I feel selfish, mean, and wrong all the time. I feel like I don’t care and dont know. This is what it’s like when I get more bad news than good news about my mom’s cancer.

I am in a permanent state of envy and hopelessness. This may be an overstatement, but it’s there.  it’s always there, burrowed in my mind.  and sometimes, sometimes, this is how it feels.

It’s an unresolved heartache. A wound left unattended because there is more damage still to come.

I am selfish. I make decisions based on what makes me happiest. I put me first and think, well, damn I deserve to.

I ignore her cancer. Except when it’s literally staring me in the face- which it can actually do now. My mom’s beautiful face is now littered with chemo-caused, pus-filled acne. People stare at her in public, I get riled and protective. Then there’s me, I struggle with looking at her. I miss what she used to look like and this is what I feel when I realize how shallow I am. My mom is fighting cancer with her last chemo option and all I can think about is the different facial creams that could erase her undeserved blemishes.

My sweet, loving, compassionate friends do all they can to love me and stand by me; while I struggle, daily, to not resent them. I think awful things like why cant they lose one parent to make it even? Why do I have to lose both? i think these cruel thoughts, and am jealous of their dependency on their parents.

I have not found the perfect balance of letting go while not neglecting my mom. I want to prepare myself, but often just separate.

this is my disappointment.