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I'm losing my hair.
Right now, I'm sitting here staring at my comb. It's a little handheld green one. The copious amounts of pink strands contrast nicely with the color. Even the ends of the teeth are stained pink.
After going through such a trauma, my doctor said it's normal and can last about six months. She said it might grow back, but there's a chance it may not. It's basically my body processing it's physical stress.
So, that's fun.
Defeat is sitting on me, holding me captive. I'm so weak right now.
Funny, that it's losing my hair that gets to me. Not the nearly dying part.
I can't go to school, and I have to quit my job because I just can't handle the physicality of it -- because I can't even walk around Target without feeling like I need to catch my breath. Even the smallest of things is too much for me.
On top of all of that, this all-consuming type of anxiety is just sitting on me. And it won't go away. I'm not sleeping. It affects my day to day life and I just am trying to figure things out. And of all of the things to make me start crying, of course, it was the fact that I'm losing my hair. One of the only things I like about myself is being stripped away from me.
I wish none of this had happened.
I know that this is a blessing, and I know that it's better I know everything I'm learning now, but I'm just nineteen. I'm a just a girl. I'm just a scared little girl.
I know that it's over. But, I'm so scared that I'm going to end up back in the hospital again. I'm scared of riding in the car. I'm scared of noises that are too loud. I'm scared of being alone. I'm scared of anything and everything you could think of. My anxiety is so high that I don't know how to handle it. I'm going to schedule weekly appointments with my therapists, but that only does so much when I don't really even know where God is in all of this.
I know God is there. Logically, I show myself areas of my life where God is -- or I try to.
But spiritually, emotionally, I'm so upset.
Why me? And, I even counter my own question, why not me?
Agh! I'd pull out my hair if it wasn't already falling out!
I had expectations for where I thought I'd been right now. I was supposed to only have a year left of school, I was supposed to be going to my small group every week, I was supposed to be able to drive, I was supposed to be working, I was supposed to be someone else.
Today I go to my hair dresser to see what magic she can work for my hair. I'll probably go to a more natural color. Plum. Or maybe I'll go back to brown. I'm not really sure.
I just keep thinking how I'll never be who I was before. And I want to see a physical manifestation of that. I don't want to go back brown, necessarily. I loved my hair dark though. I don't to stay pink either because all I see is the girl in the hospital. I don't really want to go plum, though, if I'm honest. But, I just don't think I can go back to brown. I just want to be who I was before.
My mind has become somewhat of a prison.
Everyone keeps telling me to be patient and to just recover, and to take it slow for a while.
But that's what no one seems to get. My mind is racing, a mile a second, moving fast, so fast that I can barely breathe and it's just all the time. It moves as fast as the Flash, and I can't stop it.
My body, on the other hand, moves at a glacial pace. I can't do anything without becoming tired.
My body is so tired, all the time, but my mind is wide awake, all the time.
I just don't know what to do. I don't really know where God is right now. I feel like He swept in, performed a big miracle, but left me to deal with the consequences. And I can't even go back to my happy place -- my field of sunflowers in Verona. It just reminds me of everything that happened, and then I freak out.
My mental health is spiraling so slowly and I'm not really sure how to stop it. I feel weak on every level, right now and I just can't figure things out. Life is being calm, for now. I don't go back to the oncologist until April, and when we went earlier this week, she said everything looked pretty good, all things considering.
Honestly, this was mostly a journal entry for me, but at the same time, I think it's really a good way to showcase that I am not a perfect person, I am not strong. I struggle with a lot of the same things that so many other people do and I just can't breathe sometimes. I get so overwhelmed that I drown. I try to do what's best for my mental health, but sometimes, it doesn't work. Or sometimes, I self-sabotage. Or, sometimes, I do things that don't help. Or, sometimes, I just take a day for myself.
Or, sometimes, I just have to take a deep breath and say, "What's the next right thing for me to do right now?"
And, I have to tell myself daily just who God says I am to Him. Who I am in general. Because let's face it, I don't know who I am right now. And that's okay. I try my best day by day, moment by moment, and honestly? That's really all I can do right now. I'm really struggling with my physical limitations paired with my mental capacity for more. I spend a lot of my time reading, now. I've already read two books since the New Year, and I'm a quarter of a way through the next.
I miss being able to drive myself, and I miss seeing my friends even more. I went from seeing my friends almost daily at school, to seeing them not at all. And, that's frustrating.
That's perfect way to describe all of this for me. Frustrating.
I don't like to post about when I feel spiritually weak, just because my words are all kind of floaty in my mind and I don't feel connected to one of the most crucial parts of who I am. Because of that, I can sound cynical or pessimistic. And, I'm not pessimistic. Although, I do know that I can be pretty cynical sometimes.
The point I'm trying to make it this:
It's hard right now, really hard. But, I'm trying. And that's really all anyone can do.
I'm just tending to my apple tree after a storm. It's slow going, and the tree may never stand up the same way again, but it will stand.
And it might take some time before the tree will grow apples again. But it will.
We'll all get there someday.
