New Job

I applied for a new job and got it! It feels like everything has changed on a dime but for the better for once. I felt like my soul was rotting away here in my home. I wanted to be out doing things but I had nowhere to go. The first job that I went back to (after 5 years) has been really slow because it's the summer. My stamina is still low but improving and I think my excitement about where I'm going is helping tremendously.

The last few years an idea had developed about the atmosphere I'd like to be in. It actually feels somewhat essential rather than a choice. I need to be in a creative environment working with other creative people. A place where my skills are used and appreciated. Somewhere, where I feel charged up to get home and do some creative work like painting. I thought that would mean me creating that for myself and being self employed.

I tried to rent an itsy bitsy studio space a few months ago but it disappeared as soon as I applied for it. It felt like another small loss in a grand series of losses. I started feeling like there may never be a better space for me, or any place on this Earth. I feel disjointed and like I don't belong. I live in a beautiful neighborhood in the most desirable place in a very desirable city. Gratefully I live in social housing now which has kept us from being homeless but we don't fit in here.

The neighbors don't speak to us and everyone keeps to themselves where I'm used to knowing the people around me. The energy here is bad. I realized why people here won't talk to each other when I had the SWAT team surround my house because the person two doors over was selling drugs and had the neighbor on the other side of me subtly terrorizing me because my son put a millimeter ding on his car door. Our spaces are squeezed together and I have plenty of dings on my car door from the other neighbors and I paid him to have it repaired but this guy went ballistic and threatening. I had to request to move my parking space and avoid him until the day he was hauled away by the police for battering his family. Not so nice.

I'm sure most of the people here are probably nice but we pass by with no eye contact after me trying for 2 years to say, 'Hi' to them. It feels like an alternate universe living here. Beautiful yet as a small complex we are unwelcome.

This loss of feeling in control has hit me hard.

So applying for my first job helped me feel a bit better. Applying for and getting the second has made me feel useful again.

I work part time for a small local clothing design company that is far better than I could have imagined. Where I felt listless, I now feel energised. I'm scared of not physically being able to keep up but so far so good. I'm happy and I honestly can't say when I last felt that. I suspect it was two years ago before I moved here. I need to get out of this place. Getting out of this mountain of debt is going to be one hell of a struggle but at least I will be able to try.

I need to instill a feeling of confidence in me somewhere. I'm so happy to say it has started.

Moving and Other Dramatic Change of Events

I guess I'm moving. Really, I knew either way I would be moving out of here.

It's crazy how life can turn on a dime and my dime has been turned more than I want to count. It's pretty much scuffed up at this point. Sometimes things slowly creep up on you and sometimes events are like a swift, blind punch to the face.

I went to my oncology and oncology/dental appointments last Thursday. The appointments went mostly as I had expected. The graft/vs/host has returned and my mouth is as uncomfortable as ever. My eyes have the GVH dryness, I'm having gut pains and my Dr is concerned about Ms Vagina again.

Ms Super Vagina had been given the thumbs up 3 months ago but problems in the mouth=problems "down there". Anyway, I giggled to my Dr that the mouth problems I can live with. The worst part is my lack of being able to wear lipstick, ha ha. We chatted about our sons (I have 3, she has 4) and I talked about how much my oldest (18) has been through with my illness etc. and how he's finally pulled himself out of his funk. The next day I found him with a black eye.

My onco-dentist said how mild graft/vs/host is a good thing because it keeps the leukemia away. Way to give a positive spin...Dr. So my medications are not being lowered, I repeat, NOT GOING TO BE LOWERED. That's okay. After this heavy duty of a cocktail of drugs for this amount of time, I'm probably completely preserved.

I did hear one thing that I didn't expect. My onc said, "We don't expect it to come back". My ears prick up. Excuse me? What? You don't expect my leukemia to come back?

My world is changing now. It looks so different suddenly. What's that I see?

I think that's my future.