it is done

It is all (almost) over. Two, three days of long hours, yesterday, save for the hour and a half or so, I almost completely went without sleep. My ex came by to encourage me, despite the heavy argument we had earlier. He slept in my room while I worked. From one till three, a little break, then pushed on till eight, when he got up and made me breakfast. He didn't want me to do a thing, and even did the dishes (which he rarely has done). I was taken aback by what he was doing for me, despite the poisonous words I uttered to hurt him earlier, intentionally or not...

I feel like a complete zombie at this moment. This moment should be the happiest in a long time, but it just feels bland and mundane. I cannot even lift my lips to smile, to laugh, let alone muster the mood to celebrate. And I'm ill on top of this.

This is the moment I've been waiting and working toward for two long years, delay after delay. And it's finally come. Even my supervisor was pleased, and through the secretary I learned that he has been commending ny work behind me. It may explain why my supervisor has been so eager to talk to me about getting me involved in some projects...

Thesis is finished, work projects ahead... And yet my heart is heavy, and my head feels dizzy. The lack of sleep has to do with it, of course, but I think it's more than that... Even in the midst of treatment, even when she was feeling extremely unwell and sick, mum was encouraging and kept on saying how proud she was of me. That was very painful.

This thesis I dedicated to my mum, and there is a paragraph in the acknowledgements about her. It is for her that I've been working hard. It is for her that I've been staying up so late at night (even when she tells me it's so unhealthy to stay up late and not sleep...) I know this thesis is as meaningful for me as it is for mum. Because it is a life wish of hers to see me finish, to see me graduate, and hopefully to see me start something new and do something with my life.

And now it is done, all done. Yet deep down I feel so terribly, terribly empty inside. How I wish I could share my feelings with someone close...

Breakdown

Breakdown


How did we get to this? All he wanted was offer me dinner on the eve of my thesis submission. But I rejected him. I said no because I don't want to have anything to do with him.

And yet I bring him fruits and make him fresh lemon juice when he's I'll... And yet I comfort him because his granny's health has deteriorated over the past few days. I can give him myself, offer to do things for him, but I don't accept him trying to help me.

What's wrong with me? All he wants to be is a friend, what we've always been, regardless of whether we're together or not. But I can't even do that. It seems as if I'm deliberately spoiling our friendship, or the remnants of it. For whose sake? I want to say it's for his sake, so that he can move away and resolve me... But he turned it around and told me, perhaps rightly so, that I'm doing this for myself because it's easier to just walk away and drop everything...

Perhaps that is true. I don't know. I'm just so confused and hurt. By myself, angry at myself. Hurt seeing that again I've made the one person I care about so much cry and cry and be disgusted with me. I don't want to hurt him... I want to hold him, reassure him that no matter what, even if we're apart, even if he's found the love of his life and genuine happiness, I can be there for him still as a friend, as a best friend.

Can I do that? Can I do that with no ill feelings, with no anger or jealousy, without harking back to how I make myself feel like he's abandoned me and left me for another? I don't know...

I'm so confused, so frustrated with myself. So angry at myself for making my ex, my friend, cry and cry. I'm so angry at myself for (deliberately?) wanting to ruin a perfectly beautiful friendship because I can't get the intimacy and romance I want...

Final few days

Upon returning from Europe, I immediately began to work. It's hard, especially given that I'm sick and have a runny nose and sore throat. But it has to be done, I really have to push myself to complete my thesis, the deadline of which is in two days.

There aren't so many changes that I need to make, but the formatting, footnotes and bibliography is sure going to take a lot of time and effort. At least most of the research has been complete, and it's now more the mundane details to fine tune the 100+ pages to make sure it is presentable, and maybe even publishable.

My supervisor has ever been so kind and patient with me, and especially in these past few days, he and I have interacted much more. It seems he has a lot of confidence in me, and even though I've not yet fully completed or submitted my thesis, he has already called me to discuss future projects that I could be doing with me. That says a lot, especially coming from a professor of his seniority, and someone who is very respected in the field of space law.

