I have spent so much time,wasting time: regretting yesterday, worrying about tomorrow, so losing today. Something I teach clients not to do. Learned that lesson then…Not! The worry, the off button I am looking for, is all based around the fear. The what ifs. The fear of the nasties in any shape or form that have shaped my last few years. Stealing my today.
Looking back at our yesterdays can be good, can evoke memories long forgotten or hidden as life gets in the way. Time and ‘busy’ can often steal the remembering of people, places and events from your past. But sometimes, a smell, a song etc. can be associated with times in your past, you can be instantly transported to that event in your life that brought you happiness. These can make you smile, can make you remember and breath a thankful sigh for having had that person in your life or that experience. Happy good memories. Smell is the strongest sense for doing this and it can send you back into the furthest depths of your mind and whatever the memory is, you can be back there and enjoying the moment.
The smell of Jasmine takes me back to the Greek Islands where David and I spent so many happy holidays. The smell of Johnsons baby powder takes me back to each of my children, when they were babes and I always smile.
The song ‘Move Closer’ was the first song David and I danced to the night we met and brings me tears of joy and happiness.
But.
Memories can also bring sadness, loss or unresolved grief and slap you in the face with such a force that you physically recoil. A smell or a song can take you right back to the a time when you felt you would never get through. To a hurt that you felt would never heal. A person you thought you would never stop loving or be able to live without.
For me the song ‘Kay Sera’ does it every time. When I was a young mum to my first daughter Lisa, and found myself being her only parent, I would sing this song to her from a tiny baby. As she grew, she would sing along with me and so it reminds me of a beautiful little girl who was My Blessing and who I will always love. But that then brings todays memory, a memory of hurt, betrayal and pain, that I always thought I would never get over. The loss of her and her family. Although it still hurts, I need to move on from that and live for today. Doesn’t mean I have forgotten but need to let go. But yes, a song does it every time.
As for smell.The smell of whiskey takes me back to the horrors of my childhood so no good memories there. Loud bags, unexpected noises and sounds does the same. A legacy that is often rekindled, of a time in my past that partly made me who I am today. A time I would love to forget but never will. Association is a huge burden for victims or survivors of the kind of childhood I had.
The past few years have brought hurts and pain that are still so raw. They don’t need a trigger, or association as they are so imbedded in my mind and emotions, that they are stuck in my head. As raw today and when they occurred.
This past year, David having been diagnosed in 2016 and having robotic surgery for cancer with a little ‘c’, February this year, all the events leading up to and since are at the front of my mind. The constant reminders are always there as I have said before. My diary has been full of appointments, doctors, hospital, nurses etc. The calendar full of red crosses. This next year or at least until the consultant hopefully signs him off, will be the same and so the constant reminder of how close we came.We go for the next PSA in August and I need to be strong. I remember all the waiting before. The waiting for the test. Waiting for the results. Waiting ,waiting, waiting! I also remember how optimistic I was that he didn’t have PC. I was so sure as he had no symptoms and was in shock, as you can read in past posts, to hear the words. ‘We found cancer’. My world was turned on its head, my head was pounding and I felt faint. They must be wrong. This can’t be happening. Throughout allof this David was very calm. But it was right and it was happening. So yes, although my husbands first PSA since surgery was undetectable, I need to be strong, just in case.
As any of you reading this will know, once the words have been said, ‘you have cancer’, it never really goes away. You can’t unhear it and it is always in your thoughts and mind. Our lives like so many I know, on social media and in my friends and family’s lives are different now. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be good. Cancer has controlled much of my life this past 2 years and I hope will not control very much more but who knows. I still have my beloved brother Tony with terminal lung cancer and my precious little dog Ellie with mammary cancer,so it is always here. Invading my head and my space, as I know it does others.
This past week has been one of reflection. I have come to accept that I have to let go of people who sadly, at their own doing, are no longer part of my life. Part of my family , a family I always loved and treasured and which was of utmost importance to me. I have lived with this sadness for around 4 years now and am constantly reminded by the powers of association, of the people I have loved and lost. I have to let go. I don’t have the time now to live with this sadness and regret. They say you are getting old when you have less time ahead of you than in front. I am there.
This weekend has been good. We have visited Marie and Jason’s new place, where she is in the process of setting up a Care Farm and also the place where my beloved ponies will live out their days, with her and us seeing them as much as we can. Our little herd will not be part of the farm and will remain in my ownership but the place is beautiful and safe. We have looked around the area for our next home. Strange feeling really as in the 32 years David and I have been together, this will be the first home we buy that does not have to have provision for the ponies or children. It will be a house we both love and hopefully near an estuary, Davids wish. It will be our house, our home.
