breakinglight11 | Entries tagged with hope

I have been keeping track of my book reading since I decided upon my latest strategy for making sure I do it on a regular basis. In order to combat my difficulties focusing on long-form text (which I think stem from a combination of depression and smartphone use) I have added a bullet point to my daily to do lists where I have to read a book until a ten-minute timer goes off. And I’m marveling at how well it has worked for me.

It doesn’t seem like much. It hasn’t solved my focus issues; about half the time, I can’t force myself to keep paying attention past the ten minutes. But it does have me reading books, consistently, on a regular basis. And it adds up. Where once I was reading maybe two books a year, in 2020 I’ve already read 23 books, once of which was the behemoth Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. It’s such a small change, but it’s made so much difference for me. It brings so much into my life, and lifts such a weight of shame.

I feel very overwhelmed and stressed. I shouldn't; things are basically under control, but it all feels so fragile, like I've barely got it held together. And when I'm so tired, I feel like I could collapse at any moment, taking the whole house of cards down with me.

I don't want to have to get up at six during tech week. I don't want to have to change my therapy appointment. I worry we won't be able to reschedule.

Of course I worry about everything. I always expect the worst. Even though we've pulled off the show literally ten times before. Even though it's good for me to secure another class I'm not going to lose.

I will make my syllabus tomorrow. I will do more work for the show tomorrow. I need to stop now. I have a time time shutting my brain off when I have worries. But it's late. There's nothing else I can do right now. I need rest, and that is something I can get right now. I need to go to bed.

Goodnight.

I have written, again and again, over the last decade or so, about how much trouble I’ve had reading books. Not reading in general, since I’m basically reading something constantly, but anything longform has been a brutal struggle to stay focused on. It’s been a source of serious frustration and even shame that I had become the sort of person who didn’t read books, when my whole life is based on the significance of literature.

I’d made a few attempts in recent years to fix this. Usually by just trying to bull my way through it. I’d pick up a book here and there and force myself to finish it. Occasionally I’d build up a bit of momentum, and I’d think I was on my way back to making book-reading a habit again, like when I went through a good chunk of P.G. Wodehouse, all the way back in 2014. But it’s never stuck, and I’ve consistently only read maybe two new books a year since I graduated college.

But I have been struggling with depression lately, which led to more bad habits developing. The need for some significant change in my daily life had become urgently apparent. I needed to put some better habits in place in hopes that it might help me feel better.

I stumbled across a Youtube video that said that anything you wanted to do but were having trouble making yourself do, you should set a ridiculously low bar for such that you can regularly accomplish it without too much difficulty. Like, exercising or practicing the piano for ten minutes a day. You will almost always have time for such a short session, and it will allow you to do at least something every day. It makes it a habit, and helps make it easier to do.

I’ve always done well with structure. So I wrote it into my to do list to read a book just for ten minutes, every day. And I’ve been doing it. Since early November, I’ve been doing it, almost every day.

It’s not been easy. Sometimes it’s hard even to focus for just those ten minutes. Sometimes I have to read the same passage two or three times before my brain absorbs it, rather than wandering off in a different direction. But I’ve stuck with it. And sometimes— maybe even as much as half the time —I am able and interested enough to keep reading after the timer is up.

I’m reading pretty slowly, especially given how fast I can read when I actually somehow manage to dig up the engagement. But I’m reading. I’ve finished five books using this system already. Bernard Cornwell’s The Winter King, recommended by Mark as inspiration for my own novel. Patricia Mountbatten’s Daughter of Empire. Jennifer Cocks and Heather Morgan’s The Royal We. Franny Billingsley’s Chime, on Charlotte’s recommendation. And Pat Baker’s The Silence of the Girls, a gift from a lovely student after our Iliad unit. More books in the last two months than in the previous two years. I’ve just started Claire Harman’s Murder by the Book, a birthday gift from my brother which sounded interesting but I couldn’t manage to work up the focus for.

I’d been kind of sad lately, thinking of how long it’s been since I actually managed to change something in my life that was bothering me. This has been a problem for me for like ten years now. If I can keep this up, I might actually have fixed this for the better. This thing which has burdened me for a decade.

One of my all time favorite moments in Bojack Horseman is when the baboon who was jogging through this neighborhood in season 2 tells him, “Every day, it gets a little easier. But you’ve got to do it every day. That’s the hard part.” I always found that really meaningful, and absolutely, achingly true.

I’m not good at being hopeful. But this progress truly, genuinely gives me hope.

Apparently I feel like telling funny stories about my stuff lately!

Today I was asked where the name I use online, and as a sort of "company" name for myself, Breaking Light, came from. I use it to represent myself because I like the sound of it-- for some reason "break" and variations thereof are among my favorite words --and because it has some meaning that's important to me. I see it as evocative of light that bursts through the darkness, a nice metaphor for hope, a concept I've struggled with for a lot of my recent life.

But as to how the actual words first occurred to me? They're a mishearing of a lyric in a Scott Stapp song.

