Sometimes It IS the little things

There comes a point in time where quarantine makes you crazy.

Now, being generally introverted and a loner helps, and I actually like spending time with The husband who is also generally introverted and a loner so it's all good, right?

BUT.

We can only sit and stare at these four walls for so long. The walls are great, but remember, I started my own quarantine when last flu season started. October-ish?

That is a really long time to be stuck in the house.

So, this morning, I woke up like a light switch went off in my head. Back in the before, The Husband and I were avid campers. I can't exactly go camping in my current condition, but we sure as hell could string up our hammocks by the lake and just enjoy a morning of social distancing and changing the scenery.

So I put The Husband to work stringing up both of our hammocks. I usually do my own, but he very kindly took care of it so that I could save some energy. (He's so nice to me!)

With the exception of occasional walks, I've spent almost no time outside, which is tough because we used to camp and hike just about every summer, just to be outside. I don't like bugs crawling on me, but I really like being outside.

I digress.

So this is a lake near where we live.

And these are my feet in the hammock next to the lake near where we live. Beautiful view and very quiet and relaxing. I brought a notebook with every intention of writing a letter, or a poem, or maybe a story or something.

Instead, my feet stayed right there and I dozed off for a while. I woke up when my belly started grumbling, so we cleared up, grabbed lunch, and went home. All in all, I'd argue it was one of the best quarantine days we've had in a while.

Cancer update!

Still have cancer! Got a recent scan, results are stable-ish. Stable enough that there is no need to panic at this point. The cancer is just doing what it does, so we adjust the pills as needed, and re-scan in a couple of months to see what's happening in there.

Really, at this point, MRIs are almost boring. I fall asleep in there every single time, so if nothing else, I know I can squeeze in a nap for the day.

So, the good news is that today, I actually AM more than my diagnosis. The cancer is not the most important or exciting thing about me. I have my writing, my awesome cancer friends (I never expected to be able to say that!), and somehow, even with stupid coronapocalypse quarantine, I'm managing to stay reasonably busy considering I almost never leave the house besides treatments and bloodwork.

Is that it? I think that's it.

Reminder, kids, cancer still sucks!

Original poem, and a commentary on quarantine

discarded mask

disgusted by the disposable nature of safety

one year ago I would not have needed the muzzle

keeping me in

keeping you out

stifled by hot breath

disgusted by myself

why is it I have to burp every time I put on the mask?

disappointed in protesters who disrespect my condition for their "constitutional rights"

Freedom to kill me

dissolves my Freedom to be

I long for before

1 impatiently wait for after

unable to mask my disgust at the unmasked-

so afraid of every cough, every sneeze.

- 21 May 2020

I wrote this for my writing group a few weeks ago, and I want to talk about this coronapocalypse. Now, I know that people are stir crazy, fighting cabin fever, and trying to figure out how not to dropkick their kids out the window.

The thing is I've been essentially on lock-down, self-quarantining since flu season started. I go out every once in a while with The Husband, with my reusable washable mask, and tons of hand sanitizer. Our trips out are quick and purpose-driven, and involve very little in the way of meandering. Since I've been essentially in isolation since December (I think?), I've become very uncomfortable being in public. People cough, sneeze, and breathe on all kinds of things that I don't even want to think about. So essentially I stay in my house.

On top of all of that, I just recently started anOTHER new chemo protocol. Plus my wonderful oncology team has so kindly added even more pills to take every day.

I've got uppers, downers, anti-inflammatory pills, antacids, the whole lot. This new treatment protocol is HARD. Not to get into too much whiny detail, but sometimes it feels like drowning under the weight of it all. I've been trying to keep up with people as much as I have the time and energy to do so, but y'all, I am tired. There is nothing interesting happening, and because I am even more immunocompromised than before, I really just don't trust going out in the public. If one flu virus or strep germ gets to me, it could be incredibly dangerous.

So, that being said, I know that I've been pretty radio silent for a while. I know there is a whole apocalypse happening out there in the world. My silence doesn't mean I don't notice what is happening out there. My silence means that I have my actual literal brain as my top priority right now. That is all I can focus on at the moment, and you know what, I have actual literal brain cancer. I think this focus is fair.

New Series: Fave Quote of the Book

So.

I have an idea:

I don't know if it's a good idea, but I don't care, I'm gonna do it anyway.

