Health update:
I can sum this up as “Irritatingly unresolved”
The biopsy showed normal tissue but the surgeon thought he had missed the lump. I was given various options and went for the “review in 6 weeks”. I actually feel OK about it, I still believe it’s a storm in a tea cup and would rather avoid unnecessary surgery to take out the lump / lymph node “just to make sure”. We shall see, anyway.
Moving on:
Just back from an emotionally draining family funeral, an elderly aunt with long term health problems so more of a celebration of a life well lived, so it wasn’t the funeral so much as being pushed back into childhood by memories, photographs and people.
I went for a walk with one of my brothers to kill time beforehand and we both promptly regressed into our childhood selves. Him being annoying and continually teasing me with smart alec remarks, me responding with threats of violence (only joking. I mean I did threaten him and kick him on the backside as we entered the National Trust coffee shop, but it WAS in a joking way, they didn’t refuse to serve us and ask us to leave) It is interesting how it is possible to leap backwards through time in a split second. The laws of physics with regard to time just don’t exist for emotional stuff. The whole walk could be seen as a mini metaphor for our childhood. We just ambled along for a while, some bad stuff happened (we got very lost, I got stung by nettles), we fought with each other a bit, but we worked together to get out of the mess and we both knew that the fighting was really about us both being on edge, keyed up about the day ahead and that that the reality was, we both, more or less, had each others backs.
The actual event turned out to be a bit of an anticlimax. I was glad to “say goodbye” to my aunt but I would really have liked to say goodbye to her house too. I have explored in my zines how I attach to places and objects very strongly, in the past as a substitute to people. I was quite attached to her house, a repository for my grandparents knick knacks and pieces of furniture which had made it a comforting place to visit. Her house was literally next to the church so it was frustrating to be so close but it would have been inappropriate in the circumstances to barge my way in.
And at the same time it was a busy event, lots of people so I didn’t get chance to engage in proper conversations with anyone I really wanted to although I was fully expecting that. At least we ticked the box by turning up. And I ate a lot of egg sandwiches.
The picture in this post is Van Gogh’s harvest painting. I have the print of this which lived at my grandparents house. It hung in the kitchen by the table and just looking at it makes me feel calm and safe.
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