I realized recently that much of my sadness lately is the feeling I haven’t had much to look forward to. I have friends coming to town, and I’m excited for that, but it’s been a little hard to plan for anything not knowing how I feel. We just know we’ll be together, and that’s enough. These past few months have robbed me of the ability to daydream, and cancer has now taken away my ability to plan.
I have no long-term plans or long-term hopes. Yesterday, when I thought maybe the embolization would provide relief from the chronic diarrhea caused by my VIPoma tumors, I stayed up late, flirting with the idea of plans. I looked at Trulia at houses in impractical locations that I can’t afford. I browsed Uniqlo’s new collection, even after I vowed earlier this year that buying new clothes at this point is pretty pointless and after I put up some things on Poshmark to try to get a head start in getting rid of my things.
The likelihood of my purchasing a house probably hasn’t changed at all since I realized that the embolization probably won’t help with the hormones from the cancerous tumors causing all these side effects. Sometimes it’s the planning or daydreaming that is almost as enjoyable as the experience itself: poring over vacation destinations, fantasizing about what you’d do if you won the lottery, thinking about creative projects.
I’m a daydreamer and at least 50 percent of what I imagine doesn’t come true, but I like thinking about the possibilities.
Plans don’t have to come fully into fruition to be fun. When my mom was in town, we looked at so many recipe possibilities and planned to make a crepe cake and then three imperfect crepes into the process decided to make regular crepes and abandoned the more time-consuming cake that looked like it might end up as a failure. My favorite part was (and usually is) eating those first few broken up thick pieces of the tester crepes, lazily smeared with filling.
Last night, I stayed up, giddy, thinking about just a few more months of possibly normalcy—maybe even another year. I knew that if the diarrhea returned today, plans would seem laughably futile. My small respite of daydreaming was fun. Tonight, I’m sleeping the solid slumber of someone who has little to think about.