Death circulates through me

I wake up this morning and cancel my day. I feel 'blah'.

Blah, Blah, Blah.

In fact, I have been feeling blah for sometime now. I'm not sure what is going on with me. I'm not excited. I'm not motivated. I'm not depressed. I'm just nothing. A whole lot of nothing.

I'm loosing my speed on eating right. I'm starting to not care what goes in anymore.

I have not felt this way about food and nourishing myself in a long time.
And how I am relating to food is how I feel about life at the moment.
And it bothers me.

So, I cancel my day, stay in my Pjs, grab a book and call the troops.

First there is Lisa, my acupuncture school buddy who lives in Austin.

"Lisa, what is going on with me? I so don't feel myself. I'm not depressed, but I am lethargic. I seem to have no opinion. Staying in bed sounds find to me. Doing nothing works. I'm kinda sad. But not really. I'm more a puddle of mush."

"Well, are you getting your period?"

Then it hits me.
I pull up my calender.
There it is.
I am one month to the day and have no signs of bleeding.
I am here.
In that place I so did not want to be.

And I am sad.

My hormones are officially fucked up.

And then I call Anna W. and tell her what Lisa and I have been talking about and she concurs that when your hormones are all over the place, this is what happens.

And then she brilliantly adds:

"Lizzi, it isn't just the cancer that is dieing off, but all the growing cells of your body are being killed by the chemo. You have so much death circulating through your body I'm amazed you have been doing as well as you have. Who the hell wants to get out and live outside with that much death circulating on the inside? Sounds like your body knows exactly what to do."

For years I have touting my self care with mental and emotional sickness too. When ones body is physically sick, what do you want to do? Pull down the shades, hide under the covers and lie there while someone brings you chicken soup. So why is it that when we are mental or emotional sickness we don't allow our body the same respect? Why do we insist that we have to over-ride that sad, blah place? Why don't we take the days off for those spaces? Why is being motivated and 'on' all the time the 'right' way?

People, I am not talking about spending day upon day alone in the bedroom. I'm talking about being kind to the body, allowing oneself to spend time in a darkened room (to avoid being overwhelmed) and getting support (professional and personal) so one is not alone during this time.

My body had hit the 'blahs' and it knows what it needs. It wants to just lie around in an under-stimulating room. And I have never had a problem practicing what I preach, but this one was getting to me. I feel so foreign in my body. And I don't want it to esculate into depression.

I pause to take in Anna's words and honor the place of death within me.

She is right. My body is telling me exactly what to do.

And I quite satisfactorly go back to what I have been excelling at lately: Nothing. And party people, I do nothing really, really well!