...yeah.

For those who quite understandably don't know who that is, Scott Stapp is the former lead vocalist of a band called Creed. This band no longer exists, and seem to be best known for their weird undertone of Christian rock religiosity and the exceptionally melodramatic character to both their lyrics and the particular performance style Mr. Stapp brought to their songs. Seeing as my taste in music is flatly terrible, of course I kind of liked them and still have a couple of their songs in my iPod. My dear

youareverysmall mocked me mercilessly for it back in the day, as was right and proper, and there's still one song I can't hear without imagining them imitating the ridiculous singing style.

So upon the breakup of Creed, our main man Scott embarked on a solo career, which I gather was not terribly successful as nobody knows who he is outside of Creed. But he released an album where the title track had a fair bit of play on the radio, so while you probably wouldn't know it by name, you might recognize the sound of it if you heard it. I spend a lot of time in the gym, which always tends to constantly have pop stations playing, where I recognized the voice and of course my awful musical tastes kicked in. I found it pleasing enough to pay attention to the song, which is called "The Great Divide." But because Stapp's voice singing voice sounds like he's midway through a transformation into a werewolf, his diction is not always the best. And I misheard "the great divide" in the chorus as "the breaking light," which immediately fired my imagination, and stayed with me to the point where I've adopted it as my branding.

Honestly this happens to me fairly frequently, where I think I hear a song lyric as something that I think is really cool, but it turns out I didn't hear it accurately. But that turns out to be even better, because then it's MINE now, and I'm not stealing from the song. Like in this case, where I got a cool expression!

So, yes. I chose my name from an inaccurate perception of a song in the unremarkable solo career of the former lead singer of an awful Christian rock band. Inspiring!

Today is a heartbreaking day. The meaning has been stated by much smarter people than me, but I am stern in my resolve to resist and not give up hope that we can right this grave injustice.

One thought that gives me hope is the conviction that I do believe this blast of reactionary conservatism is an extinction burst. It is VERY common, including when dealing with the behavior of an abuser, that when efforts are made to push back against and stamp out the bad behavior, the perpetrator doubles down and explodes with a final effort to try and overcome the resistance before flaming out. The way of life where white supremacy was taken for granted is going away, as is the ability to remain ignorant and insular against the wider world. The people who don't want to grow and evolve into the modern world are lashing out against all the changes. But the world IS changing and no one can stop it. The fact that Clinton won the popular vote and the evidence that millennial voters were overwhelmingly more liberal confirms to me that viewpoint is dying, and is just privileged by the outdated relics of the system. We ARE moving toward a more progressive world, even with this enormous travesty occurring. So, if we can survive, I believe we will truly move past it as a society.

The only problem is surviving. And that's what frightens me. I'm afraid we won't survive. Individuals who are not privileged under this regime are certainly at risk, but I'm talking ALL of us, not just as a nation, but as a species. If we have a nuclear war or an environmental apocalypse, we won't get the chance to see what happens after. And I'm afraid those are real possibilities. God help us. I truly do believe this is the death knell of this particular form of atavism. But the earth has to hold out for us to get there.

Last year I started a practice where whenever something good happens, I write it down and put it aside to look at on New Years. 2016 was an awful year, and honestly I expect 2017 to be worse, but in the interest of practicing gratitude and not getting bogged down in negativity, it's good to focus on good things too.

I notice a lot of this stuff is similar to last year-- it's clear what sort of thing I consider to be a success --which at first glance made me feel like I didn't make much progress. But it actually shows small steps forward, such as breaking into screenwriting and improving my day job situation. And small steps build up, right? So focusing on the fact that I did show forward growth is good for me.

1. Mrs. Hawking and Vivat Regina were performed at Arisia 2016 to an audience of over 400
2. Mrs. Hawking and Vivat Regina were performed again at Watch City Steampunk Festival 2016 to an audience of about 150
3. Vivat Regina and Base Instruments were accepted for performance at Arisia 2017
4. Vivat Regina and Base Instruments were accepted for performance at Watch City Steampunk Festival 2017
5. Started a relationship with one television executive who thinks my work is worth showing around
6. Lesley rehired me for both spring and fall semesters, with more classes and a higher rate each time
7. Base Instruments had a public staged reading with Bare Bones
8. I wrote a new television pilot, Hood, that has gotten some good response
9. I completed 31 Plays in 31 Days for the fifth time
10. I got Hood requested for reading three times
11. I found an acne treatment that worked for me and my skin looks clear
12. Most of the Hawking cast returned for the third round in a row
13. Even with the departure of my old friend, I was able to find a great actress to play Mrs. Hawking
14. Started a relationship with a second television executive who thinks my work is worth showing around
15. I made more money this year than I did last year
16. Bernie got a new job

I've never been so ashamed in my life-- of being American, and especially of being white. I have never been one to endorse the view that the average person is stupid or bad, but with this force of white supremacy swaying the course of the election, I am finding myself reevaluating that belief.

