There are only a few times I don't like living alone. One is when I'm sick (like now) and it's 1 a.m. and I don't want to run to the drugstore for the cough drops and Kleenex. One is when I need a ride to a medical appointment I can't drive myself to and can't afford the $30 one-way cab fare between here and there. And one is when I'm scared and sad.

As I was on my way to bed, I got an email from someone who has been one of my best friends since we were 7. She was dx'd with breast cancer yesterday. It is a large tumor and will require both chemo and surgery. They don't know yet if it's spread.

She is 42 years old and has two young teens, a good job, a husband who adores her, and I am sick for all of them, and for me. I have survived one illness that should have killed me, but have been dx'd with two more that still might. (That's on top of the mental health shite.) I am 5 months older than my friend. Another one of our childhood friends just had major surgery about a month ago. Another's young son got hit by a car a couple of weeks ago. It won't stop coming.

Being confronted with your mortality effing SUCKS. I want to be 20 and think I'm invincible again. At 20, I had a lot less to lose. We all did.

Mothers Day is around the corner. A friend who is sensitive to how I feel about it asked what she and her Sunday School teens could do for birthmoms on that day. I gave her some suggestions, but the thoughts and memories and searching for something I wanted her to use have brought up the soul-crushing grief. My son will be 20 in about a month. I adore him. I'm thrilled I have the minimal contact that I have with him, that I waited nearly 16 years for. I'm thrilled he's had such a spectacularly wonderful life, full of love and opportunities. But it p*sses me off that nobody understands why it is still a raw, open wound after 2 decades. Nobody understands that it is damn near the entire cause of ALL my mental health issues, the reason I didn't have more kids, get married, even pursue a relationship in the last 15 years; it is why I am blindingly depressed, have protracted severe grief issues and PTSD. To this day I have a recurring dream where I find out I'm pregnant again and realize that I can't take care of a child STILL and will have to go through all that trauma again. I wake up sobbing. It isn't ever going to go away. No T has ever understood. No friend has ever understood (except for the 1 who has been through it). It's 1 freakin 20 a.m. and I am alone and scared and crushingly sad, and it sucks.



Candy