Reparenting Myself Through Spotify

 *I do realize that in November of 2025 that Spotify has become problematic with their use of ICE recruitment ads*

 Fifteen year old me loved her discman. I would sit on the bus to school, not really in the mood to be human in the morning, and listen to my beloved small collection of CDs. Oh those compact discs! The love story I have with them! I was influenced by different friend groups - so I'd listen to G Love & the Special Sauce in one realm, DC Talk with my youth group friends and secretly listen all year round to my Harry Connick Jr, "When My Heart Finds Christmas" album. 

 I don't remember exactly when the discman broke. Might have been during college. In the beginning years of cell phone use - I didn't listen to anything other than downloaded mixtapes and my CDs in the car. And even later, my cassette player in a blasted Dodge Neon. And if you follow the evolution of music technology - I enjoyed the days of the iPod Nano (that girl went with me to the treadmill many times!), to CDs in a minivan, to downloaded music and back to record players. 

 I also broke/lost my iPod and for quite awhile, listened to Pandora and my family account of Spotify. As a family, we listened to Queen and Yo! Gabba Gabba songs, musicals, Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga, Michael Jackson, etc. But I hate Pandora - every time I wanted to scratch that Harry Connick Jr Christmas itch...they'd throw in some Josh Groban. Random selections were no better than the radio. 

My kids have gotten older and more selective in their music tastes. So our family algorithm became a bit scattered and I made the big financial leap to pay for my own Spotify account... a whopping $9.99 a month to save my own playlists and search for that song I haven't heard since junior high. 

 Right before cancer struck - I started an industrial sewing job where we have the freedom to listen to music/podcasts/audiobooks all day long if we desire. And Oh do I desire!! This is when my Spotify account became the best friend I could tote with me anywhere. Phone battery in alignment, of course. I could tap into whatever genre I wanted given what I was feeling that day - and it was mine, all mine. I may sound silly - but as a parent - there aren't a lot of things that are yours. You have to share, a LOT. And not much is private. 

But no one but me and Spotify know what goes on in my headphones. I can listen to a new song I found 15 times in a row and not bother a soul. I can search up all the albums I bought from BMG and recreate the thrill I had listening to them in my tween room. 

Music, and my ownership over what I choose to listen to, has been a very healing element as I navigate the normal challenges of adulthood and parenthood. Sometimes the day is too loud and I just want to hear the Sleeping Beauty ballet music. Sometimes I need to put on my "You're Gonna Cry" playlist and release everything I've been heartbroken over. It's also helping me navigate the not normal parts of life. Where I'm teaching myself to better regulate emotions and reparent myself, as I try to give myself space to understand all that went on after my father died. It's such a strange season in life to be the grown up, but watching your kids live in a much more secure environment than you had. My inner 20 year old, my 17 year old, my 11 year old selves - they are begging to be heard and understood. They want to rage with Tori Amos but also rediscover listening to Janet Jackson at sleepovers. 

There is something deeply comforting about finding your voice again. It's a meditation practice to sing or hum music that is so well known. In your body. It's bringing me back to the root of who I am, but also the root of who I wish I could have been without experiencing so much trauma. 

Life is Short & Other Unhelpful Advicea

I listened to a podcast listing the 10 truths a breast cancer survivor shared about her healing - and I feel like the words could have come right out of my mouth. The lack of understanding for what survivorship means and the lack of comprehension for what this disease does to a body. Worst case scenario is death. (Well, honestly that may not be the worst.) In medium case scenarios - you now live in a body that has had vital parts of you amputated. You take medications that leave you fatigued and achy.

1. The cancer is never "done". It is a wraith that follows you, making you wonder if and when it has returned. Because you now know it's completely out of your control. 

2. Your knowledge about health, diet and exercise is heightened.... But also useless. There are dudes on YouTube telling you to eat a raw diet when he had a completely different type of cancer and yours feeds on the natural hormones in your body. Being "aware* of osteoporosis when the medication you have to take *CAUSES* osteoporosis, isn't really helpful at all!

3. Think think think before you tell a cancer survivor to be strong. What does that mean exactly? Don't ask for too much help? Don't let yourself cry over your mortality? Don't admit that you think this is bullshit? When we hear "you're so strong" - I at least hear "you're only allowed to be strong. We will not let you slip up." I was strong because I had to be. I am strong because who exactly is going to pick up the pieces if I fall apart? 