I am so sad. I didn't sleep a wink last night and I've spent the time since then sick to my stomach. I'm in a relatively privileged position, apart from being a woman and my difficulty in getting health insurance I can afford. But I'm terrified of what nonwhite, LGBT, immigrant, disabled, and other marginalized people will suffer. Not to mention the threats to the environment and the possibility of nuclear war, which particularly terrify me.

All I can say is I will keep fighting. History is full of examples of this kind of backlash to progress, of stupid fucking humans visiting violence against their own best interests. But there has still been forward movement. There is still the possibility that we can improve and grow. And laying down arms now will only guarantee that the tyrants and monsters of the world will win.

I don't know how yet. I'm still reeling in shock. But I am going to find some way keep fighting.

Bernie and I have another meeting on the books with that producer lately I've been in contact with. As you may recall, she loved my Adonis script but said it wasn't possible for her do anything with it right now, and asked me what else I had. For that, Bernie and I whipped our Mrs. Hawking TV pilot into shape and sent it along. Her response to that was positive as well; she liked it and wanted to set up a meeting to give us notes. That is encouraging; as I was told recently, if an exec just gushes about how much they like it, that means they can't make it, but if they just tell you all the stuff they want to change, it means they actually have an interest in doing something with it. So that seems like a good sign (and now that I think about it, is borne out by my experience with the two pieces I've given her.)

Our meeting is set for Skype on July 9th. I'm excited but nervous. I'm prepared for critique, but it's always a scary prospect to have a piece that's your baby possibly get ripped apart. I am trying to stay open to whatever, especially since maybe there's a chance that will help it get produced. But also, I want to have something else in the trickbag to show her in case she asks what else we've got.

To that end, Bernie and I are working on a new pilot, something both a little less personal and maybe a little more commercial. Basically it's a heist show telling a techno-corporate-espionage version of Robin Hood-- when a spoiled trust fund baby is framed to take the fall for corporate malfeasance, his whole life is ruined and he is forced to go on the run to avoid prison. At first he's out for revenge, but eventually learns how people's lives are ruined by corporate greed and manipulation, and forms a crew of guerrilla activists who work to bring down the corporation for justice. We're hacking a pitch and hopefully a full pilot script together in time for the meeting. I'm hoping that it might be a little easier to sell, and because it's not quite so emotionally dear to me, I'd be more open to making requested changes.

Anyway, I'm hopeful. Having a project and an opportunity in front of me helps my mental state, and helps me stay positive about the trajectory of my career.

I did an experiment this year where you write down everything good that happens to you and put it in a jar, then look at it all at the end of the year. Here's what I wrote down:

1. I debuted Mrs. Hawking at Arisia 2015.
2. I got an audience of 135 people in a difficult timeslot for Mrs. Hawking at Arisia 2015.
3. I got Adonis into the top ten percent of the 2015 BlueCat Screenwriting Contest.
4. I got to put up Mrs. Hawking a second time at the Watch City Steampunk Festival 2015.
5. I got an audience of 136 people at the Watch City Steampunk Festival 2015.
6. I got Adonis requested for reading by a producer I pitched to.
7. I got hired to teach at Lesley University.
8. I got hired to teach at North Shore Community College.
9. I got Adonis requested for reading by a producer a second time.
10. I got Adonis requested for reading by a producer a third time.
11. I completed 31 Plays in 31 Days for the fourth time.
12. I finished writing Base Instruments, completing the first Mrs. Hawking trilogy.
13. My face is clearer than it's been in years.
14. I got into the best and most beautiful shape of my life.
15. I helped launch Game Wrap Magazine and contributed content to it.
16. I got Mrs. Hawking and Vivat Regina accepted for performance at Arisia 2016.
17. Most of the Mrs. Hawking cast wanted to come back for the Arisia 2016 production.
18. Some friends stepped up with interest to be in Mrs. Hawking and Vivat Regina.
19. I made more money this year than I ever have in the past with my new jobs.
20. A producer liked my Adonis script and recommended it to a company that might want to make it.
21. I got a good evaluation of my teaching for my first semester at Lesley.
22. Bernie successfully defended his thesis and earned his doctorate.
23. I got Adonis requested for reading by a producer for a fourth time.

I thought this would be a good exercise for me as a way to focus on gratitude and positivity. And there's some real successes in this. This was a good year for me. I need to focus on how far I've come, because it will help me believe in myself for how far I need to go.

Had kind of a hard time coming up with these, harder than I had in previous years. I think it may be because I'm not sure what I should be focusing on as my goals at this point. I ended up incorporating a lot from last year that I didn't achieve the way I wanted, and building off of the stuff I did accomplish. I'm not totally happy with this, but it's a starting point, and that's a good thing.

So, for 2015:

1. Bring the Mrs. Hawking property to the next step. Not exactly sure what that is yet, but I hope to build some momentum from the Arisia producton, and I wnat to make the most of it. I think this property could really be something, and I am determined to make that happen.

