Thinking The Right Thoughts; Asking The Right Questions

I don’t consider myself an exceptionally deep thinker. Sure, I think a lot about a lot of things. But only in the way that many thoughts cross my mind often about many things – some trivial, some mindless, some pointless, some not.

What day is it today?

Have I washed the kids’ uniforms?

What should I cook for lunch?

When will my Tesco order arrive?

Do the kids have any glue stick left?

Why does my left wrist hurt?

When is my next doctor’s appointment? 

But that’s about it most days. Just random thoughts that ebb and flow from one to another without great consequence in the grand scheme of things. Neither fun nor depressive; only mundane. 

Most days, I am kept busy with the house and the kids. Freelance work has also been taking up quite a bit of mind-space of late so that’s been a welcomed escape from the humdrum of SAHM life. Usually, this is enough to take me from Wake to Sleep without break or rest. 

But there are days when

this one evil thought rears it ugly head.

When the dishes are piled high in the sink, when the laundry is yet to be done, when the trash hasn’t been taken out, when I can’t see my dining table under all the home-learning mess, when the kids misbehave, when relationships sour, when Me Time is scarce… it’s there.

“What is the point?”

What is the point of it all? What is the point of being alive? What is the point of surviving cancer only to be faced with an overflowing kitchen sink every single day? What is the point of living if all there is in store for me is to be a slave to everyone else around me? What is the point of persisting if all there is to look forward to is punishment? 

And just as I think it, I chastise myself for it.

How could I even think such a thing?? How dare I!

After all that has been done to keep me from death.

All the money spent – hundreds of thousands in surgery, treatment and follow-up costs. All the people inconvenienced – to cook and clean and help with the kids during my downtime. All that time lost – especially with my growing-up children whose childhoods feel nearly over. All the prayers prayed – so many of them whispered, yet answered all the same. 

It stabs me with such guilt that it tears me up inside and stops me in my tracks, rendering me unable to move forward without attempting (sometimes in vain) to silence the thought and beg the Lord for forgiveness.

It instantly makes me feel like I’m the most ungrateful person on the planet – ungrateful for the life that I’ve been so fortunate to have. For the extension of Life itself that I am so blessed to be given in spite of the tribulations I’ve been through, and the challenges I still endure, and the trials I have yet to face.

Unfortunately, if I'm being honest,

it isn't just once that I've thought it. 😔

When life gets hard and everything seems to be going wrong, it comes knocking at the corners of my mind. More frequently than I’d like these days, no thanks to the lack of pleasantly distracting activities and socially rewarding outlets due to the return of MCO 3.0.

Perhaps all this negativity will stop when lockdown eases and normalcy resumes. Maybe I'll stop thinking this way when my world goes back to being bigger than the confines of my home. I guess a visit to the mall for some window-shopping will help, too. Oh, and I know good food and easy chit-chat in the company of friends definitely will. 

But deep in my heart, I know, I know, I know that at the end of the day, the problem boils down to this: I'm asking the wrong question. So, the only way to stop this crippling guilt and depressing spiral is to change the question altogether. And if I get the question right, it'll all be alright.

Stop asking, "What is the point?"

Start asking, "What is my purpose?"

Then & Now

Now that a year has passed and old wounds have healed, my perception of my chemo downtime has also changed. Instead of remembering 5 months of IVs, swollen veins, bruising, nausea, indigestion, tiredness, loneliness and involuntary isolation, I now look back on those days quite fondly. 

I remember keeping to myself for the most part of every day. Just waking, lazing, eating, sleeping, showering, listening to music, watching mukbang videos, reading the Bible and even just staring into space and zoning out until I fall asleep in my room. Rinse and repeat; day in and day out. 

I’d spend hours picking up and sorting out the hair I’d lost, too. It was surreal and cathartic to feel the loose strands in my hands, attached to nothing. I remember thinking about how slippery hair actually is. The smoothness of every fibre. But only from one direction; coarse from the other. 

I did this every night. Patiently. Painstakingly. Diligently. I’d align every strand, tie them together with a rubber band and put them away in a box – storing them for goodness knows what. Just me clinging on to some semblance of my past before Life did a 180º and landed me where I was – sick and sitting in a room all alone, sorting fallen hair. It was mind-numbing work. But very therapeutic all the same. 

I miss that monotony now.

The quiet. The solitude.

The peace in my heart.

Finding peace has been difficult lately;

this weekend, especially.

I feel frustrated. Easily irritated. Fed up with everything. I’m angry. I’m also angry that I’m angry. At what, I do not know. I’m sad. Depressed. I feel this great unhappiness hanging over my head and weighing down my heart. Unhappiness over what? Everything and nothing. 

A super long, extra steaming hot shower helps relax me somewhat. Watching Korean dramas on Netflix offer some relief, too. Blogging, even more so. But then... it’s always fleeting. Because one cannot shower, Netflix and blog forever. 

So. Very. Tired.

I've always said this:

"I don't want to survive cancer,

only to be killed by Covid."

Unfortunately, the journey from being "unvaccinated" to becoming "vaccinated" in Malaysia is a long and exhausting one. Even if you're being treated with a whole bunch of meds and have got a history of critical illness. 😞

Dermatology Wing, Penang General Hospital.

It feels like I've been everywhere today but have gotten nowhere at the same time. Stuck in some kind of sadistic limbo with clear goals in mind but none of them reached. Much like how it feels like the entire nation has been in a seemingly perpetual state of some form of lockdown or another for over a year now, but has far from contained the spread of COVID-19. 🦠 

It's taking forever for the elderly to be inoculated. (I'm told that in Penang, we're still at those 79 and above.) Vaccines are insufficient. (Private hospital PPVs are on standby but have yet to receive their share of the vaccines from the government.) Frontliners are overworked and tired. (My cousin is a dentist in Kapit and she's been put on Covid duty for awhile now; how crazy is that?)

When will the wait end? When will I be called? When will Malaysia achieve herd immunity? When will life go back to normal? Will life ever go back to normal? Aih. Who knows, man. Who knows. Am tired after today's runarounds. Body tired; brain also tired. Don't want to think liao.