Thursday, February 07, 2008

Hope - how to

I was asked recently: how do I find hope?
Some days, to be honest, I simply don't. Some days I simply feel done over by life and that I'm not prepared to hope because I tried that after my first round of treatment and got kicked in shins when it came back. It was totally devastating because I'd started to believe that maybe I would be one of the people who came out the other side.
I suppose in some ways it's a fact that I don't know what to hope *for* anymore....I can't hope to 'get better'; I can hope to live as long as I can and to be productive and able for as much of that time as possible. But even that is difficult to contemplate - because I don't know what to aim for - a year? 5 years? 10 years? I have no idea and I don't think anyone *knows* - they can guess, but I don't want to know that because it won't be long enough. And anyway, I feel so cheated, even if I live for years(!) I have to live a half-life; a life that revolves around the treatment necessary to give me that time.
A life where I don't get to have children; and I keep unearthing just how much I wanted that. Somewhere out there, in potential-land, is a little girl who was supposed to be my daughter and she was going to be called Anna, after my Great Grandmother and sometimes I can feel her, I can feel myself holding her as if she were already here. But she never will be. Not with me, not mine.
And it's not just about me - it's about the fact that I wanted to see the Dear Other as a father - cancer hasn't just cheated me; it's cheated him too.
::crying now::
Hateful cancer.
I want to give you words of hope - I want you to hope. I feel better when other people are feeling hope for themselves - because I want them, I want you, I want someone out there to make it. If I can't be the person who beats cancer then I want you to be that person.

5 comments:

Sweet Camden Lass said...

*hugs*

It's horribly unfair. There's nothing really I can say to make it better: wish I could.

*passes tissues*

Hope to see you tonight.

xx

Anonymous said...

I know what it's like to live without hope. I know what it's like to wake up in the morning and feel cheated, and angry and bitter and resentful of something unfair and senseless and outside of my control which is taking away the things I expected for myself, but I'm also too tired to fight. But I've finally learnt what my hope is - every day, I hope I won't feel those feelings when I wake up the following morning, I don't care if they're supposedly normal. They're not for me! I'm still here dammit and the time I waste feeling like this feels to me like extra time I'm just giving this thing and maybe, just maybe, I don't have to. Maybe that's what I can try to do something about, and the fact that I even try has to be worth something and gives me purpose beyond what I'm fighting. Every day I manage to truly banish those feelings for even a second is a day I've actually lived for myself off my own steam and is a day I've beaten it.

Sorry this is anonymous, but I felt so many things when I read your post I had to write something, for myself at the very least!

Kirsty said...

It is unfair, and it makes me want to scream. But when I look at you, then I hope and I am inspired.

It was great to see you last night.

~K xx

laurie said...

Sending hugs with tears in my eyes. For you, for me. Fucking cancer.

Dee said...

I don't have anything anymore constructive to say, other than I feel every bit of how you feel.
I'm also struggling with the 'hope' thing now. REALLY struggling.

So I'm just sending my love.. some use that is. But I'm sending it nonetheless.

Dee
xxx