2. Keep writing new things. Specifically, I want to write both Base Instruments, the next Mrs. Hawking story, as well as the first sequel to Adonis.

3. Get my submission rate up. The only way I will see progress with my writing is if I get it out there. I may set a concrete goal for this, like, say, three to five submissions per week.

4. Keep up my fitness level, and improve it if I can. I always want to be stronger, faster, leaner, harder, more toned.

5. Get my finances in order. They have been off for over a year now, and putting on Mrs. Hawking hasn't helped. But as soon as that's finished, I need to get serious about it.

6. Get in the habit of reading books. Maybe another concrete goal would help? One book a week, something like that? I miss how much I used to read complete books, as opposed to only scripts and blog posts the way I do now.

7. Maintain my important relationships. Love my father, my brother, and Bernie the way they deserve. Keep up with my friends and make them feel valued and cared for. I've been more hermited than usual lately, and I don't want to lose the people who are important to me.

8. I guess I will put keeping an eye to some sort of professional improvement. I'm notoriously bad at the job-finding process, but I think I need to improve my day job status in hopes of having some sort of financial security in addition to furthering my real, artistic work.

9. Keep working on being a kinder person, keeping my temper, and being less judgmental. Always until the day I die.

10. Keep on learning to be hopeful. Always a struggle for me, but so necessary.

I think about my mother all the time. Not the her of the last several years, but the active, talented, capable, beautiful woman she was before she got sick. I’m glad that’s the her that’s stuck with me. There’s still a sense of unreality about it. I mean, how could she really be gone? How can you not have a mother? Everybody has a mother. How could I not have a mother?

Grief has made me tired, mostly. I’ve been sleeping more, having a harder time getting out of bed in the morning, and I have less energy for activity and social. But it feels like clean sadness rather than the heavy, sinking depression that I was afraid was starting to creep up as she declined. It was so awful seeing her suffer. I feel bad that it seems lighter now that I don’t have to see her that way anymore— it kind of feels like making my comfort more important than her life —but I knew that she was ready for her pain to be over. She understood what that was from when her own dad was dying of Parkinson’s. (Previously my grandfather was our family touchstone for “relative who died too young.” It hit me hard when my dad pointed out that Grandpap lived seven years longer than Mom did.) I’m not out of grief yet, but I know it will in time be okay.

I actually feel more hopeful and positive about life lately than I have in a while. I currently have the best job I’ve ever had, tutoring writing at Bunker Hill Community College, and while it’s not exactly what I want nor does it really enable me not to worry about money, I am comfortable with it and making more than I have in the past. My real work, my writing, has been coming very well, and a number of opportunities have arisen that I’m hopeful about. None of them are sure things, of course, but they’re giving me direction and feel like real chances to advance my writing career. I don’t want to talk about them too much now, but with my musical Puzzle House Blues in particular I’m starting to feel like it could really go somewhere. I’m trying to finish the fourth draft, which I think is the penultimate one. The first act needs one small idea changed, and the second act needs only one more scene reworked before I think I will call version four complete and we can go to the final round of editing.

And of course a big chunk of that is Bernie. He just brings so much joy and positivity into my life. I enjoy him in my good moments and feel supported by him in my bad, and daily life is improved in every respect just by his presence. I love him, and don’t know how I got so lucky that he loves me the way he does.

So things are improving. And for once I’m feeling hopeful.

I could talk for ages about the woman who was my mother. Things you probably already know. Her kindness, her grace, her intelligence, her talents. I could go on forever. But standing up here now at her memorial, you know what I can’t get out of my head?

This isn’t fair.

We shouldn’t have to be here. We shouldn’t have to be mourning her loss so soon, from a sickness that made her suffer so much. When talking of cancer, there’s no such thing as deserts, but God, there was no one who deserved to go through that less than she did.

Because she was so good. Every thing I try to be, I try as an unformed imitation of my mother. From the way she threw a party or baked a pie, to the way she picked up a new skill seemingly without effort, to the ceaseless kindness and forgiveness she had for the world. Anytime someone notices that I’ve managed some small effort in what she taught me, I can only think, that’s nothing. You should see how my mom does it.

We were blessed in many ways, and one way that we were a close family. There were no old wounds between us, nor any important words left unsaid. But there was so much more life for us to have together.

For my part, I haven’t yet done all the things I’m going to do, things I wanted her to see, and be proud of me. I wanted her to see me get married, and help me raise my children. I wanted to learn how to be the kind of mother she was, because who else in the world could teach me that?

I know that her passing came as the end of her suffering, and she’s with God as she was always meant to be. But she should have had it all—she should have had that, and the rest of her life. And I am so angry that she didn’t get it.

But such is life. Such is the world God made for us. And we are not children, who may hurl ourselves in rage against the things we do not like.

So what then? What do we do? In times like this, people often encourage us to find the good that can be taken. As if, no matter how dark circumstances have become, there’s just some good that’s just there, and all we have to do is see it.

