My cancer diagnosis coincidentally fell during my 20 year high school reunion and my 10 year business school reunion. For those that don't know, I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and I got my MBA at Babson. We had planned on flying out for the high school reunion--my folks still live out in California and Aaron and I were going to get a few days in wine country while the girls were with my folks. We'd even bought our plane tickets and everything. And then, of course, I got my news. Since I was going to be in the middle of chemo, we decided to postpone the trip. I was a little bummed to miss the reunion. It would have been great to see people, but one of the upsides of Facebook has been reconnecting with people.
So I skipped the high school reunion, but now my Babson reunion is looming. I need to decide whether to go or not. I think my hesitation lies in being "the classmate with cancer". I just want to be normal and I don't want people to treat me differently. Or be sad or awkward. Because I do have awkward conversations with people now. With some people it feels like a big elephant in the room. They don't know how to address it and they don't know what to say. (You know what? It's okay to not know what to say. If somebody else I knew was going through this, I don't think I'd know what to say. But it's okay to say, "I don't know what to say." It's better than saying nothing.) But I think the night would be really fun. Which gets to my next point: just because I have cancer doesn't mean I don't want to have fun right now. If anything I need more fun.
Please don't think that just because I'm going through treatment that I want to stay home. I want to
go out. Aaron goes out a lot with his friends. Some people have
mentioned having a celebration when I'm all done with this. I
definitely want to have that celebration, but I don't want to wait until
then to have fun.
In my prior post I had quite the pity party about feeling lonely and sad. Chemo makes you crazy (that's a post in itself. It's frustrating how moody I get, but it's reassuring to know that it's not just me. Also, I haven't forgotten about some of the other topics I said I'd get to). With the AC chemo, it was just about getting through it. The Taxol doesn't make me feel nauseous, so now it seems I just think about how lousy I feel mentally. After my second treatment I was having an "episode". Aaron asked if I wanted to go on a date night. And no offense to him, but the answer was no. I want to go out with my friends.
There was a friend who wanted to go see a movie a while back. She was out of town most summer weekends with her family and we had a lot going on with my folks and Aaron's family in late July/early August, and we never got together. But I remember my friend writing at one point, "there will be lots of time for movies after this is all done." And that just deflated me.
Part of the problem is I don't have the energy to reach out to people on my own. We got some great offers over the summer to the Cape, Maine and some other places and for one reason or another, it didn't work out. Those were really, really appreciated. And we do see friends. But sometimes I'd like to leave the girls with Aaron and get out the house to see other people. No husband, no kids (sorry guys).
So I'm asking: if you have no plans some weekend, give me a call. I'd love to go out!
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