The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

 


The past two weeks in particular for me, has seen it's ups and downs. My mind at more times than not would be trying to hunt down the why, the what and the where. Don't get me wrong, I'm no expert in this area. The exception being of course that what I'm writing about is actually happening directly to me and in the now. I am the piggy in the middle if you like. So I guess that gives me my own mandate to go mooching within my own mindset here. I don't want to be the expert, I don't want to be the know it all, I don't even want to be the go-to person.  All I am trying to do is make sense of it all. So my plan is to fly my balloon high, in that if I can climb higher I will, because YES I know how to, and because YES I can and YES I will. I am not a second best person and never was. 

I have found that with this whole onset of the now instilled Christmas atmosphere, my wife Alison and our 9 year old daughter Aoife getting to visit Santa in Lapland and myself having to cancel  (we had this all fully booked and paid for last Easter), my recurring Chemotherapy treatment and the free side affects that comes with it; these last couple of weeks, I have ended up pouring my mind from one extremity to another. My mind-games were playing mind-games. 


What do I mean by all that: 

One moment, I'm mentally having a go, a one to one, full on aggressive conversation with my tumour tenement, telling it what it is, how dare it remain, demanding it cease and desist from feeding off my body like the illegitimate locust that it is and to f*ck right off. Admittedly, St. Pio might not be impressed with my costic choice of language but this is indeed the reality. At least with me, what you see is what you get (check with anybody that knows me). I do not do double standards and I'm certainly not starting now. 
I digress, push on the following hour or indeed day, and my emotions can be running wild where my illness would appear to be chasing me. Their lies the whirlwind. I had to see both sides of this debacle to grasp the piece I needed to push and pull. Rest assured, I'm chasing it, it's not chasing me.  I'm chasing my tumour non-stop and it's being told constantly to 'pick a window' because it's going thru it. 

Then over the past few days, where I'm the chaser if you will, I can sense a strong can-do within myself. I'm sleeping so sound, so steady these last few nights. I feel I'm back in control of what's happening next. There was a sense of nightly loneliness that used to befriend me, this seems to have left me alone as of late. This is good. Yes it may change, but right now I'm accepting this. This is gold !

I think one needs to experience and indeed live out the Good, Bad and Ugly of all the permutations this rollercoaster ride has been putting on offer to me. Let me seize on that word for a moment, 'offer'. That does not mean you have to accept it. Think that other direction, learn that opposite way, follow that other influence. In my opinion, the command and control structure for a lot of what's going on is sitting right between my ears. And guess what?  I'm not afraid to listen to it. 

If you even, just now glance back at the opening mantra I have used at the top of this blog, "It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be". For me, this means I keep aspiring to push that one step higher. Like this morning for instance, to grasp that better thought as I wake up. This in-turn will actually self-trigger something else, all by itself, (by default if you like), so the next mind movement that comes my way is also a good one, with little or no effort from myself. You see, as I've already said and I don't mind repeating myself here, I'm not accepting second best. So when that crap day comes, that emotional evening, that low point after my dose of chemotherapy, I'm in a better place to deal with it. Rather than the water being cold, it'll certainly be luke warm at least. I can do business with warmth and guess what? so can my body. 

So here's hoping tomorrow is just as good or, as I'm pushing myself towards...even better. 
There's a white bearded, pleasently plump man in a big red suit to get to Aoife's school in the morning. For the past few years, I've taken a hands on active roll in this and this year will be no different. 
Why should it be?


There's over 500 kids in Aoife's school and tomorrow I'm the <visiting>  youngest. 
Have my Chocolate Santa ready please !!


Thanks so much for reading my blog,

 




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