The Day Things Changed

March 31, 2016 started off just like any other day.
I got up early, to head to my new job that I had literally started the week before. And while I was still unsure about it, and trying to get a handle of everything I was now in charge of, I was super grateful to be going -- it had been a very long 7 months of job hunting, interviewing and the like.

It was a pretty unremarkable Thursday, if we're being honest.
I was mentally preparing myself for not reading the news the next day, since I always fall for those dumb April's Fools "news" posts.
I had also forgotten to call my mom the night before to catch up about last weekend's Easter plans -- and how my brother's girlfriend had thrown a wrench in them. Leaving work that day, I sent my mom a quick text apologizing for not calling the day before, but I would call her tonight.
"Okay." was her only reply, which seemed a little strange but just figured I had caught her getting dinner ready or something and didn't have a lot of time to text back.

Since I was flying solo that night, I end up at my local watering hole to watch the hockey game. And in all honesty, I can't even remember who was playing. Not that it matters to the story anyways.
One of the bartenders that I sort of knew was working, so I was pretty much guaranteed decent service and never an empty glass.

I was texting back and forth with my dad about the score of the game for a while, and then a notification popped up on my phone that I had a voicemail from my mom -- even though my phone didn't ring.
So I called her back, and she didn't answer, so continued the game of phone tag, and left her a message.
About 10 mins later, she called back and I excused myself to the street to have a more personal(?), quiet(?) conversation.

"Hey mom! What's up?"
"Well, I kind of have some bad news to tell you."
I instantly got worried. She never started any conversations like that. Ever.
"Uh oh", I said. "What happened?"

The rest of the conversation is kind of a blur to be honest.
She was saying something about going to a doctor's appointment that I hadn't known about previously. Then something about how her doctor was thinking her gall bladder had been acting up, so they had scheduled an ultrasound. However, the truth was much, much worse.

Cancer.
Pancreatic cancer. That's already spread to her liver.

I could barely process what she was saying to me. I went completely numb. I started to cry in disbelief, shock and fear. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to say.
What can you say when your mom tells you she has cancer? And a particularly deadly, painful and horrible cancer.

I was in such shock, I calmly told her we would get through it and I'd call her tomorrow. Then I hung up and stood on 9th Avenue and cried, while people got on and off the M11 bus in front of me.

I tried to put myself together to go back into the bar, but it was too hard. And it was too obvious I had been crying. And I was all alone.

I sat down and tried to process what she said but just couldn't.
So I texted my friends -- asking them to call me. There was no immediate response, so I texted another friend who immediate replied "yes of course, everything ok?".

As soon as I heard his voice, I lost it and told him everything through sobs.
"Where are you? I'll be there in 20 minutes".
And he was. And brought another of my friends.

Then I get a call back from my first friend -- he was just down the street and would at the bar literally in 5 minutes. And he walked in with not just his husband, but my other 2 best friends too.

We all just hugged, and cried and they tried to process it as much as they could too.
And we drank. Til 2am.

While I was immediately thankful for such an amazing group of friends that literally dropped everything they were doing to come be with me, it took me a few days to realize that my world that I knew it had changed.

There was no going back to simpler times.
The person I was March 30th was not the person I was April 1st.
And I would never be that person again.
There is a whole new reality that I have to adjust to.

It's been almost a month since that March 31st night -- and I am still struggling to adjust to my new reality, my new future, my new me.
So hopefully being able to write here and get everything out will help me to adjust and understand what my new reality is now and what it will be.