my grand day out

today i ventured outside of my house for the first time in a long time, and my destination was not the hospital. it was very exciting! seriously, though, it was... i headed to the pharmacy inside my local Target store, to get a flu shot. I had to clear it with my doctors first, ok, but still. I haven't stepped inside a Target in ages, and it used to be a weirdly comforting place for me. 

once i got inside, though, i was terrified. there weren't a ton of people in there, and everyone had masks on, but i could not relax in the slightest. i kept imagining the virus just hanging out in every aisle and on every surface and in every corner of the store, waiting. 

i know how paranoid and dramatic that sounds. but you know, it was really my first time out in "public" in forever. also, given my super-suppressed immune system, getting COVID-19 would surely be my end. would i like to die from a raging virus or a deadly cancer? choices, choices. FOR THE RECORD, IN THE SLIM CHANCE THE UNIVERSE IS LISTENING, I WOULD LIKE NOT TO DIE AT ALL. at least no time soon or in the next like three to four decades ok? thanks for listening. 

anyway, i got my flu shot, some milk duds, and hand sanitizer (the essentials), walked around a little to see if i could invoke that familiar, soothing Target-shopping feeling, but alas. it was not to be had. i sneezed into my arm, and headed for the cash register. everything felt dangerous. 

when i pulled into my driveway, i sat there for a few minutes before heading inside. i was kind of overcome with this huge sadness made up of everything, but mostly of one thing: life as i knew it does not exist and may never again. even if (even when) i'm all done with this asshole cancer, i won't be going back to anything familiar. 

change is good, most of the time anyway, i know that. i live in new england where autumn is insanely beautiful right now with the leaves changing color. what a color show, my favorite time of year! and still, a harbinger of winter. change is good sometimes, hard sometimes, sucky sometimes, inevitable always. 

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

-Robert Frost

circus, circus

outside, we're all living through this horrible circus (i actually hear sinister circus music playing in my head when i think about it): the pandemic and fires and floods and loss and chaos and damage and sense of impending doom, sense of descent into madness... 

even if that were a fairy tale, even if life was the same as we knew it 9 months ago and masks were still just things worn at Halloween, even without the current national shitshow that is unfortunately my country, i would still have cancer to work with. 

i would still be undergoing my second line of treatment for cancer, still be huffing and puffing around the block on my .5 mile walk, still be mourning my father, remembering the strange and painful anniversaries that October brings.

it would still be less than 3 days from my last mental freak out, my silent, rageful scream at the computer with its lack of comforting information about my situation, its lack of a beacon of hope, or not even a beacon. i'd have settled for a dumb dim light of some kind, a way to look forward that can't be dismissed with cynicism. 

what's my point? i guess it's that no matter what's happening in the world or in my neighborhood, i can't ever participate fully or the way i'd like to. everything ---- EVERYTHING -- has to be viewed through the lens of this disease, whether I like it or not, whether I conjure up some mental gymnastics that makes it seem as though I can sideswipe it, or make it less grave than it actually is ---- 

not that I'm chomping at the bit to be a full-fledged participant in the above-mentioned spectacle; maybe you'd rather not have to be one, either. this is what it feels like not to have a choice.