Gone

In fourteen hours this part ends.

I've been thinking on it for nine months, how tomorrow will go down. I want to close my eyes and wake up with whatever this is that's been heavy on me all these months to be gone. I am hoping something like that will transpire. I am hoping for release.

I am not afraid of pain. Pain is real and temporary. I will miss my boobs, yes. I'd be lying if I said otherwise. And to act like I'm not terrified about the next part would be dishonest. Figuring out what the hell I'm going to not do for the weeks I'm going to be laid up is also rather daunting. I am really bad at sitting down.

I've run through it all, freaked out, cried, thrown things at the wall. Regrets for what could or might have been are hollow and useless. There is no time for that. Loss, yes. And anger, a little bit. If I could just take the fucker outside and beat it bloody myself I would......but I'll leave that part up to the folks with the medical degrees.

I am no longer who and what I thought I was. What was important occupies so little of my time now I wonder why I wasted so many years on it. There are better things. Getting to them isn't easy.

So tomorrow, April 30th, at 10:30 am.

I'll be the one with the bells on.

3rd Annual 29th Birthday

My birthday is next Wednesday.

We've been at this cancer bit for about nine months now. Some people redo their kitchens, incubate children, get through one more year of college in that time. I'm not bitching, just counting.

It's not a long time. There are people who have been at it longer than I have. It's just weird to look back and see what was and what is and try to reckon the two. I am still the same yet completely different and it has happened not in years but months, days, hours, moments. Tiny little moments. When something blows up yr life you can either stay pinned under the giant concrete slab or try and get the damned thing off you and figure out how to get on with it. Not to be all "Footprints-y" or anything....

But my third annual 29th birthday is upon me so I figured I would scribble these little bits as I will likely need to be reminded of them in the months to come.

I have learned some things:

People are happiest doing what they love. The more time people have spent engaged in what they love the less time they spend taking their bitterness out on the rest of us. This holds especially true for anyone in the insurance field. (****The insurance folks, by the way, have decided they are going to pay...sigh..***********). Brings me to my next shocking realization..

Miracles happen. You can be walking along one day and bam $150 just blowing across the street. I would say "Yeah right" except it happened...in Brookside....in January. I looked absolutely ridiculous jumping up and down in the sunfresh parking lot looking for the hidden cameras.

I found the best one. And I married him.

Singing makes it better.

The weirder they think you are the less likely they'll keep you waiting.

Hair, and all of the things having it entailed, required way too much of my time and smoking required entirely too much of my money. If I never got cancer I would have never known I really did have better things to do.

My lawyer is like a wolverine. Do not make the wolverine angry.

Saints walk around. They just walk around and make you take the day off or organize benefits or play in yr band or send you little notes or bring you muffins....just, you know, out and about in the world.

Every mile I run is a mile between me and that stupid disease.

2 cats and a dog make a living, breathing, shedding syndicated comic strip.

Most things really aren't worth it, but the things that are really are.

Faith is tricky.

Things will change and you can wail and fight like a stubborn sob, but they'll just change anyway. Life doesn't really give a rat's ass if you liked the old way better.

I have no time to humor assholes anymore. Just be nice or fuck off.

Food made with love can heal. So can a cocktail.

Once yr in it, it ain't ever over.

Its ok to be the person in the room with the fewest social networking devices on the table.

Forgiveness isn't so hard. Forgetting is not so easy. I have a memory like an elephant and it gets me into trouble.

I should take my pain medications. I am not fooling anyone.....

I will go in for surgery in May, sometime. Its kind of up in the air right now. The radiation wasn't so bad. Compared to chemo it was a cakewalk, except for that nasty little 3rd degree burn incident....but really, one woman's burn is another woman's "resurfacing", right?

I want it all to be over. But I want a pony too, so..

But it's April. And we have a show tonight. And we're making a record. Billie McWizzlers and Lu are sleeping next to me, and Otis is plotting world domination in a drawer in the next room. Chris is sleeping off the Stoli. I am contemplating needlepoint.

Time wounds. All heals. -JL