Sam Alexandra Rose

Writer, researcher, music lover, cancer survivor with CMMRD ("double" Lynch syndrome)

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Late night introspection

November 12, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Been at home for most of the day and I decide it’s time to write a blog post at 11:20pm. Better make it quick!

Tonight has turned very introspective. I have been reading online and thinking about how maybe I have some kind of social anxiety and that holds me back by making me think I can’t do the things I might want to, making me unable to say stuff in meetings, not want to go to social events sometimes, not want to do things that make me the centre of attention. There is a CBT app but it’s like $99 for a month which seems pretty expensive. I’m in therapy at the moment, three sessions in but I’m not sure if it’s really doing anything for me and I have three sessions left and don’t really know what I’m going to talk about in them. Anyway, I’ve just been thinking about the things I wish I could change, really. And social anxiety might be something I can change. But the things I’ve been talking to my therapist about seem to be things that we can’t change, like having bad dreams, flashbacks, bad memories, anxiety about checkups. Cancer-related things, seem to be things I can’t change, or that’s what it’s sounding like.

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I asked our mum

October 29, 2017 / / 0 Comments

On Tuesday I had my first counselling appointment. My pouch has been playing up for like five days. Last night I had another bad dream. Next Friday is my uncle’s funeral. It hasn’t been the best of weeks. This prose thing that follows happened last weekend.

I wanted to make something out of this, a poem or something. But it is what it is. It doesn’t need dressing up.

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Midlands

October 16, 2017 / / 0 Comments

“The world should be GOLD today!”

the sun declares, and gathers up its
friends – the tiny mirror images of itself
from far-flung beaches. It summons the
wind to lift them all and scatter them
into the sky, too high for definition,
turning blankets of grey cloud a murky yellow
like the edges of boiled egg yolks, somewhere
between grime and daffodil, headlights
dispersed over rain showers. Humans
look on and wonder if they will ever see
the sky blur and bloom like this again.
Like buttercups. Like the second coming.

Stunned by the spectacle, the leaves finally
live up to their name and throw themselves
at the earth’s feet, worshipping the sun with their
bronzed backs arched, before being spun like
caramel into the sky, into heaven.

Summer? What summer? Now is the time
for storms, a hailing of autumn, the opening
of winter’s doors.

October 13, 2017 / / 0 Comments

don’t.

Notes on losing myself

October 13, 2017 / / 0 Comments

I wrote the below passage when I got to my desk this morning because on the drive to work I had been thinking about my uncle who doesn’t have long left with us, and that made me think about my brother and all the things I don’t know and don’t dare ask about his passing, and naturally my thoughts turned to myself, so here we are. And I hesitated before sharing this because even though I have been writing this stuff here for a while now, it still seems like maybe it’s weird or oversharing, but above all I feel like it is important and we should talk about mental and emotional health after cancer, even if people don’t want us to, even if nobody else is, even if nobody is listening. So here we are.

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Scrape

October 10, 2017 / / 0 Comments

I scrape a poem from the edges of my brain
carve the crusty consonants from the
crevices of my lobes, slide the spatula
beneath the remaining residue from whatever
once resided. I peel the skin from the corners,
pick the flaky film from these four grey walls,
soap up the sides to get the stubborn sticky
bits to budge, make room for more material –
delivery date unknown, cautious of the contents
should they be something better left uninvestigated.
I clear the crumbs with my dustpan and brush,
settle for structured silliness amid silence, make
a mess like a child, call it art, with enough
confidence to not be wrong.

All the Light Places

October 9, 2017 / / 0 Comments

I’m in a really good place right now in terms of not withdrawing to some dark recess of my brain to think about bad memories, or worry about what future health problems might occur. That is really weird for me at this time of year. Normally September/October would be the time when my blog would have an influx of dark poetry, and I haven’t written any poems in a few weeks. So, not great in that respect. I do think my lack of poetry is partly because cancer survivorship is where most of my inspiration has come from for the past couple of years now, and partly because I’ve just been busy with other things such as my degree and my literary magazines, so I haven’t dedicated time to writing poetry. It’s almost as if I have to be unhappy in order to be creative. But as much as I love writing, that would be too big of a sacrifice to make. I know there’s a saying about suffering for your art or whatever, but there has to be a balance.

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Editing Your Life With Jay Z

September 23, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Driving the 20-30 minutes home from my parents’ house tonight (which is always lovely, in the dark – very contemplative), I stumbled upon an interview with Jay Z from when he was in the Live Lounge on Radio 1. I must admit I wasn’t sure who it was at first, but he said some things that really resonated with me so I thought I’d hammer out a quick blog post about it before going to do a bit of my jigsaw puzzle (also quite relaxing and contemplative). I haven’t listened to much Jay Z in the past but halfway through the interview they played one of his songs with Linkin Park – Numb/Encore and I did have a bit of a sniffle at that because he dedicated it to Chester, it being the first time Jay Z performed it since Chester died. And having Linkin Park play unexpectedly does seem to have that effect on me since his passing. That, and I don’t think I have let out some of the things that have been happening family-wise lately, so it was good to get a bit of it out.

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Why you won’t find me at a Macmillan Coffee Morning this year

September 19, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Or rather, you might not find me at a Macmillan Coffee Morning.

Typically, this is a difficult time of year for me. It’s coming up to my annual consultant appointment, which leads to my consultant (also known as “the life-saver”) sending me for some lovely tests to make sure I’m not about to keel over. Namely: a tumour marker blood test, an endoscopy, a flexible sigmoidoscopy, and until last year, a CT scan. As you can imagine, none of this is much fun – never mind being poked and prodded by strangers (lovely as those strangers may be), but scanxiety is pretty horrible. And around this time of year when it’s all looming ahead of me, I have a habit of going to a dark place. I just think about it all… a lot. It’s not just worrying about what could happen to me in the future (particularly the not-so-distant future), but also being reminded of what happened seven years ago and at check-ups in the years that have followed. My brain latches onto a bad thought and runs with it, and I let it, and I wallow, and it all takes over until my appointment has gone – or at least, until the next appointment:

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September 16, 2017 / / 0 Comments
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