17 Again

Yes, I admit it. I am fond of that movie. I think Zac Efron is adorable and I love that they promoted the movie using the song "This Is For Real" by Motion City Soundtrack. But the movie isn't what this post is actually about.

In my job, I work with adolescents all the time and I sympathize with having to be a teenager and go to high school. I really do. Many have heard me say "You couldn't pay me to go back to high school." It's not that I had a wretched experience or anything, but it was a time of hormonal hurricanes, identity crises, and never-ending acne. I honestly believe it's the hardest time in your life no matter what type of person you are, so I appreciate the struggle.

To be honest, 17 was actually a great age for me and to this day, it's my lucky number. Hell, I'm getting married on September 17 next year. Anyway, at 17, I had some of the greatest times of my life as well as some of the worst. I was finding out what love was, or at least what it means at that age. I was learning that there was a big world outside of my tiny little county that would eventually teach me to broaden my thinking but also appreciate the things my little hometown gave me. I was picking out dresses for formal dances. I was going places with my friends and speeding home to make curfew. I was doing all sorts of things to make the best of my senior year and kind of felt like I was on top of the world.

Then my mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.

I can't tell what day it was when my father told me, I can't tell you what I was wearing, I can't even tell you where we were in the house. But I'll never forget hearing the word cancer. Until that moment, hearing the word was fairly benign since it was never in MY life. But when it penetrated my world, it was malignant and felt like taking a bullet.

Scientifically, I can't really tell you a deeper definition of cancer than "a group of cells which display uncontrolled growth, invasion and destruction of surrounding tissue, and sometimes metastasis (spreads to other locations in the body through lymph or blood)."

Biology was never my forte. But I can tell you how cancer started out as something the size of a softball and then grew to be something that could fill a room, fill a house, fill a mind, fill a heart. I can tell you how it invades your every thought, your life as you know it. I can tell you how it spreads to your relationships, your functioning, and this false little protective world you thought you lived in. I can tell you that.

So there I was: a 17-year-old girl who just found out her mother is mortal and has no idea what the future holds. It just goes to show how egocentric a 17-year-old mind is: only perceives, understands, and interprets the world in terms of herself. I'm not even the one who had cancer. I can't imagine what she went through. I can't wrap my brain around everything she felt and feared. I have an amazing amount of respect and admiration for my mother for many reasons, but especially for this.

Before I go any further, I'll tell you that she beat it. I'll never say WE beat it, the reason for that comes later. But she beat it. After surgery, chemotherapy, numerous appointments, and a host of other things that aren't mine to share, she beat it. She's been in remission for years now with no issues.

Even though I was so heavily affected by her cancer, I don't feel like I was there for her. I didn’t know how to be. Hence, the lack of "we-ness." Yes, I did dutiful things like run errands, pick her up from the hospital, keep her stocked with water and tissues when she was in bed for the day, do the laundry and make sure my father didn’t starve, and tell her if her wig looks okay and even offer to shave my own head to make her feel a little less alone (she wouldn’t allow me though). But I feel like I was not there for her emotionally other than my offer of self-induced baldness. I never said, "I'm so sorry this is happening to you." I never said, "I love you and don't want to lose you." I basically shut down. So if I had the opportunity to be 17 again, that is hands-down what I would change.

I kept those thoughts of regret with me for a long time, almost 11 years actually. I've always been able to tell people that my mother had cancer and reflect on the experience, but I never talked about how I felt like a shitty daughter.

It's kind of funny really. I’m a mental health therapist who constantly preaches about expressing your feelings, not letting things fester. Yet I'm not one to talk about the negative things going on inside of me. Whether it's due to shame, mistrust, feelings of powerlessness, or general discomfort, I don't know. But I came around.

I was visiting my parents this past June for my 10-year high school reunion. My mother and I went out for a walk and like usual, we started talking about a medley of things. She mentioned someone she knows has cancer. There's that word again. Its sting lessens over time, but it doesn't seem to disappear completely.

So I decided I needed to tell her how sorry I was for not being there for her. To my surprise, she replied, "What do you mean you weren't there for me?" thinking that I meant I never did anything. I clarified that I meant it on an emotional level. And again, to my surprise, she said, "Maria, I never let you be there for me. You were 17." She continued to explain how she didn't want anything to take away from my senior year and my future. Being the incredible mother that she is, she put me above her own mortal peril. That’s amazing to me. Perhaps I’ll understand it more fully when I have my own children someday, but right now that kind of selfless only a mother can give is just remarkable to me.

That conversation changed me. It's not that she absolved my guilt, I wasn't looking for that. I needed her to know that I was sorry and that I regret how I handled it. I think she has always known. Mothers always know. But more importantly, I'm glad I had the guts to tell her. I might not remember the details of when I found out she had cancer, but I'll always remember that night she had to remind me I was 17. I can tell you it was about 7:30pm on June 25, 2010. I can tell you I was wearing black and white workout clothes. I can tell you I was about 50 feet from my parent's driveway. I can tell you that it was one of the most precious moments of my life.

That last sentence would have been the end of this post, but I’ve got to share this little anecdote. I always listen to music while I'm writing (while I’m doing most things really). And just as I was typing that sentence, "Time After Time" by Cyndi Lauper started playing. Out of the 36 songs on the playlist, that is the song that began just as I was finishing. "Time After Time" happens to be the one song I link to my mother. When I would make my own ringtones for my cell phone, I assigned that song to my mom only. If there was such a thing as a mother/daughter dance at weddings, that would easily be my song choice. 

If you're lost you can look and you will find me, time after time. If you fall I will catch you, I'll be waiting, time after time.

These will always by my mother's words to me, but I hope she knows they are mine to her as well.

2007