Category Archives: Finding Home

The Resolution List

Posted in After treatment, Bumpboobs, Canada, Chemotherapy, Finding Home, Fun, Life, Travel, Writing by

Today the sky is grey, I’m about to get my period (so guess what my mood’s like. Or rather, ask my husband), and this room is rather dark. Having described all that, I’d like to talk about the bright side of things.

(And I’d like to turn on a light in this place. One moment please.

Okay, better.)

Right. So being diagnosed with cancer absolutely and undeniably sucks. I will never be a person to argue against the position, and don’t wish the illness (in any of its varieties) on anyone. Not even the most horrible of horrible people, because chances are someone loves them nevertheless, and cancer is most certainly terrifying and devastating to the ones we love.

(Okay, so I warned you already. I’m about to get my period and am therefore sliding toward a darker tone – but it’s not all bad, because I KNOW I’m a little moody, and can therefore attempt to apologize whenever things get a little too dark. Unfortunately there are no more lights to turn on in this room – oh! But there another widow shade that could be opened. Excuse me.

Better. Much better. Oh, hello natural lighting.)

So we’ve established that caner is bad. But here is another thing – a potentially good thing. It’s also like the BIGGEST perspective-whacking-stick you could ever have, well that and I guess maybe an out of body experience where ghosts of Christmas past, present and future visit you with each stroke of the clock.

And if you had anything in the way of a similar experience to myself (though fair enough if you didn’t, because everyone’s journey is unique), you most likely found yourself making resolutions. These aren’t New Years Eve’s resolutions where you give up chocolate, or promise to go to the library more, or aim to lose five pounds. These are “if my life is at risk, and my mobility and health could end at any time – these are the things I’d wish for most before any more of this crazy shit happens.” So there’s a lot of honesty and desire behind these feelings. These are the resolutions that tap into what it is you want/need most.

So I’m challenging you to make a note and keep it someone. To share it with us. To write it in your diary. To stick it on your fridge. Whatever. If you have been here – if you are here in now in treatment, or were here sometime in the past – or forget cancer even, if you’ve had your life thretened, or hit rock bottom, or just woke up and said:” Oh shit!” then I’m challenging you to sit down and make a list. Get it together in one place.

Back when I was diagnosed my initial and strongest desire was to return back home to Canada. Ultimatly we waited things out, and I’m glad that we did, but cancer firmed me up – Zsolt would immigrate, we were going to move.

Whether this is/isn’t a good thing in our lives remains to be seen. (It’ll be a great thing just as soon as a few strings get tied up . . .) But I can tell you this. While I miss my incredible friends in England, I no longer have this feeling thata piece of me is missing. You know? Like, before diagnosis it dawned on me that Canada and I may be permanently parting ways, and that was totally crushing. Crushing. It broke my heart. This was realized after getting married and setting up life in England. Canada was not in the cards. Crushing.

But then I made a resolution based on a deep, demanding urge. It uprooted everything we had had planned for our lives, however this past July when Zsolt and I boarded the plane to travel to Europe and spend the summer – I didn’t feel sad. I didn’t feel sick. I was nothing else but happy to be going. And that is really new.

Resolution = accomplished.

Other resolutions were to spend a summer in Balaton and Pecs, which we did last year. It was one of the most healing things I could have chosen. The fact that we are lucky enough to do it again this year is just a freaking miracle. (See, my perspective is brightening, along with the lighting.)

I yearned to travel. After treatment we flew to Portugal and I went in a bikini on the beach. Sure, I don’t have a right boob – but we were on a beautiful beach! The water was gorgeous. The markets were busy (don’t get me started on that awesome cheese) and it was just so freaking fun. Next up! The Atlantic ocean for 7 nights! Resolution = done. And will do again.

I wanted to buy a canoe. How ridiculous for someone who doesn’t even own a car. But guess what, this past June we bought that damn canoe – and even though it’s currently waiting at home in Canada – the pleasure of paddling with my husband on a quiet and lazy river has been huge. Yes, we spent money at a time when it was really stupid to do so (kinda like this trip), but screw it. I used to sit in that chemo chair with those drugs dripping in, and imagine the rivers in Canada – imagined showing Zsolt a loon, and splashing water onto our faces. Resolution = owned.

