this was hard to admit

everybody has their own shit to deal with on a daily basis.  everybody has super frickin' sensitive issues that are exercised daily or stuffed down deep too sensitive to be seen or heard by the stuffer let alone those close to the stuffer.  i'm going to call it grief.  those who exercise their grief daily might be doing one of two things: getting healthy or ruminating over the shit.

i thought i had made strides towards dealing with my super sensitive shit, that up until 10 minutes ago i didn't recognize as grief, i thought my shit was just this miasma i was having a hard time pushing through, and the miasma has become such a constant in my life that it has literally morphed into an accessory i wear, as well as a self defeating mantra i repeat over and over to myself that i am not worthy.  i've struggled with this for a long time, "this" being self-loathing and the certainty i am not good enough.  then tack on a struggling marriage and a terminal illness and some of my days are spent in the fetal position.  this is hard to admit, but it is a revelation i feel compelled to share because fuck, enough is enough.  and there better be a fucking leprechaun at the end of this black and blue rainbow.

i find it quite difficult to listen to anything cancer related.  i resist it because i do not have the capacity to take in anymore.  does that make me a stuffer?  maybe, which is news to me.  and as i mentioned before, 10 minutes prior to beginning this post i had finished listening to a fresh air segment about this accomplished oncology doctor who has experienced cancer himself as well as watched his own son die after spending 8 years inside a bubble because his immune system was gonezo.  now that was some relatable shit.  this oncologist DeVita has his own book but he also mentioned that his daughter wrote a book about her brother dying and i immediately looked it up and read a synopsis of the book and promptly began to sob.  the book is Empty Room: Understanding Sibling Loss by Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburn. apparently she talks about how she didn't know how to grieve, and interviews others who have lost siblings and they discuss their losses.  my brothers and sister's faces flashed before my eyes and like i said i began to sob.  i don't know what it is that specifically triggered the tears to my eyes, but i'm fairly certain it is grief about the potential for loss, leaving my siblings behind, but also enduring loss, which in my recent studies is one expression of grief.

and i do believe that my self-loathing and sense of unworthiness are manifestations of not recognizing grief and then grieving.  instead i experienced loss, maybe talked a little about it then stuffed it and washed it down with glasses and glasses of wine.  thus turning that loss into a self-defeating energy, that occludes the genesis of grief and becomes a boil that turns into a second head that looks just like you but gives really bad advice and helps you make really poor decisions, especially if you ply it with lots of alcohol.

kind of like in the movie "how to get ahead in advertising", except his boil was the better fella

perhaps this is why my marriage is struggling.  my husband has said he doesn't know how to grieve and he is most definetely a stuffer.  but the revelation that i too may be a stuffer and that i have not recognized loss in my life, has led to the debilitating miasma that is my so called life.  by not grieving i have made my life terrifically sad, does that make sense?

then i blame.  i blame my husband.  i blame cancer.  i blame side effects.  what if an easier path is to grieve and then learn to live with grief?  recognize that what i'm feeling is as a result of unrecognized loss and not because my husband left crumbs on the counter.  i mean seriously that sends me over the edge, not grieving may be the reason i get so fucking pissed in the car.  yes i'm pissed because i'm dying but come on.  i feel as if i've kind of come to terms with my death from melanoma, and in that understanding there is grief, wow, it is a multi-layered grief.  and i thought it was healthy.  but today i realize that grieving for your own death whilst not grieving for things you've lost in life is like counting on a cake shaped by a house of cards with icing on it to sustain you.  there's nothing to eat, nothing to lean on.  

fuck i feel better.  i've got some new accessories i will add to my wardrobe, and will hopefully shed the old time sucker all too familiar self-loathing that's been disguised as a pearl choker.  it ain't gonna be easy, but i'm ready to allow myself to grieve.  actually i will insist.