Deep Reflection

Today seems to be a day of deep reflection. A day of hiding under the covers and pulling the curtains closed, hiding the sunshine behind them. A day of researching new people and new books to read. A day where I'm shutting out the world and hiding. Because today everything seems too hard to face.

Pain is back today. Pain that makes it too difficult to contemplate moving, but which is fine so long as you stay lying down and motionless.

It's days like this that make me miss the old days so much more. The days when I would get up every morning and run 5 miles like it was a click of the fingers. Those are the days I lived to be a contradiction. I'd skate and surf and run, swimming in the sea, living outside, laughing with the boys. And then I'd become a structured and strict ballerina with perfect lines and pointed toes, a trampoliner, pulling shapes and somersaults in the air as though I was weightless, and a teenage daydreamer, staring out of the window at the clouds as though they hold the secrets of the world.

See everyone thinks I'm so strong. I'm the tough girl who can throw back a quip and laugh at the pain. I'm the one who takes the biggest falls off the board, comes to the biggest scrapes but gets up and laughs it off.

But I'm not really who they see. I'm the geeky kid in the corner who loves to write, the one who hides out in the library looking for the books that will change her life. I'm the quiet one who thinks too much about everything. I'm afraid of what people think of me. I'm afraid of falling. I'm afraid of everything. The trick is just not to let people see.

Time

I've been quiet on the writing front lately. But things have been hectic, and life calls.

Here is my big news… I made it to 19. I never thought I would, but I guess this birthday just snuck up on me and took me by surprise. But then so did operation 3. I had to go in for that on my birthday itself. And the day after, they whacked out as much of the tumor as they could. Guess it wasn't worth keeping it in there anymore. So suddenly, things have become very positive in a way I never expected. Cause now, although I still have cancer, it seems like there's actually something they can do about it.

It's a weird situation. To spend months of your life with no hope, no chance, and then suddenly to get that back. It's only a sliver of a chance, but it's something. And I'm gonna hold on to it and fight for it as much as I can. I told everyone I would beat this, and now for the first time, I'm actually starting to believe it myself.

Hospitals are strange though. Strange soul destroying places that are supposed to save you but make you feel like the last thing on Earth you want is saving. And the more time you spend in them, the more you think about time. What is it? And what right do we have to it? We are born, we live our life, and we die. But what is life? And what is death? I always assumed that life is something everyone should be entitled to. But now I think, what should we do with that life? What can you possibly do with this time we are given that makes it worth it? I used to think stupid things; the smell of cookies hot in the oven, that first glimpse of the sea as you come over the hill, lightening brightening the rain, other pointless little things that made me smile. But now I am confused.

I can see nothing.

You live your life and then you die one day and once you are gone, what then? Your friends and your family will remember you, but then they will die, and in a few years, no one will even remember your name. Someone else will be living in your house, doing what you used to do, other lives go on. And what are we then? Not even a memory.

So it makes sense that we should just do what we can with what we have and enjoy what time we are given. But what can we possibly do to make it mean something? Sitting, watching tv, cruising on the computer, what is the point? But then incredible things, holidays, fantastic places, people, creatures,,, who decides what makes your life a good one? Is it in the happiness you get from it? In the happiness we give to other people?

I can't make sense of anything at the moment. And that's scary.