I am at this writing in Indiana. Much happened in San Francisco, much of it good, some of it less so, but none of it a waste to me. My life changed there--I heard short timelines for my lifespan and brought a dog into a relationship that ended and lost both of those. I learned about chemo therapy and other therapies, I had holes open in my body and I survived them, which I wouldn't have imagined possible in healthier days.
I found myself tired and withdrawn and septic. I heard I was severely depressed which I still don't believe. I learned a shit ton, and to be any more elegant about that would miss the fact that I've not yet processed all that was about.
Indiana has been very cold this January--and cold is my enemy. I drag around a heated throw, and I stay inside as much as possible. I've remet my old surgeon looking for a new solution to my neck hole and my mouth hanging open. I've restarted my chemo with a new oncologist who has a moustache that worries me a bit. I've adopted a vampire schedule, sleeping during the day and staying up to watch Amazon Prime all night.
I'm worrying about my latest prognosis--two years at best, of which I've sucked up several months. Do I worry about that timeline? Not so much. I worry about the fact that doctors believe it and I don't--and that doctors, in believing it, won't work as hard as I want them to work to restore function to my life.
I worry that a second surgery which is looming in the nearer rather than farther future will leave my jaw to melt into my trachea, that it seems my voice box is considered collateral damage, that I'll truly never eat that hamburger I still dream of, smell, lovingly sketch out in my mind. The new bacon burger at Jack in the Box looks good to me--that's how bad this is.
I see a stretch coming up in my life where Spring creeps in--in a month more of cold and snow, there it will be in small doses, stretches of light past 4pm, then past 4:30pm, and further. Three or four crocus will emerge in the lawn where I wish there were 10,000. Following, as there's a bit more warmth, iris in a patch, iris in a row.
As green spreads this year, will I? Will I eat the environment up enough with my eyes to inculcate it into the body? A bit doubtful but not impossible, and I'm hoping to walk a fine line between possible/impossible this year. I've yet to have my miracle, and I'm overdue.
My brother-in-law is dying, a tumor that may be cancerous, in the brain. A short fuse. My niece is caring for him and all I can do is tell her I'm a good dumping ground for bitching, which I am in some instances--this being one. I cannot relate right now to problems on the magnitude of hating to recycle or not having enough choice in wardrobe. For those bitcheries, I point you toward your best friends who are expected to side with you in thinking there are no small problems. I am not that guy. I am good for the grapefruit sized tumors and the creeping loss of faculties and the attendant stress that gathers around the water cooler of those great conundrums. On the veldt, I am the antelope who limps, and knows it, and only walks where the grass is dry and best suited to camoflague.
So I'm back here because I'm in this adventure I don't completely understand and certainly can't orchestrate. To complicate it, early models claim 30 inches of snow is coming this way next week. Yet, like my own projections, I find that a bit hard to believe. I'll pretend that what they are saying is that my lifetime is 30 times what I actually believe it to be, and that like snow, I'll fall when its cold, when I'm damn good and ready, and not a moment before.
