We're getting into single digits, here, folks. And I'm not going to lie--I'm wigging out a little bit. I had been planning how I was going to start packing in increments over the week, breaking it into small, chewable pieces, and then work scheduled me for one final trip, all the way up to the day before we leave. I quickly put all of those plans in the garbage and started up some new lists.
On the one hand, I'm very frustrated at having to reschedule my packing plans. When Andy and I went to spend Labor Day weekend with some of my buddies from Knox--the weekend itself was lovely, but I was also so angry that I had to re-plan all of my energy budgeting and all the logistics that I had carefully considered when our flight plans fell through. I kept saying something along the lines of "if I had known we would end up driving, I would have packed differently," unable to let that resentment go, even as spending time with these people was a balm to my heart. Schedule changes to me can remind me how truly out of control I am over my own body because of all of that back-planning that I need to do. I was anxious, hurting, and frustrated. This time, though, at least I had a week and a half worth of notice to rearrange things which is a lot and very little time in the same breath, however, I am more sensitive to these changes when I don't feel well or have, say, a massive surgery looming on the horizon.
Then on the other hand, having a full schedule for work directly before the surgery means that I have a built-in distraction. I will not be able to obsess unhealthfully over details or wander around as I half-start four different packing tasks. User Group itself is always a fun kind of exhausting, leaving with pudding brain and a real need to zone out to something inane. My onsite, too, promises to have a lot of questions and a lot of significant pieces to work through. Between both of these, there's a side benefit that this will certainly put me in the mindset of being ready to be off of work for a little while.
All this together means that when I was scheduled this last minute trip, I was simultaneously annoyed and very relieved. I won't obsess about how a number of things I do will be the last time I will be able to do them ever or for a while--lie comfortably on my stomach, use certain body products, go to the gym, roll over without being careful, go swimming--and try to do anything remaining once more, making for its own kind of stress; but on the other hand, I am realizing that there are a number of things that I've already done for the last time without realizing it which is its own existential crisis.
And of course, since I'm working on this in stretches, these thoughts were written in the theoretical, preemptive. But now, I can add thoughts that are real and in the now.
It's real. And in ways I still can't really accept yet. I know it's going to happen. I accept that logic, but the emotional real, well, that's a completely different process. And I don't really know what to do with it, except that I feel overwhelmed. It makes me think about being in a car accident, where there is a harsh reality that is consuming all other kinds of thought apart from mental shouts of "that just happened. Now what? Now what? What do I do?" The anxiety in my stomach swells to ultimately push against my larynx.
Not all surgery is traumatic, necessarily, in the sense of PTSD kind of trauma, but they can be. Some of mine definitely have been or at least building off of the same trauma, where things throw me back to particular scenes, specific sensations, staring at the exact same spot in one of my hospital rooms while trying not to move because everything hurt, freezing in place because I'm still trying not to move as a part of that response. This surgery decidedly puts me back into that same trauma space. There are many reasons why I don't want to go back.
Aaaaaaaand in the same breath I am very fortunate to be distracted this week to the point I don't even realize the week is passing. I even have a friend with me for this particular onsite to share the load and hang out with, which is a huge comfort. What I have noticed through even the start of this distraction was just how much I needed it--I had/have officially crossed the threshold where preparation has grown into its own swirling vortex, meaning that my coping strategy of planning is officially more harmful than helpful at this point. One thing my therapist has suggested in some of those points, when I am swallowed into that emotion, is to disassociate from components of it. E.g. instead of "I am in pain" or "I am feeling pain," I separate myself out: "there is pain." So right now, I am practicing "This is happening" rather than "this is happening to me." It's a subtle difference in verbage but an important one. This busy week of work and that practice both grant me space to breathe, collect myself, and find calm in the midst of everything else. I won't stay indefinitely in that space between "me" and whatever the problem is, but with enough distance I don't become the pain, recognize that I am not the pain itself nor is it a part of who I am, just a part of the experience. From where I'm sitting now, I have done everything that I can do, and there is freedom in that. I am not my disease. I have done everything I can. And now it is time to let go of some of that control and the ownership of events. I set the dominoes up; I don't have to make each of them fall individually.
So that means I'm pendulating violently from feeling calm to feeling overwhelmed and back again. From maintaining a bulk of the planning to wanting nothing to do with any decisions. From anticipation to dread. From earnest optimism to the kind of realism that plans for the worst. And, gosh, it's exhausting.
That's the state of the everything, I think the best ways to help me for the next week is to spam me with fun internet memes and cat videos with the occasional heartfelt encouragement. We'll get there. We'll be on the other side soon.
We're letting an old life die and welcoming a new one; these are just the growing pains in getting there.
To follow along for updates and the like, Pappa P will be updating my Caring Bridge page HERE.
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