By the time this is published, I will be passed out, I will be naked and someone will be cutting me. No, I haven’t joined a new fetish club. I’ve just scheduled this to be posted during my 8 hour long surgery that may possibly remove all of the remaining cancer in my body.
I love that she's still keeping it sexy with that left arm up over the head.
There are five tumors. When I think of it, I’m a bit bothered. They’re not massive tumors. They’re pretty damn small, really. I can feel some of them, but the others are so tiny that it’s more like someone dropped a skittle in my lymphatic system. All of them are in my lymphatic system. I’ve come to learn an awful lot about lymph nodes in these past few years. Once upon a time I thought you only had, I dunno, three or four. So, when they told me that they needed to remove five of them, holy beans, that would have put me down a few. Turns out, you’ve got a shitload of lymph nodes. Having cancer all over them isn’t a great idea, but they don’t need to create robotic lymph nodes to replace the ones they’re taking out.
Speaking of fetish clubs, one of the questions you have to answer on OkCupid is something like “If you died suddenly, would your friends and family be surprised when they went through your things?” And, I answered, “No.” But, it’s not because I don’t have anything that would normally be considered shocking. I just happen to be so goddam outward in the many parts that make up my life that there’s nothing to get shocked over. It’s pretty freeing, too. Once I was able to stop being so worried about how people would feel about me if they knew the boring parts, the mean parts, the happy parts, the unstable parts, the parts that get things wrong or right or hadn’t gotten it figured out yet, I was able to find a new kind of happiness. Contentment, really. And it’s made me so much more accepting of other people, because it led to an understanding that nobody has all their shit figured out.
It’s funny that I’m writing this right now, needing for it to hit the internet while I am away, as if me keeping up the conversation with the handful of people who read this is going to make a huge difference in the outcome. I feel such a need for everything to just be totally normal. I don’t want there to be a gap in time indicating a non-presence. Fear leads to funny logic.
I was babbling nervously to my friend Nima about all the things that run through my brain as I prepare to go under the knife. There’s so much extra noise right now, and altogether none of it makes much sense. When I try to tumble it out of me, it’s just disjointed. Luckily, nobody tells you to shut up when you’re all cancery.
One of the things that I was rambling to him about- I think along the lines of regrets- was that I honestly don’t think anyone has ever fallen in love with me. It’s a terrible realization, like a thud in my gut. I feel like I’m a really easy person to care about, and at times I am temporarily intensely interesting. But when it comes to falling in love, I feel as though I’m just not cut out for it on the receiving end. It bothers me, and I suppose that’ll lead me toward some sort of doing-something-about-it, you know, with therapy and all that stuff.
I’ve been having trouble knowing what to say to people lately, and they’ve all been really supportive. My responses to people have been cold, measured. I don’t know what to say when people say they’ll be rooting for me, thinking of me, sending me positive vibes. I don’t feel much right now beyond kind of lost. Over the years I’ve had periods of time in which I’ve suffered from a psychotic fear that I don’t really exist. At times it’s been crippling. Imagine the feeling, if you can. And at times that feeling has been so real. I haven’t gone through it for years, but lately what I’ve been feeling is similar, only opposite.
I’ve been feeling as though I know with a clear certainty that I exist. But just as clearly as that, I understand that it doesn’t really matter. The space I take would easily and otherwise be occupied by air. This isn’t to say I don’t think that I have the ability to have an impact on others. There are many positive things that I have accomplished, and many more than I plan to accomplish. It’s more that, even if I didn’t or hadn’t, I feel like nothing really matters as much as I believed it did when I was young.
I wish there were something in this that were positive- some Wonder Years moment where I talk about how far I’ve come or what I’ve learned. Nothing I am writing right now will neatly tie together in an ending paragraph. I don’t even know what the point of writing this is. What I do know is that this is yet another part of me that I feel okay sharing. This is the free thought space, and it’s not entirely sunshiney.
I guess I’m hopeful that once my head clears up a little bit; gets uncluttered by fear and anxiety, it’ll be like landing in Oz, with some form of vibrancy and color returning to my dealings with my life. For now, I need to be okay with the way things are in my head. And you need to be, too.
Happy Summer, everyone. See you tomorrow.
