thebeckychronicles

[thebeckychronicles]

Post 42: being grateful and other things

So it’s been a while. Hello. If anyone is still reading this I am still alive. :)

It’s thanksgiving and while fuck colonization and white supremacy being thankful and stuff is pretty good. 

This year has been challenging in a different way than last year was obviously for one I’m in remission. A few updates on the going ons of my life at the moment: 

I’ll be 10 months in remission on December 1st! 

I graduated in June with my AA- and am currently avoiding my transfer apps by taking long naps after work. :)

I’m working at a high school in SeaTac (who would’ve thought- seriously). It’s through AmeriCorps and while this stipend life and commute ain’t the move I really do love my job.

My hair is almost shoulder length and as curly as it used to be! (I’m amazed on a daily at the snapback T_T)

This was back in April but I got a car- his name is Toothless. :)

That’s pretty much it really.

Onto other things...

I’ve actually wanted to write about a lot of things. My commute makes it pretty easy to get lost in my thoughts and gives me plenty of time to reflect. I’ve probably mentioned this before but I think of my diagnosis and the subsequent year of treatment and surgeries and biopsies a lot throughout my day. I don’t know if this is normal or healthy or pathetic but it is true. I was getting my eyebrows done the other day and thought about how at one point I didn't have eyebrows. Every time I’ve gotten my hair done since it started growing back curly I think about why my hair is the length it is, with some melancholy. This year I’ve seen or heard of people passing away from cancer and it puts an ache in my chest filled with grief. There are many morning I wake up drenched in my own sweat and fear and it feels like being sick all over again. Those mornings are the hardest to move through. Facebook memories is a fun one- and not because I have a lot of posts from last year that pop up, it’s that I mainly have “memories” from two or more years ago come up. For a second I wonder why I don’t have posts from last year and then I remember apart from this blog I didn’t really share on other forms of social media. All this to say, I don’t think there’s many parts of my life that cancer didn’t touch in some way, shape or form. I find myself thinking of the theoretical- where would I be, who would I be, what would I be doing if I hadn’t put my life on pause for this disease. If I hadn’t had to deal with this disease at all. Some days are a lot more difficult to live in than others. In truth, it’s not so much days but weeks really, where it seems like I am in a grief and anxiety filled bubble. 

Survivorship is weird y’all. Some days I feel absolutely fearless. Others, it’s one panic attack after another. It’s interesting waking up in a body that at one point tried to kill itself. And I think I’m only getting used to and being okay with my body feeling like a ticking time bomb. There’s so much that still frustrates me. The length of my hair. My inability to go to a doctor’s office without crying. Getting a stupid shot without crying. I can’t Coscto pizza without tasting saline. The heater in my room was beeping as I slept and I woke up in a state of panic and confusion- the IV that administered my chemo drugs would make a similar noise when it was time to switch out the bags of drugs. There are just a lot of things that call forward so many unpleasant memories.

I feel like I became the most depressed after treatment. Like this sadness wasn’t just a sadness but a burden. I felt so burdened and weighed down. And it made me feel frightened and desperate in thinking I’d never escape it. I wanted to die so many days- and then I’d feel guilt. Survivors guilt. How selfish of me because how many people wish they could be survivors? I felt so strangely pressed for time after remission. Like I had to do everything I wanted to do in life RIGHT NOW. Especially felt like I had to prove that I was worth saving. I was worth being one of the lucky ones. I was deserving of this second shot at life. 

This life is difficult. Survivorship is difficult. But I am grateful for it. Grateful for so many things- the lesson and blessing of it all. 

I’m grateful for:

Learning the art of discretely crying in public. 

I’m so grateful for time- the extra time I've been blessed with. More time to spend with my family, more time to spend with my friends. More time to laugh and more time to cry. I have more time to fuck up, do right and learn. 

I’m grateful for all the moments that called me to be my bravest and most afraid self.

I’m grateful.

For all the parts of me that demanded my patience, my compassion, my kindness. But most of all my love. 

Grateful to the parts of me that are dying and the ones that are thriving. 

To those parts of me that are dead and those that are surviving. 

I’m so grateful for the unbecoming of who I’m not meant to be. As painful and daunting as it is at times. I am terrified of the person I am now. Probably because knowing my own self seems like such a dichotomy now- both very clear and absolutely confusing. 

Sometimes it’s so easy to think of everything I lost in the past year. So much peace and time and contentment. So many things that I just don’t know how to name. So much I know I’ll never get back. It’s frustrating because at times it felt like I watched things slip through my fingers without me making an effort to clench my hand in a fist to stop it. 

I’m still here. I am still here. In whatever state that may be I am still here.  

And for that I am grateful.

“may I never lose the terror that keeps me brave.”- Audre Lorde

#I wrote this hodgepodge in like 20 minutes #it makes no sense #bye #remission #cancer survivor #grateful

[thebeckychronicles]

I really miss my long hair

[thebeckychronicles]

Post 41: I’m graduating!

it’s been a while...

also tw: suicide mention

One thing I feared in the wake of remission (February 1st- four months!!!) is that everything I did- particularly the big stuff would feel like a “fuck you” to cancer. I feared it’d feel like, “I did this in spite of you.”  And while some parts of that sentiment are true- I don’t want to feel like I’m sharing my life with my disease. It’s not our life, it’s my life. I was afraid that my accomplishments were only worth celebrating because they happened after the whole cancer thing. Instead of just being innately worth celebrating.

Tomorrow (today) I graduate with my AA. And then I’m taking a year off before heading to university. I decided this Wednesday, two days before my graduation this Friday that I would walk. I didn’t want to and maybe because it felt like I wouldn’t be walking across that stage alone. I feared it’d feel like the specter of my disease would trail me to the podium. And I didn’t and still don’t want that feeling. I’m so hard pressed to say that my illness is the reason I so vehemently insisted on returning to school even before I was 100% in the clear. I don’t want to feel like I do all these things to prove (to who I’m not sure) that I’m alive, that I’m still capable, that my disease didn’t take everything from me. I don’t want to share my accomplishments with my disease. And I know I don’t have to, it just feels like it and I don’t know why. Because those all-nighters, paying tuition and books, studying and not sleeping, getting up day after day, all of it I did that. Not Becky, not the disease. Me, I did that. I want to believe my accomplishments are worth celebrating because they are innately deserving of it, not because I’m a cancer survivor. But because I was able to finish school in the wake of my illness it feels like she was the engine that propelled me when in truth, I did it because I owed it to myself to finish what I had started.

I don’t want to give any credit to this disease that almost killed me. This thing that was such a poison to me. This disease that continues to complicate my life in ways I didn’t expect. But how do I separate the disease from some of the biggest moments so far in my life when it’s constantly on my mind. I don’t know how. And it makes me feel wildly pathetic that I’m still so burdened by this disease that I overcame. Maybe I’ll never be able to separate the disease from major moments in my life. Maybe I’ll just have to learn to live with it in a way that doesn’t feel like it compromises my autonomy and accomplishments.

It wasn’t even that long ago that it felt like so much, almost everything I wanted seemed so far away. How at times in the last 16 months they seemed so impossible. Things that had been within my reach suddenly seemed to become smoke in fist. Especially when extreme fatigue kept me in bed most days, when actual and phantom pains brought my chemo days back to mind, when my chemo rattled brain frustrated me in its inability to retain information like it used to. I had to relearn how my brain best learns now. Something I still struggle with. Things I wanted seemed so far away when my doctor appointments in the middle of the quarter left me scared and unsure. When surgery kept me in pain and wide awake. All the times when having a body I didn’t (and still don’t) trust left me an anxious and panicked mess. I guess because in my last year at Cascadia I had to face and navigate new and demanding difficulties caused by my disease that it feels like graduating is my “fuck you” to Becky and cancer in general. Maybe it is. At the very least it’s a well-deserved fuck you. Maybe I just have to say, “This is mine. I did this,” even when it doesn’t feel like it.  Is it natural that for the sake of perspective and hindsight that you reflect on your greatest trials in the moments of sweet achievement? I guess because there’s such a stark contrast between almost dying and living out one of your dreams that you may not be able to stop yourself from comparing those big moments- regardless of how good or bad they are.

I guess I’m just reflecting on my entire education so far. Everything I’ve had to overcome to get where I am today, and I don’t just mean cancer. To be truthful, I’ve been one of my biggest obstacles too.