And yeah, there are BIG resolutions too. Moving to Canada, as I said, was one – and that’s still proving difficult. But my gut took us there, and my gut says this will work out. Having a baby is like the biggest, more life changing resolution ever – but it will happen, and we will get there. Being a professional writer, one step at a time. . . resolutions = still in progress!

It’s not easy.

But it’s good to reflect on the big and the small, and one-by-one tick off the list of chemo/cancer resolutions.

So what are/were your resolutions? I dare you to look back (or look around) and write them down – make them real on the page, and then see what can happen next.

 

My List:

-travel

-go home

-write more & publish

-have a family

-get a canoe

-go to Hungary for the summer

-buy real estate (and a cottage in Balaton)

-split time between Canada and Hungary,

-bring food to those who need it

-dress well/stand out

-eat good food

-be with family

-be with friends

-make this work

 

Here comes the thirty train!!

Posted in Finding Home, Fun, Life, Love, self growth by

My birthday is in 25 minutes and counting down. It’s not like fireworks are going to erupt at 9 a.m. but I will suddenly and officially be thirty. Zsolt likes to say that I’ve been 30 these past six months, which reeks of logic and tastes like haste. I’m 29 this very moment, and then, once the clock ticks ahead – WHAMO – 30.

A lady editor once taught me that numbers over ten are to be written in word-form. Like forty-six or eighteen or twenty-nine. She did not teach me about those little dashes, however, and I put them in only because I think it looks better. Much of my grammar is based on ‘what looks better’, which likely explains why much of my grammar is incorrect.

So here is a secret about my thirties (which I hope by declaring will no longer make it a secret and banish away this stupid notion) . . . I’m a wee bit worried about them, because for the entirety of my life – thinking back to when I was ten, or 12, or 19, or 20, or 25, I could never imagine what it would be like in my thirties. What would my face look like? How tall would I be? What sort of work would I be doing? Would I live in a house, have a dog, babies, purpose? Marriage . . . I could never imagine my wedding until it had actually happened.

And I thought to myself (very quietly) what I was wasn’t going to turn 30? What if I couldn’t imagine it because it was never going to happen? Would I die before I turned 30? (Now you have a sense for how dramatic my stupid thoughts can get!)

Flashback two years ago when I was diagnosed with cancer at 27 (almost 28), and my panic mode was really kicking in. It was all – “oh, shit, Catherine, you have cursed yourself with this stupid unknown decade obsession. Now hurry up and start WANTING something from your next chunk of life, and the one after that, and after that, and etc.”

Because I reckon when we really, really want something, we can accomplish that desire even if it takes time. Actually, I think it’s a powerful sort of thing to want something badly – and to know in your mind  that it will happen. That stuff is better than magic beans and three wishes combined. That’s determination, and I think it makes all the difference.

So what am I determined to do in my thirties? Live, survive, become a novelist, love-love-love, buy a cottage in Balaton (Hungary), have those babies (this desire is attached with many other quiet and dramatic fears, which need to be dealt with eventually), be with Zsolt, laugh with Zsolt, explore with Zsolt, have family dinners, keep my amazing friends and make even more (if it’s possible since we keep freaking moving!), stay in shape, never have cancer again,  get a dog, and be good to others – take care, support, encourage, contribute, be there.

Anyhow, that’s my life. My life in my thirties. Once the forties creep up I’ll need to revise this list.

Everyday is a good day and every birthday granted is really the best gift possible. I love living, so am very glad to be doing so today.

There it is – ten minutes left! Here comes the 30 train, and I’ll be hopping on quite happily.

(Psst. I bought myself a big 30 piñata that I’m going to smash to pieces, therefore showing 30 that I can indeed conquered this stupid age-hump of unknowingness that is in my mind. Plus I bought myself balloons that say 30 on them, and napkins, and this blow-up thing that shoots out 30 everywhere, and a candle in the shape of a 30, and fireworks for the evening. Because I figured that for me today was special, even if on the outside it looks like yet another birthday, and it was going to be celebrated in a ridiculous way here at this cottage . . . even if the party only consists of my closest family, that’s okay. I’m turning 30. Everything is okay.)

