Atalist's Dungeon

  I am one of those people who waits for the other shoe to drop. I have had a minor string of luck. I am waiting for the hammer to come down. I believe in balance and homeostasis and that the world will return to some semblance of balance. I am terrified of what the drawback will be and how I will handle it. Life is not terrible right now in fact it is okay aside from digestive issues. Maybe that is it. Maybe I will end up with some diagnosis that is less lovely and that this surge of winning will be compensation for the shit I am about to endure. Maybe. 

  I have been trying to wrap my head around all of the changes this year but it is hard to process so much in such a little amount of time. So please bear with me.  The pandemic hit, and we were all fearful. Birthday parties became a non-starter. People stress bought things and the world gloved up, masked up, and felt the pressure of impending doom over a disease we had never dealt with before, at least in this severity. March was a time where the world held our breath and things ground to a stop. From there we were told that we would be working remotely (those who could) and that we were to stay home and away from people and to be safe. Life was hard but it did get harder, contrary to what we thought would happen.  April brought the beginnings of spring and the hope that if we persisted with our safety response that September could look very different. Boy, we were foolish to believe that. The spring brought warmer weather and the change in temperature moved people to co...

The world is on fire. I look around and see brother hating brother, sisters disapproving of other sisters speaking up against abuse. Trauma is around. We are living through a modern-day plague and all some people can do is focus on the wrongdoings of those protesting, of those trying to make their lives better.  I grew up in a very ethnocentric and white culture. I did. However I also grew up in an environment where I was taken to the city, exposed to other cultures, and people that were decidedly not white and shown love is love. One of the memories I have was when my uncle started dating Keira and had brought her daughter Kiya to my parent's house. I was excited to have a new cousin and a new friend to have a sleepover with. I loved her hair and thought her eyes were amazing. I didn't see the colour of her skin, I just saw someone who was cool who I could hang out with. It wasn't until we went to a family event that I heard my first racial slur from my grandfather. He...

I have been silent for the last little while. Silence has been golden and altogether breathtaking. I have been spending time concentrating on the things that I need to, taking a deep breath in and all the while taking in the little moments. The moments with my kids, the cuddles, the smiles, and the laughs. Enjoy the moments with my parents, the smiles, and laughs as dad and I assemble furniture with MANY curse words left strewn around the house along with many many tools. I have also been taking in the small hard moments and times of great trial. It has been tough, but by no means has my troubles compared to that of others. I know this. My life is challenging, however, there are others who are having a much harder time. I look to my mother who is one of the toughest people I know and she is teaching me more resilience but also teaching me mercy and grace. It is the little things... so if you don't hear from me in a little while, I am just taking in the peace.

So having read and reread my post from last night I have determined that sleep is integral to wellbeing and that I should go to bed earlier. I have been feeling all of those feelings and it is good to get them out, but I am now feeling like maybe, just maybe I should also highlight the wondrous things and not focus solely on the bad. I have been frustrated, but this situation that my family is in has had its highlights... From serious discussions with my sister and my husband (not together because they don't do that) but also lovely discussions with my brother (inlaw but let's face it... he's my brother and he is stuck with me now). There have been moments with my cousins/best friends that I can't quite put into words how much they truly mean to me. They are there for me without thought, they check-in, they make me laugh... all key and important things... But more so is the time with my parents. The chats, the laughs about technological failings, and smiles. I am...

I go through periods of just making it through, second by second. Things are never easy, but anything worth doing rarely is. Life has thrown me so many curveballs in the last month, it is hard to fathom where I was and how the new normal seemed to ease into our lives... almost effortless. Doctor's appointments, running back to Bancroft with quite a bit of regularity, Covid-19 tests, chemo appointments, and daily phone calls. All normal now. I go through waves of emotions. Extreme sadness, to molten fury to feeling some semblance of normalcy. I have so much anger that I have been holding onto. So many wrongdoings that I just don't feel that it is justifiable to let that go and forget that it happened. I cannot pretend that things haven't gone the way that they have. Our lives are shaped by these moments and the fact that faith and trust have been lost in some people only seems to worsen the hurt and the wrong felt by myself or my family. In adapting to this new normal,...

Faced with the eventuality you have two options, fight or flight. I have always been a fighter but I feel weak. Everyone is banking on me being strong through all of this, but there is a moment or two of doubt. Doubt that I can survive this as a whole person, that some part of me will be chipped away and gone forever. I am not prepared for what is to come, but I really don't have a choice. I have to be strong, be tough, and resilient. This will test my mettle, make me change, and adapt. I am not prepared. Tears are streaming down my face, my heart hurts and my chest aches and yet I know that what I am about to go through will be the final chapter of a book I am not prepared to put down. This will leave me with 30 wondrous memories for every 1 bad memory. This will shake me to my core and make me appreciate the little things. This will make me realize how special and important the little moments are. From waking up in my childhood room to being held when it felt like my ...

