Tuesday, August 9, 2011

feelings I can quite articulate


HIi guys this is a depressing post. 

There is something inside of me I can’t seem to get on the page. It’s dark and it’s persistent. Whenever I start to type it, to form it, to put a face on it, I get distracted. I chicken out. It’s too close to the bone. It lies somewhere between reality and metaphor.

I was told once that artists reveal publicly what others hold privately. If that’s true then artists are the most courageous people; the hard part of course is coming to grips with what you hold privately.

I looked in the mirror yesterday and in the past four months my looks have changed. My muscles—once toned and virile—are now limp bruised, constantly sore, and regardless of how hard I try seemingly atrophied. My face has tiny micro-lines, denoting an age I haven’t attained. I have a big bulge on the top of my head that will always be there; it announces my Chemo Reservoir.

Oh I understand some of this temporary, some of this permanent, and some of this is only empathetically understandable. And I hesitate to talk about some of this because to do so seems like a step toward surrender and acceptance of some new normal that I instinctively know just doesn’t make sense.

But, this past week has been completely revealing. I – a pronoun that surely has no place here but I’ll have to use it anyway. I watched my blood levels drop and have had multiple transfusions and antibiotics to bring my body back to a place where it can sustain itself to begin the next round of chemo next Tuesday. But me, I, feel like bystander in all this. I bring the body, they do the procedures, and I – the thing that makes me, me – take the body home and feel every nausea, every ache, and every sleepless night. While my body and science fight this out I’m left to take communion and pray to a God that I’m not sure is interested in individual suffering anyway. If so God would … That’s presumptuous for sure, but that’s part of this thing I can’t get on paper. 

This whole episode has reinforced that no matter how hard I try, I can die from this and there is little I can do about if my body won’t cooperate. I don’t expect to, but this lymphoma could take a left turn, reappear, and kill me. am today. Stealing from Matthew, 26:4 “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." It’s probably more accurate to say, “the spirit is willing, but the flesh does whatever the hell it wants to.”

I recently stumbled up this John Melencamp Song that kind of encapsulates what I’m feeling.

Longest Days


It seems like once upon a time ago
I was where I was supposed to be
My vision was true and my heart was too
There was no end to what I could dream
I walked like a hero into the setting sun
Everyone called out my name
Death to me was just a mystery
I was too busy raisin up Cain

But nothing lasts forever
Your best efforts don’t always pay
Sometimes you get sick
And you don’t get better
That’s when life is short
Even in its longest days

So you pretend not to notice
That everything has changed
The way that you look
And the friends you once had
So you keep on acting the same
But deep down in your soul
You know you got no flame
And who knows then which way to go
Life is short even in its longest days

All I got here
Is a rear view mirror
Reflections of where I’ve been
So you tell yourself I’ll be back up on top some day
But you know there’s nothing waiting up there for you anyway

Nothing lasts forever
And your best efforts don’t always pay
Sometimes you get sick
And you don’t get better
That’s when life is short
Even in its longest days
Life is short
Even in its longest days


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