I’ll let you in on a not-so-secret-secret. I loathe school. I hate it. I love learning but I hate school. And yes, I understand how ungrateful and privileged that makes me sound but hear me out. Yes, having access and getting an education is such a privilege- one I don’t take lightly- but sometimes this privilege feels like it only opens doors to cliff edges. Again I love learning. Learning isn’t the issue. It’s these institutions that were birthed in the minds of privileged, racist white men that couldn’t fathom someone like me in institutions built for them. School, being in a classroom, from the second I get up in the morning or the minute I step onto campus- from all the way back in middle school- has given me the worst anxiety. I get panicky and anxious and some days it took everything in me not to burst into tears or fucking bolt from the classroom. I’ve always felt so out of place in educational institutions. From middle school to high school and even now in college- I constantly have these thoughts about my classmates (most of whom were/are white) “they know I’m not supposed to be here,” or these reoccurring thoughts that I was a fraud.

I hated (still kinda do) going to school/class. I hate how insecure, anxious and exhausted it leaves me. I hate how my breath would stutter and my heart would pound and I’d get shaky sitting in my car hyping myself up, convincing myself to get my ass in the fucking classroom (what I’d actually tell myself), in college. I’d think to myself, “Jenni, you’ve blown your savings to pay for these classes so you better make it fucking worth it.” There were countless days in college and high school I just didn’t go to class, because the anxiety would just get to me or because I wasn’t up to dealing with feeling like an imposter that day.

I’d give my parents some excuse that the professor cancelled class or that I switched to online classes or that I felt sick (which was the closest thing to the truth at the time. While thinking to myself, “please don’t make me go.” (BTW- pretty proud of myself that I only skipped three times this quarter. Small victories.)

In college I stayed on campus only as long as I needed to. I went to my classes, didn’t really talk to anyone unless I had to and would go home. I was in and out as fast as possible. I didn’t engage in any of the clubs, not even Latinx Student Union because of my work schedule and because I couldn’t stand to be on campus for prolonged periods of time. I kept to myself all the years I was at Cascadia. I just wanted the relief of going home where I was safe. Rarely did I feel comfortable enough in a class room to actually talk to other students otherwise I didn’t talk in my classes unless participation factored into my grade and even then I tried to keep it insightful but as short as possible. Then I’d spend the rest of the class sitting on my hands until they’d stop shaking, if they did.

In high school I skipped class ALL THE TIME. In some ways high school was worse than college. At Cascadia I was there maybe 4 hours max (mostly) but in high school I had to spend the majority of my time somewhere I felt wholly uncomfortable. I was painfully aware of the fact that I went to a rich, white school, and it made going there so difficult because I felt like such an anomaly, especially in my AP classes. While I did grow up in Redmond, which in itself is a privilege, my parents only made enough for me to go to school with white kids, and not much else. My family did struggle but my parents saw the quality of education here and stuck it out. But let me be clear, while I hated high school in many respects, I’m so appreciative that my parents stuck it out here in Redmond, when at times we couldn’t really afford to, because RHS did prep me for college, and gave me tools that have helped me in many aspects not just those connecting to education. And by RHS let me be specific in that I felt I grew the most and learned the most skills/knowledge in all of my classes with Mrs. Cordell. Shout out to you Mrs. Cordell you the realest. I’ll get back to how she was the most influential teacher I ever had.  

Another real moment- I was not the best student. I did okay. I did well enough to get into a few schools (which thanks Mrs. C for the rec letters- I was a rude 18 year old and forgot to follow up with you about that sorry!) I did well enough to graduate. Aside from math (lol), I didn’t find my classes difficult. They required a lot of hard work and time but I didn’t think they were difficult. What was difficult was the fact that I hated being there, not out of laziness or disrespect or boredom but because I always felt so out of place. And not in a teenage- angsty kind of way, but in the “If I get an answer wrong I’ll be proving everyone who thinks Mexicans, etc. aren’t intelligent or capable,” or “if I get this wrong they’ll somehow connect it to the fact that I’m brown and poor.” That’s the kind of shit that created my insecurity. I felt out of place in the, “there’s a group project that we have to work on outside of school but one, I don’t drive, I don’t have a car, I work every day or I’m taking care of my brothers while my parents are at work and I don’t have a phone so I don’t know how that’s gonna work but I’ll try.” Or, “there’s a video project that I have to do but we don’t have a recording camera at home and the one I can borrow from the school but it can’t leave the school but I can’t stay after school because it’s far from my house so I can’t walk home and my parents are both at work so no one can pick me up but okay I guess I’ll figure it out.” School had a way of doing these innocuous things without thinking of the accessibility to tech or transportation or what have you students needed to have in order to be successful. More often than not I didn’t have access to certain things and that just made me feel even more out of place. All this to say, the imposter syndrome I felt then and now is so real and really hard to drown out.

I hated exams and answering questions in front of the class because I feared if I didn’t do well or if I answered incorrectly I’d be proving all those racist stereotypes right. I’d be proving that people of color aren’t nuanced and intelligent and capable. And it felt like I couldn’t afford to be wrong, it felt like I had to prove to others, or even myself that I deserved to be there, that I deserved to go to a good school and get an education. And these stereotypes weren’t in my head; the number of microaggressions or insults using coded language I faced in high school (and college) were real. The explicit racism or discrimination I faced in high school and now was real. From the surprise at the classes I was taking to the outright “You shouldn’t worry about getting into college, you’re poor and Mexican and you take care of your brothers, plus there’s affirmative action so college admissions will love you.” There was a chorus of agreement to that statement from my classmates. And to some degree he wasn’t wrong, I felt so gross filling out my college applications because it felt like they were asking me, “are you traumatized and marginalized enough to be accepted here?” or “Tell us about your trauma and we’ll let you know if it is devastating enough to catch our attention.” Like college apps ask us to talk about our difficulties and struggles and how we “overcame them” without understanding that there is not overcoming them without a total deconstruction of the current systems that continue to traumatize that (that’s a non-sequitur back to my main point.)    

Subjecting myself to that kind of scrutiny day after day in high school, not to mention my own personal stuff that resulted in a suicide attempt, that nagging voice in my head that told me I’d never fit in academia, and other responsibilities. Skipping class, not engaging totally while in the class, keeping to myself, was all I could do to not just straight up drop out. What’s interesting is I knew I wasn’t doing myself any favors by not turning in assignments and skipping a majority of my classes but I didn’t care. I felt like a wave beating against the rock that is academia hoping the impact doesn’t hurt this time. I didn’t want to be there anymore. I fucking hated it. Now looking back on my years in high school I can name that I self-sabotaged a lot in the name of survival and self-preservation. And I wonder what I could’ve accomplished, what kind of student I could’ve been had I believed I deserved to be there, had I not had all that extra unnecessary and racist noise in my head to contend with. If I hadn’t been so aware that these institutions I was in day in and day out weren’t built for me. If I knew what a “successful” Latina in academia looked like, would that have changed my choices, would that have made it easier to sit in those classrooms? Would I have been more self-aware and quick to realize that I was self-sabotaging? Would I have worked harder to ignore or overcome all the internalized shit the world had told me about myself? I don’t know. But now that I have the chance to catch my breath I wish I could go back in time and tell high school Jenni that she is smart, that she is capable, that she is deserving of every door that comes her way, that she deserves to be there, that she doesn’t have to (however subconsciously) believe the lies the world has told her about herself. That she gets to decide what kind of student she wants to be. That she gets to decide what success looks like for her and that she gets to decide the kind of person she wants to be.  

I was lucky that even though I struggled so much in high school I had a teacher who was rooting for me and did it so much that I saw it and that at times I believed I was deserving of it. Even though I skipped class a lot in high school, I tried not to skip Mrs. Cordell’s class. For one I loved the different history classes she gave, but more than anything I loved being her student. I could actually tune out the noise in my head for that hour I was in her class every day. Mrs. Cordell seemed in touch with the world outside of her classroom in a way I couldn’t see in many of my other teachers. I felt like an actual person in her class rather than some unicorn brown chick that somehow made it into her AP courses. Maybe it’s because she saw how close to a mental breakdown I was on the daily but she was always gracious and encouraging. She believed I could do better than even I thought I could. She was never condescending even when I probably had it coming. I always felt okay if not comfortable in her class. I actually felt intelligent just being around her (she’s that smart y’all.) Her class was one of the only places I felt I could catch my breath and not be so anxious. From nominating me for Rotary Student of the Month, to helping me secure a scholarship through Daughters of the American Revolution, to writing my college recommendation letters, she chose to believe in me in a way and at a time I desperately needed a teacher to. She believed in me at a time when I felt I was constantly falling short of where I was expected to be. I thank God that when I signed up for World Studies that I got Mrs. Cordell as my world history teacher. And that I was able to take her classes until my senior year. Thanks doesn’t begin to convey the scope of my gratitude but I’ll start there. Thank you Mrs. Cordell.

