I get it now.
This morning a little girl in a sequined jacket at the skateboard park made me smile. But I had to tell myself to smile with my face/body, too. I didn’t know this could happen: being so disassociated from my body. I think I need to go dancing. I have no idea how to make that happen.
It’s over five months into chemotherapy treatments and, even though the drugs are less harsh than they were the first 3 months, it is taking a different kind of toll on me. I didn’t hit a wall, really, but have sunk slowly in terms of feeling enthusiastic about anything. I have forced myself these past 6 weeks to exercise for an hour and a half five days a week. But that is it. There’s nothing left after the walks, the runs, the hiit program and yoga.
There is nothing left with which to write even.
I am not sure I have ever done anything this difficult in my life. I am after-the-marathon-tired, but it’s not over yet. Sometimes I can’t even grasp why I’m doing this. And I know that sounds childish. But it has been difficult to keep in mind any kind of timeline or image of a future reality. When is this “over”? What will that look like?
My “job” right now seems to be making healthful meals and ticking off the exercise boxes each day. Walking Leonard twice around the neighbourhood. Once in pre-dawn, once at dusk. That’s it.
I can’t see ahead right now. What’s coming. I just hope I will be strong enough for it. The surgery. The radiation. The rehab.
Yesterday I told Egil I was feeling sorry for myself. He laughed and said that was good, then he didn’t have to. And that was good because we both needed a laugh.
Life goes on. The refrigerator broke down – so there goes my trip to London next month. The interest rate on our mortgage skyrocketed. There goes a lot of summer plans.
But that is just it – life goes on, without compensations or medals, without punishments or existential fines.
And today the sun was bright, and the trail around the lake was full of people: couples, families, friends. And we were out in it. I was huffing and puffing my best Laurie Anderson O Superman song, thinking – get that chest up, pull those shoulders in, smell that air! This is good. This is a good life.
“Just keep swimming.”
Maybe tonight I will close all the drapes and put the music on really loud. And dance. Maybe I won’t have the energy to do it, but acknowledging the desire right now is almost as important as doing it.
Finding My Bearings Now 
Listening to you, looking at how I feel, I wonder if modern medicine has gotten ahead of our mental sense of self – we just don’t know what to make of this kind of survival. Not the same, but what is it? I don’t know. Part is a difference, when younger, expansion is our outlook. Older or injured, the prognosis is not so optimistic, even if healing. Habit, attitude, these all make difference. But most days when asked, I answer, “I’m fine, thanks”, more truth than lie. There’s a choice there, and I don’t care if I’m wrong some of the time.