You may remember my new friends in Thailand from the rescue shelter who drew unicorns to cheer me up. Their packet of drawings finally arrived in person yesterday, and they couldn’t have come at a better time. Yesterday, that second day after chemo infusion, was a bummer day. There’s something about this particular chemo that, for just a few days after each treatment, messes with my zen thing. I moved through the day on the verge of sobbing for no good reason, and when something that seemed like it could possibly, maybe suffice as a good reason materialized, I put %110 effort into bemoaning it: I’m dropping off my kid at Vacation Bible School and all the other moms look normal while I’m wearing a pirate scarf! or I pulled the number in the waiting line at the fabric store and it was thirty while they were on twenty-eight! or My candle wick broke off! or I ate a Twizzler! or I’m wearing flip-flops! And it all amounts to, at the end of the day: Nobody loves me! Wah! In other words, it’s a ridiculous kind of depression that has no reason to exist. Have no fear, though. It slowly wears off, and, in the interim, it’s fairly easy to drive away. Like Joe guiding me back to reason: “You know it’s the chemo, right? This happened about the same time last time.” Or like receiving an envelope stuffed with hand drawn unicorns. Even better, Jenni, their mama bear, sent me this picture:
After seeing their drawings the first time, I’d enlisted the help of some friends to put together the Big Box of Art Supply Fun to send them as a thank you. Inside: a scissor caddy, charcoal vines, pads of drawing paper, sketching pencils, erasers, sharpeners, colored pencils, markers, pastels, and a how-to draw flowers book.
They were thrilled! And I was thrilled. My bummer day was entirely swallowed up by all the mutual good will you can still manage to find zigzagging across the globe like one of Indiana Jones’ planes trailing a red line across a map. Special thanks to my Bad *$$ Unicorn crew for helping me spread some cheer (and art!): Dennis and Donna Bechhold, Alicia Van Buren, Pat Gavisk, R. Flowers Rivera, & Quenby Moone.