4. We will never be the same. I cannot go back to an innocence about my health or my mortality. Every shitty thing that happens to us creates a little divide from other people... It's just the truth. I know what it's like to have cancer, when many are oblivious. I know what it's like to lose a parent, been there since I was 17. Empathy can only go so far - so you live with a grief and a personal knowledge that a bulk of people around you don't get. And when you are punished or considered difficult for no longer being who you were before a doctor said "you have cancer", you are further isolated. 

5. Some people run towards you and some run away - and I am not in the mental space yet to NOT take that very personally. If my brush with death wasn't enough for you to consider my humanity or to let go of your petty expectations for me... How else am I supposed to interpret that? My life feels pretty damn personal. 

Dance like everyone's watching

June - or Junevember as the creative, over scheduled parents like to call it... Is one thing after another. In a good way. This year we didn't have any graduations in the household (although my nephew did graduate high school!). We *only* had soccer, dance, dress rehearsals, chorus concerts, band concerts, the dance recital AND tonight - the intensive dance banquet! Other than field day and teacher gifts... We're in the clear until the 4th of July. 🫠

Can you guess that I've cried over plenty of things? 🎶 I get so emotional 🎶 - but in all fairness, universe, you have my child sing a collection of Les Miserables songs for his final chorus concert? Like ever? I felt like I was floating in space - watching my 17 year old child sing songs that I watched at 17, knowing they were one of my departed father's favorites and I'm not supposed to ugly cry in the auditorium?? 

And our dance recital. There was less crying for me because last year was my big "overcome cancer" moment when I got back on stage for a tap routine. This year was more of a celebration and gratitude that I have such a welcoming place to go several times a week. 

I can't recommend dance or any group exercise enough when recovering from an illness or surgery. Three breast surgeries really messed up my arms, sides, chest and any sort of flexibility. Going to dance and learning a routine is the best kind of physical therapy..I don't think I'd be this far along in recovery if I wasn't having fun pretending that I'm actually good at hip hop. 

My sweet Delphine is a dance pro - by the recital, her group has performed more than a dozen times on stage and from my perspective, it is a bonus to dance for our family and friends. 

I did have a little post- recital melancholy because all that work AND time together is just... Poof.. over until we meet again in the fall. Thank you to my dance friends and our teachers and for everyone that purchased our fundraising goodies throughout the year. You helped create this for an 8 year old who promised me she'd never stop dancing. 🤞

Too...Much...Water

Middle age is an interesting time to learn and unlearn things. Simple things like how much effort it takes to learn how to use a new phone, or in my case, a new Kindle (first day I could NOT figure out how to get out of my book and back to the home screen). Or when the supermarket gets updated and you don't know where tomato paste is! 

It's a time to Embrace nerdiness or character traits that still aren't particularly useful. I'm fully invested in building miniatures - when that's the last thing I "have time" for. And I find that I use my dictionary more than ever. Does anyone else just pass over words they don't understand or you've read/seen it a million times without bothering to know what it means? I used to do that all of the time. When I finally, lazily, press the word to open the dictionary - it is worth it! I had probably read the word 'nadir' twenty times before I took the effort to learn its definition - and know I see the word everywhere. 

Idioms too. If you have to Google it .. I'll wait! Because I just had to in order to include it in my writing. I was getting it confused with colloquialisms. (I'll still be here after you Google that one too!) 

Bite the bullet. Costs an arm and a leg. The last straw. Under the weather.

We've heard and said these things so often that we don't think or really hear what we're saying. And once you really *hear* it, you can't unhear the meaning. 

I've written in the past about some really unhelpful idioms that cancer patients hear a lot. I've had my issues with people that say "getting old is a bitch". We just regurgitate sayings without thinking of the audience or how negative or dismissive they might be. 

But over the last couple of weeks, the term "carrying water" has been a recurring theme. What does that mean exactly? Can you envision for yourself the water you are carrying for other people? For our culture? For things to stay the same and to keep us busy serving something other than ourselves? I carry a lot of water for people and ideas. I also carry a purse with snacks, gum, water and activities because I'm a mother. But the entire cultural norm of carrying a purse (AND the car keys) as a woman is carrying water! Why didn't anyone else bring a bag??? 

Carrying water is the unappreciated mental task of keeping track of groceries, schedules and what time dance class starts. Carrying water is remembering birthdays. Carrying water is knowing the truth and watching everyone else pretend. Carrying water is staying small or keeping your opinion to yourself to let an insecure man feel good about himself. Carrying water serves the patriarchy.. Carrying water serves the status quo.  

And now I can't seem to look at the words carrying water. 🫠🫠🫠

My point is that we carry so much in order to keep things going, whether anyone notices or not. Because it's "easier" to stay quiet until it isn't. I'd like to put the water down; I wish I could stop caring about what is ethical or right for one minute and just be as selfish as many people are! 

