I was doing great. I was upbeat, I was present, I think you could even have called me peppy for a bit. I was unphased by my 10th brain surgery (11th surgery overall). I was singing Jason Mraz’s “Everything is Sound,” and taking the uncertain and unwritten future as a reason to stay firmly in the present. I worked out, I saw friends, I worked on my dissertation. For all intents and purposes, I was thriving.

I may have been delusional, but my delusion was an excellent coping mechanism.

I don’t feel happy today. I’m not brooding like I was for a moment a few days ago, but I’m not happy either. (Note, I don’t place any judgement on that because in this moment I just am what I am and I don’t think life’s purpose is to be happy, that said, I do like happiness). I just feel a lot. I feel responsibility to be the chipper defender of doctors and brain surgeries as no big deal. I feel reluctant to admit that fear is creeping in. I feel annoyed that I have to face my life and death in this way again. I feel sorry for my loved ones — for the pain, the anxieties, the worry. I want a summer of travel, lounging, and of the mundane irritants of daily life. I want mosquito bites and puppy baths to be my greatest concerns.

Alas, that is just not my fate and not who I am. Since I was a child I have taken it upon myself to understand and mitigate the darkest of the dark in the world. So perhaps, even if I wasn’t navigating my own trauma, I’d be finding a way to help another soul navigate theirs. Perhaps that is why today I feel empty, I feel alone. Not because I am not awash with love. My community provides strength, love and light in droves and I am beyond grateful. Rather, I just feel the limits of my body, the bounds around how much I can help, be present, or be the light when it is dark.

I should check myself. I should not take for granted all I have. I know that.

I am, however, growing weary. I have little else I can manifest at this time other than a declaration of my fatigue. I know myself, though, and most often it’s only momentary.

Soon enough, perhaps even minutes from now I’ll be singing along to something hoping the melody lifts my spirit and my thoughts come back to the now rather than all the worry of a life lost, of a summer squandered. I’ll sit in this discomfort until it departs. I’ll sit with myself in this troubled water until I dry myself off.

The melancholy always departs.

Thursday, June 23rd I will go in for brain surgery number ten. Until then there is weariness to be felt, work to be done, and most importantly, love to be shared.

Sending light out to the world.

Peace and love,

Samira