The Move

The end of my time in Bellingham left a bitter sweet taste in my mouth. I knew I would leave that town eventually, but I thought it would be by my own accord, and not on these terms. After the diagnosis, I worked for a few exhausting weeks and decided I couldn’t do it any more. It’s hard to help customers complaining of petty retail issues when the weight of my own mortality was looming like a rain cloud over my head. After reluctantly walking away from my job and my beautiful sisterhood of co-workers, I spent my last few months soaking up every last drop of Bellingham and falling in love all over again. This made the move harder. When I finally left because I could no longer pay my rent, I felt a piece of my heart being torn off in longing to stay there.

I moved to Portland and pitched camp in a warm, feminine charged three-bedroom house with my lovely mother and sister. As wonderful as it is living with my two best friends and favorite women in the world, it is lonely here. I am usually very good at making friends, but being sick has made it hard for me to justify meeting people because eventually I will have to tell them that I have been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, and even though I know that I will survive and live a long happy life, it is hard to convince others of that after saying the word “cancer.”  I haven’t talked to many people from my old life and in a lot of ways I feel forgotten. Whether this is true or not, it is saddening going from being surrounded by a posse of loving friends, to being alone a lot of the time. Mom and Sam are wonderful and do their best to be my everything, but I know this is hard on them as well. This is a difficult time in our lives and these few weeks after the transition may be the hardest of all.

I am grieving right now; grieving the loss of the only way of life I have ever known. The loss of relationships, love, a home, a job, a sense of self, my freedom, happiness, and health. When life changes so drastically over night, it feels like it takes a little while for our conscious mind to catch up after the shock. Moving here has finally brought me up to speed on the reality of the cards I have been dealt. I love this city and I feel like it has everything I need to take my alternative health care to the next level, but with the weight of grief and despair that has consumed my past few weeks, sometimes getting out of bed to enjoy this city is like pushing a boulder up a hill. Many days I find myself staring into the very long road ahead of me; I think I chose the hard way.

However, life has taught me over and over again that taking the hard road leads to the greatest rewards. While it may not seem worth it some days, I know that the reward of pushing through hard times will be more beautiful than I can dream. I also know that even the longest journey begins with a single step.