teah's abloglah

Cancer

I just watched 50/50, and I’m in enough pool of emotion to write this properly.

I don’t talk about my dad’s cancer because it was such a low point in my life when it all started in 2009. I don’t like when I have to explain about it for the first time because I choke and falter when I have to describe it. I’m almost crying just typing this (never mind, I’m crying already), and I’ve tried typing the same things over and over in the past but I never really posted them because words cannot justify the things my family had to go through.

I am somewhat at ease now. Somewhat. It still sucks, but having a father who has cancer really makes me realise the kind of people there are in my life. There are three types of people:

1. The ones who doesn’t care: Like I said, I don’t actively talk about dad’s cancer. I’ll bring it up roughly once every three months. Sometimes, I’ll bring it up out of nowhere, unconsciously making the decision to talk about it (I need a therapist.) But the reason why I don’t bring it up is because of these people. The people who’ll just say ‘oh’ when they first discover this piece of information or when it suddenly pops up, the ones who made it obvious that I’ve made the situation awkward by trying to be human and who’ll steal glances away from my eyes. I don’t blame these people at all, but in a way, it kind of shows that the link between myself and them are weak, and I’ll make a mental note to not talk about it whenever I’m with them. It’s fine. I can be bad at certain things in certain people’s lives, too.
2. The ones who abuse it AKA Assholes: This goes into the above category, but they are also the ones who would abuse my position by asking me to write articles about cancer for publication without knowing what the hell my father has, whether he still has it or any kind of information, really. This has happened to me a total of three times.
3. The ones who care very much: There are only a handful of these (I can count them with one hand) and for this, I just want them to continue to stay in my life for a long period of time. These are the ones who, out of nowhere, would ask, “How’s your dad?” and would allow me talk for fifteen minutes about how he’s doing. It sucks for me to talk about this, but when I do, it makes me realise how much I really do care about my dad, and in turn, it makes me want to cry while talking. This bond these people choose to create with me justifies that I can emotionally connect with them strongly, which is great because I am terrible at connecting with people. At the end of the day, I’m glad I have these people to keep me grounded because I still don’t talk about this often enough, and I realise I need to because keeping things bottled in is bad and makes me hate myself as I question my role in my dad’s life. At the end of the day, talking about it with these great people makes me realise, “Hey, I think I’m doing good as a daughter.”

This isn’t anything, and as I’m writing this, it’s not really going anywhere. I just think I need to get it out, and I want to thank people who have supported my family and myself throughout the years. We still have a lot of challenges ahead, but since we’ve faced the worst, hopefully the path ahead is easier to walk on.