out the woman and her clothes and jewellery and her cute sandals and her short haircut and...realise (quite late) that you barely noticed the man you once loved.

Another sign is that you scratch your head and ask youself: how the hell did you not see that they are made for each other?

Yet another sign is when you quickly thank facebook for allowing you to stalk old loves without feeling any sense of guilt or any qualms....afterall, FB was the one that suggested that I check out the ex's profile!

And finally, the ultimate PHD sign is that you pull out the Mere Brother Ki Dulhan CD and proceed to give yourself a perfectly brainless saturday night before sleeping peacefully....all without your heart skipping even half a beat.

PHD signs...they are everywhere I tell you!

Dying to live

I have the feeling that 2011 will go down as the year I discovered what it means to live well.

I have met so many people, felt so many emotions, understood so many things that all the previous years of my life seem faded in a faraway past.

Yes, 2011 is the year when "dying to live" makes complete sense to me :)

The trouble with being 35, female, single and post-treatment is that life is suddenly VERY clear.

I have no trouble saying NO.

Fear

This thing with cancer has not stopped to amaze me. 

Tonight, driving at 100 km/hr, I realised that one of the many many things cancer has done for me is to banish fear....the fear of the "rational" mind.  That insipid voice that tells you to be careful, to check, to cross-check, to look in the rearview mirror, to get into the crawler lane. That dull weight that lodges itself in your chest and makes you take short raspy breaths as if you had no right to large gulps of oxygen.

Fear is man's invisible enemy.  It can stand as tall as you are and be your own shadow.  It manhandles you and pins you to the ground instead of letting you run free and fly. It shows you the devil and makes you forget that the Almighty has blown His breath into you.

My darkest fears have been banished.  Alhamdulillah.  Chased away by the reality of cancer.  And inevitably, the reality of death.

Spare memory anyone?

I had a moment of something resembling panic a while ago.  Why?  Because, I could not, for the life of me, remember what the key to the door to the apartment I lived in in Washington DC looked like!!!

The train of thought that led me to the key in DC is not particularly relevant here.  It was just something to do with the convenience of keeping spare keys.  What is of significance is that I have absolutely no recollection of that key! I know for sure it was not the rectangular magnetic card type.  So I am assuming it must have been a regular key.  But, how exactly was the key? THIS.I.DO.NOT.REMEMBER.AT...ALL!!!

When I tell people that I am experiencing memory lapse issues, I am usually not taken very seriously.  In any case, I am renowned for hazy recollections of events and people where others experience crystal-clear photographic-quality reproductions.  Mind you, I have usually blamed this state of affairs on a missing, broken or faulty gene somewhere in my genetic inheritance or else on the excess of daydreaming I used to indulge in in my younger spring days!!  In any case, I am quite happy to label such episodes as my senior moments since I am closer to the senior range than the spring days...but I digress.

Coming back to the key thought, I felt quite uneasy not recalling something that I must have used a zillion times.  How come I do not remember it at all????  What's wrong with my memory?  Aren't my synapses gelling as they should?  What on earth happened to the connections in my brain?

Then, of course, follows the one word that silences ALL my thoughts: chemotherapy.

I am pretty sure the chemo busted through my skull and peed all over my already diminishing grey matter! I have only to look at my nails to realise how insidious and altering chemo can be.  And let me not get into the hair territory again! 

And I ask myself: if external manifestations of chemo are so drastic, what has it done to my finer linings?  Those nerve endings and capillaries and cells that were innocently going about their process of renewal only to be slapped down and trampled on by chemo?

And I immediately feel kinder to myself.  I tell me that the memory needs to be treated with compassion, understanding and TLC and that the lapses, in any case, are not that important. 

But, boy, as much as it is ok to forget certain things, it would be nice to actually remember a few others....like my key. 

Maybe someone needs to invent a spare memory!  Or if that is messing with God's handiwork, then at least devise a means of backing up existing human memory....just for convenience, you know.

Freedom

 I swear, the day you walk up to me, I will eat you with my eyes and my hands, my heart and my soul.

There is fire coursing through my veins, a lock sealing my lips, a fort guarding my heart.

Walk up to me. 

Walk with me.

Set me free.

Travel full circle

I want to travel.

The urge to travel often bites me like a bug....unexpectedly but with a viciousness that stings long after the urge was born.

I am currently afflicted with such an urge.

It's been too long since I've been off this lovely piece of earth called Mauritius. Two years since Kuala Lumpur, 3.5 years since Washington DC, an eternity since my last tryst with adventure.

The best memories I have of travelling are from March 2005, when I made a quick trip from the US to Mauritius for my mom's birthday.  At that time, I was between two chapters of my life...somewhat like a small footnote or a short introduction...neither here nor there.  What came before the trip was immaterial, what was to come after was disaster...

I wonder if I will ever feel the careless abandon I felt then.  Maybe yes...and if it takes a trip to experience it, boy, I am sooooooooo going away!!!

Because, you see, at the heart of all this is simply the hunch, right in my stomach, that somehow, I have come full circle. Alhamdulillah :)

Hair, Scarf, Love...

So my hair is growing Alhamdulillah :) 

I can now walk bare headed at home in full sight of the parents, the sister and nephew. 

People are starting to speculate whether I'll go hijab-less after the hair grows back fully or whether I'll stick to my scarves.  The answer is...........wait and see.  I myself have yet to figure things out :)

I must say I have developed a fondness for the scarf.  I have quite a collection now...errrr, perhaps a good 25 to 30!  Many of them were gifts from close friends.

Which reminds me.  Tan, Dil, Din, Shal, Begum, Bea, Am, Ash...thank you. 

Thank you for the Andrea Bocelli CD, for the lovely fragrant flowers, for the superb stars on a circle necklace that I wear like a charm, for some Coco mademoiselle fragrance, for the unexpected sweet, for the sudden laughter, for the musing times, for the children, for the delicious company...for everything.

Thank you for your love.