I feel like I was raised to be tough.
All the possibilities I have always seen are to keep moving forward. And I don’t intend it to sound like a hero kind of thing, nor to make it sound like a tragedy, what I intend now is to list these random apparently normal things that go on in my life and that seem to affect nothing in my way of living it.
So dad has been hospitalized two times now in about two months or less. Had surgery, a small complication and is still undergoing several exams to determine the nature of the mass in this important part of his body, which is most likely going to be cancer. Yet here I am, finishing the paperwork to leave the country for at least a year very soon, no real alterations on my plans for the nearing future.
I am of course worried about it, but I just feel that I’m useless, and let’s be real, I am. Regardless of me staying or not, I’m no doctor or scientist so really I cannot cure him nor make him worse.
He also doesn’t allow us to visit him at the hospital, for he says it’s filled with sickness and bacteria and he doesn’t want to risk us getting sick, plus he has no energy and is sleeping so it’s not like we can interact a lot if we were there. Which is totally correct really.
According to my mom, he almost cried twice when thinking about the possibility of cancer, but then he didn’t. “If crying would solve our problems then I’d be crying my eyes out” and “we shouldn’t give up, we should think about living and the things we still want to/ can do”. Perfect logic in my opinion. Right? In this family, we don’t cry.
The other day I told my mom I was getting a little nervous about leaving and asked her thoughts about it, all she said is she’s worried I’ll get sick in winter. “Won’t you miss me?” I asked half joking. “Oh that doesn’t matter, I won’t be playing emotional blackmails, you should go and live your life”. Wise mother. Thanks.
I was thinking earlier about the implications of me leaving the continent and leaving my family here... dad with his treatments, mom alone with all the annoying paperwork that comes with sickness, sibling alone at home without me to be the big sister and cook, guide and have fun with... it’s a weird thought. But fuck it, right? I’ve wanted to do this for a while... and it’s finally happening.. it’s normal, they’ll understand... right? Am I a bitch for not really feeling too much guilt about it? For not even considering the possibility of staying next to my family?
So I was lectured later, it started with “So when are you leaving? January? I might be starting chemo by then, or in the middle of the next surgery” to what I didn’t know what to say so I just started at random points in the wall and said something like: ehhh... so he continued “you have to travel. I don’t want to hear of you stopping because of me, you go and do your things. And If I happen to die, soon or in a couple of years when you’re away, you keep doing what you want to do because people die every day, and if anything, that is what you owe to us, that’s how we tought you to live”
It made so much sense then, I stopped doubting if I was an insensitive bitch, I knew then that’s how I was raised to be. When people die I don’t get sad... they’re dead anyway so what can be done. I’m detached, I spent part of my childhood alone but it never felt like a big deal, I was raised independent by an even stronger and more independent woman.
My toughts changed from the beginning of this post to now, but I can’t care to fix it, may or may not continue this in the future