I encourage you to look around and see what you're carrying for others. Be it the weight of responsibility to maintain a relationship, be it the snack schedule, be it the cleaning. It's ok to carry what you want, of course, because there is beauty in being a responsible, functional adult. But it's all about actually choosing what you carry.

My Suburban Mom Crystals and Woo Woo Healing

My kids make fun of me for being a millennial on a daily basis, even though I'm not technically in that generation. If my outfit is lame? Millennial mom fashion. If I make a bad music selection? Uggh, so millennial. But the worst is when I start talking about crystals, the chakras in the body and Reiki. I bring it on myself, but that's when the teenagers start ripping on me that I'm just like every other white suburban millennial woman. Especially when I start to tease them that I'm dipping my foot into witchcraft and drinking moon water.

But I disagree! I don't think most adult women my age are *that* into crystals. Or Reiki. Or are they? Any input from my friends in this category?!? 

Since my surgery last December - I have taken a big step towards completing my active treatment and reconstruction. Anything can change, but my treatment continues to be some oral medications and upcoming transfusions for bone health. I'm not "done" EVER, but I'm also not preparing for the next surgical event. That's when the mental healing really needed to begin. All of 2023 was pure crisis mode and I let a lot of boundaries slide. But survivorship and my new frantic sense of time has changed me in ways that I'm still finding surprising. I have no tolerance for unequal relationships. I have no space to manage others emotions. I have taken really big steps back to focus on taking better care of myself. I need to find my own strength and be my own support in places where I've been habitually put in third or fourth place. People that have always been in crisis mode themselves and I have spent a lot of my life reacting to harmful behavior and trying to find my own sense of peace. 

My reading and podcasting this year has focused a lot on emotional health, family dynamics, reparenting myself and woo woo stuff like self healing through Reiki and chakras. I don't believe that any of it is more important than proven therapies like chemo or good nutrition - but there's a lot to be discovered or understood about the minds effects on the body. 

I went for Reiki one level training in February and it was fascinating. This is after I had an amazing Reiki session at a cancer retreat (Mary's Place by the Sea) in January. The practitioner was a nurse who added Reiki to her healing. When in a session, the healer typically works from head to toe - checking in with chakra centers: crown, throat, solar plexus, etc. She went over my throat several times and asked if I'd be trying to say something important. 

The answer is: YES I HAVE. To put it generally, I have tried to explain my new challenges about cancer and survivorship and ways I was trying to protect myself to a few people in my life... And not only were they not understanding, they were aggressively uncaring. The "new" me was rejected. I was frustrated that I've been given very little grace to even think about freaking out that my mortality was/is threatened and how difficult it is to live in my body now. Menopause aches and pains, PTSD, trauma, grief, fear. All of the things that may not LOOK like cancer, but certainly cause a lot of anxiety and sadness. The basic response was that I'm arrogant, selfish and since I don't look sick, I should just return to normal. Hah!! There is no fucking normal. 

So I'd desperately been trying to explain myself. Which was showing up in my throat chakra. I've also learned since then that it is the gateway for problems or imbalances that are happening in lower chakras and it manifests through the throat too. 

I see some of my mistakes now, that I was over communicating. I won't make that mistake again. I have really stopped trying to explain myself or my motivations - and now my answers will simply be yes or no or that doesn't work for me. I know who actually is willing to listen and those that just want access. 

And let me talk about my new appreciation for crystals ! Delphine and I had an amazing trip to Arizona where my Aunt & Uncle took us to Sedona. I had no idea is it a spiritual mecca and we learned a lot about crystals and stones. That's where I picked up my Amazonite bracelet, which is meant to help clear the throat chakra. I wear it every day as a reminder to think slowly and clearly about whether I'm speaking up to appease someone else or if I'm fully justified in protecting my sacred little family. 

I've also started to wear rose quartz over my heart to help it heal. To help myself remain open when I've really felt blindsided. It's very easy for me to hang on to hurt because I haven't had the greatest experiences where those that hurt or betrayed me showing any remorse or need to change. We're supposed to let people be who they are, right? I'm trying to hang on to the belief that people aren't mean spirited on purpose... Hard in the world today. 

What's next? A few books about Buddhism and Jungian psychology are on my list. Maybe I'll get a Tibetan singing bowl and start rolling in the grass in my yard! Who knows!?! All I know is it can't hurt me. And if I'm already embarrassing my children with chakra candles and crystals - I might as well make a true spectacle of myself!! 

