It’s interesting to witness the conversations that occur as people walk past my house when I am sitting on the stoop. Fragments of conversations I overhear without the speaker knowing I am there listening. Last night’s conversation was a mother and son talking about ‘something happened to Nanna. She’s 75 years old and well…’ was all I heard. Small groups of people walk by of all walks of life. It makes me wonder what trials and tribulations are happening in each life that I know nothing about.

This morning I had the intention to have an Ideal Day of Getting Shit Done. It’s hard work for me. I did a quarter of a puzzle from my newly purchased puzzle book. It was hard. I am trying to get my mind back into shape for my return to work. There are unexpected tears in my process, which I welcome. Tears of frustration with myself, tears of relief, tears of all shapes and sizes, old tears, new tears. A lot of the time I don’t know what I am doing.

In a moment of frustration with myself, I had the revelation for who I am writing my book for. I struggle with trying to mediate the message to make it consumable for more people. But I am not speaking to more people. I am speaking directly to those like me. The ones who have been through unspeakable shit. Unspeakable because it hurts to say out loud, and the added pressure of it hurting those we tell it to. My book is not for everybody, no. It will speak to a special kind of person. One who knows true suffering. One who wants nothing more than to escape the hell they live in. Maybe a byproduct will be readers who want to understand someone like me, someone they love dearly, who they are unable to reach. I don’t know. I need to workshop it more. It was a definite internal shift in me though.

My own heaviness of today was put into perspective with a conversation from a neighbour. She was trying to vacuum her house in anticipation for the palliative care nurses scheduled visit this week to her house. I lent her my prized Dyson vacuum cleaner to test out. You should have seen her with hers. The Sales Guy should be ashamed of himself for selling her that thing – a monstrosity. She told me she also had to wrangle it down herself from the top shelf. Small but mighty, she is. She could barely lift the thing. I could just imagine her trying to negotiate it through her house. In comparison, she was holding my Dyson with one hand. I am going to help her return the purchase, which is out of the return period, but hopefully they will find an exception to their rules.

Her friend who she lives with got the unexpected news of Stage 4 cancer less than a month after the benign cancer diagnosis was given. How does that happen? How can things change so quickly? It hurt to learn of the news for myself. I can’t imagine how that goes to experience it. My thoughts went to my own lump in my breast. Also deemed as benign, at this point. I have decided I don’t get to get cancer. Not after the shit storm of life I have been through recently. Fighting for answers, wanting to be heard, longing to be taken seriously. To get the all clear was an incredible relief for me. I have a follow up appointment in August to be sure. So to be told that my neighbour was given 3 to 6 months to live, very carelessly delivered the news by the Emergency Doctor she saw, well that breaks my heart. She hasn’t been seen by an oncologist yet either. So was that Emergency Doctor correct in his assessment? It’s the not knowing and the waiting for a direct response that hurts the most. I tried to offer my time to help in any way that I could. Annoying chores, grocery shopping, laundry, whatever to help lessen the burden of thinking during this time. Our minds get so occupied by all the what-ifs.

My neighbour expressed her gratefulness of dementia. I was confused and asked for clarification. She said her friend with the recent Stage 4 cancer diagnosis is recently diagnosed with dementia too. It left me persuasive. I could see what she meant. Dementia meant she does not quite understand what is happening to her. Forgetting enables her a level of peace during this time. This also put into context my experiences with my neighbour of late. My own insecurities caused me to think that my neighbour just didn’t like me, with her hurried escapes away from me. Maybe in fact, she didn’t know who I was, or didn’t know what was happening. Who is this girl over the fence? That put me back in check. Not everything is about you.

All my neighbour wants to do is to tend to her garden. The most important thing to her is pouring herself into her flowers, her prized roses, her tulips, her whatever else grows in her beautiful garden. Plants I don’t recognise but admire on the daily. No wonder Cora the Cat loves to bathe in the beauty of her garden too. She slips under the fence to sit amongst the flowers on the stunning side of the fence.

Writing this all down has really pulled me back into myself. The perspective shift I needed. Time for a bath and a cry.

And just got asked to go for an impromptu cold dip. I don’t know what to do.

Lots of love,

Kate