Clearly, I have a lot of feelings and thoughts as my graduation gets closer (14 hours ‘til cap and gown time!) My point in sharing all this that I don’t understand what kind of role being a cancer survivor will play in my life, or how I’m supposed to feel about being one. I don’t know how to draw the line between feeling that I do things solely to prove that I am not just a disease or a survivor but that I do things because I can and want to. I don’t know what cancer survivors typically feel in moments of triumph. If every accomplishment achieved comes with moments of melancholy and remembrance of that time shrouded in uncertainty and disease. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with everything I’ve lived through, especially in the past 16 months. How do I carry that experience with me moving forward? How do I carry it without being burdened by it? How do I acknowledge it without falling into the complicated rabbit hole that it is? The truth is I don’t know.

And I guess in writing this I wanted to remind myself that it’s okay to not have all the answers. I wanted to remind myself that while cancer was a major thing I’ve survived so many other things before. That surviving all those things was difficult but not impossible. I wanted to remind myself that navigating survivorship is difficult too. And that maybe understanding it starts with simply being happy to be here to live it.

When I stuttered my prayers.

Cried pure poison.

Praise be that I survived all the people I was.

Praise be that I survived myself.

Praise be that my last exhale was a homecoming.

 I’m so grateful to have survived every person I’ve ever been.

All the unhealthy incarnations of myself.

I’m so grateful to have unbecome everything I wasn’t meant to be.

I’m so grateful to have survived everything that’s ever come for me. Even myself.

I’m so grateful to be here.

#cancer survivor #Hodgkins Lymphoma #school #health #life #i'm sad but it's still lit #it's lit #education #cancer sucks #but life doesn't have to #fuck cancer

[thebeckychronicles]

Post 40: Lesson & A Year Later

Lessons- what did you learn Jenni?

 Honestly- a lot but at the same time I don’t know if I can answer that question in total confidence.

I know I said I didn’t want to make a lesson out of this trip from hell, but now with even the smallest bit of distance, I can appreciate the bits and pieces I’ve discovered along the way. I needed distance, and with that distance I’ve chosen to look for the good, make something of this hurt.

The first?

I’m not afraid of dying anymore. It’s more that I’m afraid of missing out.

When I was diagnosed it felt like I was handed a death sentence. But isn’t that what life is? The guarantee of an eventual death? Morbid thoughts but stay with me here. I’ve learned to be okay with that. I’m not really afraid of dying anymore. My biggest fear when I was in the in between of remission and recurrence when it came to death was missing out, on life.

Being sick was constant FOMO (feeling of missing out). The thought of dying by Becky was suddenly having the worst case of FOMO. I’d miss my family. Tani’s graduation from middle school and so forth. Santi’s graduation from elementary and so on. My parents’ finally getting their visas and going home. Seeing my siblings fall in and out of love and married, starting families. My friends, my best friends. I didn’t want to miss anything or anyone. I didn’t want to miss out watching my family grow and blossom. But in having cancer, having these constant fears I’ve learned (as much as anyone I can guess) to be okay with dying. I just don’t want to now. Who does (insert text slang “lol”). It’s like that final line from Gladiator when Juba tells Maximus’ spirit as he buries the little figurine in the arena, “I will see you again, but not yet. Not yet.”

When the time comes that my soul has exhausted its adventures in this life- I’m determined to have not missed out on anything. From the little to the small. I guess I’m understanding that whole “live life to the fullest” bit I’ve heard so much about. Because right now? At 21, I’ve had a good life. A great one, even. And while it’s been rough and fantastic and awful and awe inspiring, I haven’t done enough. I’m not satisfied at all. And yes- 21 years or 1,000 years- none of it will ever be enough but I can at least try to make it seem like it. Were I to die today I’d think, I could’ve loved harder, more openly. I could’ve read more books, learned the cello, hiked more, gone bouldering, seen the Northern Lights, loved more, gone to fucking Australia because I swear Australia is gonna be where I spend my golden birthday. It’s not that I’d die with regrets if I died today. It’s that I’d die with dreams still unrealized, love not given/shown.

And maybe not everyone has to have this great epiphany to understand this. Maybe this is a lesson I should’ve innately known, and to some degree I did, but after the year I’ve had I don’t just know it- I understand it.

The second- “Bliss is knowing the full meaning of what you’ve been given.” (David Levithan)

I think I’m understanding even more the meaning of bliss. Bliss isn’t easy. It’s not comfortable. It’s understanding, and really seeing. And seeing what exactly? Well that depends on the person and their experiences.  Bliss is appreciating.

I know what it is to be so afraid of something you can’t ignore, can’t dismiss and can’t escape. My fear of my body and my resentment for all its failings, (to this day) at times overshadows my love for my life, for my body.

I’ve wanted to escape my body, my thoughts, my heart, my life for so many different reasons. Cancer was the first time I ever really wanted to escape, or abandon, everything I am in the name of survival. I wanted with the most visceral desperation to escape this body that was doing nothing but hurt me.

And in this desperation I understood what bliss is. It isn’t winning the lottery or buying a new car. For me, it was being able to eat and not throw up a half hour later. It was blood that did what it was supposed to do. Bliss was looking in the mirror and recognizing myself. It was my hair. My god my hair. I miss my hair. Bliss was my body being a home, and not hurting. Bliss was not hurting because oh god did I learn what it was to hurt. I discovered so many new ways I could, and did hurt. That was the bliss I learned in my time during treatment. That was bliss when I was sick. Bliss was, and still is, health because man do I know what it is to lose that. Bliss has expanded its definition since then. Bliss is being awake at 3am because I’m reading not because everything hurts and I can’t stop throwing up. It’s going to school, and getting stressed over exams and homework. It’s going out in public because I don’t have to worry about catching an infection. Bliss is being home because I want to, not because it’s the safest place for my fragile body. Bliss is the morning, that moment I wake up and think “I’m so fucking tired but I’m here. I’m still here.” Bliss is my family, my friends. Bliss is understanding that life is idyllic and loss and joyous and heartbreaking. And that one can’t fully be itself without the other. I can appreciate that now.

The third thing I’ve come to learn is that self-love is actual work, taking care of yourself is hard work. That loving yourself and all your complicated and soft bits is a constant effort.  

A year ago, I was given this sort of fucked up gift that I didn’t want. One I didn’t ask for. One that changed my life in ways I can’t fully verbalize or understand but absolutely feel. But right now I’m going to try.

A year ago, on my mother’s birthday, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. I had just turned 20, I was tired all the time, I was working a lot and going to school full time. I was going at full speed, towards what exactly- I don’t know. But once that doctor hit me with that diagnosis everything in my life came to a roaring stop. Cancer exposed me to a whole new, and for me more demanding, understanding of self-love.  

Because there were (and sometimes still are) days I hated myself, my body, my reckless blood.

There were days I so absolutely hated my life.

There were days that hurt so much death didn’t seem all that frightening anymore.

I’ve read a lot of blogs and watched a lot of YouTube videos about people maintaining their positive attitudes and outlooks through their treatment, and I can 100% say I did not have a positive attitude most of the time. Yeah, I kept my sense of humor and I wasn’t crying all the time because what the fuck else was I going to do? Sit on my ass and think about how shitty this whole thing was? I didn’t have to make an effort to be upset about it- my unhappiness at the time was a constant. Regardless of whether it was in the back or forefront of my mind, it was always there. Like those whole, “you’re brave,” “you’re strong,” etc. I was nothing but what I needed to be to survive. Then and now. I went through treatment begrudgingly, not with a smile on my face. A lot of people say that positivity is what saved them, or helped them recover. And for many people that is the truth, I’ve seen it. But for me, I clawed my way through that time, and even now with a sort of stoic indifference. Sometimes I look back and it feels like it happened to someone else. There were days even going through it, I had this weird sort of whiplash. Like I couldn’t understand this is me. I have cancer. I am a cancer patient. I’d see myself hooked up to all these different machines and all these drugs dripping into me with this detached feeling. My point in explaining all this is that for a long time, and still now, I had to build my own wall of China in myself for my own sanity. And I had all this anger and resentment and loathing that needed to be directed at something otherwise I’d explode. And because it was my body that was fucking up; because it was my blood that decided to become cancer I was the landing pad to my own antipathy. It ended up being that that wall barricaded me from it. I don’t have cancer, but that body does, this disease isn’t mine, it’s that body’s. And because it was that body that made me sick, I was free to hate it as much as I needed to. And maybe that doesn’t make sense or it does, but that was my thinking in that time. But obviously there is no true separation between my disease and me. And because there is no longer any disease to hate, I’m left with all this toxicity to work through because I’ve resented myself all along even through that imaginary wall of China.