I learned a long long time ago that music can soothe your soul. It is this magical art form that for whatever it's properties, can lift you out of the hole you are in or randomly relate to what you are experiencing. I have always had this "sixth sense" of finding the right music for the right time. In breakups, in happy moments, in the brilliant design of the mundane, there was always a song. When Doug and I were first dating we called it the "fuck you radio paradox" where whenever we were thinking of each other the same few songs would come on. I also find that in those moments of hardship or major clarity, songs will happen to you and they will tell you exactly what you need to hear at that moment. I have had a few moments throughout this difficult time where a song has hit me, but none as hard as today. I have been struggling with all of the emotions, all of them. Of course today of all days, I played a random song that immediately gave me chills. It made ...

I am struggling. whether or not I want to admit this, I know this to be true. Last weekend I got a call, a call that would put many of things in perspective for me, that would, of course, rock me at my core and make my world pivot around an illness. See, the time of a pandemic, even talking about illness seems taboo. All the signs and memes I see floating around the internet speak to how, we are all in the same storm but in different boats and well, I am in the fucking water boatless now, my boat cast asunder. I had a talk with Doug tonight, a talk that like all of our others is blunt and had with the utmost respect and love. He told me that I am not myself right now, I am crying, I have no patience and I am listless and almost frantic with trying to do all the things. He is right. I was in shock. I still am. I am riding the ephemeral waves praying that I see shore close enough to swim to. Just as I feel that there is a course or a way through this storm, the current catches me ...

It's such a fucked up thing to have to carry this weight around. I am sitting here thinking about all of those I have lost and those that I have yet to lose and it is one of those weights that we try to pretend is not going to happen, but it is. I might be a little sad right now but the anniversary of a friend's death has me waxing poetic/nostalgic of better times when I didn't realize this was the case. It has been a haunting revelation that my favourite people, will watch me go or vice versa. Nothing is absolute except death and taxes and yet I find myself troubled over it. Hug your loved ones people... send virtual hugs across the world to those you love. time is fleeting and it only gets faster. the legerity of the problem.

This is going to be fraught with spelling and issue but I seriously don't give a fuck. Here is how I am feeling. I go between thoughts of the world is fucking ending and how could I do this to my children to ... this is fine, everything is fine, whilst standing in a burning house. I contemplate how the fuck I am going to do this for the next several months because let's be honest. This will not be done in a month. This will not be done in a few months (September) we are going to be doing this for at least a year. Life will not be the same after this and nor should it be. We have lived through a modern-day plague.  We have survived and endured and all the while we learned in the process (hard to fathom I know) but at the same time, we have advanced. I cannot pretend that this isn't hard, nor that I am not struggling (double negative, fuck I hate doing that) but reality being what it is ... I am struggling. I am struggling to get through the minutia and the stuff with th...

It hits me like a sack of bricks sometimes. You know the type, you are going about your day, enjoying the little things, and then, out of nowhere someone shows up who just pisses all over your day like you are the reason everything has ever gone wrong in their lives and they just do it to cut you down and not only you but your children. I ran into this today. I was infuriated and it made me connect to the fact that I have been angry, angrier than I should be for some time now. I have been surviving a lot of narcissistic personalities, where it is always me who is the one that is hurting, ostracizing or being the villain. These people will never take responsibility for their actions, nor should I expect them to. It is such a weird state to live in and yet, they are out there. I made a couple of calls this week, not because I was obligated but because I felt the need to reach out to people that I had a genuine concern for and the response was simply, thank you for your call, but you h...

I am sitting here at home, my children fast asleep and I wonder about the world and the impending doom that seems to linger. Go in public and see people, risk a deadly respiratory illness that has no cure. Therefore, we hide. We hide in the shadows and in our homes. We make preparations and shut down everything in the wake of this plague and we endure. Well, enduring tests your mettle. The grit to survive and we are species that learns, at least genetically to survive. We are fighting and doing everything we can to survive this. We have learned from our forebears and those who have dealt with this previously to handle this situation. Although, some don't look at the history of our world with any modicum of seriousness or respect. It happened to them because they were ill-equipped we say, they did not have the technology, they did not have our minds and yet, here we are. It is happening again in another era and there are places and people that are making the same mistakes. I like ...