But I believe that in times like this, there is no grace or blessing that’s handed us to. If there’s any good to be taken at all from being eaten alive by cancer before your time, it’s up to you to make it. Because you don’t find it— you make it. And my mother did.

The burden laid on her was enormous. It would have been an easy thing for her to lapse into self-pity and despair, or to just give up. But she never did. She still took my calls ever day and listened to me go on about the silly details of my life. She still used her many creative talents to help me with my projects whenever I asked. She stayed the person that she was always was, as selfless, as giving, and as strong. She stayed my mother.

She loved to say to me, “You don’t know what you can do until you have to.” But every day, she had a choice. And every day, she chose to carry on rather than give up and let it make her less than she was. She didn’t allow her suffering to be the end of all joy and hope and goodness in our lives. Because she loved us. She held on to that for us.

That is the good she made of this. She allowed us, her family and friends, to see what that kind of strength and grace and love looked like. What a gift that was! I cannot doubt it, can never believe that it’s not possible, because I saw it with my own eyes.

It isn’t often that we get the chance to really show our quality. There aren't many chances given to be a hero. To show just how deeply you love. But in times like these… it reveals you.

So I will look to that in the years to come, in the darkest moments when I won’t have her here to turn to. I will think of my mother, and how much she endured to show me what real love was. I will think of my father, who took better care of her than anyone had ever seen, all because he loved her. There is Christ in those things. And that will be what carries me through the sadness and unfairness of having lost her. It has put iron inside me, which I hope one day will be forged into my mother's steel. That’s the good I’ll make of this.

I resolved when I broke up with Jared that I would stop hiding how I felt so much, stop pretending things were okay when they weren’t. So I’m going to subject you to the dumb bullshit about how I’m feeling. Feel free to skip if you don’t want to hear. I wouldn't blame you; I'm sick of it myself.

At a very low ebb. Feel so off these, even when I’m mostly doing normal. Seeing how badly Mom is doing just makes me ache. How weak she is, how much help she needs, how much pain she’s in, how she’s sometimes muddled and off both from the painkillers and from the tumors pressing on her brain. It makes me so sad that all the other rough things in my life right now seem beyond my ability to handle.

I’ve come to dislike the term self-care. I know what it’s supposed to mean— making yourself and your wellbeing a priority —but I’ve come to associate it so strongly with people blowing off responsibilities that it raises my hackles a little every time I see it. I would rather feel a little worse than be the kind of person who doesn’t fulfill the commitments that they make to other people. Than for people to feel like they can’t count on me.

But I am overwhelmed. And I don’t know how to ease it. It’s mostly my own fault; in order to feel relevant and like I’m doing something worthwhile with my time when I’m low, I always load myself up with projects. It makes me feel like I’m actually doing something toward making the career I really want. That, and I am so prone to laying down and sinking into nothingness that I need occupations to stave it off. But I have so much difficulty concentrating under this stress that I struggle to get anything done. And so much is due, so much is expected that I’ve committed. And I know I would feel even worse about myself if I didn’t deliver.

How, then, can I take care of myself?

I want to hide, to seek refuge in quiet and solitude, but I can’t. My job, tutoring students in paper writing at Bunker Hill Community College, requires I see and talk with lots of new people every day. While I do fairly good work at it, I find that much human interaction to be extremely exhausting. It’s a good job, though I don’t get many hours, but that part of it stresses me out extremely. It seems like it’s been more so lately. Probably just because I’m so stressed by my mother’s situation, but I’m starting to worry that the wear is cumulative. Which means it would only get worse. But I have to do something, and I’m terrible at finding new jobs when I need them. I guess I have to hope this is only temporary.

I feel like I’m been slow and forgetful lately. Responding to things, remembering the things I have to make sure I get done. And every time a new responsibility hits me, I wonder if it’s going to be what topples me. When one of my roommates told me she’s leaving in a month, the thought of having to find somebody to replace her made me dizzy.

I worry about money. It’s gauche to talk about it, but it’s on the list. Now that the winter finally seems to be breaking it might not be an issue anymore, but the heating bills were absolutely killing me. I’ve been a touch behind for months, even with my careful budgeting. It’s so tiresome to expend so much effort being careful and still not being able to make things stretch. I guess I have one real monetary indulgence—I spend a probably ridiculous amount for my budget on my various workouts. I take two ballet classes a week, plus I attend two group circuit workouts with a trainer at a little gym in Waltham. It adds up pretty fast. But I get so much out of it. I love learning to dance, my body has never looked or felt better, and I think it does so much for my health. If I feel stressed and worn out now, I can only imagine what condition I’d be in without it. If I could just make myself do it myself—practice ballet myself for an hour and a half, go through the circuit routine on my own at the gym —I’d save a ton. But I have a hell of a time making myself do it when I don’t have an appointment with somebody to put me through the paces. I feel like the money’s worth it to me, but I suppose it’s stupid for me to complain about things being tight when I’m making a choice that makes it so.

