Well, I had a semi-hiatus from seeing doctors, chemo and all those wonderful stuff called medical and your health. The next couple of weeks will be busy. We start a new baseline and set up the game plan for the rest of this year. PET CT and biopsy are scheduled for the next two weeks and limbo I will no longer be. I get to be sedated this time, so no more trauma. I personally am done with any level of trauma; I have met my quota.

While acclimating back to normalcy, I have spent the last several weeks making headway on my own psyche. Remember Pandora’s Box? Having all the data without much guidance is just wasteful (and lethal) information. However, I was given a book called, ‘Scared Sick: The Role of Childhood Trauma in Adult Disease‘ to read and it is quite an eye opener. I will warn you now, if you choose to read this–DON’T PANIC! The Towel will not always save you in every situation, but it sure helps ease you through uncomfortable situations (Remember Linus?). It is helping me decipher all the crap that is ruminating in my little head. It is a hard pill to swallow. When you have spent most of your life just trudging and staying afloat without much headway or progress, eventually, it (skeletons in the closet) will come out to bite, haunt or obliterate you. Some folks are lucky, not very much skeletons to haunt them and they come out barely scathed with any injuries. A few others, however, come out completely a different person. I, for one, would like some middle ground.

I am an expert at this. As a matter of fact, this is probably my all time high. [I am sure I will say this at a later point.]

The best way to describe this is to imagine oneself as a wee bit sapling. Your rings are  developing. As time goes by, you inch your way up to the sky. Each time, a new ring, new experiences. However, those measures of experiences were not quite developed; smaller rings than what your peers have. Now, no longer that sapling but a slender, tall tree, you have branched yourself out with experiences, memories and values. But there is something missing. You feel less, feel weak, your roots are fragile, the trunk ‘soft.’ The nutrients of growing are no longer available, you feel stunted. Yet here you are, in the forest amongst peers, wondering why every other tree are more majestic than yours.

I am that slender, [somewhat] tall tree, making sense of my majestic stance. So far, it is not so majestic and my stance is off kilter. If I keep this up, I may look like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. So here I am, looking at all the rings on my trunk, making sense where it was my lessons were stunted or missed a rung altogether.

It may be deceiving, but thoughts have been hard to gather in a sea of words, drowning in the multitude of characters finding its captain. There is little pleasure knowing the Perfect Storm is near (or am I the eye of the storm itself?). The challenge is exhilarating, the reward is ten-fold anticipated; yet fear lulls you into the old familiar–the sirens cull those that are blind faith. Once in the womb of deceit, true talons revealed, your innards torn, tender heart concealed.