I've been reading pretty voraciously for my entire life. This diagnosis has slowed down my reading speed, but not my appetite. I am currently simul-reading two books (one fiction, one non-fiction). As soon as I finish one of them, I'll start on the next. I can simul-read up to three books at a time, but they have to be in different genres, otherwise my brains hurt.

Anyway, I'm telling you all of this for a reason. I have really enjoyed blogging about the books I've been reading, but the reality is that I'm reading them much faster than I am blogging about them. The two that are currently in action (The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly and The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers) will be completed as usual, with updates every couple of days for both of the books. I estimate I have just over a week's worth of posts scheduled and ready to post before I finish with these two books.

In the meantime, because I am reading faster than I am writing (more accurately, I am spending more time reading than I do writing), I want to introduce a new series of posts. Instead of full and in-depth book reviews and discussions, I will choose my favorite single quote from a book and talk about why it is my favorite. I don't know yet if there will be a theme, but at the very least I will provide title and author, image of the book cover, and link to Amazon.

So yeah, things are going to change a little around here. The frequency of posts may decrease. I will still update about my diagnosis when I feel it is appropriate, but if there is no update, it is pretty safe to assume that no news is good news.

So, book lovers and bibliophiles alike, strap in, put on your helmets, and brace yourselves: we are in for an interesting ride!

HOCKEY!!

So, on Saturday night, The Husband and I were lounging around and poking about on Groupon. As a result of this stupid diagnosis, we have not done very much in the past several months, and it used to be that we could pretty regularly find something fun/interesting/unusual to do.

So I found on Groupon a deal for tickets to the Greenville Swamp Rabbits game yesterday. We had no other pressing plans for Sunday, so we went ahead and bought tickets to the game.

Now, I don't know what a swamp rabbit is. I looked it up, and they look like this:

Kinda cute, I guess?

Before I continue, I have to tell you that I LOVE hockey. I grew up watching the Hartford Whalers, and I've never found a team that I love as much as I loved the Whalers. When they ceased to exist, I continued to love hockey, but merely for the sake of the game. We went to the Swamp Rabbits game yesterday afternoon. Honestly, these days when I get a chance to see a hockey game, I'm excited, but I really don't care who wins. I am the screaming fan who cheers for whoever and boos the opposing team, but it doesn't really matter to me who wins. When it comes to hockey, I'm just there for a good time: pretzels, cotton candy, whooping and hollering like a fool. But still, when the Swamp Rabbits scored a tying goal with 4.2 seconds left in the 3rd period, I screamed so hard I might actually have left my tonsils behind! Unfortunately, they didn't pull it through in overtime, losing to the Florida Everblades* 5-4.

Go Swamp Rabbits!

Incidentally, in looking up info about the Hartford Whalers, it turns out that they are now the Carolina Hurricanes. It looks like I have a new team to be partial to!

Ok, so hockey.

I love hockey, but more importantly, I love The Husband for agreeing at the very last minute to take me to some random-ass hockey game for a team we had never heard of and a creature that was a mystery to us. We got surprisingly good seats, and as an experienced hockey spectator who also gets cold really easily because of the giant hairless spot on my head, I knew that I had to bundle up and wear layers.

I love that guy!

There we are having a grand old time cheering on the ridiculous Swamp Rabbits. Seriously, it's the most (good) excitement I've had all year!** We had such a good time at the game, and I cheered so hard that today I'm alternating hot tea and ice-cold water to soothe my poor throat.

As soon as the game was over and we were sitting in the car waiting to get out of the parking garage, we went back on Groupon and got tickets for another game soon!

The Husband really is the best.

Cheers to a life more extraordinary!

*What a stupid name. #SorryNotSorry
**I'm sorry, I had to crack the joke while the year is still young!

Van Gogh-ing to the Museum!

The Husband is awesome. My friend K is awesome. My friend Z is awesome.

K mentioned on Facebook that there was going to be a Van Gogh exhibit nearby, about two hours away. I mentioned it to The Husband, who immediately said, "Book a hotel. We're going."

He knows how I feel about Van Gogh.

My friend Z joined us, which as always, I enjoyed hanging out with one of my oldest and closest friends.

This exhibit had 12 of Van Gogh's works, along with many other works by other artists to demonstrate those who influenced Van Gogh, or were influenced by him.

I love Van Gogh. This will sound ridiculous and I don't care, I always liked Van Gogh, but it wasn't until the Van Gogh episode of Doctor Who that I discovered that I loved Van Gogh.