When David and I met, I already had my girls, I was always referred to in the place I lived as ‘Carol and her girls’. This new home will be the first just for us and our furry pals. Exciting really. When I met David, he was a city boy through and through, foreign holidays, expensive restaurants, etc. Tidy house and garden and not an animal in sight. I am surprised he didn’t run a mile. He took on me, my daughters, our ponies,my dog, cats, guinea pigs et al. He has been wonderful and says all of this has enriched his life. I know he has enriched mine. The last house move we made was to West Wales, where we are now and that was 2010. At that time we had 2 horses, 5 ponies, 2 cats, a dog and Marie. This time will be our time. Davids’ time. And do you know what? I am looking forward to it. Looking ahead at last . A happy life for us, after so many storms. Peace and hope.
Even if the ‘c’ comes back. Even if something else hits us. Even if the change doesn’t work out it won’t matter. Its time. If anyone had told me as a young mum, so much in love with my children and having family around me that I had never had as a child; if they had told me that one day I will have lost so much, I would never have believed them. I would also never have believed that I would survive such loss. But I have. Sometimes things have to stay broken and I need to accept that and think I am almost there.
If I had been told at any time in our lives together,David’s and mine, ‘c’ would threaten to take the life of my wonderful husband: I would be and was terrified and would never have believed I would cope . But I did, we did. I am still here, still fighting and thankful that we still have a future and I am beginning to look forward. So whatever life throws at me, whatever other nasties are around the corner, I will cope. I will survive.
I have also to let go of people I have tried hard to get back into my life who I know now sadly, belong in my past. Not my choosing but their own. So be it. I am tired. Tired of trying to please, trying to regain what I had as a younger woman, tired of being rejected. So it has to stop. I have lived with this sadness and am taken back regularly by the powers of association. No more.
Sometimes life sucks. I know that ‘cancer’ sucks. People hurting me sucks. But I have learned so much this past year. Who I can trust, who is honest and sincere. Who my true ‘family and friends are’. I have learned that whatever life throws at me, I will cope. As the saying goes ‘I have survived 100% of what life has given me so far’, so why shouldn’t I survive the rest, whatever it is.
I have also learned how good it is to share. I have been part of a few groups on Facebook and have met people there , some much stronger than me, who have supported me, listened to my venting, my sadness and hopefully will listen to me getting on, after all of this. They have become my friends and I am grateful and thankful for them all.
And the good part of association has come into its own since David’s diagnosis. I have learned so much about PC and other cancers, learned so much more about the human body and this threw me right back to the days of my being a nursing student.Giving me access to wonderful fun-filled memories of things and people who had been at the back of my mind all this time. It has helped me rekindle friendships made back at college and that is a great plus.
Last year, July 2016, fighting so hard to keep my autobiography on the market, after it had been selling since 2009, brought back all the happy memories of the first publication when it went straight to Number one in the charts. It stayed there for many weeks and continues to sell to this day. The memory of the publishers pride in my story, the first viewing of the front cover, the flowers from everyone and the thousands of letters from readers who found hope and inspiration my story. I remembered in detail, when it had sold more than 100,000 copies and how proud I felt, a ‘sin’ I was never allowed as a child.Self pride. My first book was a ‘good’ after so many ‘bad’, the reason for the story. So although my youngest sister and eldest daughter caused this 2nd edition, last year and gave me so much pain and hurt,I say to them, Thanks for the memories.
The negative of that was having to go back over the story, revisit the horrors of my childhood, to make sure the new edition was exactly the same,. This brought back the memories and reminded me why I wrote my story but also reminded me of how I became the strong woman I had become. No-one can take any of that away from me.
So, the strong Carol Ann is on the way back. Our life is different now. Different but just as good. I had forgotten how much we have. I had stopped seeing the beauty around me and stopped appreciating every single thing I have to be grateful for.
PC will not define me, us, anymore than any of the struggles so far have. It has just been a blip. A huge blip but never the less in comparison to what others have to deal with, a blip. I can cope with blips.
Looking back is not always good. It steals our today if we are not careful. But it does to revisit our past from time to time, just not to stay there for very long. What is gone is gone, even people and however sad that is, it mustn’t be allowed to steal the most valuable thing we all have. Our time.
Thankyou for reading xx
carolannwright 