To lighten the mood some during my rant. You can’t help but smile when you see a bunch of puppies and kittens.

This is my annual Rant about October.

I HATE OCTOBER.

There, I said it.

Fall used to be my favorite season. While I still love the idea of Fall – the cooler weather, the football games (at least college games) and the changing colors (if I were to go visit friends where that actually happens) – the month of October is dreadful.

It all started in October of 2010 (because I was naive and bought into the pink ribbon stuff when I had “Beat Cancer” the first time). If you have read my blog, you may already know that in October 2010 I was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer – in other words, the breast cancer that I beat in 2003, came back and now had made its home in other parts of my body, in my case in my bones.

I get tired of all of the Pink Hype that we are bombarded with during the month of October. For those of us living with metastatic breast cancer, every day/month is breast cancer awareness. I live with the treatments, scars and side effects on a daily basis.

This year October has been harder, and it is only October 3rd. The week leading up to October had several anniversaries – the anniversary of learning my husband had Stage 4 Renal Cancer, the anniversary of a close friend’s death, then turn the calendar to my husband’s birthday on October 1st (without him here to celebrate), and now I face October 8th and 10th – the anniversaries of my diagnosis of Stage 3 and then Stage 4 breast cancer.

It feels like I can’t get out from under this cloud, as someone said to me on Sunday “The hits just keep on coming.”

Then there are the “encouraging” posts on social media like “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% of how you react to it.” – yes, I saw this one twice in the last 3 days. I think I have done a pretty good job in the reacting to it most of the time, but there are days when the 10% hits you harder than others.

People are always asking me how I am doing. And if I’m honest…I’m tired. And I’m tired of being tired. I would like a vacation from it all, but unfortunately, we don’t get a vacation from these kinds of things. We just have to learn how to get through them until we can see the sunshine again.

I’m really good at putting on a mask when I am outside the house, but at home, especially this past week and this week so far, I’m having a hard time finding the joy, but I am continuing to look for it. I put up some Halloween decorations around the house to get into the “spirit” of things.

All this to say, be gentle with those around you. Some may just have a mask on, but if you look closely enough you may see the crack in the mask. Give them the hug they are afraid to ask for. Show them that they are loved. It may just be the thing that gets them through the next rough patch.

P.S. My heart is broken for the people of Houston, Florida, Puerto Rico, Mexico and Las Vegas. There are no words