By no means am I some kind of art critic or art historian. I know what I like. Sometimes, I even know why I like it. I also know what I don't like, and sometimes I can verbalize why I don't like it. As The Husband and Z and I discussed at length, not all art is art just because someone called it art, and some works, while skillfully created, should not be considered art.

How do you decide what is art?

For me, not everything that Van Gogh painted, drew, and sketched was art, but so much of it is. For me, I call it art because it makes me feel something. Because I feel like I can relate to it. Because I feel like I can understand what the artist was feeling.

Van Gogh was well-known to be a troubled man. He suffered from depression, and did not find success as an artist until after his death.

The thing that I like about so many of his works is that they make me sad. It may sound strange to say it like that, but it's true. He was a sad man, and that sadness radiates off of the canvas. Sure, I like Starry Night, everyone likes Starry Night, but he had so many masterpieces. Starry Night looks like he was looking at the sky through tears.

The exhibit we went to did not have Starry Night, but it did have Self-Portrait. I love this one. He looks so angry. Almost hateful. Somewhere beneath the rage in his eyes, I see a sense of self-loathing.

To look into his eyes in this painting is to feel his pain. He is so serious. You can't smile for this picture. You can only try to understand an artist who seems to have been caught by surprise, who did not have time to paste a fake smile on his face, who showed a vulnerability that he didn't necessarily want to show.

How did he paint this? Did he spend his winter of 1886-7 looking at himself in a mirror? Examining every detail of his face, the darkness behind his eyes? Did he struggle to look at himself?

When I have been in the deepest depressions, I have had trouble even looking myself in the eyes in the mirror. There have been times when weeks or months have passed and I haven't seen my own eyes because I couldn't bear to look at myself.

Did he feel some catharsis in painting himself? Did it hurt him to have to look at himself just to get this painting done?

I, too, have suffered from depression at various points in my life. I look into his eyes, and I feel a certain, almost, kinship, and then I saw this:

This is Man with Spade. The write-up next to it said that this was a worker taking a lunch break from digging ditches, but what I saw was a soldier, exhausted, after digging graves. Yes, I know that it's dark, but it is Van Gogh, and again, it felt like grief radiating from the charcoal in the sketch.

A Trunk of a Tree. Not a painting, but a pen and sepia on paper. I love the details in this work. I love that the top of the tree appears very intentionally detailed, with strong lines. I love that the trunk of the tree is remarkably understated, as if added detail would be unnecessary. I just love this.

 Finally, here is Constantin Meunier's Ophelie. It is not a Van Gogh, but I saw this painting out of the corner of my eye and I was drawn to it. The paleness of the figure. The darkness of her gown. The storm clouds to the right, and what looks like a clearing in the sky on the left, as if her troubles are past now that she has taken this final action.

I so enjoyed our visit to the museum, and The Husband was kind enough to buy me goodies from the gift shop. I was very tired, as this was the longest I had been on my feet. What this means is that my impulse control was all but gone, and I wanted ALL the Van Gogh souvenirs from the gift shop. I didn't get ALL of them, but I got two beautiful packs of notecards (who wants to be a pen pal?), stickers, a print, some postcards to put in my journal, and a magnet (that I made Z buy for me).

So there you have it: proof that I can do more than read books and have cancer! Ha!

Books: When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron (part 2)

So let's continue talking about When Things Fall Apart. As a reminder, so far I've talked about embracing fear.

The Venerable Pema Chodron  references a sign pinned up on her wall that says:

"Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us" (Chodron 8).

I've never been good at vulnerability. Events that have happened in the past have led to me building a wall around my heart. There are very few people allowed past that wall.

I've always assumed that, because I have a wall around my heart, others have the same. I keep people at arm's length because I don't trust them to be mindful of my soft spots, and because I've unintentionally caused pain by not being mindful of others' soft spots. I've been so afraid of being hurt, of being vulnerable, or of hurting someone else, that I created a boogeyman in my mind to protect my soft spots and keep most everyone else at bay.

The thing is, having a wall around my heart that is guarded by that boogeyman leads to a lonely existence. I've mentioned the three faces before, and because of this blog, I have forced myself to show more of my Second Face than I would typically be comfortable showing. This process of self-discovery has been painful and humbling.

I didn't realize that my loneliness was my own doing.

With pain and humility, I have been slowly tearing down that wall. People have told me that I am so strong to go through this. So brave.

