Shadows, Sunlight, and Carbonated Holiness

If you're just joining the party, I'd recommend reading my first post as a primer, which includes a few disclaimers and housekeeping items of note.
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Some people might have spent the days and weeks proceeding a cancer diagnosis anesthetizing themselves with the saccharine sweetness of Hallmark or some such escape, or drowning in the abyss of alcohol or any other sort of numbing agent. We are all unique and we all process differently, so I'm in no position to judge. 

But my own personal response?

I made a beeline for balrogs and wargs, orcs and Uruks, hobbits and wizards, "epic battle sequences" and armies of the dead. I've spent the last three evenings rewatching the entirety of The Lord of the Rings trilogy for the umpteenth time, much to my mother's concern and consternation.

I am by nature more at home with the bittersweet, melancholy, and quiet, drawn far more to shadows than to sunlight. (Susan Cain's books Bittersweet and Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking have been tremendously helpful in making sense of my own wiring. I highly recommend both.)

My precious friends Jeremy and Emily sent me a lovely bouquet of flowers while I was in the hospital. I drafted a thank you note to them in response, telling them that it was friends like them, friends who have sat in the shadows themselves, that I will need most in this season of life. I will need friends who have traced the contours of their own dark night, memorized its form, studied its stillness. I will need friends who have plastered their faces to the floor, inhaling carpet fibers through their noses, masked their tears in the veil of the shower. I will need Jeremy and Emily, Cindy, Siobhan, Derek, Travis, Venita, Kristina, and countless others who have been well-acquainted with the night, each for their own reasons and in their own seasons.

Because these will also be the friends who will remind me that the shadows won't last. Not forever, at least, and they certainly won't do it in a toxic positivity kind of a way, a mere sending of “positive vibes." But rather in a way that has been tempered and tried by their own crucibles. They will be the Sam's to my Frodo, reminding me that even darkness must pass - and that there is still some good in this world worth fighting for:

It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going, because they were holding on to something. That there is some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for.

My new favorite sweatshirt,
compliments of Cheryl, a fellow Lord of 
the Rings fan

But I also need the friends who will be court jesters, the ones who come with their humor, snark, and occasional irreverence. Despite the catalyst for the resurrection of communication, it has been an absolute delight to hear from people I have not spoken with in years. Former co-workers from my days in Missouri, old friends from my previous church, an assortment of people surfacing from the nooks and crannies of my past lives. 

One such person was Amanda, a former co-worker of mine when we were both grad assistants in Student Life at William Woods University. I hadn't heard from her in years, but we found ourselves texting recently, reminiscing over the ridiculous stunts of fraternity and sorority members gone rogue. I've been a pretty straight-laced person most of my life, and she joked, "Maybe if you had acted more like the monkeys and pumas [our nicknames for the wayward Greek life students among us] in your youth and done alcohol slip and slides, it would have warranted a few ER visits in your 20s. 😂" 

Yes, maybe I should have been more wayward in my youth so that Flash could have been discovered sooner. 

And Cheryl. You're a hot mess in your own right, young lady. But I have worn the sweatshirt you bought me nearly every day since. Because, yes, one does not simply walk into Mordor. Especially if you're prone to seizures and have balance issues. 😆

As much as I need the friends in the shadows, I need the ones in the sunlight, too, coming with their grace, strategic sarcasm, and tactful humor.

As Anne Lamott said in her book Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, "One secret of life is that the reason life works at all is that not everyone in your tribe is nuts on the same day.  Another secret is that laughter is carbonated holiness."

I will need a lot of carbonated holiness in the days to come. 

(But I will also need not everyone in my tribe to be nuts on the same day.) 

The fact of the matter is that none of you will be able to carry what is before me. 

This particular story, in this particular time, will be mine alone to bear. 

But you can carry me, just as Sam carried Frodo, just as Jesus carries me.

I will need friends of all kinds in the days ahead. 

So, whether you come with your own shadows, sunlight, or carbonated holiness, come.

I will need you all the same.

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Functional updates:

I'll try to carve out space in each post to provide updates on where I am in the process. So, if you're just here for the nuts and bolts, in the future you can slide straight here to the bottom and skip my idle wanderings above.

I have a follow-up appointment with the neuro oncologist from the hospital next Monday, where we will continue to discuss and review options. I also have an appointment scheduled to get my knee checked out, make sure I didn't jack that up in addition to my brain. It still feels a bit puffy and doesn't quite straighten all the way, but it is decidedly less black and blue these days.

Sleep does seem to be improving, for which I am very grateful. Flash's office hours seem to be diminishing from 11 pm - 4 am to more reasonable hours of maybe 11 pm - midnight, and then a few scattered moments throughout the night.

I'm restricted from driving for a minimum of 3 months, but my parents make for amazing Uber drivers and we've been able to still get out and about on occasion to run errands and pick up things at my own house as needed. My body still doesn't feel entirely like my own, but it seems each day, it grows a tiny bit steadier.

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PS: Want to leave a comment? If you select "Anonymous," would you mind including your name directly in the body of your comment? That way I know who you are!