I was making a new recipe for dinner recently and it required me to mix cornstarch with some water so I could add that to a sauce as a thickening agent. No big, right? Little did I know this recipe would lead to a complete emotional breakdown.
When Molly was undergoing active treatment for her leukemia she struggled a lot with low blood sugars overnight. She would wake up shaky and nauseous and feeling like junk. We ended up having to give her a concoction of fruit juice mixed with cornstarch every night before bed. (If you’re wondering how that would taste- it is not good.) I won’t go into the science but basically, it helped keep her blood sugars more stable for longer so she didn’t wake up feeling so crummy.
Every single night for many months I would scoop cornstarch into a cup of juice. It was part of our nightly routine. We called it “juice medicine.”
(One night as she was drinking it she sneezed on me and I was covered head to toe in white speckles. We still laugh about it.)
I haven’t had to do this for Molly in almost two years. That’s how long it has been since she rang the bell and celebrated being cancer-free.
And yet, the other night I opened that cornstarch container, caught a wif of the smell, then proceeded to burst into tears as I scooped a few tablespoons into my bowl.
In that moment I was feeling so frustrated with myself. Damnit Am. I couldn’t even keep it together to make dinner?! It has been almost two years since we have had those worries and faced that reality! Why was I melting down now?! I was a mess.
The thing is, trauma and grief have no timeline. I wish they did. They continue to rear their heads at the most unexpected (and sometimes inopportune) moments. The smell of cornstarch, the smell of a certain soap, requests for specific meals or snacks, a song or hearing a particular movie playing…these are all things that have brought me to tears in recent months because of trauma that happened years ago.
Each time my initial feeling is WTF. I jump to frustration fast. (This isn’t something new. I’ve done this for as long as I can remember it. I’ve even blogged about it before.)
And then as the hours and days pass that frustration eventually turns to compassion and understanding.
We went through a lot. Those few years were tough. We lived in constant stress for an extended period of time and had to do and see things that will stay with me forever. Of course I’m going to continue to be brought to tears by them! In some ways those tears serve as a remembering. A remembering where we were and how far we have come and how lucky we are to now see them in our rearview.
I don’t know why this moment felt so necessary to capture here, but I do feel like I want to say this. If you are struggling with grief or some sort of trauma from your past, that’s ok. You are ok. Feeling it now might just mean that the work you’ve been doing on and for yourself is working. Be gentle with yourself. You’ve been through a lot.
With so much love and gratitude,
Am