life underwater

Sometimes this week, I have felt like I am floating below the surface of a warm lake. All voices are very far away and come to me slowly, sink slowly into my head, slog around in the wet space in there, possibly find a meaning, possibly not. It's nice down here unless some kind of correct response is required of me. Unfortunately, very often, on the job or from my kids, some correct response is needed. Other times I have felt I am pumping my arms, fingers together for more resistance, and kicking my legs furiously to get to the top where I can breathe. Just one deep breath, I think, will clear my head, but I can't quite break the surface. I have squished around, soggy and slow, for a week now, waiting for my energy to return.

I don't know what this is all about, this underwater feeling, but think maybe it is a delayed response to all of the cancer stuff. We have emmersed ourselves in cancer information, cancer cures, cancer diets, cancer stories. I have repeated the whole story of detection, doctors, and diagnosis till I am blue in the face. Because people really do care and want to know, which is wonderful. But I am tired now. I need a break from cancer. I need to sit on the back porch and eat pizza and drink wine with my partner until we forget all about it for a short time. But this is not going to happen because he is not drinking at all, and we have moved from three weeks on the cleansing raw diet, to a strict macrobiotic diet. Once again, I am trying to be supportive with shopping for special foods, learning new recipes, and eating the same things he is at our meals together. I don't have to do this, but it is hard to stay on a weird diet, and so it feels important to me not to be eating pizza in the next chair over. I want a break from cancer, but Lee does not get a break from cancer. He will never get a complete break from this cancer, not ever, for the rest of his life. That is overwhelming for him sometimes, and I feel like a jerk for wanting something as simple as a night off the diet, a night of fun and light conversation and not giving a damn what we eat or drink. He, on the other hand, wants to beat cancer, and feels like this diet is the way to do it.

This, too, shall pass. My good friends on sabattical will be home this summer, and we will sit on the back deck and eat snacks and drink wine and talk about anything and everything, just as we have done for years. And I will possibly be able to forget, for an hour, that the love of my life has cancer. I wish that so hard for him, too, that I could cry.