I found out on Sunday that my mum has cancer. Since then it feels like time has been moving really slowly, as though I have known this forever and that wait for her to get surgery is taking a lifetime. I think I'm in shock. Every night I find myself imagining that this might be a terrible dream and when I wake up, I will realize I made it up inside my own head. My mum is one of the healthiest people I know and always has been. I wonder how and why this is happening and wish I could find someway to wind things back and prevent it.
I have found myself busy with meetings, arranging compassionate leave, dropping commitments to make as much space as possible in my life (all the while under pressure to move house next week). When people ask me how I am I stop for a moment and realize I am afraid to connect with the fear, sadness and shock that I worry might overwhelm me. I wonder if this is an over reaction.
It was only two weeks ago that I was considering my values - family being at the top. I looked at the VLQ and where I was sitting in terms of my values and my actions (was I living in line with them) and wasn't doing so bad (except in the area of spirituality, which is always sorely neglected). All of a sudden, some of the things I thought and have always said I value highly (education, travel for example) don't seem to matter in the face of this. I wonder if its just that this is so big, I can't see the other things I value past it, or whether an experience like this might fundamentally change what I always thought mattered?
I haven't had a lot of words for what I am experiencing right now. But I did some scribbling on Monday to try to find an outlet for what was going on inside me. Shared above.
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