I suppose I should be grateful. I remember when I was dealing with this sort of thing with the black cloud of Jared hanging over my life. Nothing sucked the hope or energy out of me like he did. Thank God that weight has been lifted; I don’t feel like I’m a breath away from sinking all the time. But I could use a victory. Something nice to happen to me. A success of some kind, a step forward. I know that won’t make up for what’s happening to my mother. But it might help me not to break down and lose hope.

The ten things I want to accomplish this year:

1. Advance my career as a playwright somehow. That's a pretty ambitious resolution, and I'm not exactly sure how to go about that, so I will define it vaguely as that for now. But I want to do something that I can count as an advancement of my playwriting career.

2. Keep writing. Write more things of any kind. I've been on a hot streak when it comes to content creation lately, and I want to keep up my progress.

3. Get my submission rate up to a good number at regular intervals. The more I submit my pieces, the better chance I have of having them performed.

4. Keep up my fitness level. I love being so strong and fit and want to maintain, even improve upon it.

5. Get my finances in order. My budget was knocked out of whack because of my period of underemployment, so I want to get that back in a respectable state, as well as deal with my loans from graduate school.

6. Improve my sewing skills. This means a lot to me and I haven't made a lot of time for it.

7. Improve my ballet skills. I want to get past this seeming plateau I've hit.

8. Read more books. I've read almost no books in the last year due to difficulty focusing for long periods of time. I want to have full-length books in my brain again.

9. Be good to my parents and spend as much time with them as possible. This gets more important every moment.

10. Keep working on being a kinder person, keeping my temper, and being less judgmental. I can never let this one go.

And a bonus one:

11. Keep working on learning how to be hopeful. It's all that carried me in the last few years, and I can't let that go now.

I'm several weeks into this new life schedule and I'm starting to get into the swing of it. Getting up early and using my morning to prepare for the rest of the day, putting dinner in the crock pot, going for a workout, packing a bag with everything I'll need to take with me until I get home again at night. There's still something to get used to about being out around people for a full day, but I am feeling good about handling my responsibilities and doing a decent job of balancing them with the things that are important to me.

It struck me how happy I am with things lately. I have a regular part-time job that, while I don't love every aspect of, I like well enough, am good at, and leaves me enough time to pursue my other work. Between it and my various other small jobs, such as modeling and costume designing, I am making a little money again, more than I was at my previous job, and I am spending more time doing the things I want to do. I have been pursuing ballet and going to my circuit workouts, which has left me feeling strong and healthy. I am happy with how my body looks and feels right now. I launched my Mrs. Hawking website and, while I'm still working on how to find its audience, I'm proud of how it's coming along. I have been doing a TON of writing on various projects, many of which have a decent chance of seeing production, which could further my career as a playwright. I have lovely friends who give me a ton of joy, with whom my only issue is I probably don't spend enough time with them. And I have Bernie, whose love makes everything that much brighter.

I find I am happiest when I have a good balance of responsibilities, free time for fun, creative projects to work on now, and anticipation of good things in the future that give me a sense of moving forward. For the first time in years I feel like I'm mostly hitting that target. I may be a bit on the overcommitted side, as I often am, and should probably be careful of new commitments. But I feel pretty damn good overall, and I'm incredibly grateful for that.

My mother got the results of a brain scan today. We were on edge all week waiting for it. If she got a bad result, things would be really bad, because the treatment she had can't be repeated because it causes brain damage in excessive amounts. There's not a whole lot left to do if her lesions start growing.

We found out today that all of her lesion have either shrunk, are shrinking, or disappeared. Nothing has grown. Nothing new has appeared. She got about as good a report as we could hope for.

This won't last forever. Eventually they're going to start growing again, that's that nature of these things. But for now, for a little while longer, she's doing okay. In a condition that they thought would leave her three months to live ten months ago. A condition that grew out of another condition that they gave her four months to live almost five years ago.

In December she will hit five years with the deadliest motherfucking cancer in the world. She is a medical miracle. No other patient in the history of the St. Luke's of Bethlehem, PA oncology department has EVER lived five years with stage four lung cancer. Plus metastasized brain lesions. I wonder how many people in all history ever have.

I know most of it is the luck of circumstances, of biology, and being privileged enough to have the best medical care. But I'm damn proud of her will to survive. Because she does it for us. She's fought for five years out of love for us. And I'm damn proud of my dad, who loves her so much he's with her there every step of the way. She couldn't have done it without him. And without her own quiet strength.

Here's to five years, and every minute more we have.

Cliff Pervocracy, a feminist writer I like, once wrote an article about what it was like growing up in an abusive home. How when that sort of life is what you’re used to, it becomes normal. You fall into bad habits without questioning them. You make choices to keep yourself safe or to avoid pain that to an outsider seem awful because you almost don’t see the awfulness anymore. Because you’ve forgotten that decent people don’t act this way, that this isn’t an acceptable thing to take from the people in your life, because you’re just so damned used to it. You do these things because you’ve forgotten that life just doesn’t have to work this way. I didn’t grow up in an abusive home, but it sounds to me like all forms of long-term abuse tend to work out this way.

