Hello, hello. Why has it taken me so long to write a new post? you know why: the world changed. And i don't think that's an understatement. We are all forever changed by this virus.
At first, I felt like -- ok, you know what? I've been here before. just last year, in fact -- my whole world changed. There was an illness, it was terrifying, it was seemingly out of my control and I just had to live with the fact of it and do my best and hope that it wouldn't kill me. I thought, ok, I have a little experience with this, a small upper hand.
But I was wrong. It's not just my whole world changing; it's the whole world. We are all experiencing this fear and illness and death and loss together, across oceans and continents. Every single person is affected in some way by what's happening. The world is shifting.
Meanwhile, I recently started a new freelance writing job, which at first was fantastic. I liked what I was writing about, I liked the people I was writing for, and I enjoyed the act of working again, of contributing something, of feeling "normal" or "normal"-ish again: taffythief is back to work!
The one thing I didn't count on, though, was my lack of confidence. I mean, as a human I am fairly self-effacing in virtually every aspect of my life, except when it comes to writing. At that, I will tell you, I am good. Really good. Talented, even. And i won't be joking. But. But I haven't done it in well over a year, so it's not coming to me easily, and I'm not as quick or as sharp in what I'm doing.
I suppose it doesn't help that every so often while I'm in the middle of working at it, I will get some reminder of last year. For example a number on one of my routine monthly blood tests has risen, and this might mean something -- a recurrence of the cancer --or it could mean nothing. In any case, I am reminded that it is a fact of my life I have to keep watch on.
Or like today, I got a phone call from a number that seemed to be a hospital, but it turned out to be spam. Nonetheless, the fact of the call had me racing back to my online patient portal, re-reading lab results and scans and x-rays and doctor notes, just to reassure myself that I'm really ok, that the phone call wasn't some doctor calling me up to say, listen, we read your previous results wrong. Actually, you are dying (hello, PTSD, my old friend.)
And with that, the spell of being normal is broken again. The facts that I had cancer and could easily have it again will not go invisible no matter how much I'd like to pretend. At the moment, it's mostly in the past, but there is this feeling that I need to be hyper-vigilant, lest the proverbial rug be pulled out from under me again.
So I sent in my first assignment at for my freelance job and guess what? It was not genius, not even close. It has a long way to go, and this not a long project. It turns out that crying in the middle of the day isn't all that helpful in getting a person into her "groove." Will I get my groove back? I honestly don't know.
Will the world? I hope so.
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