I feel tired, and ill, but I really need to finish... Push myself a bit more, and then I can relax...

Distance

It's growing between my friend and me. After my recent trip to his hometown, after seeing him so eager to be in contact with the guy he is "seeing", I have realised it's time to stop dreaming. At one point, he told me outright that what I'm feeling now he felt before too. I can't see why, maybe I'm just too self-absorbed to see why... did I make him feel like he needed to compete for my attention or care? Did I make him feel useless and lacking in value by messaging and chatting with someone else when I was in his presence?

None of that matters now. Two more weeks he has left in Montreal, and after this, life will be different. He will be gone, and the distance between us will grow even more. He will start his career, he will find his own life and happiness elsewhere, and I need to start doing the same for myself. I don't want to feel again and again like I need to try and try so hard to please him, to please anyone for that matter. 

Nulla in mundo pax sincera

Blando colore oculos mundus decepit
at occulto vulnere corda conficit;
fugiamus ridentem, vitemus sequentem,
nam delicias ostentando arte secura
vellet ludendo superare.

 This world deceives the eye by surface charms,
but is corroded within by hidden wounds.
Let us flee him who smiles, shun him who follows us,
for by skilfully displaying its pleasures, this world
overwhelms us by deceit.

 

Exercise

As mum had been saying that the weather is too cold to go outside to exercise, I posted  a youtube video of an exercise routine that she used to do at home.I told her that even if she doesn't feel like going out, she can still get her daily exercises indoors. On top of that, I made a video of myself (and my teddy bear) doing the movements in an attempt to encourage her, and make her laugh.

"I tried to do the movements," she said, "But my bones hurt..." She appreciated the gesture, and she'll do what she can, however her condition is such that her pain really comes in the way of her moving or exercising too vigorously. My heart sunk upon hearing that...

Again, there was a silence in our conversation. Mum sounded very tired again. She kept on saying she wanted to go shower and sleep. It's about time yes, but in the span of five minutes, she said that three times, as if she was in a hurry to get off the phone. I feel there is something she is not telling me.

In my mind, mum was avoiding the topic. But I wanted to know, I needed to know.

Is it bad of me? Is it causing her anguish and reminding her of what ails and pains her when I can and ask how she is doing? Do I have a right to know? Maybe I should just call and pretend like everything is normal. Maybe that is the best way about it all... To avoid the topic, avoid the "C" word, avoid talking about hospital visits and doctor's appointments. Just talk about mundane stuff, talk about the stuff and idiosyncracies of life...

So I asked. I asked anyway... about her appointment with the doctor today, about what he said. "Nothing much," mum said. Things are just the way they are...

 Treatment continues tomorrow.

Pains...

Mum apologised. "Why? Why are you apologising?" I asked. We were talking about breastfeeding, about my sister-in-law who has been breastfeeding since my nephew's birth. Somehow, mum remembered that when I was still a baby, she only breastfed me for a little while and had to stop, whereas my brother was breastfed till he was many months old. "I had to go to work, and it hurt a lot to squeeze out milk..."
She said I once 'complained' about not having been breastfed--something I don't remember at all. She said she was sorry that she stopped with me, because breastfed babies are healthier and have a stronger bond with the mother. I laughed, because it was very silly what she was saying. Am I not (relatively) healthy? Do I not have a strong, beautiful bond with my mother...?

The weather has been so cold that mum went to the hot springs and enjoyed a nice lunch and afternoon soaking in the natural springs close to where she lives. She said she felt much relieved, and for a while her aches and pains went away, so was really basking in the temporary break from her almost constant physical ordeals. And she began, at her own initiative, to talk about her condition.

She went to see her main physician last Friday, and she complained that her elbow joints and the area under her armpits are getting very painful and sore. The doctor prescribed her a new kind of painkiller, a drug that lasts up to twelve hours, she said, compared to the one she used before which lasts only up to six hours. "It's the lymph node," she said, "When it hurts like this, it means that the lymph node is swelling."  Which in turn means that it has become infected... Infected, most likely, with cancerous cells. All the doctor could do is prescribe painkillers, and in two days time, she will have her next chemotherapy.