And if it’s your birthday soon too, of if it’s just past, or you just want to join the party – HAPPY BIRTHDAY to you too!! Wooohoooo! Isn’t it nice to celebrate good things? 🙂

(Hey! It’s now past 9 a.m. – we made it!!! )

Stroke-Stroke Glide-Glide

Posted in Bumpboobs, Canada, Finding Home, Fun, Life, Travel, Writing by

We are at the cottage (rental) and I don’t have my drawing pad with me. If I did have the drawing pad, I’d sketch you a doodle of the view from this window. There’s the lake in the background and the green forest of Tar Island, and here just in the foreground are a sparse layering of trees – their trunks are thin at the top (this cottage is set upon a cliff face, and so I’m looking through the tops of these trees), and the branches are tapering to a point, like a very tall Christmas tree or something. Reminds me of a painting I did for my grade six art project. It was a tree trunk, with a branch, and a lake behind with blue sky above.

This is the cottage. We arrived here Thursday evening, and are able to come and go as we like. Tomorrow I’ll be back in town for Canada day. But today we are here. And today it is nice.

Zsolt and I have been making many decisions lately – several of which I am not allowed to talk about. (Which is really, really difficult.) Let’s just say sometimes stuff works and other times stuff really doesn’t work. However, we’re fine and eventually we’ll manage this whole ‘career’ thing. In the meanwhile something good has come from a series of infuriating events, which is (cause I can talk about this, thank freaking goodness) a trip.

Soon Zsolt and I will fly to Hungary for a month. Following that we’ll fly to England and visit friends. After this we’ll take a boat to New York from Southampton (7 night cruise) and hang with family and visit the city. Then we’ll take the train up to Montreal (12 hour trip), where we’ll finally catch a bus back to Ottawa. We’re leaving mid (ish) July and returning September.

I’ll let your imagination create the reasons for our booking this massive, non-refundable trip when neither of us has full-time employment, and then say that while plans can change beyond our control, it is not the case with non-refundable bookings. So the silver lining in all this crappiness is that my husband and I are going on an adventure. And that’s a really awesome silver lining.

When we return, we are 100% determine to move out of my parent’s house – even if it means living in someone else’s basement (hopefully with a separate entrance), and working on getting my man Zsolt into the intellectual property field. He’s got a talent for it. He’ll be even better when working for a company full-time.  (If you know anyone looking for a patent agent trainee, please do let me know.)

And I think everything will be alright. We’re at the cottage today. I’m going to have the first draft of my book finished before we leave for Hungary. (Really I am, I’ve only got like 3000 words left to write before that’s done.) Zsolt is planning to help me turn my Bumpyboobs adventures into mini e-books (woohoo! So then I can make myself a large button to wear that says, “Self-Published Author!”).

And everything is going to be alright.

Everything is going to be alright.

Maybe I should tattoo it onto my forehead, just a reminder. 🙂

As support to this assertion, my mammogram checkout A-Okay. I’m still totally annoyed with the screening situation, but hey – no cancer. Woohooo! Nooooooo Cancer!!

AND, I turn 30 next week.

Plus, the canoe we bought is turning out beautifully. Another big purchase we may never have made  . . . but was inevitably done. (Because I said to Zsolt, if not now, when?) And so we’ve been paddling around this lake at the cottage and the rivers near Ottawa – enjoying the beauty of the area and just stupid happy with every stroke. You know, back in the land of chemotherapy day-dreams, one of my musings was to buy a canoe and just forget about the bullshit. That’s what happens whenever we take it out – it’s not about looking for work, surviving cancer, growing up, staying healthy . . . it’s about stroke-stroke-stroke, and glide-glide-glide.

Right now, for our lives in general, I think we’ll just have to focus on the present. Just stroke-stroke-stroke, and glide-glide-glide.

 

P.S. kudos to Zsolt who is circling me as I post this outside the cottage, killing black flies and keeping me bug-bite free!