#022. Reconciling with the Ghosts of Me: Part 1
Looking for the 'I', I Was Before Thyroid Cancer
It’s been a while! If writing this newsletter has taught me anything about the consistency of my self-expression process, it is how consistently inconsistent I am with following “recommended” writing schedules and “recommended” publishing intervals. Alas, I feel better about myself when I’m making and dancing to my own beats, even if that means it’s going to be a funny-looking dance. I love you all, kindly deal with it. (:
Over the next few issues I hope to cover the many updates in my life. One of which is the four year anniversary of my thyroid cancer surgery. I’ve been wanting to put words to this experience for years, but haven’t had the words until recently. This piece is one of several on this experience. Here we go.
Note: My name Maymie is pronounced “May-Me”. One of my alter-ego’s names is Gaymie (pronounced ‘Game-Me’ as in, “I’m game for anything!” or ‘Gay-Me’ like, “I’m hella happy all the time!”). Gaymie, meet Everyone. Everyone, meet Gaymie.
May 8th is my second birthday. Every year that I make it to May 8th means another year I didn’t die of cancer. (Yay!) Except for the scar on my neck, everything looks pretty normal. My blood work and scans are normal, I’m working, traveling, and socializing again. I can even exercise or eat the forbidden gluten without punishing joint pains or headaches from the surgical recovery gods.
But for all of life’s normalcies, I still don’t feel “normal”. I miss my old self. Where’s the happy-go-lucky and ready-for-adventure version of Maymie that I fondly refer to as Gaymie?
Once upon a time, she auditioned for a UCLA college improv troupe, night-hiked through Southern China, hitch-hiked alone through Argentina, river-crossed through South Africa, and ran a chiropractic clinic in Ecuador. All of this after she was magna cum laude, student body vice president, President’s AND Humanitarian Award recipient of her class, while also a clean freak overachiever, who still had time for romance and parties.
This what-doesn’t-kill-me-only-makes-me-stronger alter-ego introduced me to the world of 6am hot yoga, the sensory extremes of nine days in the high desert for Burning Man immediately followed by ten days of silence for a meditation retreat where eye contact wasn’t even allowed.
Gaymie was game for anything.
Right now, I could really use her help to put my life back together. While things look normal on the outside, things have been hard.
My mind is foggy and my body is tired. It’s been over two months since I last published. I haven’t done my taxes… from last year. The only reason I finally cleaned my room was because my BFF from out-of-town would need a clear path to the air mattress AND I had help from my boyfriend. My psychiatrist wants me to start an antidepressant, she thinks it will help with the overwhelm. Will it work? I don’t know yet because I haven’t picked up my prescription.
If Gaymie was around, none of this would be happening. She would tell me that this would all be okay, just like the time I got kicked out of my host’s house for being a “culturally-loud” American in Japan. Although unexpected, I would find my metaphorical 24-hour internet café where I could sleep, shower, and make a plan of action.
Except she’s gone.
I wonder if I will run into Gaymie at our old haunts - at work, at parties, whilst outdoors, traveling, in therapy, or even meditating. I keep imagining she will reemerge from our cancer odyssey with three Gorgon heads, scarred but victorious.
I long for more than whispers of her. Even if life could go back to the way it did before cancer, I know I could never actually go back and BE her ever again. So I need to let her go.
The possibility of what’s to come will never be allowed to unfurl if I keep hanging on to my past like a ghost silently walking the world.
Oh dang. This hit me deeply. I don’t know you for very long but this reinforces the adage that “You never know what different people are dealing with, so treat them kindly”. Between the lines, I feel the frustration, and grief. The gaymie gap is real. However I sense there is much more coming so I’m holding my breath for the next post, HONY style!
Michael dean wrote that it’s COOL to be inconsistent with newsletters so you’re actually ahead of the curve
I would have loved to meet Gaymie but I also love the current Maymie!