People keep asking me how I am coping.  And it seems like the assumption is that I must be coping well since I’m not curled up in the fetal position, rocking back and forth.  I mean, that is the image we get, right, when we think of big bad things happening to us?  That we will become nonfunctional, right away?  For me, it’s more cyclical than that.  With each bit of bad news (brother dying soon, brother died, breast lump, abnormal imaging, abnormal biopsy, biopsy not done correctly so need another, have cancer), I have approximately a day in which I am barely functional.  I can putter around the house, but I can’t make enough sense of words to read them, and I can’t be around people.  Then, the fog lifts, and things are felt in a much more distant way.

So mostly, when people ask me how I am, my first reaction is almost confusion.  Because this doesn’t *really* feel like it’s happening to me.  It’s sort of like I’m watching it.  But more like I’m participating in some sort of exercise to increase my empathy, to make me a better therapist, should my clients have similar experiences.  Like method acting for psychologists.  I find myself thinking a lot, “So this is what having cancer feels like?”  And most times, the answer is that I’m not sure.

Which makes me wonder, when will I be sure?  When will it finally sink in that this is NOT an empathy-building exercise with a heinous final, but actually my life?  Will it be sudden, like the act of surgery, or with the first drop of chemotherapy entering my veins?  Or will it be eventual, and just one day I’ll realize that somewhere along the way, it sunk in, and I fully know now how it feels?  Maybe I already know, and it’s just not what I expected.  Maybe this is how it feels.  This back and forth wave of emotion, where most days just feel normal, until you can see the pain and care in the eyes of those you love, and you remember there’s something wrong.