And it's done

I finished radiation today. Officially marks the end of my treatment for breast cancer. 

And I don't know how I feel.

Relief. It's over. Other than follow up appointments and the anti-estrogen pill I'll have to take for five years, it's done. No more planning my entire life around endless hours of treatment and wondering how I'm going to feel. Being afraid to make plans because I don't know how my energy is going to be. That'll hang around for a while because the fatigue doesn't immediately go away. And tonight, my collarbone is aching terribly and I tried to draw but couldn't because of the discomfort. But still. Relief. It's done. I can restart my life again.

Terrible sadness. I have lost so much over this past year. So many little things in my life. So many big things. So many intangible things. So many things I wish I could have back. School. The Filmmaker. My father. My health. A perfect, non-scarred, non-burned and bruised and battered breast, most of all. I am scarred forever, inside and out. And tonight, I don't know how to feel about that. Wishing the Filmmaker were still here, holding me. Wishing he could be... whatever. So much sadness right now.

Immediately followed by incredible gratitude. While he's not here with me, the Filmmaker was there when I needed what he had. And my friends have filled my life in so very many ways during all of this. I have never, ever felt so loved in all of my life than I do right now. And for someone who has never felt loved, despite two marriages and a family who claims to want to love me, I have never felt this loved. Friends. The amazing guys at Drink and Draw who treat me with incredible respect and affection. And every minute I got to spend with the Filmmaker. It all gives me hope that as I move into this new life (yet again), I  move forward with hope that this love will continue to fill the empty spaces I have always felt in my life. And that, even though it took me six years to find someone amazing like the Filmmaker, that maybe it won't take me that long to find someone else to fill the space he has left behind. Someone who will be what he could not be for me. Someone who could just love me. That's all. Just love me.

And then swing back to fear. Fear of losing the love that has surrounded me. As I get healthy, will I be standing here by myself, everyone having moved back to their lives and me, trying to get my feet under me. Fear of being alone in the next leg of this journey. That all this wonderfulness is fleeting. Fear that the Filmmaker was the last relationship I'll have. That that was as good as it gets - another almost. That I will never find that more that I deserve.

And the biggest fear. That I will be here again some day. That those little bastard cells are hiding somewhere, plotting to take over my body and render me even more incapacitated than I was this time around. I know how lucky I am to have had the "easy" time I have had with my treatment. It could have been so epically hard. And not that it was easy but it could have been so epically hard. I'm afraid that if it comes back, it will not be this "easy". That it will be all the horrible things I managed to avoid this time around. And that there will be so much more to lose. Because it never gets easier, if it comes back. I'm so afraid that this is not just one small hiccup in my life. That this could become my life. I've seen a dear friend go through this and she still is going through this. And my heart breaks as I watch her deal with such a scary future with grace and dignity. And I don't want to be her. I don't want to be someone who has to deal with this with grace and dignity again. 

Fear that I will only be me for the rest of my life. On one hand, I have learned that the hole in my life is not really there. I have learned that I am exactly who I need to be and I don't need to find something or someone to make me feel whole. My art does that. My writing does that. My friends and my life do that. But having had a glimpse of what something beautiful feels like with someone, I am so afraid I will never get to feel that again. Because who is going to want this warrior? This battered, beaten, wounded woman who is so fraught with imperfection and who is so possibly unfixable and broken that she can never be anything but the imperfect, fragile, battle-worn warrior that I am.

But yet, there's a strange sense of peace underneath all of this. And a weird sense of pride. I have survived this. I have taken everything that has been thrown at me and I'm still here. I have held on by the skin of my teeth. I have gritted those teeth and dug in and just put my head down and held on. It's weird to have people congratulate me on finishing treatment, like I've accomplished some spectacular thing. But I guess I have. 

I have survived. I have survived all of this. The loss, the joy, the fear, the pain, the love, the agony. I will survive returning to a "normal" life and getting things back in line. And I will survive if I find another almost, I think. And I will survive, however long, if this motherfucker of a disease returns and tries to eat my life again. 

It's funny, because people keep saying that this must have given me a new perspective on my life. And it didn't, really. I got the new perspective when I left my marriage in 2005. I chose the life I have now, a life that helped me survive this awful, devastating year. So while it didn't give me a new perspective, it did make me know that the life I have created is worth so very much. And it makes me even more grateful that I have made the choices I have made since that time. Because it has allowed me the life that I want to return to. The life I want to build upon after this unanticipated hiatus.

So...

Here we go. Join me on this new journey in my life and let's see where the road takes us from here.