Tomorrow though, she will go meet the neurosurgeon who first confirmed that her tumour had spread to the spine area. It's been almost four months since she last saw him, and she wants to have an assessment of her situation. Mum has been told that if her pains and sores get to the point where she cannot use her arm anymore, she must immediately call the neurosurgeon. On her fridge is a hotline that she must call, and surgery will be conducted within a day or two. Because when, or if, that time comes, the her condition will have become so critical that surgery  is the only way to stop the tumour growing on the spine from causing permanent nerve damage, or even paralysis...

I thanked her for telling me. However sad  I felt, however traumatised and hurt by the latest report  of her condition, I can only accept. I bid her good night, and wished her a beautiful sleep... Because in those couple of hours, when she is in the land of sleep, there are no pains, no sores, no doctors, no cancer cells... 

Pains...

Silence

The first time we properly spoke in a few days, and there were many silent moments. I kept asking mum if anything was up, but she did not say much, only that things are as usual. The weather has been cold because of a cold front, and she has not really gone out for some days. A friend invited her to stay over in the countryside and to have a soak in the hot spring, but mum declined. Not too keen on traveling, she explained. I told her about my recent trip, and at one point she said she was tired and wanted to sleep, so I said good night, and like always, told her to take good care, and to keep warm at night.

Later, my cousin and I skyped for a while (for she is preparing for an exam and interview in English, and needed to practise...). She said that last week there was a family gathering (which mum had told me about), and she saw my mum at the event. It was the first gathering of mum's immediate family in a long, long time, and there were a number of pictures taken to capture the joy and rare moments of being together. Six siblings, sitting at a table. Mum is the oldest of them all, and sat down, flanked on either side by her two sisters. Behind them are my uncles, mum's brothers. They had beautiful and natural smiles on their faces.


They have all aged over the years, naturally. Mum sat in the middle of it all. In some pictures there was a smile, in others she looked tired (or maybe she was just caught offguard?) My cousin said mum looked visibly thinner before she showed me the pictures. And when I did see the pictures, I noticed that too. Was it because I had the preconception that mum looks thinner now that I saw her as looking thinner in the pictures, or did she really loose weight?  A week or so ago, I asked her how much she weighed, she told me she hasn't weighed herself for a while. A little afraid perhaps, but she did mention that she feels she has lost some weight.

Unexpectedly, seeing mum's smile, seeing her sunken face and grey hair, I started to cry... I know old age and death are inevitable in life, but despite their inevitability, they still cause hurt when you see it manifest on the face and hair of the one you care about and love dearly. Perhaps mum did not have such a good night, or perhaps she was tired from traveling to reunite with her family, but in some pictures, her tiredness can be seen. Is that the tiredness of traveling or not sleeping well, or the tiredness caused by something else? Five (or has it been six?) chemo sessions over the past ten weeks or so. That can wear anyone down, that can torture the human spirit, however strong minded and bodied someone is.

I cried partly also because I had the privilege of meeting and holding my nephew for the first time a few days ago. So far, three months after my nephew's birth, mum has only been able to 'meet' him and watch him from a distance. As much as my nephew's little moves and little noises keep my mum going, smiling and laughing, I know deep down how she would give anything to hold my nephew. Because she told me... told me how much she longs to see her grandson in person, to hold him in her arms... Imagine, just imagine, what joy, what beautiful, simple joy that would bring to mum's heart.

I cried because one day when I was alone with my brother, he quietly told me his fear, a fear that I too shared. "I'm afraid mum may not be able to hold [my nephew]" he told me.

Mum has grown visibly weaker over the last two weeks, and more chemotherapy treatments are planned in the coming months. How long can she hold on? How many pictures can I post on her facebook page to cheer her up and surprise her and make her smile and laugh...?