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Wednesday, Mar. 13, 2002 / 7:25 p.m. ~Life Gets Harder~ Silly Norman was waiting for me in the living room, waiting on the chair where I usually put her, when I say, "Just sit here and wait for me, I'll be right back. Don't move. Wait right there." She gets all comfy on my lap, and I have to get up, to do this or that, in this case to dash off an entry in my little diary, and I set her aside, but this time I didn't say I'd be right back, I didn't tell her to wait right there.....yet she was waiting. Sitting, all beautiful, tail wrapped around herself, all perfect, all feline and exceptional. Norman the beautiful. So, I had to go give her a big hug, and a few kisses, tell her it might be a while. What can I say? I just pigged out on salad. Yeah, I went to Wendy's after work and got a replacement salad. This one had chicken in it, and cucumbers too. Who knew? No questions. I'd actually called, from work, after Lulu and Sunshine told me I really should call, really should let Wendy's know what happened, and try to get some free food from them. So, I did. All's well that ends well. I guess that's true by definition, isn't it? If all is well, or wait, if all ended well, then it would be well. Well is well, after all, and especially in the end. Either way, semantics aside, I'm full of lettuce right now. Major major lettuce. A little chicken, some cukes, sliced, a few more cherry tomatoes, some slivers of cheddar, some bacon bits....I'm good. I guess. It's not that it wasn't a good salad, it's just I wasn't too sure that two in one day was a good idea, or was it one and a half? Jesus, I'm going on and on about nothing. Because I don't want to write about how depressed I get. Because I don't want to write about the fact that I am really afraid of getting old and sick on my own. Because I don't want to make myself cry writing about how I just started crying while watching "The Amazing Race 2" premiere on tape, the part where the mother hung her head in shame because she felt she'd failed her daughter by losing. The daughter she is only just now getting to know, the daughter raised by her father, not the mother who now believes she has failed her. Yeah, it made me cry. I think it was supposed to. Good editing. It's not just that. It's that I looked at my back last night, and how often does that happen?, and I saw that I have these two moles that are growing, not that I didn't know they were growing, and I went to a dermatologist once, almost ten years ago, and asked him, "Hey, what about these?!", and he said, "These? They're fine.", but they're not fine. They never looked fine to me. I'm convinced they're cancerous and I have melanoma that's spread to other vital organs. And I was going on and on to Sunshine about it, and she laughs, because she knows my tongue is mostly in my cheek when I get in one of my hypochondriacal phases...which is every day (and today she said yes, she knows I'm neurotic, when I say it first, and I say she is too, just a bit, eh?, and she says that's why we "love each other")....she laughs, but today she mentioned her own cancer. Yes. She has had breast cancer. She is my age. I am a few months older, almost a year, but we are the same age, and she has had cancer. More than once. Tumors, I'd guess, removed, I'd guess, her breasts are still there, I can tell, they're large, ample. She expressed no fear, no remorse, just matter of fact told me the barest of details. And it didn't shut me up. I mentioned my mother's death from throat cancer, told her all my family has died of cancer, and she said yes, hers too. Yet she still smokes, she doesn't mind dying young. She wants her kids to see her young and happy, even if that's young, happy and smoking.... Still. Last night I got out my alternative treatments book, looked at pictures of advanced cancers, made myself study the color photos of actual cancer, trying to figure out if I'm okay. And today I had my headache again, and by the end of the day I wanted to cry, I told Sunshine I just want to feel 100%, I'm tired of feeling sick all the time.......so she said I need to get my Chakras cleansed. And meditate. And I believe her. It's a combination of things, this I know. It's dust, it's pollen, it's any number of allergens, it's my job, it's sitting in front of a Video Display Terminal all day every day, and even a lot on weekends, here, at home. It's fluorescent lighting, it's stress, it's tension, it's eating microwave popcorn for dinner and thinking vitamin supplements will take up the slack. It's not exercising more than walking from my cubicle to the bathroom twenty times a day. It's so many things, but being in pain sucks. Telling other people about it in order to gain sympathy sucks too. Wanting to whine and moan and curl up in someone's arms and cry into someone's armpit, wanting to, wanting someone to rub my head like I rub Norman's head, and not getting shit, well, that sucks too. So, I sat and read through the Company Insurance booklet today at work, all morning, all the fine print, me, never having health insurance all these four years I've worked there, finally considering jumping in during this Open Enrollment. This Insurance BOOK, reading all the fine print, HMOs, PPOs, OOAs, etc., etc., etc. How much, how little, deductibles, co-payments, blah, blah, blah.....I think I'll do it, enroll. Just to ease my mind. As I told Sunshine, just to rule some things out, you know? "Doc, how long have I got? It's cancer, Doc, ain't it?"......No, you are fine. Eat some fruit, some vegetables, some whole grains. Get some sleep at night, buy a real alarm clock, one that works, so that you don't wake up all night worrying you won't wake up! Get some sleep, some exercise, find a man, have some sex! You'll be fine. That's what the Doc will say, right? Fuck, I haven't been to a doctor in years. I hate doctors. But I'm hating feeling sick more. Last night, looking in the mirror, to the other mirror, one on the back of the bathroom door, look in it and see me in the mirror on the wall, the big one over the sink.....see the moles, worry, suddenly feel all alone, and very afraid, not of dying, but of getting sick, afraid of becoming incapacitated. I'll never forget seeing my father afraid for the first time, seeing the fear in his eyes as we watched some documentary on the elderly in Nursing Homes, and I think he said something about never wanting to be like that.....and that's where he died, in a Nursing Home, most of his brain removed with the tumor. We just don't know, do we? We do die alone, it's something we have to do by ourselves, but if someone is there with us, by our sides, isn't that how it should be? Part of me is terrified of aging, terrified of growing old and infirm, alone, but the other part, always sort of half and half, is holding me up, telling me I can do this, I can grow old, I can be alone and old and it will be okay. I'll take better care, I'll clean my chakras, or meditate, or start my Yoga again, whatever it takes, I can do it, because I can't rely on anyone else, it's just me holding me up, taking care of the girls, and it will be okay. It will be okay. Health insurance might be good too. You know, just in case... Cost of the War in Iraq
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