We always find ourselves looking back on events and comparing them to the present. A week after a summer holiday that memory of being by the pool whilst you're sitting at your desk or that amazing night out as you arrive at your desk on a rainy Tuesday morning.
I've been having that in reverse this week. I'm in Barcelona with the husband at our favorite hotel that we have been staying at for 11 years. Our "home in Barcelona". Usually I'd leave the memories until I got home. But this year all I can think about is being here roughly a year ago.
I'd finished chemo a week before and I really wasn't supposed t be traveling. This was to the extent that twelve hours before the flight I was overdosing on spinach and iron tablets because my blood count was too low to allow me to fly (its something to do with oxygen in your blood and altitude), the final blood test came out about .2 above the allowable level. It didn't matter. I'd already packed my bags.
The trip was vintage Barcelona. Amazing new restaurants and bars and sun. But it was muted. I was confined to the shade and no late nights and a length of the small pool was enough to send me to bed for a snooze. But I was just happy to be there back in routine.
Now. I'm on a sun lounger (coated in SPF 2000) and sipping on a cava. But I'm looking across the deck at a former me. Thin, hairless, pale and tired. Above all, so tired, and its hard not to cry.
I just found this on my phone after returning from another trip to Barcelona. Again it was vintage but already the memories aren't as raw. I could discuss what happened to me in a logical way without the emotion. The tiredness I'm feeling now is from lack of sleep and too much partying rather than side effects. I'll roll with that.
I've been having that in reverse this week. I'm in Barcelona with the husband at our favorite hotel that we have been staying at for 11 years. Our "home in Barcelona". Usually I'd leave the memories until I got home. But this year all I can think about is being here roughly a year ago.
I'd finished chemo a week before and I really wasn't supposed t be traveling. This was to the extent that twelve hours before the flight I was overdosing on spinach and iron tablets because my blood count was too low to allow me to fly (its something to do with oxygen in your blood and altitude), the final blood test came out about .2 above the allowable level. It didn't matter. I'd already packed my bags.
The trip was vintage Barcelona. Amazing new restaurants and bars and sun. But it was muted. I was confined to the shade and no late nights and a length of the small pool was enough to send me to bed for a snooze. But I was just happy to be there back in routine.
Now. I'm on a sun lounger (coated in SPF 2000) and sipping on a cava. But I'm looking across the deck at a former me. Thin, hairless, pale and tired. Above all, so tired, and its hard not to cry.
I just found this on my phone after returning from another trip to Barcelona. Again it was vintage but already the memories aren't as raw. I could discuss what happened to me in a logical way without the emotion. The tiredness I'm feeling now is from lack of sleep and too much partying rather than side effects. I'll roll with that.
