5 minutes, i will take it

i had a deliriously simple and wonderful five minutes yesterday late afternoon.  i sliced a pear, carved off a few blobs of blue earth cheese, poured myself a glass of a dry white wine and took in the last rays of the gloaming and i gotta tell you, it made being alive seem like a worthy endeavor.

i believe i've mentioned that i've been reading the book "die wise", well in it jenkinson posits that with advances in medicine and palliative care people who should be dead are living.  which means that the more time you extend your life the more time you spend dying and that the human brain has a really hard time wrapping its proverbial arms around that concept.  so a person with a terminal illness, like me for example, i have stage iv melanoma that at times has rapidly metastisized like bigotry at a trump rally.  but due to these "magic bullet" drugs (as my friend eric called them) i have more time living,  but also more time dying.

  

which you would think would pave the way for mary tyler moore moments, spinning in circles, smiling and throwing my beret in the air.  but my life has zero semblance to that sequence.  each day i get up later and later. i am riddled with anxiety and i am really fucking angry.  i am angry with people i love and care about.  i am angry with neighbors i don't even know because their dog is in the middle of the street and might teach my dog a bad lesson.  even though i love my husband i'm pissed that i got married because the institution of marriage sucks.  i get so angry when i drive, i imagine swerving into people's cars who are talking on the phone, i yell cunt just three blocks after leaving my driveway.  i am angry with myself for not having written the novel i have in mind.

so somedays i wish i was dead already.  and i can't help but think being dead might just be easier for everyone.  but what is that feeling?  i know i'm not the only one in the world who has a terminal illness, and i'm fairly certain i'm not the only one who has these thoughts terminal illness or not.  i mean how do people survive life?  well simply put you don't.  none of us does.  but not everyone lives with this dark shadow of death draped over their daily lives, but maybe that's just it.  the real magic bullet is to invite death over for a home cooked meal, and make a space for it instead of dodging it like i dodge bill collectors.  but that seems too easy of a solution.  because in my reality i have zero capacity for the daily shit life throws at you, which is why i yell cunt so easily.  which is why i had a panic attack inside the MRI tube and had to abort the procedure after one horrible minute.  and why was i having an MRI?  to rule out any brain tumors that may be responsible for some dizziness i've been experiencing.  but there's no room at the inn for that type of information.  to potentially have to add brain tumors to the list is fucking overwhelming.

my mom has basically said that i oughta pull up my bootstraps and fake it 'til i make it.  uh, ok.  that's really helpful.  then she always says that i should join a support group.  which one:

so you've got cancer, now what?
driving with anger in your passenger seat, the jack nicholson therapy
it's 9am and you want a glass of wine, how to get to 10am
how not to rip people to shreds when they ask how you feel
how to roundhouse kick cancer pity faces right off their face
how to not lose it when asked to list all of your surgeries everytime you have a new procedure aka electronic medical records, have you heard of them?
terminal illness a trump card or keep it to yourself

five minutes.  that five minutes yesterday was incredible.  i've been having small moments of smiles lately, and believe you me, they have not gone unnoticed.  here's to 10 minutes.