Did I lose you there?

Having cancer made me feel like a fucking basket case, especially to my family and friends. I felt so pathetic. Unwitting looks of sympathy or pity (because sometimes they looked same) from them or even strangers made me feel so small. And losing my hair and gaining the weight I did made me feel so unattractive I could barely stand to see myself in the mirror.

All this just built up to having to unravel or work through those awful feelings I had towards myself. And that has been like a fucking dam breaking. No little leaks here and there, my feelings have not gone gently or been easily understood.

I want to thank this life and this body for teaching me that loving is a choice. That it’s a choice you have to make every single day, throughout the day and will always have to make. I want to thank this life, thank this body for giving me this lesson of learning that loving isn’t just a feeling. It’s action. It’s a lesson that has to be learned, and relearned over and over and over again. To love this body that has been my greatest source of hurt, and my most complicated place of comfort is a lesson I have to choose to understand daily. To love this body that will forever be a source of primal anxiety for me, is something I have to learn. Something I need to accept. I’ve felt my resentment just as deeply as I’ve felt my desire to let it go, to love this body- and having to deal and live with the starkly different emotions fused together all in the same body has at times left me baffled. I don’t know how to unravel them from each other yet, or where to start. Maybe it’s right here. All because the hurt is here, all because my worst fears were born in this body, all because this body has been my greatest disappointment and savior all in one, doesn’t mean it’s not worth loving, worth taking care of. I love this body. Even when it doesn’t love me back.

The fourth of these Big Things I’ve learned is that life is not black and white. It’s not easily understood, if anything it’s wildly confusing. And that’s what’s so excruciatingly beautiful about it.

I want to thank this life and this body for teaching me not to fear death, but more than anything not to fear life. For letting me experience how acutely painful this life can be. But moreover, helping me understand that this life can be good. That the good can grow here, through the hurt. For letting this experience be joyful, painful, exciting, traumatizing, elating, nerve wracking and everything in between.

Thank you for helping me understand how nuanced and dynamic this life is. Because even if it’s awful. That’s not all it is. Even when it’s amazing, that’s not all it is.

This isn’t a silver lining. This is life.

The fifth is this: you really don’t get a lot of choices in life. And that can be terrifying and freeing all in one. There’s a freedom in understanding there is so little in your control. Your choices have little else to do other than what is in front of you, and what you choose to make of it.  

There’s this quote by Sarah Dessen- about living life carefully:

“Careful," she called out to me, her voice sharp; part admonishment, part warning. But I'd been that way all this time, and it hadn't changed a thing. Maybe it was better to barrel through life, breaking fragile things and catching on every jagged edge. Neat or messy, calm or crazy, I still ended up in this same place.”

There’s no point to living life carefully. And more than anything I don’t want to. What’s the point, truly? “I still end up in this same place.”

Life is just one big reaction. The main choice in life is your answer to the question, “Where do I want to go from here?” Answers to big questions can come in many different forms, they all still answer the same thing though.

Live your life the way you want to, in a way that honors your soul and is honest to your beliefs. It’s true that at the end of the day only you can bring satisfaction to yourself. Break the ceiling, get caught on every jagged edge, make a mess if it means following the path your gut is pulling you toward. If it’s where you’re meant to be- you’re going to get there either way, so why play it safe? What’s so risky about doing what you want and making the life you want for yourself with absolute abandon?

Love yourself. Do yourself the favor of building a life for yourself that you’ll love.

And know- you will always have the ability to clean up or fix your messes when you need to.

Don’t walk through life on eggshells.

Conquer your fears- or at least learn to live with them.

Fall in love-

With a million things and a million different people

Follow your heart- as cheesy as it sounds- there are a lot of things you can regret in life, don’t let not trusting yourself be one of them.

Be honest.

Grab what you want with both hands and don’t apologize for it.

You only get to keep today. That’s it. And today is always changing.

Choose happy.

Do things that make you think your heart is about to crack your ribs.

Do things that make you feel absolutely crushed and in awe and inspired and holy shit we’re alive and isn’t that amazing???

The fact that you are here is all miracle. You are all gold and lungs and miracle.

Act like it.

Believe that this life is yours for the taking.

Make mistakes.

Think things twice.

Apologize when you should.

Laugh and laugh and laugh.

Love others, even when it’s difficult.

Love yourself, always.

Thank you to this life.

To this body.

That broke my heart, and disappointed me, over and over and over again. 

Broke it only to make it better.

To this body that chose to be a body and home again.

Thank you to this body, this blood.

For loving me. For saving me. For hurting me in a way I can acknowledge the lessons. In a way that can make me better.

#Hodgkins Lymphoma #the becky chronicles #cancer survivor #cancer #fuck cancer #remission #remission life #lymphoma #it's still lit #life #health

[thebeckychronicles]

Post 39: To Jenni of February 14, 2017

Dear Jenni of February 14, 2017,

It’s scary isn’t it? Somehow it’s like all the noise got sucked out of the room. Suddenly it’s like this moment right there as the words are coming out of his mouth, this moment seems like the summation of your life. Your life, in a sad way, feels like it’s lead you to this moment. Because, even though this isn’t the most important day of your life, right now you’re thinking, “what tops this?”

You’ll find in the coming months that this day completely upended and changed your life in ways a year later you still won’t be able to understand and grasp. But it’s not a total bad thing.

I’m not gonna lie to ya girl, it’s gonna fucking suck. You’re gonna trade fresh air for stale and sterile hospital stench. You’ll trade your classrooms for doctor’s visits and a room with view during chemo. You’ll miss out on concerts and raves. You’ll have to cancel your spring break trip with your best friends. You’ll trade building relationships and maintaining them for lonely, lonely days. Before the first chemo treatment, you couldn’t remember the last time you were actually sick, not to mention the last time you threw up. Soon enough you’re gonna be very well acquainted with the inside of your bathroom’s toilet bowl. You’ve always liked salty things, but goddamn are saline flushes a game changer. A year later you won’t be able to even smell the stuff without getting sick. That urge to shave your head just for the hell of it? Yeah well, whether you really want to or not you’re going to have to go through with it, and it’s going to be mortifying. You’ll lose bits and pieces of yourself everywhere. Your hair on your pillowcase, on the shower floor, in your hands. Your confidence and self-esteem down the drain. Your blood to tests. Your tissue to biopsies. Your independence.

You’ll learn how to let things go because it’s easier.

So Jenni of February 14, 2017- this coming year is going to absolutely be colored in loss and hurt and suffering and surviving. It’s gonna be frightening. My heart breaks for you, knowing what you’re going to have to endure in the year to come. Some days are going to be extremely difficult. Others are going to be amazing. One day you’ll be on the living room floor, puking your guts out onto a towel, too weak to make it to the bathroom. Another day you’ll be standing on the tallest mountain in the world staring at the Milky Way. Those two sentences will illustrate the year to come.

You won’t cry all that much, but when you do you will cry at the smallest, most ridiculous things. You’ll cry when you ring in the New Year. You’ll cry when you write this. Weirdly enough you won’t cry February 1st, 2018 when you’re remission official. You’ll cry today, February 14, 2018, a year after your initial diagnosis.

You won’t regain everything you’ve lost in the fire that is a cancer diagnosis.

But what does come back, will do so in a frightening and vibrant and amazing way. Try to look forward to it, and embrace it when you see it.

This year will fucking suck dude. But this year will end.

And survive it you will.

Know that I love you and you can do it.

See you on the other side.

Yours,

Jenni from February 14, 2018

P.S. don’t trip- your hair will grow back curly. 

#remission #life #health #letter to self #note to self #2017 sucked #2018 is my year #why am I crying as I write this #stop it jenni #lmao #Hodgkins Lymphoma #the becky chronicles #cancer sucks #but life doesn't have to #ITS MAD LIT

[thebeckychronicles]

Post 38

I’M IN REMISSION 

Officially since February 1, 2018. 

