Bad Days Happen

Dear Reader

It is 1.43am as I write this.  "What are you doing up at this hour?" I hear you cry.  Well, I'm not having the best time right now and I thought "hey, why not write about it?"  So here I am.  This will probably not be the most brilliantly written piece of work.  But it is from the heart and mind of someone who is really struggling right now so please cut me some slack.  Here we go.

You know how sometimes you'll be lying awake, unable to sleep, thinking about everything you don't let yourself think about during the day?  Well, I have been thinking about how I am going to die.  It's a very morbid topic to get stuck on isn't it?  I'm sure everyone thinks about it from time to time.  Death is a natural part of life and most of the time, I am not afraid of it.  But I am right now.

I should explain.  As you know, I have a brain tumour.  I have come to terms with that and I have accepted that it is part of my life.  What I am stuck on is what that tumour is doing to my life.  It is restricting me and it is cutting my life short.  It's a scary thing, to realise that it's a very real possibility that everyone you know, love, care about is probably going to outlive you.  Writing it down is like saying it out loud for the first time. Like I'm truly understanding what it is I have been ignoring for the past two years.  I have something horrible, incurable, inoperable and all around fucked up and no amount of ignoring it will make that go away.  I am not going to live the life my friends are going to live.  I am going to die, sooner than most people, and there is not a thing I can do about that.

As I said, I accepted a long time ago that death is an inevitable part of the human condition.  I'm not scared of death.  I'm scared of not living.  Does that make sense?  I'm scared that I won't live to see my friends get married, have kids, kick arse in their careers.  I'm scared I won't get to joke with my parents about sending them to retirement homes.  I'm scared I won't get to go to my brother's wedding.  I'm scared I won't get to see my niece's first day at school and talk to her about the boys or girls she thinks are cute.  I'm scared I won't get to freak out over my first grey hair or my first proper wrinkle.  I'm scared that the rest of my life I intend to spend with my boyfriend might be much less time than I want to give him.  It is terrifying to think about not living.

This is not just a pity party for me, I promise.  I'm not just scared of that.  I'm scared of what my not living will do to the people I care about.  I don't want them to have to cope with me dying or try to figure out how to navigate their lives without me.  I don't want my name to come up in conversation and be a cause of sadness.  I don't want them to have to miss me.

I know a lot of other people feel this way.  This illness is a bitch and what it takes from you is immense.  Fighting this fight every day is exhausting.  You cannot be brave all the time and that is okay.  It is okay to break down and cry.  It's okay to be angry and lost and to want to scream THIS IS NOT FAIR from the rooftops.  Because it isn't fair.  It will never, ever be fair.

If you feel like this, please find someone to talk to.  If you want to talk to a stranger, call Samaritans.  They are an amazing bunch of people and sometimes, just talking can make a world of difference.  I promise.

And whether you're ill, in any way, or healthy as a horse please remember that bad days happen and that is okay.  We all have bad days but it can't rain all the time.

I'll write again soon.

Emma
xoxo