mkate's Journal

It's been a long time since I wrote an entry in my journal; and I was once an inveterate journal writer. I never missed a day and I kept my journals; all of them from the late 70's up to maybe 2006. Once in a while I take one out and glance through it and there's a part of my life. Now that I'm considered a terminal patient by my oncologist, it feels wierd to read about the person I was in my late 20's. I read about the person I was when I went back to school at the age of 31 to finish my undergraduate degree and I feel like I'm reading about a stranger. The other day I took a journal off the shelf and it covered some of the time I was doing my graduate work; going into the city to Fordham nights and Saturday mornings. I was so much younger and I was healthy then. I never dreamed then that at 57, they'd be telling me it's almost over. It's all gone by so quickly. And I wonder if I did enough while I was here. Did I use whatever talents I was granted or did I waste them. Did I do enough for my family, my friends, my community...or did I just take up space? So this is what it's like to see my life flash before my eyes. And this is what it's like to face my own judgement. Only I'm the one that's judging me.

I'm afraid. And I'm the first one to admit it. I'm confused. I've lost my bearings. And I'm in a place where I'm alone. In every other experience in my life there were other people with me that I could relate to. Not to say that that no one else on this planet is dying. But this is one experience I have to go through alone. There is no one to hold on tight to, no one who can go with me. And I guess that's why there's fear. Yet who hasn't faced this? Everyone does. I'm just facing it fairly soon.

All my adult life I feel like I've been wrestling with God. A love/hate relationship; and even my journals were my letters to God. It's been a pretty intense relationship but my relationships are usually intense. That's just the way I am. Superficiality couldn't keep me interested very long. And now I feel like I'm struggling to say something. Or struggling to understand something and it's a battle. I'm wondering if I can remember a time when I truly felt a connection with this God that I've searched for. And I've searched for such a long time.

Enough. Enough for tonight. Chemotherapy was very bad this time. I have to gather all my resources just to stand up. I can't pick up my cat. Why are they making me go through this if my chances for survival are so abysmal? I don't feel as if I'm in control of my own life anymore. Or maybe all this is just "chemo fog". How else could I feel so irrational and helpless. And it isn't like me at all to feel like I'm drowning in emotions so powerful that I can't even express them. Instead I feel as if they're choking me. So much for the good and peaceful death. This must be the wrenching feeling of realizing that I have to begin letting go.