But when I think about it, I don't feel strength, and I certainly don't feel brave. Yet here I am going through treatments that I don't like, that make me feel sick, that make my hair fall out, that make me so tired, that affect my short-term memory in ways that frustrate me to no end, that make me feel stupid because I have a hard time remembering words or staying on any one train of thought.

What I am doing is not strength or bravery. What I'm doing is what I have to do to survive, which means that I'm exposing myself to literal and metaphorical annihilation.

The interesting thing is that I am getting closer to finding that nugget that is indestructible. Self-examination of the mind, body, and soul is daunting, but it has also forced me to be honest with myself in ways that I never expected. I am finally getting to know my Third Face, and I am finally learning that I don't have to run away from pain, and I don't have to be afraid to be vulnerable.

"[T]he truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy" (Chodron 9).

Ultimately, it doesn't matter if I run from the pain. It will be there if it needs to be there. This emotional roller coaster from hell has taught me that we are all vulnerable. We are all afraid. We all feel pain. What if we worked on exposing our vulnerability so that we can find the essence of strength deep inside of us?

Books: When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron (part 1)

I was talking to a friend several days ago, and the topic of Hard Times came up in conversation. Hard Times include my cancer, but it also includes the other difficult things that life throws at us.

In American society, there is so much of this idea that if we work hard and have a good attitude, then everything will work out the way it's supposed to. As a result, when people are going through a particularly difficult time, whether it's chronic or terminal illness, whether it's death or divorce, whether it's mental illness or heartbreak, we feel compelled to grin and bear it. Be strong. Don't air your dirty laundry. Think about that stigma around mental illness, for example. We don't tend to talk about depression or anxiety disorders, as if they were shameful, yet we are not ashamed to admit that we caught a cold or flu. This idea that a positive attitude and a go-get-'em spirit will prevail can be so problematic, especially when considering what that means if you don't have a positive attitude. Does that mean that we deserve whatever life throws at us if we aren't positive enough?

This book is by an American Buddhist nun, which immediately piqued my interest because I can remember reading the Dalai Lama's The Art of Happiness about fifteen or twenty years ago. It fundamentally changed how I view and interact with people, and so far, I am finding When Things Fall Apart changing how I view myself.

Amazon has this to say:

How can we live our lives when everything seems to fall apart—when we are continually overcome by fear, anxiety, and pain? The answer, Pema Chödrön suggests, might be just the opposite of what you expect. Here, in her most beloved and acclaimed work, Pema shows that moving toward painful situations and becoming intimate with them can open up our hearts in ways we never before imagined. Drawing from traditional Buddhist wisdom, she offers life-changing tools for transforming suffering and negative patterns into habitual ease and boundless joy.

I haven't finished this book yet, but I have so many thoughts and feelings that I decided to just jump right in and start doing my thing. You may have followed along while I was responding to and discussing Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I've Loved by Kate Bowler. I plan to follow a similar format where I talk about this book for multiple posts.

This is only the introductory post for this book, if any of you would like to get your hands on it to read with me.

The Venerable Pema Chodron  says this in the first chapter:

"It's not a terrible thing that we feel fear when faced with the unknown. It is part of being alive, something we all share. We react against the possibility of loneliness, of death, of not having anything to hold on to. Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth. If we commit ourselves to staying right where we are, then our experience becomes very vivid. Things become clear when there is nowhere to escape" (Chodron 2).

Another dear friend of mine once told me that sometimes you have to "embrace the suck." In fairness, this was my Badass Marine friend, so his version is a little less poetic, but the sentiment remains the same.

I will be the first to admit that I am afraid of a lot of things, including but not limited to my cancer, heights, snakes, catching the flu, and the dark.

The truth is that somehow, at some point, I became the kind of person who enjoys doing frightening things. Skydiving. Ziplining. Swimming with manatees*.

When I went skydiving, and I jumped was pushed out of that plane, even though I am afraid of falling, afraid of flying, and afraid of heights, I suddenly realized one key fundamental point: No matter how scared I was, no matter how hard I screamed, the outcome was inevitable: I would hit the ground.

Of course, it was important to trust that the parachute would work, and we would have a nice soft landing, but even if it didn't, fear is not stronger than gravity, and no matter how frightened I was, fear would not allow me to spontaneously grow wings. I had to accept that mind-numbing terror and sit with it. That gave me the opportunity to just be in the moment, where I was, 13,500 feet in the air.