So now, Dr. Frank is going to talk to her colleagues to discuss what the next steps in monitoring me should be. It could mean another surgery. This time in my chest. But whatever. I’m really happy to be in remission no lie- but honestly at this point it kinda feels eh. Like cool, moving on. 

#remission #i'm in remission bitch #cancer survivor #Hodgkins Lymphoma #the becky chronicles #it's still lit #cancer sucks #but life doesn't have to

[thebeckychronicles]

Post 37: Remission?

A downfall of getting to know your oncologist pretty well is knowing when she doesn't have good news. So I wasn't all that surprised when she broke it to me that it turns out my PET scan really lit up on both sides of my neck, my underarms and chest. This could be another false positive (of various different lymph nodes???) but it's not looking too likely to be the case. In the words of Augustus Waters, "I lit up like a christmas tree."

It's looking like a recurrence of Hodgkin's lymphoma but I won't know for sure until I have a surgery later this month to remove and biopsy one or some of the lymph nodes. If it does turn out to be Hodgkin’s again I’m looking at more intensive chemo which should last 2-3 months and then a stem-cell transplant.

A really good friend of mine gifted me a journal. There are 365 questions, one for each day of the year, and the questions are meant to be answered 5 times, each a different year.

January 7th's question is: "You are lucky. How so or not so?"

This was the day before my PET scan this week, so cancer was on my mind that day. I can list lots of reasons why I'm not lucky. Life's not fair, my eyebrows aren't as thick as they used to be, I can't afford to buy all the book I want, I had (have?) cancer. I didn't list those as my answer; it's always really easy to point out the bad in our lives, the failures, the heartbreak and the hurt. I don't believe in silver linings, I don't believe in hidden meanings when it comes to suffering. But I do think good things in our lives can become magnified in the presence of trauma and uncertainty.

I am SO lucky and SO blessed to be loved by so many. By more than just my family. I am privileged to love and be loved in return, loved wholeheartedly and ardently. So lucky to have people rooting for me, going to bat for me and supporting me in the ways they can. That's my luck. That's my blessing. And I'm so grateful to have it despite the heavy.

I had hoped this year would be kinder to me. That it'd be kind to my family. But sometimes things don't go the way you had hoped, and that's okay. 2017 asked so much of me. My body. My heart. My hair. My time. My blood. My spirit. The way this disease asked for my name. And I almost let her keep it. The way this disease asked for my body. And I almost let her keep it. The way this disease moved in. And I almost let her stay. 2018 is looking like it'll be some of the same, but if I've learned anything it's that I'm not easily killed.

Thank you for your love and support. Hopefully it's just some wildly exaggerated false positive, and I’m making mountains out of molehills but I'll keep you updated when I know more.  

#Hodgkins Lymphoma #the becky chronicles #i'm sad but it's still lit #cancer sucks #but life doesn't have to

[thebeckychronicles]

Post 36: War ate a girl and spat out a woman.

I survived 2017! Ha. 

And by survived I mean 2017 feels like the beginning of the unbecoming of me, and I feel absolutely unhinged. And it’ s cool. 

There’s this quote by David Levithan from his book Boys Kissing Boys, a book that gave me this weird sensation of my chest collapsing in on itself and an intense relief. 

“Ignorance isn’t bliss. Bliss in knowing the full meaning of what you’ve been given.” I’ve come to think that ignorance is comfortable. It’s meant to keep you in this bubble where nothing bad happens. Ignorance is fragile. 

Almost 21 years of life is NOTHING compared to how long the world has been in existence. But I’ve got almost 21 years worth of learning and knowing things, and that’s something. 

I know what it is to live a healthy life. I know what it is to live a life with depression. I know what it is to be so so sick. I know what it is to get better. I know some days I don’t want to get up in the morning. But I know every day is worth the effort of it. Even if it’s difficult to fathom it. 

A friend recently said, “Life is a lot.” I find myself thinking the same thing very often. Life is a lot. Life is too much sometimes. Too much joy, too much hurt, too much excitement, too much anxiety. More often than not I don’t know what to do with it all. When I was first getting testing done, the morning of my lymph node biopsy I was in the bathroom of the room getting into the hospital gown. I responded to my siblings in our group chat, thanked them for their well wishes and on a whim checked Instagram. My sister had posted a picture of us from December 2016 captioned, “much too much.” I never asked what she meant by that but i remember thinking of that photo and it’s caption as the needles made their way into my neck. How this whole situation had me thinking, “much too much.” 

This year has been filled with moments where I’ve thought to myself, “This is too much. This is so much.” Whether it was my frustration with my failing body, the comfort of knowing there was effective treatment plan, the pain from the chemo and cancer in my body, the support I received from my family and friends. My fear that I wouldn’t survive the efforts to save me (BECAUSE HOLY SHIT CHEMO WAS THE WORST THING IN THE WORLD), my joy from finishing treatment. The grief that came from closing a chapter of my life untouched by illness the day I was diagnosed. The elation at entering remission. It was all much too much, both the good and the bad. 

This year has been overwhelming in its “too muchness.” And I’m still trying to process and understand everything that’s happened to me, everything I’m feeling and trying to put them into thoughts I can actually understand. I’m trying to understand what I went through and what I’m thinking. I’m trying to understand who I’ve become/unbecome. I’m trying to discover the pieces of myself I’ve unknowingly let go through this whole process because yeah, I’ve changed, most of the time I still feel like a stranger to myself despite the fact that the cancer is gone. It’s like the cancer came into my home, rearranged everything and now the space looks and feels so foreign and I can’t find anything. I think this year was the unbecoming of who I was. It didn’t just change me it undid me. People don’t want to say that cancer absolutely defines them or changes their lives. That’s fine. That’s their prerogative, but in truth I understand it and I don’t at the same time. Because for me? Cancer unraveled me, and made me piece myself together in an entirely new and unfamiliar way. Cancer doesn’t define me, but it is the cause of the redefinition of myself. That’s kind of hard to ignore. 

Everything is colored in some sort of dichotomy now. And I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. Or if I’m making things worse for myself. Although there is no “right” way to be a cancer survivor- it feel like I’m doing it all wrong. That I’m stuck in this “being sick” state of being while I don’t mean to be at all. What I mean by everything is a dichotomy is cancer is always in the back of my mind. During my good and bad days. And it’s kind of weird. If I’m having a good day I’ll have thoughts like, “I’m so grateful I get to be here, and not be burdened by illness. Thank God.” On bad days I think how much I fucking hate that I was sick but “hey it could be worse right?” On those days I resent how much of my life has shifted because of this disease. These thoughts aren’t wrong/right/bad/good. They just are. And they’re thoughts that give me some sort of perspective. Perspective that either bolsters or painfully humbles me. 

A few days after what probably was my third treatment my cousin (Hi Faby) treated me to a movie, The Zookeepers Wife. It was a really lovely movie and it was nice to get out of the house and do something not medically related. It was a great start to my day but later that night proved to be one of the worst nights of my life. I had gotten out of the shower, and was so dizzy and lightheaded I couldn’t get out of the shower and had to rely on my mom to get me and wrap me in a towel and get me to the kitchen table. I was in so much pain, and my mom had to help me get dressed and i just ended up on the living room floor crying and in the worst pain, throwing up and throwing up. I thought it’d never end. This was one of those “much too much” times. 

I think it was one of the first times I was genuinely pissed at the fact that I was sick and getting treatment that also made me sick and there was nothing I could do about it except suck it up and take it. My desperation to escape my body hit an all time high in that moment. I remember wishing myself back to that morning if not out of my body. Eating popcorn and watching a bittersweet movie. I had a lot of those moments where I wished to be somewhere else, some other time.

See what I mean about a dichotomy?

I experienced a lot of beautiful moments this year. In a year that is arguably the most difficult one I’ve had to live through. So going back and forth between those two sensations sometimes gives me whiplash. There were some really awful moments. And there were some really exhilarating ones too. Neither takes away or lessens the blow from the other. 

I’m not sure what I’m trying to get at here. There’s another piece from one of my favorite writers Dominique Christina, “Remember that none of it killed me. That all of it could have.” I think that’s where I’m at right now. Trying to process everything I went through this year. 

