desktop confessional

My mother has cancer.

I found out on my birthday, several weeks ago. Apparently they caught it early, but cancer is cancer, and I spent most of my birthday in shock. Later that night I got so hysterical and edgy that I slapped someone, which is something I just do not do.

And tonight in sociology class I did something else that I just don't do:
I cried.

I never cry. I'm always the one who can laugh things off, the one laughing loudest and longest and making quite possibly the raunchiest jokes (unless our anime club's Village Idiots are around). And the professor started us off with a video about a woman dying of cancer, and I started crying and didn't stop.

I thought of my birthday, of how excited I was to get up and be a year older and then how suddenly desolated I was to find out my mother has a dangerous disease. I thought of how my sister and I are now, quite suddenly, at risk ourselves. I thought of how much I still need to learn and get over and accomplish, and how much of a helpmeet (and a kick in the ass) my mother has been for me.

I thought of waking up and having her gone.

It's one thing to cry in a dark room with a movie projector on. Nobody looks at you in the dark. But when the lights came up I had people handing me tissues and paper towels, and I was so embarrassed. There are so few people I trust enough to watch me cry, and I was falling apart in front of fifteen total strangers.

The cancer's at an early stage. She's going in for treatment on Monday. And, well, she has it and not me. But it's been at the back of my mind, a distant murmur, ever since I found out. And, quite frankly, I'm having a lot of trouble dealing with it. I'm angry and hurt and upset and ashamed and I still have the driving desire to try and comfort those of my friends who seem or genuinely are upset.

There's a thunderstorm outside. It came up very quickly and I could practically feel the electricity raging outside beyond my window. I feel a little like that right now--like I conjured it, like I could be a part of it, like the power is mine but I'm nearly helpless to control it except by getting more upset.

I defy you, stars.