It’s shocking how much you can get used to, when you think about what you’ve been putting up with. When you realize that you made choices to minimize the pain you were going to experience—and in making that choice, you basically gave permission for someone to do bad things to you, because it was the lesser of two evils that you’d have to endure. I’m lucky in that I was never warped into believed I deserved it, that I wasn’t a worthy person, or that it wasn’t sick. But fearing being in so much more pain I’d be non-functional kept me putting up with it.

It’s almost miraculous when you get reminded that decent people don’t act that way. That yeah, no one’s perfect, but there are people who would never hurt you like that. Who respect your needs and feelings, who don’t ever run you down or use you, who care enough about you to work at treating you right. And that is how it SHOULD be.

There was a period where Robert Downey, Jr. was such a morbid coke addict that it was pretty much universally agreed that his disgusting mortal overdose was only a matter of time. Couldn't stay clean enough to keep an acting job, was telling the judge that told him to shape up or he'd be dead to go fuck himself, he was going to do coke forever. My very first awareness of the man was when my mom mentioned that she was sorry he had to be fired from the gig he had on Ally McBeal, and what a shame it was that he'd just never be able to get himself straight.

What must that have been like? To have your world be collapsing around you, and to not be able to open a magazine without reading somebody speculating on when you were finally going to kill yourself with the drugs? To have everybody convinced that you were simply incapable of turning things around? What must it have felt like, to hit bottom and know that literally everybody thought you were hopeless? How do you dig yourself out when nobody in the world believes in you?

But somehow he did. He climbed his way out, even after everybody wrote him off. Now he's got a nice wife and son, as much professional success as anyone could want, and is universally adored by fans. He made it.

A good thing to remember in a rough time. After all, one of the thieves was saved.

At home with my family to visit Mom in the hospital. Since getting in the hospital she's shown real improvement. There are currently no bleeds in her brain, and they managed to dissolve the clots in her lungs. She's talking more, she's sitting up, you can tell she feels better. My God, she's a tough lady. But she's still not okay, she's dependent on oxygen and still so weak she can't stand up on her own. That's a terrible way to be. And it worries me, I don't know if there's any way for her to come back from that. I don't know if it means she's just going to be stuck in that place until something happens that they can't stabilize, or if that means things are just plain going downhill. Mom and Dad say I should go back to Boston for now and plan on coming back soon, so I guess that's what I'll do. I'm relieved she's not crashing right now, but I don't know if we can hope for things getting much better.

My family received some terrible news this past holiday season. I am a wreck, have been for weeks now, and I think I am finally ready to talk about why.

As you may know, my mother's been battling lung cancer for the last four years. Three days before Christmas, she lost function on the right side of her body. She couldn’t use that hand properly, couldn’t stand on that leg, and she seemed a bit cloudy, like she couldn’t think straight. We took her to the hospital on December 22nd. Mom dreads the hospital, after all the time she’s been stuck in them for her treatments, but things seemed bad enough that we had to go. All we could do was get her checked out and pray.

She got a CAT scan which told us what happened. Things were bad. The cancer had metastasized, and she had significant lesion development in both halves of her brain. The swelling was pressing on her brain and impairing her function. The sort of thing that you don’t get better from.

The doctor started crying himself when he gave us the news. Bless him for that. It was a good contrast to the parade of doctors and nurses that day who were content to sashay through as if we hadn’t just had our world blown apart. I can’t for the life of me understand why these people just don’t freaking share information when something this serious happens.

We all sat there quietly for a while. It’s not like we didn’t know this was coming someday. She’s a stage-four lung cancer patient. But now it’s finally come. I started crying very softly to myself. Everyone else was quiet. Taking it in. Processing it. This is my family. What does it say that, of all of us, I’m the one who’s the pussy?

Later I saw that Dad had tears in his eyes. I’ve never seen my dad cry before. He is a tough man. I can't begin to express how much so. I heard he got misty at his mother’s funeral, though I didn’t see it myself. And he says he cried when I was born sick, and when John Lennon was shot. Not quite sure I believe that. But this was the first time I’d ever seen it. The world must really be ending.

I spent a long time just watching them together. My mother and my father. They’ve been dealing with the reality of cancer every day since she was diagnosed. She is tough, she has fought this bravely, tirelessly, has been as on top of her own care as anyone can possibly be, but she’s needed him, she would never have gotten through without him there to take care of her. And he’s done it. Completely rearranged his life to be there for her.

I took this picture of them. I probably shouldn’t have. It was kind of intruding on their privacy. We are private people, and Mom hates pictures of herself these days. I don’t think my mother or father would be completely comfortable with everything I’m sharing here. But… I want to remember this moment. I want to remember what these things look like.

