74) Apples & oranges

You shouldn’t compare apples & oranges. It’s not fair to the apples, nor is it fair to the oranges.

People are unique individuals, and everyone has their own personality, as well as likes & dislikes. Despite knowing this as an absolute fact, I still marvel at my two boys, and just how different they are from each-other. When we’re at the park, J, who is 4, will want to climb a ladder on the playstructure, but he always asks for my help. E, who is only 2, requires hawk eyes on him all the time. He’ll see his brother climb the ladder, and then he wants to do it. But no, E doesn’t want your help. No, E wants to climb the big ladder all by himself, regardless of whether he has the balance & co-ordination to do it on his own. I know they are each their own person with their own genetics, and their own personality, yet it still surprises me to see their differences, and the way they’ll approach something.

I cried today for the first time in a while.

Mom, if you’re reading this, there’s nothing wrong with E, or J, or my wife, so don’t worry. I wouldn’t say that any external influences are currently weighing on me. It’s more internal struggles, and swirling thoughts. Comparing apples & oranges if you will.

I feel like I’m a mess these days. I feel half-functional, and that I’m just barely scraping by. I’m pessimistic by nature, but I feel as though I’ve been taking that to new highs (lows?) lately. One of the lines in my Twitter bio reads “searching for the dark cloud to every silver lining”. I wrote that half-jokingly, and I wrote it long before E was diagnosed with leukemia.

Then I start to think about our situation, and while it’s definitely not ideal, it could actually be much worse. E has B-type ALL, the most common, and treatable form of childhood leukemia. He has an excellent prognosis. From this, my thoughts turn to darker places. There are other parents whose children may not have as good of a prognosis as our little E. There are other parents who probably wish that all their child had was B-type ALL.

Thus begins the self-loathing. How can I feel so down, and dysfunctional when I should be feeling lucky to be in this situation? It could be so much worse, and here I am feeling like a dumpster fire of a human being.

Apples & oranges. Everything I’m feeling is based on grief. All of the things I feel like I’ve lost because of my son’s cancer diagnosis. I’ve seen a lot of articles about grief lately. I haven’t searched them out, they’ve just come to me from various sources or feeds. Grieving doesn’t necessarily require death. No, you can grieve over plenty of things in life: a failed relationship, a missed opportunity, a stalled career, a sick child, and more.

I’m grieving the life that I feel we could have had, if cancer hadn’t reared its ugly head. I’m grieving, and my feelings are valid. Just as valid as the grief of a parent of a child who doesn’t have that excellent prognosis. Different yes, but still valid. Apples & oranges. I’m not being fair to myself to compare the two.

That’s may be true, but why do I still feel like a bag of shit?