Yesterday was hard... Very, very hard. We had a beautiful morning buffet as we always do on mother's day. This time we went to Mission Springs pub and I really enjoyed it. On the drive home, it hit me like a ton of bricks. It was my 3rd mothers day without mom and wow, was I feeling it. I almost went into a state of trance where all I could feel was her absense. I went to that familiar place of self pity where I wondered how long until my girls have the same feelings. How long before It is me missing from the picture. It was the first time in a long time, that I went back to that place where I realized I have chronic cancer. I am stable right now, but lets face it, the picture isn't getting any brighter for me. I don't visit this place often, partially because I don't allow myself to, and partially because other's don't either.

I know for a fact that is natural to mourn my own health as much as to mourn my mom. I have spoken to numerous other cancer survivors and many of them go through it, even years after proclaimed "cured". This is something I have never been given permission to feel. There are very influential people in my life who insist this is nothing more than unjustified pity. Chris has been very good with it, and over time has learned the signs on most occasions, and there are times, like yesterday, where he finds me crying and knows that this is a time, not to harass me about what's wrong.

It is a funny thing to hide from your emotions on a daily basis. Obviously, I will not allow myself to fall victim to constant self pity, but it has been 2 years and 5 months since I was diagnosed with VHL. 18 months since I have had cancer, and the way I have dealt with it, from day one, is to keep busy. I never stop. Anyone who would step into my life and watch it, even for a day, would be exauhsted! My (step)Dad often says in awe, that he doesn't know how I do it. The truth is, I have no choice. There have been afew times that I have slowed down over the course of time and it has just about killed me, I swear. I lose it! When I let it all catch up with me, the weight is too much, it crushes my chest, squeezes my brain and collapses my legs. But it does happen. Yesterday was only a partial version of that game of cat and mouse, but it was enough to leave me with huge aftershocks... even today.

I am a very tight wound person... Even when I am at ease, I am fairly wound up, but when I am stressed or hurting, It goes on overdrive. I talk really fast, I am anxious and nervous and on edge. I have pani attacks and I can't sleep. This takes a huge toll on me and my immune goes down even more. So today has been spent trying to unwind myself, but I haven't done a very good job. I think I hurt someone that I care about, not intentionally, but just from not being good with my wording and from being jumpy. I hope this is not the case and I am just being oversensitive, but, until I am sure, I will not be able to rest.

So I am working through all that right now...

To make matters worse, I got a haircut today, and I really don't know why I ever do... because it is always a bad job. I asked for 1/2 inch and I am down 5-6 inches. I am sure I will be over it in afew days, but I am not so happy about it right now.

I have also been dealing with some things lately in regards to dishonest and emotionally draining people. It's funny, at one point during my therapy, I was discussing a certain person in my life and how draining I found them. It was explained to me in a rather unique way.

We are all born with "love buckets", when we are born, they are full and abundent and overflowing with all the love. As we grow, we take hits to our love bucket, through various means. Maybe someone insults you, or abuses you, hurts you in some manor and causes you emotional harm. That is a hit to your love bucket and it leaves holes, of various sizes, those hole leak. So as much love as comes in, you are losing love through those seeping holes. Every once in a while, we have someone in our life who makes a hole and then attatches a straw, and sucks the love out of our bucket at a faster rate.

I think that likely, because I have put myself out there to help people and provide a service, that I will likely come across these type of people more often now. This will be difficult for me, and is likely one of my challenges in this life to be able to control, because I am very nieave and generous. I need to be able to monitor the people I allow to have an affect on my life, to make sure that no one "takes" more than I can give. Sometimes, actually usually, I have found that the person doesn't even realize they are doing it. I currently have acouple of these in my life. One of whom does not realize how their actions affect other people, and one who obviously has no idea that I am aware of the emotional abuse happening behind the scenes. I have to be able to seperate myself from these things, but as usual, end up going back for more. Blah!!

I totally need a night of nothingness....*sigh* Or a night away or something... I just need a night away fromk kids and problems and people.

My vuknerability has made Chris and I stronger the past few days though as I have been more needy and more able to connect with him. It is nice to not fight for afew days.

I need to find an outlet, some other way to progress the group, or something, to get myself out of this rut. Anyone have any problems they need fixing?! ha!

Oh, We finally had the exterminator in, probably a good thing, as humane as I am... They were
into our food and there were droppings everywhere! So he set some bait traps and some glue traps... We will see how that goes... I am not looking forward to having to empty anything... I love little creatures... and I hate to hurt them.

Anyways, I am obviously off kilter tonight, so I am going to go, as I am not a huge fan of whiny blogging or being pessimistic... but for now, I am going to let this be, without a happy thought.. as horrible as that is for me, because I just can't get there right now.