Mary Oliver wrote, “Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.” As we close out this year I’m thinking how 2017 is my “someone I loved” and cancer was that box full of darkness, and I’m trying to understand how it can be a gift or at the very least something so much less vicious. 

Some things I feel like I see with clarity now, but so much is all muddled. It’s like my mind got made into a labyrinth and I’ve been trying to make my way out of it since. 

Here are some things I can say with clarity concerning myself:

I’ve learned how easily life can become unexpectedly bad. But I also learned to remind myself that it can be wildly amazing too. 

1. I want to go into the new year making more of an effort to love myself- even with all my resentment and anger directed towards myself. I want to put myself first, what I want and need.

2. Cancer become my segue way into being more honest with myself and with the people around me.

Things I will tell my younger brothers:

3. Life’s short. No matter how long you live to be 20 or 10,000 years old it will never be enough. Life’s too short to be anything but cracked wide open, it’s too short to be numb or feel little. Feel all of it. The amazing, the awful, the hurt, the healing.

4. No matter what happens to you in this life you for the most part get to decide what alters you- what pushes you to become the person you’ll be tomorrow. 

5. The world owes you everything. And by everything I mean all the kindness, all the generosity, all the fucking things. 

6. Demand everything in life. Reach for what you want and don’t apologize for it. 

7. Don’t ask for permission to live loudly and boldly. You live with the consequences of all your choices- the good and the bad ones. Make them all worth it. 

8. Dream bigger, dream better. Always. 

9. It all starts with putting one foot in front of the other. And it doesn’t even have to be the best foot. 

10. Love yourself, even when it’s the hardest thing in the world, which often times it is. 

I don’t think I’ll ever be the same. But maybe- that doesn’t have to be a bad thing anymore. 

Happy New Year everyone. We’re still here. <3

#the becky chronicles #hodgkins lymphoma #cancer sucks #but life doesn't have to #i'm sad but it's still lit #new years eve #new year #remission

[thebeckychronicles]

Post 35: Being in remission is strangely difficult

And I feel like an asshole for saying that.  

This is all going to come out a mess but bear with me please.

trigger warning: suicide mention

It’s like now that I’m in remission my mind and heart and thoughts and everything have just given me the go ahead to absolutely lose it. Every fear and thought and emotion I heard but never gave voice to just got the fucking mic to my psyche and I don’t know how to drown them out anymore. I’ve said this before that during treatment and even now, this blog has been the only place that I’ve really allowed myself to let some of the thoughts and feelings I’d been having come through. I think I was kidding myself because if I thought I was opening the faucet to my fears and feelings then, then right now I’m in the middle of a downpour. No barriers, no off switch, no turning the faucet off. The floodgates aren’t just open they’re entirely gone. I’m in some sort of shock and gratitude and depression now. Now that I’m not absolutely thinking about surviving 100% of the time, I’m processing everything that I didn’t fully let myself feel or think and I’m overwhelmed and confused by it all. 

Life in remission is interesting. It’s navigating life in a totally different way than I used to. Trying to fit work and school around my doctor’s appointments and really just mentally bad days. It’s random as fuck panic attacks at work that make you hide in the closet, or running to the bathroom to throw up because you’re so panicked. It’s randomly crying because this all still makes you so sad. It’s feeling excited one second. It’s feeling so, so low the next. It’s feeling confused all the fucking time because while you are so, so happy to be done with the bullshit that was 2017 you don’t understand why you’re still sad. It’s not being able to walk in the city without the smell of alleys making you gag or throw up. During treatment I’d throw up in the privacy of my home. Now I throw up in public. Lovely switch there honestly, I was becoming too familiar with the toilet bowl at home. 

I don’t know how it came from me in the drivers seat, driving with my dad back home after he picked me up from work. Him asking me how work is going and suddenly I’m crying in the drivers seat, roughly wiping at my face trying to just get home in one piece. 

Luckily we were pretty close to home. So I parked and we just sat in the car. My dad asked me, as he rubbed my back, and asked me what I was feeling. Things I didn’t know how to just come out and say it:

I feel so abandoned

I feel so violated

I feel so pathetic  

I am so disappointed in myself  

I resent myself 

I can’t remember the last time I felt good about myself 

The only thing I could get out was that I may be okay now, I may not have cancer anymore, but it still feels like it took so much more than my time and health from me.

I didn’t say any of it but my dad somehow heard it

I managed to get us home and we just sat there.

The steering wheel was freezing and sticking to my hands that were wringing it.  

I’m trying to stop my chest from caving in on myself 

Cancer shaped a new normal for me. And I have no clue how to navigate it. I never expected remission to be this difficult. And maybe it’s really bad that I’ so debilitated by this. That it’s become so consuming for me. Maybe it’s not good how much space and time cancer has taken up from me. Is this normal? Am I supposed to feel more free, liberated in a spectacular way? Sometimes I feel amazing. I feel full of life and inspired and full of awe. But often I find myself feeling so absolutely out of place. Like my mind and body don’t know what to do with themselves anymore. Everything feels so different. As though I have to relearn how to navigate my life and be comfortable in it again. I feel so abandoned, by who I used to be, what I used to think/think of/know, strangely enough, by cancer. I knew who I was and what I used to think. And cancer although shitty it was easier to understand. It was illness and survival and recovery. But this? All that I’m left with is so difficult to understand, to wade through. 

It’s weird I think of all the things I had planned to be doing and have now and I just get weirdly depressed because although those opportunities aren’t absolutely taken from me- they’ve only been shifted farther away from me. But it feels like I’m more acutely aware of the fact that I don’t have all the time in the world. I feel like I’m running out of time, this weird sort of anxiety. 

I feel so pathetic by how much I’m still hurt by it, by the diagnosis, by the treatment. Even while being in remission. 

It majorly reshaped me. I want so much for myself. I want to do things for myself. 

Being patient with myself. Learning to give myself grace, letting go of all the resentment I have for myself. I want to be better now and I don’t know how to do that. I feel like such a mess, and I feel panicked trying to figure that mess out. Like I’m running out of time to do that. Like I need to get everything in order right now.

And it’s so difficult to talk about with everyone, friends and family. Because people don’t understand. And even other survivors I can’t just assume they’ll understand. My family walked this awful road with me. We all went through this in varying degrees. But in truth, whoever goes through this process- they (we) really are alone in it. My family and I- we experienced it together sure, but we all experienced it so differently. 

I keep thinking if I just give it time home will become home again. But I don’t know how to be in this house, in my room, on my bed without remembering this is where I was sick. Even though is also where I got better. 

But it just feels like the place I got sick and died. 

I’m not the same. Everything is different. I can’t go back, and I have to accept that. 

I don’t know- just some days being in this body is the hardest thing.

It’s like some things I can’t ever have back. The album from one of my favorite artists that I listened to on one particularly horrendous day. (Sorry Halsey). Costco pizza although I still love and eat it is not just mine, it’s ours. February 14th. My mom’s birthday. Olive Garden. My fucking room. So much of what I still have doesn’t feel like it’s mine anymore.

And then there’s the guilt of being a cancer survivor.

And not just a cancer survivor but a depressed and suicidal cancer survival. Like what the fuck is that? Who survives cancer and then gets so depressed and suicidal- my god I’m just short-circuited somewhere. It doesn’t make sense to be suicidal when you’ve just escaped death. I want to make it clear though, I am suicidal, but I don’t want to die. I’m not making a plan to kill myself, nor am I hurting myself. Most days, and again it sounds crazy because I literally just escaped this deadly disease, I feel so weighed down and like I’m running on empty and just so exhausted by my body and life. (Again, I feel like a total asshole for complaining about being an actual cancer survivor but whatever- I never said I make sense, or that I’m easy to understand.) I know that this is probably difficult to understand. Then again, nothing honest ever is. I’m trying to sort myself out but it’s proving to be waaay more difficult than I ever expected. Getting cancer and all that just seemed to magnify or reintroduced past trauma too so there that lovely bit as well. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry about this whole mess lol.

So many people die every day. From this is or that. 

So many people don’t survive cancer, Hodgkin’s lymphoma. 

Who am I to be anything but full of life and gratitude that I did?

I don’t feel like myself. I feel small and angry and depressed and wildly uncomfortable in my own skin.

#cancer #remission #depression #suicide tw #the becky chronicles #cancer sucks #but life doesn't have to #i'm sad #but ITS STILL LIT

[thebeckychronicles]

Post 34: Remission Accomplished

Words, my thoughts actually, come fairly easy to me. Or at least they used to. Understanding what I’m feeling and thinking has become a bit more difficult. My words, the ones I use to talk to myself and explain my experiences to myself are a lot easier than the words needed to convey how I’m feeling and what I’m thinking to other people. 

