Category Archives: Fun

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!

 

Here comes the hair!

Posted in After treatment, Bumpboobs, Chemotherapy, Fun by

Okay 🙂 I have a smile on my face because today’s post is about NOTHING important. You know how lovely it is, I assume, to think about unimportant things as opposed to those scary-oh-shit-this-isn’t-happening-it’s-all-a-dream sorta stuff. None of that today.

Instead this is about hair. Not the loss of hair, but the growth!

Christmas 2010 – sooo long ago, yet very vivid in my memory, I was cracking jokes about reverse balding as my monk-like hairdo slowly began to spread in wisps of light brown hair over my bare head.  It was almost worse than being bald, because bald can be sexy, cool, edgy, hip . . . but random wisps around my crown with a bald patch on the top is not sexy. I covered my head more in those days than when my scalp was completely bare.

Christmas 2011 – not soo long ago, but a bit of a memory by now. The hair had grown back across my head, and while it was about an inch, it was cute. Downside was that I had a massive V-shaped hairline, exactly like my brother’s, and it wasn’ exactly feminie. But the hair was coming. . . ohhh baby, it was coming!

Spring 2012 – I shake my head and bangs fall before my eyes, over my eyes, hanging all the way down BELOW my eyes. HAIR. HAIR. HAIR. Beautiful, glorious hair. No matter that it flipps out to the sides like some Archie Comic character. No matter! It’s hair!

And I predict that by Christmas of 2012, this stuff may just be styled into a proper bob. It may even have BLOND HIGHLIGHTS.

Okay, I’m abusing the use of capital letters. Okay, I’ll stop. BLOND HIGHLIGHTS!!!! Okay, I’m done.

[Zsolt just came upstairs and massaged my shoulders. . . oh my goodness. Every home should have a Zsolt.]

Anyhow, it’s still a little strange and crazy, but it’s coming in. No way do I look bald, and it took about two or three months after treatment for it to fully grow in and cover the head. Short hair looks gorgeous on women, by the way, and I truly believe each and every one of us can rock this look.

Sometimes I look at women who are 2 or 3 years out of treatment, and I literally ogle their hair.  It’s almost hard to focus on their conversation. (Is this how men feel about breasts? No wonder they get distracted.) For some reason, the importance of hair is so deeply ingrained into us. It’s associated with health, with femininity, with sexuality, with glossiness and – really, it’s deeply linked to identity.

And honestly, I’m almost kinda nervous to grow it out into a bob, to dye it blond again, to go back to that look I had before chemotherapy (though I love that look). . . I guess I’m a little afraid I’ll lose it all over again. But I can’t be afraid of things just because they were associated with cancer. Can’t abide with the fear.

My wedding anniversary is upcoming. I will be excited for it. I will not freak out that I’ve got an oncologist appointment right around the same time (this is where the important stuff starts creeping into the conversation, and I promised not to go there today – so it stops here.).

Blond is good. Hair is good. And sweetness of all sweetness, it’s finally coming back.