Weekend

I just need a moment...

The Record: Choices

I should feel elated, like one might feel if she won the lottery. Maybe not millions, but a hundred grand is enough to brighten up anyone’s day. A hundred grand is enough to bring hope for a brighter future. 

After all of this, the waiting, the treatment, the crying, after all of this I have succeeded. I get the phone call that informs me I’ve qualified for the trial. 

Before this moment, I’d had my cross hairs set on the terrible treatment, the one that would make me vomit and would render me weak and without energy for months. I’d been tired of waiting for the easy treatment. Impatience is one of my worst character flaws. 

But all is not said and done. Even if I turn it down now, I know that I will take it in the end. It would be pure stupidity to walk away now, after eight months of prep. 

Still, my plans have been made, put together in a flash and entered into a spreadsheet. Maybe there’s a book out there somewhere to prepare people for cancer. In fact, I’m sure there are several. 

But me? There is so little gray between the blacks and whites of my life. 

Brian is quiet, but he’s clearly has had a weight lifted from his shoulders. He’s waiting for me to make my choice. For me to make the right one. Because only an insane person would take the sickening treatment over the easy one. 

There is risk of death, of course. But there’s risk of death every time I walk into this hospital, mask securely fitted around my face. There’s risk of death grocery shopping, too. 

You know what you need to do, he says.

What? I ask.

You need to say yes. 

I am faced with this logical man, the same man who’s been with me during this whole ride, during this whole life. So, I agree. I accept my fate, and when I emerge from the hospital at the end of those nineteen days of incarceration, I will be free.

I hope.

  
 
The Record: Cocktail

The therapist is chewing me out again in that way only a good therapist can. 
 
I’m taking on too much. I know this. She knows this. We all know it. She digs in about my daughter, my son, my husband, my house and dogs and everything else. 
 
Everything else. 
 
All of it, so much.
 
But how do I live otherwise? The universe keeps throwing things at me; it’s not even curve balls anymore; it’s more like rocks. How can I not try to catch them before they knock me flat?
 
I know she’s right. Not always, but this time. While my system is threatening a full mental breakdown, I am not able to function on a normal level. I stare at the wall, overwhelmed and doubtful and scared, floored by the tornado of shit that is swirling around me. 
 
House.
Dog.
Kid.
Money.
Dog.
Husband.
Kid.
Money.
Food.
Kid.
House. 
 
I can feel my body and mind trying to break out of the medicated prison I am numbed by. The broken parts of me fight beneath the surface, struggling, trying so hard to trip me up, trying so hard to make it impossible for me to think. 
 
I don’t break down, though. Instead, I experience for the first time the sensation that so many on psychiatric drugs complain of. But I think the fact is that if I were not medicated, I would be spending my time walking around screaming. 
 
Maybe I’m not so far away from the homeless I sometimes see talking to themselves. Wouldn’t it be, couldn’t it be, little more than a snort of cocaine and a bad mushroom trip between me and madness? 
 
So many dangers.
 
The session is coming to a close. How was this for you? she wonders aloud. 

I am silent.  



The Record: Talisman

I meet an old friend, a photographer, from my post-college days. He hired me right out of school to carry his shit around. We’d make jokes, laugh, and eventually become partners in crime. 
 
Time has slipped away, though, and soon it’s decades since I’ve seen him. He tells me his wife died of cancer a short ten months after they found it. I say something useless because there’s nothing to say. I’d been wondering where she was. 
 
I tell him about my life, how things have been for me the past decade. I haven’t had it easy. When I recount my experiences, I feel the bruises underneath. He knows they’re there, too. Just like his are.
 
With tears in his eyes he pulls out a small hand-hewn, polished wood cross, the perfect fit for a pocket. 
 
I don’t know if you believe or not, he says, but sometimes when I’m having a hard time I just hold onto this thing and run my fingers over it. It’s comforting. And then when I see someone I care about, I give it to them. 
 
Blessed. I am blessed by this man. 
 
Such a kind soul with a broken heart. 
 
I wonder if I can dive deep into his world and try to lift him up. He misses her terribly. 
 
I can’t do much today, but I can over time. I will stay in touch with this gent, fifteen years my senior. I will help. 
 
Working for him bridged the distance I faced between college student and adulthood. Hopefully I can be one small stick of the bridge that he, alone, must now cross. 
 
I put the little cross in my pocket and rub my fingers around its smooth edges. It’s precious; a gift. 
 
Some things really are free. 
 

<<<<< >>>>>


Dear Readers,

This week I’ve re-learned something I became aware of about ten years ago: If I’m going to be in the business of being creative, I need to fill myself up with life before expecting that creativity will come. Now, it wasn’t until Friday that I really realized (again) that I needed to get out of the house more than going to the gym and shuttling my kid around if I was going to be working on fiction. 

So, I’m going to need to come up with some new ideas. 

Yesterday, I helped my best friend pack up her house as she’s preparing to move. Today, I’m going on a much needed hike with Brian. Tomorrow, I’m not sure, though it’s possible that I might try to make it out somewhere. (Is Starbucks enough?) Maybe the ocean, just for an hour or two. 

I remember back in the days when I was a digital painter, the problems I would be trying to solve would be so complex I would get lost, sitting at the desk banging my head against the screen. But then, one day, I desperately needed a shower. I took the break, and I remember that right there in the shower, I came up with a solution to the problem I faced. Something about taking the time and giving myself permission to stop thinking for a little while was enough to get the machinery moving again. 

This is that. 

And, like I said, I need some ideas. I’m open. If you have a favorite thing to do to restore your emotional piggy bank, please do drop it below in the comments. 

Until next time…
Jen