Dual identities

Again time has escaped me and the weeks have flown by again. I am now 6 weeks into work and I am feeling it. I have been through many different emotions and feelings since i  last wrote - sheer exhaustion, panic, fear, elation, pride, self doubt...The list goes on and on. One thing I have realised is that I have changed since I was last in the working world and there is definitely a period of adjustment occuring right now. Not only is my body and mind adjusting to a full time job in Norwegian, but I am also working for the first time with a little person and husband to look after too. I think she was feeling the stress of our daily schedule this week and called time on Tuesday evening. Being a working mom is tough and I definitely feel those all too familiar pangs of guilt when I show up a few minutes before closing time at daycare and see my little angel playing with the staff as all other kids have gone home. Of course she loves the attention and tells me she wants to stay there but it makes me feel bad too. We mothers have really got feeling guilty down to an artform.

My work continues to be stressful and I am quickly realising that in my role, I wont be winning any popularity contests anytime soon. I really wish I could be one of those people who could just shrug off the stress of the day at the door or not be bothered by something someone says or does. Gosh darnit I still want people to like me and think I am doing a good job! All of this makes for a delicate, if not dangerous balance to juggle and at times I feel like I have dropped all the balls in one go.

There have been of course achievements and milestones over the past few weeks. I have realised that I do in fact still have a functioning brain and hidden reserves of energy to call upon in those bleak moments at 6am in when it is pitch black and -17 out! I feel my identity shifting and the girl with cancer is becoming a weak shadow in the background. I am getting reacquainted with myself again - the parts of me that had lain dormant over the past few years. I am not a lost cause which is good to know. This old dog still has some new tricks in her yet! But with this revival, I am also noting the ways I have changed too in these last few years. I am slightly less self assured and comfortable with myself. I am not the cocky girl in a power suit and killer heels that does not take no for an answer. Instead I am slightly more humble, if not self conscious of what I am doing, saying and how I look. I swear I feel that my altered anatomy is so obvious to everyone or that my freak show hair cut right now must reveal my inner secret? But it seems like I am perhaps my toughest critic. When I started this blog, I created this alter ego to fight cancer and now I think I am actually living as Supergirl has done. By day I am a normal woman with a normal job and a family to look after, but at other times, I put on my cape and mask and jump right back in to the fight against malignancy. I do sometimes forget about that other world which says alot as I never seemed capable of escaping it the last 2 years. I actually have real moments when I forget I have had cancer. Breakthrough I think! But then there are the little not so gentle reminders that pull me back into that fragile world - the pill I take every single night to keep tumours at bay, the pain the throbs incessantly across my chest and the check ups and tests that seem to come up too soon and too often. I actually had one of my many check ups a week or so ago. Sitting in that waiting room surrounded by "cancer", I didnt like it one bit and I struggled when I left to let that other world go and submerse myself back into my other identity as if nothing had happened. Supergirl must have been one hell of an actor concealing emotions and experiences within each of her identities and worlds. I struggle with this daily and still wrestle with the thought of coming clean. Explaining everything but then I risk losing my free pass to Normalville and I just dont think i want to give that up. And for what? Sympathy? An easier road? People doubting my ability to handle it? I think i am tough enough to weather this storm and allow my car to serve as my telephone booth where my two worlds can collide. And in the words of Miss Kelly Clarkson, " What doesn´t kill you makes you stronger"!

In other news, it is nearly one year since I finished my main treatment! Hip hoorah I am still here and as far as I am concerned cancer free! Time has really flown by and I hope as each year passes, the stress and anxiety will diminish each time until I get to that moment when I can think...hey I am cured. How nice would that be? I am hoping for an early retirement from the world of superheroes and perhaps a nice beach bungaloo next door to Superman. :)

OBB