Excerpt from paper journal:
This is it … one more radiotherapy treatment tomorrow and cancer treatment is OVER, bar the 5 years of tamoxifen.
I haven’t journalled much at all this entire experience. I guess a lot of it I wouldn’t want to remember anyway.
It’s going to feel strange, even sad, leaving this place. So much growth, mostly. I treasure the counselling sessions I had down here. They kept me afloat, and more. I’ve learned so much. I really want to work on what we touched on when I get home, in tandem with the work I’m doing with my at-home counsellor.
[Very personal stuff left out …]
It’s a beautiful day here. 1.30pm. Hot in the sun. I’m sitting in the front courtyard of the Villa Units, in the shade near the garden. The little sprinklers are on and I can smell the smell of delicious green. There is the tiniest little spider sitting on the top corner of my page, watching me as I write. I’m sitting under a palm tree and am flanked by rose bushes weightily covered in perfect white roses, and baby lavender bushes underneath. Chinese jasmine wafts! There is a warm breeze moving the leaves in the trees around me, though I am protected where I am. Dragonflies–streams of thought–zipping everywhere, from babies to big adults, and white butterflies looking as though they are mobile petals from the rose bushes. Ah that wet garden SMELL–I can get high on it. Every now and then a fine mist from the sprinklers blow my way and cool my feet. Delicious! I should have bought out my camera. Captured this perfect ‘mindful’ moment. [I ended up going out later in the day to take a photo–not as nice as when I was there but nice enough.]
I am going to be sad leaving here and going back home, as weird as that may seem. This is a lovely city. Beautiful architecture. I love D—- St … Anne and I had coffee at some place called The Three Monkeys or something, and I ordered my mocha in a bowl, thinking I was being very Lorelai (ie Gilmore Girls). It was a SOUP bowl for goodness sake! But I finished it all (and am proud of it ha ha!). Expensive, beautiful, quirky things in that street. We went for a drive around the city beaches. Visited the amazing Anglican Cathedral [photos in my photo albums]. Went to a converted woolshed that was chocked FULL of antique stalls. The clothes! Visited the art gallery and there was a book on Rick Amor which I drooled over–but it was $120. Out of my price range. Coffee on the foreshore on a sunny afternoon. More antique shops. And the big thing–my new guitar. Now I have three, but only one has my heart.
It felt so GOOD being in the city (more men to look at and talk to also!) I feel more alive. I went to a film society night with Catherine and saw Dans Paris. Dad came down for the weekend and we went out for an Indian feast. One of the radiotherapy students here is Indian, and her parents own this restaurant and I swear to God it was the best Indian meal I’ve ever had. A day down in The Big City in one of the swishest parts of town. A birthday party lunch on the balcony of a very trendy pub on the water, overlooking a wharf where all the rich and famous live, expensive restaurants, a tiny marina with some expensive looking boats. Another world entirely. Sun, cool breeze, and food and wine that just kept coming for three hours. Another sparkling day.
On the way home we had a bit of a wait at Central, so sat and had a cup of coffee. I people-watched–watched them coming and going, wondering who they were, where they were hurrying to, why and what. Lots of younger people. I sat there, and thought to myself so clearly … “I’ve fucked up”. I fucked my life up. I LIVED in this big city and didn’t enjoy it as I could have, didn’t do anything with my life. Regret, but no distress attached. I fucked up. I haven’t lived my life yet, I’ve just let it happen to me. If I knew then what I new now etc etc etc.
We have a bottle of strawberry champagne in the fridge for tonight, Mum and I, to ‘celebrate’ and mark the end of treatment, even if it is a night early. Proper strawberry champagne, not just pink champagne. Yum.
I can’t wait to get home and clean my house. Is that strange? NO … it hasn’t had a proper clean since before I had surgery, except for one quick once over by Anne when I was having chemo. Symbolic of a clean start too, I guess. This is the start of life AFTER cancer.
