Fund Raising Campaign

Just a brief update.....a fund raising campaign has been started to help me buy a used vehicle to modify so that perhaps I can become somewhat mobile again.  Since my surgery in January I have not been able to drive.    You can find the campaign information at the following link

gofundme.com    under   Elizabeth MacLeod - Modified Used Vehicle - Handicapped

Signing off for awhile.........

I have decided to back away from this blog for the time being.   It is harder and harder for me to write directly about my journey in this way...perhaps I have moved to a different place or I just need to do something different.

On that note I have started a second blog:   Cancer Diplomacy....this will be a topic specific blog which allows people to learn that interacting with a cancer patient/survivor (or someone else with an terminal illness) can be like trying to  walk through a mine-field.    One never knows exactly what to say and what not to say.......

Let me help you ......Cancer Diplomacy is 365 tips on how to have a healthy and positive relationship with someone who might hear you differently than you intended.....

Darkness.....a new definition

Darkness.  Perhaps the current understanding of darkness is untrue.   What if darkness is absolutely necessary for life as is lightness?    Why do we treat the darkness as a foreign state, as if it is not natural but rather the opposite of natural - unnatural?

Most of our thoughts or definitions of darkness come from someone else.   Depending on how comfortable your parents were with the darkness will definitely have an effect on your feelings toward darkness.   My daughter has always been very comfortable in the darkness.  Unlike myself, she has always closed her door at night.   She never really cared whether or not there was a 'night' light.  We never had a light on at night.   I enjoyed sitting outside at night looking at the stars.  Loved walking in the dark, partly because you can see inside the houses and see the decorations and colours etc .   Some people think that is 'peeping' but I figure if they didn't want you to look they would close the curtains or close the lights.   It was best in Germany because the houses are right beside the road and not far off with huge lawns in front.   For anyone who loves to camp the darkness is the best part.   Although that is when we light fires, sit around them and allow the dark to circle us.   Walking back to the trailer is so beautiful because the stars are so brilliant.....a light against the dark!

I digress.    I have always been very comfortable in the darkness. I have found myself sitting in the dark of night on the worst times in my life.   I have found myself walking the streets at night when I am stress or anxious.   I find the darkness like a blanket....safe and warm not frightening and dangerous.  I have even been very at ease with looking at the darkness that exists within me.   I know that we have two sides to us.    The one we are happy to show and the other we keep hidden.    We use the expression 'our darkside' because again we are inculturated to see anything in the dark as negative.  Our faith takes us there....the devil lives in the dark, God in the light.   Well the book I am presently reading debunks that understanding.....finally something that resonates with me and the dark.

In the Book of Exodus we find that Moses came face to face with God in the darkest part of the mountain.   Imagine that.   Hmmmm....God being found in the dark.   Not a light in the dark but in the dark.   So I don't have to find a light in myself before I can meet God in my own darkness.   For this time in my life I find this very encouraging.   I don't have to move out of the darkness before I can come to see and meet my God.    Perhaps while I am here I will try to look more closely for God, rather than trying to run from the dark.

Will keep you posted on how it goes.

tired and very very sad

I don't know if I can continue writing in the same way as I have been .   It seems that I have gone to a dark place and the lightness and humour that have been my solace  are no longer retrievable.   I am grieving !   I am saying goodbye to so much .   Until now I was able to accept the Cancer , never believing it was any kind of blessing, but accepting its presence.   I have never owned it, I have never allowed it to become me.   I have always looked at it from the outside , knowing it was there but not allowing it to enter my being.   It had my body but not my soul.

I find it harder now to view this disease from a distance .   I am tripping over it at every turn , literally as well as figuratively .

I am sick of the platitudes, the up lifting speeches. The ' there but for the grace of God' sayings and beliefs.    I am not grateful I am alive ... I deserve to be alive.    I am not grateful for what I have.... Physically I want more.   I want to walk, to drive, to have my life my independence back.   I am tired of having to be careful how I behave because some are uncomfortable with my sadness, my tears, my anger, my pity.   I am tired of having to be there for others comfort at the expense of my own.
I no longer have the energy nor the desire to make everyone feel ok around me.   I no longer want to be there for anyone.  I am tired, soulfully , spiritually exhausted.

I no longer feel hopeful... In many ways I feel I have tried to hard to live and now I am alive physically but dead on the inside .

I have chosen to be the way I was.... I thought that would help . Make me better.   Be positive, as if sadness would kill me.    Cancer doesn't care .... I realize that now.... It eats you one piece at a time and just leaves you to die .   I am so very  tired .