Just found out the other day that a cousin of mine from Germany, like my sister, is also battling a cancer recurrence. He was diagnosed with leukemia a few years ago, and there was a while when he wasn't doing too well, but he was eventually told he was in remission. Now the cancer's back, and he's in need of a bone marrow transplant. I checked to see if it'd be possible for me to donate, but I can't because of my history. Just like I can no longer donate blood. Having also had a blood cancer makes my blood and marrow unsafe somehow. Apparently, if there's some latent cancer cell in my blood, it could potentially be passed on to the recipient and reproduce. It's unlikely, but possible. I feel so useless and so far away from everything that matters.

So quiet on the other end of this line. I was right, then? There was really no point in reaching out. Maybe I hoped I'd trigger something in you that'd make you remember that you miss me. But instead I think I drove you further away.

Friendships are fading, and I have no interest in fostering new ones right now. I put so much of myself into the ones I thought would last--that had lasted--and they were the first to fall apart. I simply don't have the energy for it anymore.

So many wasted words.

I've been experiencing a serious case of remorse over our house lately. I'm realizing it's way larger than what we need at this point in our lives. The fact that I've been questioning whether or not I want to have kids is a big factor, too. Two stories and four bedrooms is a lot for two people. In fact, since we've moved, I've found myself becoming more and more interested in the tiny house movement. Hubby and I have actually agreed that we'd like to build/buy a tiny vacation house somewhere/someday. That lifestyle appeals to me far more than a house with a bunch of extra rooms we only use on occasion. I mentioned in a previous post that ever since we moved in, I've been making a point of getting rid of a lot of my stuff. My actions are more in line with someone who's downsizing, not upgrading. I feel I'd be way happier in a tiny house.

Don't get me wrong; I love this house. But I'm realizing that bigger isn't the answer. We had it just as good at our old house. I just refused to see past the surface. The basement got water--sure--but it's not like that was unfixable; I just didn't want to wait around anymore for it to get done. We had carpenter ants, too, but removing the old rotting deck helped that situation immensely. Not only that, but hubby spent a buttload of money replacing said deck with a big beautiful patio the year before we moved, and we never really got a chance to use it. What a waste of money. Every house has issues and things that need repairing, and if it doesn't, it will eventually. We already had everything we needed. Did I feel like I deserved more?

My biggest problem right now is keeping up with regular maintenance, inside and out. Not only is the house itself big, but the yard is, too. Once we get a decent fence put up, it'll be great for our two dogs, but that's a lot of grass to mow and weeds to pull. I recently cut back to only one job, but I'm getting more hours than I was before. I have weekends off most of the time, but they're like mini-vacations to me now (I had forgotten what they were like as I haven't had them off like this in about two years), and all I want to do is be lazy. I have days when I get into a zone and clean absolutely everything in sight, but then I'll go weeks without doing it again.

Maybe I'll feel better once I figure out a plan-of-attack for this place. And maybe it's still too soon to talk. We've only been here just under a year. I've heard it sometimes takes years for a place to really start feeling like home. In a way, we're still living like we did in our previous house. We spend the majority of our time in the kitchen, family room and (master) bedroom. I've kind of monopolized the kitchen because it's the only room in the house I feel I can keep up with. Hubby practically lives in the family room, so it's both dining room and lounge area for him.

Just needed to rant about this. My dad warned me that I'd feel this way, but I didn't think it'd come this late or last this long. I probably just need to give it more time. Read an article recently that claimed it's perfectly normal to be grateful and want more at the same time. I have mixed feelings about that claim, but it's kind of where I'm at right now.