Being unable to escape the pull of gravity, I realized how big the world is, and how tiny I am. This was unexpectedly comforting for me, because it made me realize that I was just a tiny little scared blip. In reality, we are all tiny little scared blips. Some hide it with arrogance, some with vanity, some with emotional walls built to keep people away.

What happens when we embrace that fear? What happens when we stop trying to run from that fear?




*I know that manatees won't hurt anyone, and they are super cute, but I am still afraid they might be secret carnivores. Don't judge me.

Don't Read with Me: The Rule of One by Ashley Saunders and Leslie Saunders

So I tried to read this book:

I thought the premise sounded really interesting, so I've had it on my wishlist for a while and a dear friend bought it for me.

Amazon has this to say about it:

In their world, telling the truth has become the most dangerous crime of all.
In the near-future United States, a one-child policy is ruthlessly enforced. Everyone follows the Rule of One. But Ava Goodwin, daughter of the head of the Texas Family Planning Division, has a secret—one her mother died to keep and her father has helped to hide for her entire life.
She has an identical twin sister, Mira.
For eighteen years Ava and Mira have lived as one, trading places day after day, maintaining an interchangeable existence down to the most telling detail. But when their charade is exposed, their worst nightmare begins. Now they must leave behind the father they love and fight for their lives.
Branded as traitors, hunted as fugitives, and pushed to discover just how far they’ll go in order to stay alive, Ava and Mira rush headlong into a terrifying unknown.

This book isn't bad, necessarily.  The reason I couldn't get more than a few pages into it was because it was too similar to a Netflix Original Movie What Happened to Monday

IMDB has this to say:

In a world where families are limited to one child due to overpopulation, a set of identical septuplets must avoid being put to a long sleep by the government and dangerous infighting while investigating the disappearance of one of their own. 

I watched this movie when it first came out, and easily dozens of times since then. I love this movie. I did not expect The Rule of One to remind me so much of What Happened to Monday, and so, I had to stop reading it and switch to something else. That's not to say that I won't read this book someday later, but for now, I'd rather re-watch this movie!

Books: Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I've Loved by Kate Bowler (Part 5)

So let's continue talking about the cancer book. As a reminder, here's what I've talked about so far: I told you some before stories. I talked about the American Dream. I talked about Today. I talked about grief.

Everything Happens for a Reason by Kate Bowler

I didn't realize until I read this book that I felt like I deserved this condition. Like there must have been something that I had done, thought, said, imagined, that made this make sense. Even though I knew (and know) that life isn't fair, I still felt like this was something that I had coming. Like the title says, everything happens for a reason, right? It's just karma.

But what if I changed my perspective on this?

Instead of deserving an incurable cancer, essentially a death sentence, maybe I need to look at this as simple bad luck.

I mean, it was simple good luck that I just so happened to not be working for the summer, and the reality is that if I had felt these symptoms that sent me to the hospital while I was teaching, I would have ignored them, because it is far too important to teach my weird awkward and awesome students how to write essays. My diagnosis would have been delayed. The fact that I did not have classes for the summer may very well have saved my life. Simple good luck.

So, sure, it is bad luck that I am one of the however many who get this particularly sh*tty form of cancer. But I don't deserve this bad luck. I don't think I deserve this bad luck.

If I don't deserve this, and this didn't happen for any reason other than bad luck, that leads me to decide that the universe is a chaotic place, and some people get hit by the chaos harder than others. The universe is not out to get me. I didn't deserve this. It isn't fair that this happened to me, to us. Sometimes, these things just happen. And I'm allowed to feel sad about that.

That's it.

So, I'm done with this book. It was really quite good, and I do recommend it. What book shall I read next?

Books: Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I've Loved by Kate Bowler (Part 4)

So let's continue talking about the cancer book. As a reminder, here's what I've talked about so far: I told you some before stories. I talked about the American Dream.  I talked about Today.

Everything Happens for a Reason by Kate Bowler

This book led me to do far more introspection and self-analysis than I ever expected. My therapist mentioned to me once that one reason she got into oncological social work is because she found her patients discovering their best selves at the worst of times. I can't remember if I've mentioned this before (I have a really good excuse (it's brain surgery)) but it's something that stuck out to me. The weird thing is that even though I have people telling me that I'm so strong, so brave, so inspiring, I don't feel any of that. People tell me that they see the best parts of me, and I struggle to accept that when it feels like nothing more than a facade. It's like wearing a mask. Everyone else can see what is on your face, but you can't see your own face, hidden or not.

Instead:

"There is an inchoate sadness in the pit of my stomach, hard to express" (Bowler 102).

