I recently read a former co-worker’s book about chronic pain, and she talks about how she will never be one of those people who is grateful for an illness. I, too, can never find it within myself to be grateful to cancer or peripheral neuropathy. I’ve found things to be thankful for and good things despite the cancer, but I will never be thankful for this disease.
My cat reluctantly models an otter hat.
However, I do still have a lot to be grateful for, and since I’ve been particularly sick for the past several months, I’ve received so many words of support, and also some notes, cards, photos, and little gifts. I don’t even have photos of all of them or room to thank everyone, though I definitely am so grateful to everyone who took a little bit of time to send me message or gift. People have made meals, delivered treats, sent gift cards, and chipped in. I have mix CDs, and flower seeds, and cards. People have given my cats toys, and, much to their chagrin and my amusement, even an otter hat for cats.
I now have a cat camera that I can use to spy on the cats from my hospital bed. It’s a Black Mirror episode in the making. The cats, as it turns out, don’t do a lot of things when we’re not around like ordering Seamless or entertaining company. We have caught Ziggy, the most vain of the cat trio, admiring himself in the mirror. He seems aware that he is cute and that everyone coos over his pink nose, and he actively seeks attention from visitors and hams it up for attention.
I’ve been really sad (though not terribly surprised) that Facebook is using our data for evil, since I’m always on social media, and I like using it to keep in touch with people. It’s been especially helpful when I’m lonely at the hospital or stuck at home recuperating from various treatments, and I’ve heard from people I otherwise might have lost touch with.
Hearing from people from various points of my history have been a bit of a This Is Your Life, as I’ve had the chance to reflect on different time periods. I realized I’ve been, for the most part, extremely lucky in the jobs and coworkers department. Coworkers could always be counted upon for a sense of humor, whether things were good or less than ideal. I have so many inside jokes that I can’t even begin to explain why a drawing of an owl or Talbots gift card from coworkers is particularly funny. Some of my former coworkers gave me a Seamless gift card with a note about the lunchroom thief that plagued our building, just days before the viral Twitter thread about a work lunch thief. (Like the Twitter example, our lunchroom thief was more into the chilling psychological aspect, taking frozen meals and throwing them behind the refrigerator or stealing one lone California roll from a package of six.)
Some of this music is not cool at all as I had promised on the tape sleeve! Someone from high school sent me a pic of these old mixtapes I made for him.
A lot of people hated high school. I was awkward and wore all black (or confusing alterna outfits of velvet, plaid, flannel, band-tees, Doc Martens, etc.; see My So-Called Life). I had so much teen angst but luckily it was the ’90s, and it was in fashion then. Despite all my inner turmoil, I actually liked high school, and a good portion of the people I went to high school with.
The high school is often named one of the best public schools in the country and it was big enough where you could usually kind of find your niche and at least a few fellow freaks if you were a bit of an outcast. One of my favorite summers was spent hanging out in a Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot and the local Cleveland MetroParks. My main damper on the summer was my part-time job at Boston Market (where I fared much better than my friends working way more than 40 hours per week at Sea World) and having to read Grapes of Wrath for A.P. English. (I will never forgive John Steinbeck for that novel, especially after The Red Pony too.) I made some lifelong friends in that parking lot.
Being a teen is always terrible, but I really met some of my favorite people during that time. I pretended to hate everyone, but I guess I can admit to myself now that it wasn’t true. It’s been fun reminiscing about those memories: mixtapes I made, getting in trouble for playing with my hair in journalism class, sitting sideways in my desk in Algebra so I could more easily talk to my friend behind me (it is the only class when I’ve ever gotten a D grade and finally the exasperated teacher walked over one day and turned my desk around so I would face the board), making long cut-outs of notebook paper people to hand out in the hallway, passing long notes.
I can still fold an old-school note into a little square. When a friend sent me some aromatherapy oil, I remembered her handwriting from those notes. The two of us would sometimes snag someone’s notebook in Spanish or study hall and then write a note by putting one word on each page. We thought it was hilarious, but the notebook owners didn’t always agree.
One of my college friends who lives in Columbus, where I went to Ohio State, tagged me in a photo of our old apartment building, which was full of goths. (Yes: Goths.) So many of our friends lived in that building at various times, and it was a convenient less-than-10-minute walk to the dive bars and their goth or ’80s nights (and there was a different club for each night). We joked about moving back in and trying to hang out at the fancier mall/shops that cropped up after they razed the south campus’ bars that were so packed in their heydey that the police would set up barriers with ropes to keep people from spilling into the streets.
I actually didn’t like college that much, after going to a rural 
campus I didn’t like for six months. I transferred to Ohio State and ended up living in Columbus for a long time, but I wasn’t a huge fan of of actual college. I think it’s because I knew what I wanted to do and wished I could just get a journalism degree already. I was the first person from my family to go to college and I was always aware of the meter running on my tuition too, so I got through as quickly as possible, graduating just before I turned 21. I think maybe I didn’t have the typical college experience, but again, I made lifelong friends, and I’ve continued to make friends through those friends.
Some people I randomly reconnected with over the years: a high school friend’s pen pal, someone who did the same volunteer abroad program I did when I was 17. I’ve made new groups of friends, unexpectedly, like when I signed up for a workout bootcamp class that took place at 6:30 am in a bar/music venue. We worked out inhaling the aroma of the previous night’s spilled beer, or sometimes we worked out in a nearby park and later a makeshift space that also had theatrical productions. People had to do burpees if someone was late, and other people in the class would groan as my tardy figure approached in the distance. Sometimes classes ended with plank stories, when we would hold a plank while each person delivered a line of a story we’d created, and sometimes, we’d get together for something called Bad Decision Mondays that involved drinks and no working out. 
A mix CD a friend made for me, with no Ugly Kid Joe in sight!
Though I have mentioned I have tried to seize every well moment over the past several years, the truth is that I have always been a little paranoid about good things being suddenly taken away from me or that happy times will end. (Maybe it relates back to my longtime obsession with mortality.) I don’t know much about Buddhism aside from the dharma talks at the beginning of yoga classes, but over the years, something that I’ve heard before yoga is about the belief that suffering is caused by the impermanent nature of things. I know I’m not interpreting this the correct way, but that’s resonated with me since I’m often so focused on the impermanence of things.
When my family would go on vacation when I was a child, for example, during the following weeks I would torment myself about the previous week’s fun. A week ago today, I was at the beach. A week ago today, I was doing this. Etc. You can imagine how I am in breakups or other big life changes, always thinking back to better times. Four years ago on Easter, I was at the hospital for my stem cell transplant, and I was so hopeful cancer would be in the past for me. I’m not as bad as I once was, fortunately.
There’s a lot of talk about living in the moment, but when things are good, I sometimes try to grasp at them desperately as the moment slips away. I know it’s inevitable that the time will pass. There are times when I’m completely happy and content but then prematurely a little sad and depressed knowing that this goodness will come to and end. I used to suffer from terrible Sunday night blahs.
Of course, nothing lasts, not happiness, not sadness in this temporary existence. Things
in my life were good again, then bad, just OK, great, fine, meh, really good, etc. Sometimes I worry I’ve run out of goodness and all that’s left is suffering. Yet I know that cannot be true when so many people have made me smile so much over the past few months and over this lifetime.
I’ve been trying (and often failing) to come to grips with a “new normal” as these tumors take over. Sometimes, I pretend as if I was given a choice: I could have 35 good years followed by five good years with illness, instead of a longer life with less joy. I would have chosen this, and it helps.