What Squishmallows Mean to Me

We live in a home nearly filled to the brim with stuffed animals, toys, stuffies, Barbies and Squishmallows. I can blame part of the clutter on five children.. but if I'm being honest, a LOT of these items are special to me. Many of the stuffed animals are mine! Looking at you Sesame Street beanie babies! We have a large Big Bird that has been with us since before we were married. I'm basically a large child looking for excuses to buy more stuffed animals. 

The recent trend with Squishmallows might be the hardest because they are huge!! I know friends that have developed entirely new storage solutions to deal with the influx. They are soft and the perfect amount of squish. 

After my most recent reconstructive surgery in December - my tissue expanders were replaced with the "final" implants (I don't want to jinx my luck because implants can fail or leak or become infected at any given time). The hardest adjustments I've had to make since August 2023, with my mastectomy, is learning new sleep patterns. Every single night, I attempt to move back into my most comfortable position. I could sleep soundly with my arms above my head and on my stomach..  that's just been impossible and uncomfortable since then. Every. Single. Night. My body tries that position and fails. 

After the mastectomy, I had drains and severe stiffness. Imagine how C3PO would lay down... That's how I felt. After each fat grafting procedure, I also had pain in either my stomach or sides. I tried pillows propped between my knees and wedges and a large body pillow I could twist. The most useful items I was given were two bolster pillows from the Pink Pillow Project. Filled with microbeads, they gave me support between my sides and my arms. But they have been used and abused! 

Enter the breast cancer scene: Squishmallows!!! I raided the supply in my youngest children's room and voila, my new best friend is Lil Gouda! I can hug him against my chest and still roll from side to side, being annoyed that I can't sleep the way I want... But he's just the right density to help. 

So please, add Squishmallow to the list of "what to buy for the cancer patient in your life". 

The Case of Information Gatherers

It's so interesting to look back on the last two years of my life and observe from a distance. My feelings are less frantic and raw. I can put space between my feelings of sheer terror that my life was over and recognize the trauma for what it was - and how time, can give you perspective. Time does not heal necessarily, but it makes you feel like you've got some bullet proof glass and a lock on the door. 

Cancer clarified. It made a lot of noise fade away and a lot of concerns about daily inconveniences take their proper place in the long (I hope) arc of life. So while I can put petty problems aside, there are other "small" things that I can no longer tolerate. I don't have time or energy for one sided relationships now. I don't need to be polite to balance out rude behavior. My favorite quote of the week is Kendrick Lamar "I can't fake humble just because your ass is insecure". I don't need to make myself smaller to get the love I deserve! Cancer showed me who has my best interests at heart. Cancer showed me where and who my attention is deserved. Cancer showed me that my best energy and devotion is reserved for myself, my spouse and the children I brought into this world. Everyone else can hop on board and share in the love - or I match your energy. Cancer showed me that while illness is isolating and lonely, I can be so proud of my inner Alexis that always has my back. 

Illness clarified the difference between two types of questions - information gathering versus true curiosity. It's hard tell. Both will show concern. Both will seem genuine. The problem with information gatherers (synonym to grief tourists ) is that they just want to be in the know. They want to be in a position to broadcast your information. While that is helpful in times of crisis or to give the aggrieved a break from repeating the same details over and over, there has to be a limit. When your personal details are then being used as a means to connect with others or when they share that information with people you'd *never* confide in - that's not really helpful by any means. It's gossip with a cancer flare. 

There's a surface level understanding to information gatherers. They don't really ask "how are you coping"... They want the side effects. They want the nasty details. They want drug names to Google and the worst want to use your pain as a way to gather sympathy for themselves. I hope all patients with chronic illnesses find the wisdom to spot the difference between genuine concern and morbid curiosity. 

I've been happy to share details that could help another person. If you ask - I'll certainly tell you whether I still have nipples or not (I do! Thanks for asking! 😊). But there's an element of the gossip train that doesn't sit right with me and I know this is a feeling in the cancer community. Ask the patient how they are FEELING. Ask the immediate caregiver how they are FEELING. Don't get the information third hand, write a "you're so strong!!" comment on social media and then forget to actually speak to the person going through treatment. Don't use our personal details to make it look like we have a close relationship. 

 Knowing whether someone is truly interested in your well being - it's intangible and undefinable. It's a feeling. It's hard to be a person who has been deeply changed by an illness and want people to show decorum, but not every conversation needs to start with, "what's hurting you this week?!?". I don't know. It's wild how interactions can sometimes be so insanely misconstrued. With all of the cancer scam documentaries that have been on TV lately -it's an interesting deep dive into psychology and illness and attention seeking behavior.