Two things I haven't talked about yet......

Jobs and Hair....... 

I had a rough week a couple of weeks ago.  Like, things happened that were much harder to talk about than I would ever have thought. 

Having said before that we watch a lot of *history* here in this house, and read a lot of history, and talk a lot of history, when the clippers came out and what was left of my hair came off, I immediately thought about a documentary I had watched recently about one of the death camps during WWII. 

One of the women being interviewed said they were all rounded up from their village together, then sorted as they got off the train.  The small, "strong" group went into the showers, then were deloused and had their heads shaved. 

She said they went in with their sisters and friends that they had known their whole lives from their village, but when they walked out they didn't recognize each other. 

I cannot deny it, hair makes that much of a difference.   I still do not recognize myself when I walk by a mirror. 

It was painful - I mean the hair itself was painful.  It hurt to sleep on it.  I would wake up wanting to grab it and yank it to make it feel better.  It was everywhere - all over my clothes, all over Scott when I hugged him, all over the house. 

At first as it was falling out, I was ok with the eventual loss - I knew it was going to happen - but when the clippers came out and the last fringes around your neck and face are gone - you are not so sure you are who you thought you were. 

It's a big part of a person's identity.  Especially for women.

I knew it was going to happen - and when it was gone, it was almost "freeing" because it didn't hurt anymore. 

But I look in the mirror and don't see myself. 

********
JOB

The ladies I work with are pretty awesome.   I work for a non-profit and we have a staff of 3 people.  So when I was off almost all of 5 weeks when I started the chemo-study, the work force was grimly cut by a ragged third. 

I felt really bad for the ladies - they work so hard, and now they were having to pick up my work as well as do their own.  I was not expecting my "highest chemo dose possible" to take me out the way it did. 

They were willing to work out any kind of schedule to keep me working and help me out.  I think I got in three days.  It just couldn't work.  I was smashed on the rocks and barely floating. 

The director called me on a Tuesday morning and wanted to know how I was doing.  I just started to sob.  I knew what was coming - if I had been the boss I would have done this 3 weeks earlier.

I was placed on a 6-month leave of absence.

If she had not been so kind, if she had not been so heartsick about it herself, if she had not been so ministering in her manner of speech, I might have had a chance of choking it all back and not bawling until I hung up the phone.  

I love my job.  I am placed in an office in the back with my spreadsheets and such, but still, I thought that I was doing something - involved in something that would make a difference in people's lives for eternity.  I mean how you can you measure what those ladies do there and the enormous gap they fill in those lives that walk through those doors?  We are a "pregnancy resource center" - helping those that are pregnant and hopeless with a sound ear, some medical help, education and a boutique to help fill their nursery. 


But those ladies do so much more than that - they encourage different ones to get their GED.  They point others to food sources.  The needy people that walk in that door are met where they are with whatever we can help them with - no matter what.  And if you saw what they did with the small budget they work within, you would truly marvel. 

Everyone that walks in that door gets a hug and they are told when it all looks pretty gloomy, God loves them.  Then we do whatever we can to show that love in a tangible way.

So when my director called, I knew.  And I hated it so and just cried tears of sorrow that I could not be there to help them.  She cried tears of sorrow that I could not be there to help them.

But we both knew it had to be.  No one knows the finances better there than me - they have been more than kind, more than generous, more *anything* than they should.  

I greatly miss them.  I greatly miss my job.  I greatly miss feeling a part of something that is helping people and making a difference.  

*******

So I get up in the morning and I really do not recognize myself.  One by one all of my "identities" are being pulled out from under me. 

It's an odd place to be. 

And it's not just the physicality of it all.  Most days I can't read very well any longer.  I can't pick up nuances that make conversations interesting on long "chemo-fog" days.  I can't clean.  I can't even work up enough gumption to take down the rest of the holiday decorations and get the spring ones out.  I love to do that.  That's my "thing".  But it holds little interest for me most days now. 

So it has really made me think about life.  Maybe, maybe - life is really what everyone says it is all about but no one really lives it that way. 

It's not about your looks, it's not about your job title, it's not about your intellect. 

It all seems to be filtering down to a community of people about you that love you no matter what.