As Deborah has said, this is a roller coaster. This is a manic-depressive way of going at life. My friend Cosmic Patti said it is shooting the rapids. There is calm and then not so calm.
I want it to be a single story. A nice arc. Like shooting a perfectly round stone out of a cannon. We can all shade our eyes and pretty much guess where it will land. You all may assemble with tea and cakes and wait for me there. I’ll wave as i land, like Santa at a bowl game. Cured and cured. We no longer have to wait and wonder and pray and wish and hope. We can relax.
It occurs to me that this will not happen. And if it does, i will not believe it. Even if it goes the hell away and signs a treaty to fight no more i will always know that life is not to be relied on.
So Deborah and I were waiting in the waiting room with all those others for whom life is very weird, not knowing if this week i will go back on chemo. (i will not for now- please see previous post) And it is hard for me not to look back at the last 10 years of our relationship as a story that leads to this. Waiting to hear something so ridiculously dramatic it would be a laughably bad plot even for the Hallmark channel.
And i am paralyzed by fear again. Fear is like a freeze-ray thing, making it hard to move or smile or understand. And Deborah is one of the blessed who are able to cry. So she does. And I say that i am sorry. And of course that is ridiculous too. She loves me. She is here going through these rapids too because there is no choice. We are family. So many of my friends are family. Are in this with me. Are sick in the stomach with the lurches and the jolts. It is what people do. But really, it is humbling. And I’m sorry and thank you.
I never wanted to be so much trouble to anyone. But now i am trouble. Cause pain to the people i love the most. And that is the just the price of doing business, i know. but still. I want there to be a good story to tell. How I will do battle and overcome. How you can all relax and not be afraid to click on this blog. And in truth, even if the thing does grow there are many more steps to take. There are more options. More story.
It is fatiguing though. Like a badly written epic about a tennis match with too many characters and what you thought happened in the last chapter turned out to be completely wrong because the author decided to mix it up a little bit with identical sextuplets all impersonating one another. I digress.
I hate to tell the truth. Well, let me say that i hate it when the truth is a bit more complicated and stupid than i would prefer. It is ugly storytelling this. And I am becoming angry. Terrisue calls me yesterday as we are driving with Amy to the gorge to hike with the dogs in the rain. She calls to say she has the new numbers and that they look “good.” And i hang up the phone. Leave. Me. Alone. I don’t want to think about the numbers. I don’t want to meditate on the word “good.” You had your chance at me on Monday. You got me good. Now stop for a bit. You can have me again next Monday. I was having such a lovely day until then. I was just about to land at the tea party waving serenely to the crowd of well-wishers.
In this online game I play with my sis, my main character does this thing called “slow fall” – she can jump from any height (or even if she falls off something) if she gets the spell out in time, she begins to float like a feather and no longer plummets. Which is always so fun and so cool, except there is no control. At the start she is just caught, gently floating, no longer free-falling. Safe! And then I start trying to control the fall. No, no, I want to land THERE. And I can turn her to look this way and that, but until she lands, there is no control. So it usually goes from “ah, I’m floating serenely” to “oh $%#@! no, no, arghh, flying past where I want to go, out over the ocean” to “oh well, I can swim back”
hope the dog smells good today
I love you so much, Val Garrison.
Woof. And don’t forget to howl.
Valerie Trouble Garrison. You are a treasure. Deborah Trouble Gitlitz. You are a rare gem.
See?
We are all family – our middle names are Trouble, every one of us. We live on a planet called Change, where we listen to each other, sometimes taking turns, sometimes all at once.
with love
Cynthia Trouble Kimball
Cynthia has the right of it. What a joy to discover all these people out here that have your back 187%. We will wait down here on the ground and wave at you as you make passes in the sky, and when you choose to land we will be there waiting for you with fresh made scones and a hot steaming thermos. And who knows, maybe one or two of us will take flight and come join you on your journey holding your hand as you fly. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
I consider myself lucky to be among the people waiting on the ground with tea and cakes. You’re a treasure, you know that?
your comment about being trouble reminded me of something this guy named bernard phillips once said how there is no formula for getting along with other human beings. no technique to learn to figure out how to relate. we’re all pretty impossible. and the only way to be close is to surrender to the “raw other.” i tend to agree. i don’t think there’s a different way. but the still, the suffering sucks. and i just wanna give the “hell” the finger.
This life in which we stumble through is a crazy maze. It would not be near as sweet if we stumbled through it alone. Unconditional love surrounds you.
I am glad that we are friends.