It isn’t often that we get the chance to really show our quality. Most of the time we just get to muddle through our mundane lives, getting by with doing a decent job. Even if you want to, there’s not many chances to step up and be a hero. To show just how deeply you love. But in times like these… it reveals you. It reveals what you really have inside you.

Almost forty years ago now, just before they got married, they spoke to the priest who was going to perform the ceremony. My father spoke to him first, and when it was my mother’s turn that priest said, “He’s selfish. Don’t marry him.” My parents tell that story laughing. It’s not even completely false. My dad has always been the sort of man who does exactly what he wants to do. But I wish that priest could see my parents now. “Now I know why they say ‘for better or for worse,’” Dad said. “But for me it doesn’t feel like ‘for worse.’ I just want to take care of her.”

I’m proud of the man who is my father.

And there's Mom herself. Dad says that he knows there must be some good in him, because he's been loved by the two kindest women he ever knew-- his mother, and mine. I still can't believe how bravely she's endured all this. The pain, the weakness. The ravages of the treatments. The increasing helplessness. The loss of two of her most remarkable traits, her easy capability and her striking beauty. The constant sense of impending doom. When she was first diagnosed, she was told she had maybe six months. She ended up getting four years, so as she said, "This is no more of a death sentence than I ever had." She wants to live, she wants to be there for us, so she keeps going on, keeps fighting. For love of us. For love.

You want to know what love is? Let me tell you. My whole family came down with chest colds that week, my mom worst of all because of her compromised condition. Love is when you’re sitting in the hospital, dying of the tumors in your lungs and your brain, and you save one of the strong Mucinex they give you so you can pass it on to your husband for his cold.

And she's still facing her death with strength and dignity. I have been called strong, but I am only the reflection of the bright steel inside her. I'm proud of the woman who is my mother.

How blessed I am. To be their child. To have seen this. I want to remember what this looks like. What that sort of love looks like. What my parents loving each other looks like, while I still can.

Adversity introduces a man to himself. I wonder if God allows bad things to happen to give us a chance to be good in a way we never could otherwise. I mentioned this to my dad. His response was, “I never wanted to be good.” Of course, that’s probably the point. And whatever awfulness comes from this, however terrible it is, at least I’ve seen this. I’ve seen how much my parents love each other. I’ve seen how good they can be.

It’s a costly gift, one I must treasure. My mother buys it with her life.

They couldn’t give us a time frame on how long they expect her to have. There are treatments they can do, radiation, continuing with her current chemo. But the five-year survival rate for patients with her sort of lung cancer is in the single digits, even without the brain tumors. She could have a few months, six months, maybe a year if we’re lucky. They think they can keep her lucid and stable until the end, which is about as much as we can hope to have. Her doctors are dedicated to helping her. She's always been the sort of person who inspires love and goodwill from others, but having seen how far she's come against such odds, with how intelligent, aware, and committed she's been to her own treatments, how bravely she's taken on the suffering that is part of it, she's made people care that she makes it. So she's still getting treatments, both for her lungs and for her brain. Because it might give her a bit more time with us, a bit more time for those she loves.

I shouldn't dwell on it now, but I can't help but look ahead to what life will be like without her. I can't imagine. How I dithered around, trying to make sure everything she wasn't able to do was ready for Christmas, and was struck by how much she does, so effortlessly, so well, that leaves me at a loss. Everything I've ever done-- from the way I lay a table to the way I go through the struggles of life --has been trying to live up to her creativity, her grace, her selfless goodness, her steely inner strength. What will I do if she's not there to show me how? And there's all the things she's going to miss. If I ever become a successful writer, she won't be there to see it. She won't be at my wedding. She won't help me take care of my first baby. She won't see me ever get past my stupid pride and arrogance and meanness to be the kind of selfless, giving person she was.

We are all doing the best we can. Being loving, be there for each other, as long as we still have her. Our hearts break, but we are strong. We have a good family, we've always said. We have our love for each other. And so we'll get through somehow. I have iron inside me, which I hope one day will be tempered into my mother's steel. But I am wrecked now. I am going to be wrecked for a very long time.

Pray for us.

Profile

breakinglight11

Navigation

May 2025

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31

Syndicate

Page Summary

Style Credit

Base style: Heads Up by momijizuakmori
Theme: A Brighter View by zaluzianskya and skylark_photos

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated May. 23rd, 2025 09:52 am

All Eyes on Me

"Do you know why heroes boast? Because it makes them brave."

Entries tagged with hope

23 and counting

Steady on

“Every day, it gets a little easier. But you’ve got to do it every day. That’s the hard part.”

The embarrassing origin of my screen name

Extinction burst-- if we don't go extinct

Good things of 2016

Got to keep fighting

Hopeful progress

Good things of 2015

New Years resolutions for 2015

Hopeful

The eulogy I gave for my mother

Guess I'd better talk.

Resolutions for 2014

Got it pretty good right now

Five years a survivor

Abused mentality

On not writing off

Visiting Mom in the hospital

"I never wanted to be good."