I can’t believe it’s been two weeks since my last update. They weren’t kidding when they said that these chemo meds would be much more toxic than the ones I was on in 2015 — the extreme levelling up of the side effects alone is proof of that. I’ll write more soon about the actual chemo and side effects (I’ve even started drafting that post!), but it is Ash Wednesday so I’ll go for the timely post and some of my thoughts on that.

First, I encourage you to read “For Sisters With Nothing Left To Give Up For Lent” by Candice Benbow. Although I’m not the target demographic, Ms. Benbow’s words moved me and made me think that maybe finding ways to embrace the resurrection during Lent wouldn’t be a sacrilege, but an active good that God might be encouraging me toward.

You know how I mentioned side effects? Yeah, they’ve been seriously awful and draining. Those side effects have included literally days of nausea and seasickness so bad all I could do was close my eyes, as well as more than 24 hours of excruciating pain throughout my entire jawbone so bad that, even with my dose of oxycodene doubled to 10mg, an ice pack around my face, and literal numbing gel rubbed on my gums, I was still rating the pain higher than I’ve rated post-surgical abdominal pain (oh, and 3 days later, I still can’t eat anything that requires actual chewing), plus others like insomnia, hellacious heartburn leading to exorcist imitations, and the expected bone pain that was mostly managed by the oxycodene.

You know the end result of all those side effects? I’m fucking tired. Note, I am not looking for advice or solutions or answers for those symptoms. My doctors understand and encourage complementary medicine. We are discussing ways to cope or avoid issues. Every cancer and every chemo is different. What might help Susie, could kill Bethany. I’m sharing because I think it’s important to share and because it relates to my thoughts on Ash Wednesday and Lent.

In addition to those side effects, there have been times I would have given damn near anything to call my dad. It is not okay that he’s not here for me to call and talk to when I’m miserable. I do not understand why God would allow my dad to die less than a year before my mom has to watch her youngest go through this. She shouldn’t be alone. Yes, she’s strong, but I know that Dad and she got each other through the last time I had chemo. I know life’s not fair, but right now it seems horribly unfair and awful to go through this without Dad.

Plus on top of all of the personal stuff, there’s the horror show that is the United States right now where, just as a cherry on the shit sundae, a literal Hitler Nazi program was announced by our president and people actually applauded (VOICES is a lot like a program that tracked and publicized crimes attributed to Jewish people in an effort to whip up anti-semiticism so no one would mind when the govt started killing them, in summary). That infurirates me. Every single damn day horrible things are happening and the only people who seem to be speaking up about it are those of us who tried to prevent this dumpster fire in the first place.

Then, because of all that, people are feeling emboldened to be violent, racist, horrible assholes. Bomb threats are being called into JCCs all across this country. A friend is seeing her student, who describes himself as “a young brown man,” has experienced more harassment and hassling from police and others in their town since November than in his entire life before then. He’s not the only one, but he’s the one who said something to my friend. It’s heartbreaking and wrong.

I think I’d be significantly less frustrated if people who I know voted differently were also sharing on Facebook about the Nigerian man who was detained and asked to answer computer science questions because a CBP official thought he didn’t look like a software engineer or how wrong it is that CBP was checking identifications of passengers disembarking from a domestic flight, or the insanity of associating HBCUs with “school choice.” But they’re not, and that adds to this impression that the world is burning around me because not all of those who people who voted that way are bad people. Many of those ones who I know are good, decent people who were angy or felt like they had missed out. They’re people who I don’t think I’m wrong to expect that they be outraged over Muslim bans or human rights abuses.

So, physically, emotionally, and spiritually I just feel spent. It’s the start of Lent. I’m writing this before I even get my ashes (we’re going to an evening service), and the thought of trying to give something up for Lent? The thought of spending 40 days thinking on the idea that we are dust and to dust we’ll return? I’m really well aware of my mortality and the ashes seem like one can taste them in the air.

However, focusing on the life part? That intrigues me and I find myself waking up a little for that. Maybe I need to focus on the first part — that we come from ashes. So yes, things are ash and awful right now, but good can rise up out of those ashes. Despite the personal and political awfulness that is going on, I have to believe that we can follow Christ into resurrection and new life.

In the Stations of the Cross there are good people like Veronica, the woman who Tradition says wiped Jesus’s face to soothe him. In the midst of Jesus’s suffering, there was kindness. Ultimately, there was new life. In the midst of my personal suffering, there is a bounty of kindness. Perhaps my job is to share that kindness with the world.