Got a random text yesterday from a number I thought I recognized, but had blocked over a year ago due to unwanted drama. I blocked them on Twitter yesterday morning after realizing it was the one place we were still connected. Shortly after doing so, I got the text that read, 'Yes, I'm that fast.' I assumed they'd noticed I'd blocked them and had decided to send a snarky response. I spent the better part of my workday 1) wondering how the text got through seeing as though I'd blocked them from contacting my number (the only thing I could think of was that they'd gotten a new number and had my phone number on file somewhere), and 2) thinking of a reply to the effect of, 'Don't turn this around on me. This was not my choice.' When I left work, I was just about to send my reply when I saw another message: 'Sorry wrong number.' Part of me wonders if it was the wrong number, or if said individual was just trying to take back the comment they'd made.

Because hubby used to bartend, he can be a bit of a 'social butterfly' when he's had a few to drink. As a result, I tend to be left to my own devices a lot when we're out on the town. It's not so bad if we're surrounded by people we know. But when I don't know anybody, I tend to keep quiet and withdraw into myself to avoid talking to people. Last night was one of those nights, and as I was sitting there quietly sipping the watered-down remains of a drink I'd been working on for the last hour and a half, I noticed a girl looking at me from the other end of the bar. Every time I looked up, I'd catch her looking. Eventually, the group she was with got up to leave. I watched them make their way over to me, and everyone passed me by, except her. She stopped next to me, touched my arm and said, 'I hope you have a good night. I've watched you sit by yourself all night, and I'm irritated.' And with that, she was gone. It was the first time since I underwent chemo that a complete stranger had expressed concern about me.

A friend and I were talking recently about years past, and they asked to see a picture of me from that time. When I showed it to them, they looked shocked and asked, 'That's YOU???' And that's a perfect illustration of how I feel. Whenever I explain to someone that I can no longer relate to the woman in those pictures, they look at me as if I'm insane, like I'm having some weird out-of-body experience. When really, all it is is that her outlook, her experience is so drastically different from mine, that I feel like whoever she was--whoever I was--'died' a long time ago. I look at those pictures and mourn the loss of her sometimes. Where was the cutoff point? Probably at our wedding. It's a shame to have to look at the pictures in our wedding album and know that I was sick and didn't know it. It makes me slightly uncomfortable to be honest. I can't look at those pictures without seeing the lump in my neck or the exhaustion in my eyes, both things I'd ignored in the months leading up to our wedding, and would continue to ignore for months afterward. All the strange symptoms I couldn't put my finger on (the bouts of inexplicable nausea, the cold that never seemed to go away, etc.); it was my body trying to tell me something was wrong. Strange that the year of our wedding, while we were still in the planning process, I had a moment of revelation: I was going to die. This was months and months before my diagnosis, but it brought on a series of panic attacks (which I'd never experienced before), and made it hard to face the world. Again, I should've listened to my body, because that was probably around the time the cancer had started growing. But of course, I had 'more important' things to do.

Now I look at my sister, who's dealing with a cancer recurrence, and I beat myself up for not being there for her as much as I could've been the first time. I'd already seen my father-in-law diagnosed with colon cancer shortly after I finished treatment, and I didn't quite know how to deal with that as I was still reeling from my own experience. The following year my sister would visit from Seattle after five years of being away and tell us she'd noticed a lump in her breast. She didn't have insurance at the time, but I urged her to get it looked at anyway. Within weeks, she was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer and was on the road to starting chemo and radiation. She would later have a double mastectomy and be told she was in remission. When she visited late last fall, I was helping her with her lymphedema sleeve and prosthetics, and she talked about the fact that she'd been having trouble breathing. She'd had a lung collapse on her before, years ago, and she thought that it could've been related to that. It wasn't. My mom called me about a month later to tell me that doctors thought her cancer had spread. It had. After another round of tests, she started chemo once again. I have yet to even send her a card this time around. I see that she's been back on Facebook for the last week or so. She posted a rather poignant picture of herself the other day. It was a headshot, but one half of her face was from a time before the cancer, and the other half was from when she was undergoing treatment. I wonder if she also has trouble relating to the person she was before the cancer...

I once said I wanted nothing more than for you to be happy. I lied. I want you to be miserable so you can finally find the balls to get out of the shitty situation you're in.