Most of what you’ve read on this blog had been partially or fully written in my head before I got anywhere near my laptop. 

So. I was (noticeably) sick from (probably before) November 2016 to August 2017. 

10 months of feeling awful. 20lbs in unexpected weight loss. 1 port placement. 1 PICC placement. 1 port removal. 1 PICC removal. 6 rounds of chemo meaning 6 months of it. Meaning 12 chemo sessions. 9 fluids sessions, an assortment of pain medications, anti nausea, anti anxiety and anti biotic medications. And their refills. 4 biopsies, 4+ ultrasounds, 4 blood cultures, 2 major marathons consisting of avatar and game of thrones. Innumerable blood draws and port infections. 20lbs+ weight gain, 11 inches of hair gone, lots of throwing up, Costco pizza, sarcasm, a blog and a negative biopsy later…

I’M IN REMISSION BITCHES. 

#the becky chronicles #Hodgkins Lymphoma #cancer sucks #but life doesn't have to #remission #its still lit #cancer #life #health #family

[thebeckychronicles]

Post 33: it’s thanksgiving

I am so grateful to be here. Regardless of what presented itself in my path to get me here today.

I am grateful that my treatment worked.

For remission and oncologists and nurses and blood willing to heal.

I’m grateful for every day miracles.

The small ones, you wouldn’t think are miracles.

The big ones that can’t be mistaken for anything else.

For my little brothers.

For my older siblings.

For my parents.

I’m grateful for coffee and pan dulce and chocolate abuelita.

I’m grateful for honesty.

The painful and the easy lessons.

I’m grateful for comfortable shoes.

Peppermint essential oil.

For friends who travel across the country to see you when you’re sick.

For friends who remember to be friends.

I’m grateful for radical dreams and the will to fight for them.

I’m grateful for cold water and green trees and mountains.

For Costco pepperoni pizza.

I’m grateful for words. All the words.

Others’ words, my words.

All the words that saved me.

For morbid memes and internet humor.

I’m grateful for my name, my name that has to mean miracle now.

For memories both difficult and earnest.

I’m grateful for magic and medicine and prayers.

I’m grateful for fragile, resilient hearts that break.

I’m grateful for tenuous faith made honest in its vulnerability.

For a god who I don’t understand and gets to stay God because of that.

I’m grateful for miracles. The ones I’ve forgotten. The ones I’ve lived and felt and seen. The ones I wished for and didn’t get.

I’m grateful for the miracle of still believing in miracles no matter how many times the absence of them has broken my heart.

I’m grateful to be here.

For having the choice to make something of everything I’ve been given in life so far.

For getting things I deserve and don’t deserve.

I’m grateful for you. For taking the time to read your way through this journey with me.

I’m grateful for life and all its second chances.

I still don’t believe everything happens for a reason.

I believe it’s a choice to make things significant. To make things count. Make them matter.

I’m grateful for the chance to make my little piece of life matter.

For all the love and life I’ve been given.

The drought and the floods of it.

#hodgkins lymphoma #the becky chronicles #cancer #remission #life #health #cancer sucks #but life doesnt have to

[thebeckychronicles]

Post 32: nonsequitur and random writing

Something I’ve learned about myself.

I’m selfish.

I’m so, so selfish.

And I’m okay with that.

And I’m also wildly confused and contradictory and clear-headed and a million other things I don’t know how to put into words.

This is me trying.

I don’t want to leave a legacy.

Leave some sort of mark on the world.

Back when I wanted those things I think I just wanted to be important. To matter in the impossibly small ways I could in this big, big life and world.

I think I wanted to be loved widely rather than deeply.

I think I wanted to be special, to do something that made me, my name, worth remembering.

I think we all want that to some degree.

I don’t care to make the world tremble anymore.

I don’t care to be ferocious and powerful and inspiring.

I just want to come to a place in life where I wholeheartedly believe I’m worth something regardless of what I have or haven’t done in my life.

I want to be able to look in the mirror and believe that I am important even if I do nothing but no harm.

Maybe it’s because I used to believe I could change the world. And this isn’t a thought born out of cynicism. It’s reality. One person can’t change the world on their own.

So yes, I no longer believe I can change the world nor do I aspire to anymore.

And maybe that’s selfish but then again- I am selfish.

I can’t change the world. But I can be better. Be better today than I was yesterday. Be better tomorrow than I am today. Just always try to be better. And that may look different one day to the next. I don’t know.

Getting diagnosed with cancer fucking hurt. Going through treatment was absolute hell. And being in remission is difficult as well, in ways I never really anticipated.

Having cancer, and gone through treatment, and to now be in remission or whatever I feel as though I am under a microscope, or as though I am in the tiniest of fish bowls being watched. The kicker is that no one is watching but me. Not that I want an audience- it’s just I feel like I’m putting this strange pressure on myself not to have drastically changed or become this incredibly enlightened individual because of this shit show-esque year, but more so I feel like I have so much in my head and mind and heart and I’m just staring at myself and hands in confusion and wondering “what the fuck am I supposed to do with it all???”

Because there’s no going back to the way things were. I’m starting to accept that. That grief for who I was and wished to be that isn’t possible anymore is becoming slightly more bearable. I understand I am different. Because I feel it. But I don’t see it. Or at least I haven’t noticed it enough to name it- and maybe that’s because I’m too close. There is no going back. But I’m at a loss of how to move forward.

There’s this quote from a book I read last year that doesn’t entirely make sense but somehow clicks for me, especially now. “It’s like I’m the mayor of a city I’ve never seen.”

I don’t aim for heroism but I want, no I need to figure out what I’m all supposed to do with all I’ve been given this year. I don’t want to scorch the earth. I don’t want to change the world. I don’t even think I can anymore if I was ever really able as presumptuous as that may be. This experience has weirdly widened my perspective but also sharply focused it. To just me. And what’s around me. Again. I am selfish.

I don’t know. I want to pay attention more now. To what’s going on around me. To be a part of what’s happening around me and not just empathize from the peripheral of all things. Here and around the world. I want to notice. I want to care. I want to see people. Not save them. I don’t want to save the world. I just don’t want to add to the hurt already in it, even if it’s just within my small piece of it. And maybe that’s enough.

#the becky chronicles #cancer sucks #its still lit #cancer #life #health #hodgkin's lymphoma #remission

[thebeckychronicles]

Post 31: love letter to my heart

Dear heart,

I know I haven't been the kindest to you.

Forgive me for ignoring you and calling it survival.

Forgive me for the times I demanded your silence instead of honesty.

For the times I ignored when you were hurt.

Ignored when you felt joy.

Ignored when you let this life fill you with emotion.

I am sorry for the diagnosis that broke you.

I am sorry for my choices that broke you.

I am sorry heart.

For all the ways I've mistreated you.

For all the times you wanted to share with me and I refused.

I am sorry heart.

For letting you break, and stay cleaved, all on your own.

For all the times I told you I didn't want you.

All the times I tried to abandon you.

I am sorry.

For denying your love for me, pushing you away and renouncing our relationship. For denying your love when all I wanted to feel was angry spite.

Dear heart,

Thank you heart for fighting your way back to me.

Thank you heart.

For loving me and letting me love you in the not enough ways I could.

Thank you heart for being you.

For being honest.

For being the strength my body needed.

Thank you heart.

For being strong and vulnerable all at the same time.

For being brave when I couldn't be.

For saving me. Every single day.

For hearing me.

For letting me be hurt and confused and lash out and loving me anyway.

Thank you heart.

My fragile and fierce and all too willing heart. Thank you.

My heart.

For loving and hurting and healing as insistently as you did.

For teaching me the most fractured parts of me can mend.

That what's broken can be made whole.

That I can be healed.

Thank you for forgiving me.

Thank you.

So much.

For being the best part of me.

I'm so grateful for you.

Dear heart,

I promise to do better.

