scintilla #2

Day Two Prompt in the Scintilla Project: When did you realize you were a grownup? 

It seems like everyone in this world who appears to be an adult has discovered some secret of Achieving Mature GrownUpedNess, and I haven’t quite figured out what it is that they know and I don’t.  I’m still not completely convinced that I’m a grownup. And I will quote Hawkeye Pierce in a long-ago M*A*S*H episode when he said: “No, I don’t have children – I am my own child”. But I certainly do remember my one defining, non-negotiable, “you are now an adult” moment. That moment when I realized that although I’d lived for years on my own, I’d also taken for granted the parents that I had waiting in the wings with support and kind words and dinner whenever I might need them. And that was when I also realized that I couldn’t count on my parents anymore. That was the moment when I knew that I am, in fact, now my own child.

I was diagnosed with breast cancer in November 2004, when I was 43. Yes, I was quite young for that sort of thing, and it was quite a shock. And I’ll just say right now that I’m fine, it was early, I had a lumpectomy and radiation, took Arimdex for five years, and have long since graduated to the one-checkup-a-year club with my radiologist and my oncologist and would have graduated with my surgeon too but he left town some time ago so I just have the two Specialists to watch over me with their eagle eyes. It was scary and shocking time, but now it’s just a blip back there on the horizon. And something to give me panic attacks every year like clockwork when I’m due for a checkup.  

Getting cancer was not what made me realize I was officially a grown-up, though. I realized I was a grownup when I decided I would not tell my mother. Because my mother was in the early-to-middle stage of Alzheimer’s, and telling my mother would have just worried, stressed and confused her. I wanted to tell my mother because I wanted my mother to comfort me, to tell me that everything would be fine and to do that really nifty magical thing she always did that convinced us all that everything happens for a reason and things always work out for the best. But my mother was no longer my mother, at least not in the way she’d always been my mother pre-Alzheimer’s.  She wasn’t yet the confused little old lady that I didn’t even recognize, but she also wasn’t the person I’d always depended on and talked to and called with good news and with bad news, and who could be counted on to convince me that things always work out for the best. That person had vanished.

I wouldn’t have told my father either, but at the time I didn’t know if I’d have to have chemotherapy or not, and they had scheduled surgery pretty much immediately. So I ended up telling him. Mostly because I didn’t think I could get by with not seeing my parents for six or eight months if I DID have chemo, and my hair fell out and I had to wait till enough grew back that I could just pretend I’d gotten a wacky new buzz cut. I didn’t want to tell him – I wanted to protect him from the scary real world as well.

But that was it; that was my Grown Up Moment. That’s when I knew that I was officially The Adult. When I decided to protect my parents from finding out about my own serious and frightening health issue.  At one time they’d have been the first people I told, so that they could take care of me and tell me everything would be fine and cook me something nice to eat and comfort me. But when everything shifted and I became the adult, suddenly I was protecting them from the bad stuff and the scary stuff. I was telling them everything was fine and there was nothing to worry about. Meanwhile my husband and I took walks and created lots of distractions and watched comedy and convinced each other that things would all work out for the best. And they did. But it was a massive shift in my own reality, and nothing has ever been quite the same.

Oh, and we were completely unsuccessful in keeping this massive secret from my mom, because she knew something was up the second my dad tried to have a private conversation with me on the phone about how I was doing. So he had to tell her. But since she had severe memory issues, I don’t think she ever made the connection about how potentially serious it was. Maybe. Who knows? That’s fodder for another entry.