A Pain in the Neck

Friday night, I dreamed I was an on upstate train with my ex, who was a few rows in front of me. I had fallen asleep and woken up back in New York City, and I searched the aisles frantically, because I hadn’t said goodbye. I woke up unsettled, in that way you are initially relieved you’re not in that exact situation but still dimly aware that your subconscious is disturbed in some way.

I have moments when I am unbearably sad. The months ahead will be trying.

Mostly, though, I think it will be trying for my poor friends. I will be a pest, asking others how they got through it. I have seen friends through breakups and it seems like there’s a lot of sadness and distraction. There’s also whiskey and rebounds, which aren’t options to me. Well, maybe a little whiskey.

Time. Time keeps coming up, and I don’t have much time. I don’t know how much time I have. Who does?

All time I have must be savored. No pressure. Yesterday was a beautiful day and I couldn’t afford to waste it, yet at one point I also felt like my heart was too heavy to move. I felt as if I got up, my chest would fall into the table in front of me and pin me down. I called some friends from my friends’ backyard, and we commenced lifelong conversations about how to get through this life. I laughed. I’m going to make sure that I laugh every day still.

My time seems especially limited and precious yet I want to fast-forward through this actual time of feeling physically OK—almost normal, even—to get past this heartbreak.

Oh, that’s right. I’m feeling OK. I feel the best physically that I’ve felt since January. Throughout this past month, I have been feeling increasingly better as I recovered from the blood infection and put the chemo behind me. I expected to feel sick this weekend, and I still feel OK.

Obviously, I’m overjoyed to feel better, yet I feel I’m not appreciative enough since I’ve been so preoccupied with my stupid broken heart. This was the point that was supposed to happen in late January or early February, after which I’d plan vacations and getaways with my significant other at the time.

I can still do that, of course, except my companions will be different. I have so much joy in my life still and so many people with whom to share it.

Yet sometimes I wonder how I can move forward when sometimes I feel like I can’t get out of bed. I’ve been cheering myself by writing in a friends’ backyard, but I feel as if I’m the crying neighbor in Under the Tuscan Sun. I’m the quirky lady that comes with a Brooklyn apartment, a balding woman seen weeping at her laptop.

This week I have a port placement again. My MediPort was taken out in May in case my Klebsiella was lurking within, and I was given a PICC line instead. I actually prefer having the PICC line instead of the bulky needle in my chest with the MediPort; however, if I can get to a place where I no longer need daily hydration (fingers crossed), I won’t have to keep the MediPort accessed. I’ll have a weird bump in my upper chest, but I hope to be able to go to the beach and do normal things and have as normal and beautiful a summer as possible. I’d like to travel.

I’d like to find a purpose in life. I have had this nagging need to have a George Bailey moment and make big positive differences in people’s lives while I can. I haven’t been able to volunteer because of my erratic health schedule, but I’d like to try to figure out how to best help other people who also are hurting or need help. I’m joining cancer support groups so I can find new people to annoy. I’m going to try to take stock of what I like in my life and the things that don’t serve me and get rid of those things. I’m going to make a lot of mistakes, I think, and I’m going to feel embarrassed and silly.

So far, there’s good news so far on the health front. If I let it, that optimism could spread to the rest of my life. (I’m still a pessimist at heart, though, so we’ll see.)