Love,

Jenni

#hodgkins lymphoma #cancer sucks #but life doesn't have to #health #life #i'm sad but its still lit #self love

[thebeckychronicles]

Post 30: I'm grateful

Tomorrow I find out if I'm in remission. If I am cancer free. I find out if I can close this chapter of my life, at least for a little bit. I've already said I hit a big angry wall. And it's taken some time to climb even a bit of it. But I'm doing it. Little by little. Sometimes it takes a while for me to pull myself out of a really dark place. I'm okay with letting myself get there. There are times all I want is to be consumed by it and not bite back. Sometimes I think I need that. To feel all the awful I've been fighting, let myself live it. But more importantly let myself survive it. I'm afraid, it's true. I'm angry. But right now I feel grateful. I'm so grateful for all the people who've held me down in their own ways this year. All the people who have shown me their love and been a constant source of joy. My family. Y'all my family what haven't they done to comfort me. To love me in my most ungracious moments. My brother for being the levity and laughter and support that didn't suffocate me. My brother, while I know he may think he could've done more for me, he was exactly the kind of support I needed. Calm and constant in the face of the rest of my fierce family (sister). My sister. My ugly, and supportive and fierce and ride or die sister. Words won't ever express how grateful I am for and to her. I've always thought of my siblings as my best friends but this year has only shown me how much more I can love them. How much they love me. How down they are for me. How grateful I am to have them.

My parents. My parents my parents my parents. Loving me even when I pushed them away. My quiet beacons of love and support even when I didn't want it. Letting me cope the way I've needed to. I'm the luckiest daughter in the world to have the parents I do. I'm so grateful to have so many people, friends, in my life who have given me their unwavering support and love, even in my silences, even when I've been too sick or tired or sad or angry to reach out, even when I don't know how to respond. Even when I don't know how to say, "Please comfort me," or "please check in on me." Or even when I didn't know how to say "thank you." So many of you always came through without me having to ask. My family and friends who've been a source of comfort to me this year- you saved me. Truly. And it's true that in my most painful and desperate moments finding and holding onto the people and things that make my life sweet was difficult. But of all that I could've thought of your faces were the easiest. You and my determination to love my life regardless of the circumstances has kept me going. I'm so grateful for my 20 years of life, and I want at least another 20. But I know regardless of the results tomorrow, or even results given to me from tests I'll take years from now, I'm still living my best life. Cancer isn't a choice I made. But choosing to love my life, and wring even the smallest bit of joy from it, is my choice. Today means hope. And tomorrow means amen. And I'll take both regardless of what they bring. It's still lit. 🔥

#the becky chronicles #fuck cancer #and Becky #cancer sucks #but life doesn't have to #i'm sad but its still lit #hodgkin's lymphoma #life #health

[thebeckychronicles]

Sometimes God makes it really easy to believe he doesn't care what happens to us.

[thebeckychronicles]

Post 29: I don’t know what I’m supposed to be feeling other than pissed and frustrated

I’m so frustrated with myself. I’m so frustrated with myself and angry. I am sooo angry and I don’t know what to do with all of it. What am I supposed to do with all this frustration and anger?

If the test turns out to be a false positive how do I stop living with this shit? How do I stop being a survivor and just be me???

How can I not feel like my life is on hold when I may have to go back to planning my life on a week by week basis?

I’m so frustrated. I want to feel like myself. I want to be me again. I want to know who I am now, without the cancer baggage but is that even fucking possible?

I don’t want to be sick. I don’t want to have cancer. I don’t want to even be a survivor. I just want to be me. And feel like I’m not living in a hijacked body. Not living on borrowed time.

No two experiences of having cancer are the same. I don’t know what it feels like to have terminal cancer. I don’t know what it feels like to have breast cancer. Do I even know what it feels like to have cancer? I know what it feels like to have Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Stupid, stupid Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. I only know how it feels like when the one thing in life that you’re supposed to be able to wholeheartedly own and control, your body, is absolutely doing shit you didn’t give the go ahead for it to do.

I know what it’s like for you to have no say in the going-ons of your body.

To have your blood rebel against you.

To have the comfort and familiarity of knowing your own body abandon you.

I know the frustration to reclaim your body.

To say to cancer.

That my body belongs to me.

My body is mine.

And throughout this whole time I’ve distanced myself from my disease.

Called it an invader.

Given it it’s own name.

It’s easier to say my cancer was, and is, an invader, something foreign.

Than accept that it was made up of my blood that didn’t know how to be blood.

It was easier to pretend I didn’t hate myself or this traitor body.

Because if I accepted that those tumors are made of me, my self-loathing would sky rocket past what I already feel.

If I claim absolute ownership of this cancer.

Can it claim just as much ownership of me?

Because right now one of us has the upper hand. And it’s not me. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel. I’m so frustrated.

#the becky chronicles #hodgkins lymphoma #cancer sucks #but life doesn't have to #fuck cancer #fuck becky #life #health #i'm sad but its still lit

[thebeckychronicles]

Post 28: I've hit a wall and I'm not feeling positive and I don't care

So yesterday I got the news that my PET scan lit up, meaning there is some activity going on in my lymph nodes.

Thank you to everyone that's reached out from yesterday. And if you're thinking of reaching out please keep in mind I really, really don't want to hear something like, "stay strong!" Or worse "stay positive!" Because honestly? I'm mad. I'm ridiculously pissed. Even if it turns out to be a false positive I'm frustrated that I'm sitting in a classroom wondering if I get to finish this quarter before it's even really started. I'm mad that I couldn't just get a clean scan. I HATE the ambiguity the failures of my body has brought into my life. I'm scared. For the life of me I'm scared. Yes it could be a false positive but shit. If it's not? That means harsher chemo drugs. With a new list of side effects. That means stem cell transplant. That means more needles and planning my life around my body that doesn't know how to get it's shit together. I AM MAD. I AM SCARED. AND FEELING POWERLESS AND SUPER FRAGILE. Don't tell me to stay positive or stay strong because right now words mean very little to me. I understand the intent to want to comfort others but seriously- I'm passed that point. That may seem irrational but if you haven't been in a position like mine or been in body that seems to be a ticking time bomb, kindly keep your words of positivity and strength to yourself. I've done the whole "stay positive while they run test after test and poke and prod and hurt you," thing. I've done the "grin and bear it." I've done the "I'm fucking terrified but I'm not gonna say anything to anyone," thing. I've tried to keep it together. The only times I've really lost my shit is through writing this blog, it's been in these blog posts. It feels good to finally just be upset and angry at how unfair life is. If me finally letting myself be angry and afraid and pissed and irrational makes me feel even the smallest bit better LET ME BE. I've used up my other coping mechanisms, so if this is what I have to do to make it until next week when I find out whether this nightmare is over or not, LET ME. DONT JUDGE ME. I'm sorry grief and illness and coping isn't what it looks like in the movies. High key- feels like people are gaslighting me when they're constantly telling me to think positive during this cancer thing. Is it wrong of me to be angry? Is it wrong of me to feel so frustrated and just want to stew for a bit? I've hit a wall. A really big and angry wall. On my way home from school my mom and I were talking about my upcoming biopsy tomorrow. I told her that I hope it's not cancer My mom's response was, "God willing it's not cancer." She's not the first person to tell me this. "God willing." Most of the time I feel like God is a stranger now. And if God wills it to be cancer then? Then what? Does God stop being God when things don't go our way? Is our faith only present when there's good in our lives? I don't know what God has been up to lately. I don't know what He's doing or He's allowing to happen. We ain't really been talking. All I know is that God willing or not this isn't what I want. This isn't something I'm okay with. And I'm angry. At God. At myself. At everything.

I'm feeling and thinking a lot of things right now. Like how when I finished treatment last month I swore I was never doing this again. I'm thinking about the ocean and the times I got caught in the rip and the wave would keep dragging me back into the current. Over and over. And how this feels kind of like that. I'm thinking to myself how do I reconcile feeling like fuck it- I don't give a shit what the result is but I'm not fucking doing treatment again. I'm thinking to myself how much I don't want to die. I'm thinking to myself that I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm thinking that I don't care. I'm thinking 20 years from now I could be in the same position and I still would want to not do treatment again. I don't know. What I'm feeling is contradictory to what I know. The heart and mind aren't all too friendly right now.

I'm trying to keep some perspective. I'm not trying to stay positive. Life can be good. Life is good. Sometimes it just really doesn't go at all how you pictured it would. And I'm trying to accept that. To not just know that life is good but to feel and believe it too. It takes work.

It could be cancer. It could be a false positive. I don't know. And I hate this ambiguity.

#cancer sucks #but life doesn't have to #I'm sad but it's still lit #fuck you cancer #fuck cancer #and Becky #especially her #Hodgkin's lymphoma #the becky chronicles #life #health