For the past decade, I've fervently hoped, every New Year's Eve, that the next year would be better. It had to be better. Yet, each new year brought more heartache and hardship. Some people say those were challenges, I prefer to say they were bullshit.
The part of me that wants 2019 to end is the part of me that wants to get the next chapter of my journey started. I want the stabbing, constant pain where my tumour is to stop. I want it gone and I want the anxiety to end (even though I know that it won't).
The other part of me wants to stop time and go back to being normal. Back to when I knew nothing about breast cancer. Back to not being a total hot mess of an emotional trainwreck. Back to when I didn't fear every single little ache or pain. Especially back to when my own mortality didn't invade every waking moment.
I don't want to be part of the Cancer Club, even though all of the other members that I personally know are the most extraordinary people in the world. Thanks for the invite, but I wasn't looking to sign up. 2020 means that my membership is renewed for it's first annual cycle.
2020 will be the year of "the uniboob" for me. The left one will go just 2 days shy of it's 55th birthday. The 2020 birthday won't exactly be a hoot. Incisions, drainage tube, pain, and whininess aren't great selling points for a birthday fete. Prostheses, ugly bras, changes to my usual wardrobe choices, and tissue stretching exercises will be on tap for most of the winter. Treatment, likely in the form of chemo (because why change my luck now?) will take up the spring into summer. Hair loss, pale skin, nausea and general yuckiness for Spring Break. Whoo hoo!!
I imagine that 2020 will be the start of looking over my shoulder forever. I know that I will never have a day that I won't worry about recurrence, because I'm a worrier by nature. It's what I do (and I'm damned good at it). I'm also a planner. Constant worry creates solid planning and preparation skills. This one though, I didn't plan for. I had worried about many things, and prepared for my many imagined "what if" scenarios, but not this. It was never on my radar. So it stands to reason that because I can't plan or control the outcome, I'm going to worry from now till eternity about cancer. I've already become a hypochondriac. In the last month, my swollen foot meant that I definitely had diabetes; my migraines became other tumors; my acid reflux turned into an esophageal blockage....and on, and on.
This will be the year where I lean on my beautiful daughter, instead of the other way around (which it should be). She has already become my rock and this coming year won't be easy on her. That's not what I wanted 2020 to be for her and it breaks my heart.
To sum up, 2020 terrifies me. The term "Happy New Year", in my case, kind of seems a bit silly. I'm sure as hell not going to be particularly happy. I can guarantee my family that I'll likely be more of a snarky, sarcastic grouch than usual, and that's saying something. I can guarantee my friends that there will probably be long stretches of radio silence. I'm going to need to retreat, and it hurts me to know that this will hurt some of them.
I don't want to let go of 2019 yet. It was one of the worst years for me, but also one of the best. The bullshit of 2019 brought some good. The best was the feeling of being loved. I honestly didn't realize how many friends I had, or that people can care as much as they do. I've been touched by so many people that I still don't know what to do with that, and I can't thank them enough. New friends, old friends and new old friends. It makes a walk down Cancer Lane a lot less scary.
I can't stop the arrival of 2020 but I will ask it to please be gentle. For once, can you please just enter and exit peacefully and reasonably? I don't want to have to hit you up the side of your head with my fake boob, but I will if you're a bitch.
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