Three years ago - on August 13, 2010 - I wrote this.

You can see the entire post here. 

This journey has been much more mentally challenging than I have admitted to anyone - even myself. I was shutting down. I was retreating into myself. I was heading to a place where I have been before and where I do not want to go again. That place where you go thru the motions but there is no spark. That place where your negative energy drains every ounce of positive in you. I can't say depressed - because it really wasn't that at all.

Today I am tired. The fatigue is very real and very dramatic, but the mental funk that I have been having with it, well it didn't show up today. I do believe the endorphins generated by exercise help keep that fuzz and funk at bay.

I am still fairly quiet - but I am pondering a few things still. And I have the BIG tests on Tuesday. The contrast scans to be sure there is no more cancer floating around. So that's hanging in my brain.

I am going to say something here. I am not doing this to hurt anyone and I apologize if offense is taken. Yes, I am doing great. Yes, this has been a dramatic and traumatic journey. I hide it oh so very well. The mask is the one thing I can put on to protect those around me. See, knowing that I am struggling makes many of my closest very uncomfortable. I understand that, it is hard to watch a loved one struggle in any way. So I hide it and I have my dark moments alone. I don't want people to be uncomfortable. It's easier this way.

I'm pondering still - and I'm thinking about the fact that I still wear masks - and the ones I keep wearing the most diligently are not to protect me.

The masks I guard and put on faithfully are those that I wear to protect those I love the most.

Look at the water droplets - I noticed them while I was sitting in the doorway of the studio. A line of droplets. A path in the fold of a blade of grass. A tiny tiny detail.

And the words of a friend came to mind.

"I take good notes."

That same friend and I discuss the storm clouds we often see in each other's eyes.

I go back and read through the cancer story on MaggieGrace. It was a beginning for a part of my story. It was an end for part of my story. I can see through my mask so clearly when I read the words. I was afraid. Afraid to live and afraid I would die. I was lonely and alone. I wanted someone to see the clouds and say - "storms a-brewing" much like that last scene in the first Terminator movie.

I wasn't alright ---- but I am now.

Drop number one - drop number two - drop number three ----- on and on and on and on. Soon you have a branch - then a creek - then a river. And when you follow the river - you eventually get to the sea. And the river of fresh water is suddenly changed to a huge body of salt water.

Drop one - drop two - drop three ---- all leading up to changes in me.

I take really good notes -

I'm different today -----

But yet, I'm still me.