Continued Revelations

So my last entry wasn't really the one-off that I thought it would be. This whole past week has just been off... And it's not my meds, it's not because I'm coming off my steroids or anything like that. I know I've remarked previously that I was nervous the further I'd get through my treatment, the harder it'd become. It's not necessarily as physically demanding, but the emotional side has definitely kicked in. The processing has begun and it's now that I'm out of my isolation that I'm realizing how much of an impact this ordeal is having on me. The more 'normal' I try to be, the more apparent my differences are. I was trying to explain to my mother what it was like, how constant it was. I am living with cancer. It is something that I carry with me everywhere: it's in the handicap tag hanging in my car, it's in all the little exceptions I make for myself, it stares right back at me in the mirror. It's this constant weight that hangs over me affecting everything. It makes me think before I speak, sometimes because I still get chemobrain, always because I have to evaluate how much who's listening knows about me. I have to be more guarded, I have to evaluate how much I want to admit, what I want to avoid. Everyone has skeletons in their closets and everyone has secrets, but I wonder how we'd all fare if we lined up and admitted them. When I walk down the street or I'm spacing out on the T that's what I think about. And with young people I think I'd probably win. I see them bopping to their ipods, texting on their phones, drinking their coffees and I feel eons away from them. At work we talk about our weekends and tentatively admit things about ourselves as we get to know each other.

I sneak my pills on water breaks. I wear my clothes loose so they can't tell how big I am. I do my scheduling with my bosses alone so the others don't hear how they make timing exceptions for me because I can only work half days as I don't have the stamina for a full day thanks to my 'situation'. I don't work Wednesdays. Not because I have another job, or classes, or I'm writing my masters' thesis. I have chemotherapy. I am punctured and prodded, examined and questioned. I feel like a lab rat and I have the scars and bruises to prove it.

Even if I was more open about it, what are people supposed to say? It's hard for people to relate to me and it's just as hard for me to try and relate to them. I'm in a very different place and unfortunately it's not a very popular place...