2002-08-28

 

So, there it is then. My dear aunt Doreen has been sick for years. She has fought breast cancer and its many offshoots much longer than any one could have expected. And now she has a brain tumor that they can't treat, and the end may well be near. And that completely, totally, and unreservedly sucks. I can't think about it too much right now, but I am working on myself in earnest, perhaps because I want to live my life urgently to try to make more time for her. Somehow. I know it's not possible, but if I have this life... It's mine, it's real, and I'm lucky to have it given my health history. I'm sturdy enough now, but I don't maintain myself like I should - and not just my corporeal self. All of me. I pick at myself mentally and spiritually constantly, and its amazing that I haven't just eroded away by now. I must be made of pretty damn strong stuff to have made it this far. I need to shore up what I have, who I am, instead of wearing away at it all. So, I rode my bike to work again today. I'm going to start out at twice a week, and beginning in October I'll go to three times weekly, and maybe be up to every day (or even most days) by the time my birthday rolls around. I'm also going to start watching what I eat, but not in the way you might think. I'm going to try to eat more things, different kinds of things, different flavors and colors and scents. I'm going to indulge my needs for things that are comforting, but not to the point where I'm wallowing exclusively in the familiar. And I'm going to remember that money isn't as important as time. How lucky am I? I spend every day in the loving warmth of a rewarding marriage, comfortably fed, clearly held dear by extraordinary people whom I adore in return. Doreen is one of those people. How dare I throw away the time I have in such a flippant way, when she has so precious little? Now, this is the point where the very few people who will ever read this will be relieved when they remember that I don't drink to excess or indulge in drugs or anything else illicit or dangerous. I want to savor my life, to roll it around and really feel it. And some of that feeling is the pain of loss and sorrow, and some of it is the joy of love, and the ache of muscles, and the contented satisfaction of lying next to Stephen, a cat pressed against me. I want to feel that life again, crystallized like it was when I first felt that fire inside of me - that I wanted to really live. And I'm going to try. I'm really going to try.

posted by bethanye 1:31:00 PM