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Journal icovellauna's Journal: Halfway hits it on the button 10

Journal by icovellauna
Today marks the half way point in the chemo. Hurrah! Rejoyce with me! Only 24 weeks more to go. I am really glad. Can't wait for this chapter of my life to turn to the next chapter and go on to whatever will be next after. I don't spend to much time dwelling on that, though, makes me want to not be doing this and just go right to that. So...still got 24 weeks to go, but half is done, and everyday from now on means closer to the end of it and a cure, and feeling better again.

I don't know how to link to other people's journals yet, but those of you who read the dragon log will have followed the button story. I still have a button box, too. Mine's in an old cigar box. It was my mother's button box and I played with it when I was small, and the dragon when she was, lots of neighborhood kids, and maybe grandchildren will before all is said and done. It has junk buttons, and buttons that look like little cakes, and flashy buttons, and shirt buttons and coat buttons and little wooden balls and ones that have holes in odd places, and yes, button boxes are for the young, and for the the young in us, too. I don't play with my button box like I did when I was five, but I still get it out and remember, and it keeps me in that resonance of wonder and imagination and joy, and in the line of my for-mothers who had it before me. It connects me, and even more it connects me when I get it out for some small child, or for some lost button bearing waif who appears at my door in search of mending. We who have the button boxes carry the tradition of personal attention to the small wonders of life and the boo-boos of others. It is a tradition of caring in things large and very small. Button boxes are not, indeed, just about lost buttons, but about mending things with wonder and with joy. Children do this. We do this. We are not all women, but in Western culture it has been predominently the women who have done these things. More men do these things openly now (they used to do them in secret if they dared at all) which is a blessing to us all. So treasure your button boxes, your mother's and grandmother's button boxes. Add to them, for the next person who will have them. Add neat stuff and more junk buttons, and, yes, clips and hair pins, and costume jewelry bits that you don't know what else to do with. The button box will find the next person who will hold it - it might be your decendant, or someone you don't even know. I buy them occasionally when they come up at auction for next to no money, because no family member was ready to take the button box on, and take them home and look through them and play with the stuff that some other person thought was important enough to throw in the box with all the junk - just to good to throw away. Some of it goes into my box, some goes elsewhere, sometimes the whole box goes to some other person who shows up and needs a button box. I always add stuff to them. When you get to be this age in the tradition of button boxes you begin to see the people who come into your life who need these things, and you can help them connect with it. So that's what happens with button boxes. They find their place. We never had ammo in ours, though, because live ammo never belongs in button boxes. Button boxes are, indeed, for the young, and that's a hazard children of all ages shouldn't be exposed to casually.

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Halfway hits it on the button More

Halfway hits it on the button

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  • Halfway is good progress; I wish you good fortune on the remainder of the road. I know (from observation, rather than personal experience) that it can be very wearying. Good health to you.
  • chemo's a tough business. No matter what the regiment is. My mom would have to do chemo every 6-months for a 2-week period. Then, everyday she'd have to take this medicate called Hydria -- which sorta did the job of chemo.

    It'll be nice to get that chemical-monkey off your back... i know it was always nice when the treatment cycle was over for my mom.

    • Thank you for your wishes and support. I know that you understand what is happening for me, and I can tell you that it makes your support very meaningful for me.
  • you are still in my thoughts and prayers.
  • mum how COULD you? *laugh* i thought it was the official version, you told me you didn't have room for it and did i want to take it on???

    so i've been carrying a superfluous button box for TEN WHOLE YEARS thinking it was from when you were a kid?

    No, i won't be getting rid of it. *nyah* i'll carry the sucker around until i can pass it on, because there are no superfluous button boxes. But PLEASE, will you keep the labels straight on our traditions? there are so many that it gets hard to follow!!!

    PS when is
  • that you'll have the strength to break on through to the other side, and the treatment will be more sucessful than even we can hope.
  • You've still been in my thoughts.

    Halfway is an important point whatever you're going through. From now on, you've got more behind you than there is to come. Good luck: I'll still be thinking of you from time to time.

    As for me, I'm still not ready to work from my breakdown. I expect that I will be from sometime this summer. I did put up a simple webpage [ntlworld.com] recently, where I'll be putting up a friend's art in a couple of weeks, but I don't seem to be able to handle doing too much in one go, at present.

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