The "circle of life" is just death wrapped in a bow

Do you ever just feel so emotionally drained that basic mental functionality becomes a luxury? How is it possible to experience extreme joy and extreme sorrow in the same moment? I am playing emotional pinball inside my mind and I don't know how to make sense of any of it.

Since my mom's cancer diagnosis, I have been bathed in this underlying anxiety that blankets everything I do. I've watched her endure chemotherapy and radiation. Our family has been on an emotional roller coaster that I wouldn't wish on anyone. We've cried together, voiced our frustrations and concerns and even painfully discussed all the possible scenarios that could unfold. Through it all, there were many wonderful moments of great comic relief; much needed inappropriate jokes to bring levity to otherwise stoic circumstances.

And now, suddenly, I am able to breathe and look to the future. A future that has my mom in it, thanks to a successful surgery to remove the last of the tumor. The doctors believe she is now cancer-free. While the recovery won't be the most pleasant of situations, she gets to be alive and continue to be an amazing part of our lives.

Extreme joy - what an understatement.

And as I was letting the joy wash over me, I received a call with news that floods my soul with sorrow so complete and finite that I am unable to stand, unable to speak, barely able to breathe. One of my dearest friends Khelly had been battling breast cancer for less than a year. She was a wonderfully spiritual woman that didn't take one moment of her life for granted. Her path to recovery was hard fought and filled with amazing discoveries for alternative treatment options.

I spent some time with her just a few short weeks ago. Her illness was not recognizable to the uninformed eye. She was beautiful, radiant and filled with an incredible spirit and illuminating energy. This was not a woman weeks away from her last breath. I am filled with shock and anger over such an injustice to the world.

The sadness is so penetrating that I have forced myself into numbness where I am almost comfortable not to feel anything, yet tragically when the moment passes, I feel everything.

It is the perversely perfect circle of life yin and yang. Life and death is so strangely obtuse and tragic yet at the same time so surprising and beautiful.

These two opposing stratospheres of temperament are dueling it out inside me and I am so at a loss of how to allow them to simply run their due course.

Let it be? I'm not built that way.