Down in the deepest and darkest corners of my heart, I am still grieving for my future unmade and dreams dismantled. I am still grieving for an extraordinary life made ordinary. I am still grieving for a Me who is no longer Me. This grief is all-encompassing, all-engrossing, all-consuming. I'm not screaming and crying anymore. Instead, I've reached the stage of grief that is still and unmoving, ever-present, hovering quietly over my shoulder.

I grieve for the students I'll never get to teach. The adventures I will miss out on with The Husband. The extraordinary. The time that I thought I had.

"I used to think that grief was about looking backward, old men saddled with regrets or young ones pondering should-haves. I see now that it is about eyes squinting through tears into an unbearable future. The world cannot be remade by the sheer force of love. A brutal world demands capitulation to what seems impossible—separation. Brokenness. An end without an ending" (Bowler 70; emphasis added)

I am 38 years old, and until very very recently, I did not feel 38 years old. In my mind, in my soul, I am still that invincible 25-year-old that packed up my crap and moved to Texas sight unseen because I needed a change of scenery. I am still that awkward 16-year-old who dressed up as the road (all black clothes, two white stripes of tape, get it?) for Halloween. I am still that 28-year-old getting married in a courthouse and feeling the joy of forever in front of us. I am still that excited 34-year-old getting my Master's Degree and feeling excited to finally be able to work with my passion, finally able to work my dream job.


I look back, and I have very few regrets.

I look forward and I grieve.

Books: Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I've Loved by Kate Bowler (Part 1)

Guys, guess what! I finished another book!

Everything Happens for a Reason by Kate Bowler

Until this point, I've avoided reading cancer books because I am far too much of a sarcastic jackass to be able to take their approach seriously. See, I know my condition is serious, but if I can't make fun of it, what can I do?

My therapist recommended this book to me, and because I absolutely judge books by their covers, the title drew me in immediately. So, if you are as curious as I was as soon as I saw the title, here is the blurb from Amazon:

Kate Bowler is a professor at Duke Divinity School with a modest Christian upbringing, but she specializes in the study of the prosperity gospel, a creed that sees fortune as a blessing from God and misfortune as a mark of God’s disapproval. At thirty-five, everything in her life seems to point toward “blessing.” She is thriving in her job, married to her high school sweetheart, and loves life with her newborn son.

Then she is diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer.

The prospect of her own mortality forces Kate to realize that she has been tacitly subscribing to the prosperity gospel, living with the conviction that she can control the shape of her life with “a surge of determination.” Even as this type of Christianity celebrates the American can-do spirit, it implies that if you “can’t do” and succumb to illness or misfortune, you are a failure. Kate is very sick, and no amount of positive thinking will shrink her tumors. What does it mean to die, she wonders, in a society that insists everything happens for a reason? Kate is stripped of this certainty only to discover that without it, life is hard but beautiful in a way it never has been before.

Frank and funny, dark and wise, Kate Bowler pulls the reader deeply into her life in an account she populates affectionately with a colorful, often hilarious retinue of friends, mega-church preachers, relatives, and doctors. Everything Happens for a Reason tells her story, offering up her irreverent, hard-won observations on dying and the ways it has taught her to live.

With everything that has happened in the last four months, I have tried so hard not to think about dying, and here I sat, reading this book in two days, and thinking about my own mortality so much more than I ever thought I'd be prepared to think about my own mortality.

See, we have all said or thought about the idea that we could be hit by a bus tomorrow, right? For most people, that's as much examination of their own mortality as they have time or inclination to do. The thing is, for the vast majority of people, that bus is abstract. It's the idea of a bus. A shadow of a bus. A vague daydream of a bus.

When we say that we could be hit by a bus tomorrow, we don't actually believe it, and we don't even live on the bus line, and we have a car, and we could call an Uber, and we work from home, and we have no reason to ever leave the house.

Meanwhile, I'm looking at a bus right now. I don't know how far away it is, I don't know how fast it is going, I don't know if it is even able to swerve. For me, the bus is not abstract. It is real, and I am staring it down.

Reading this book forced me to look at the bus. Really look at it. That bus is holding a lot right now.

In the preface, Bowler says,

"One moment I was a regular person with regular problems. And the next, I was someone with cancer. Before my mind could apprehend it, it was there—swelling to take up every space my imagination could touch. A new and unwanted reality. There was a before, and now there was an after" (Bowler xiv-xv; emphasis added).

Before diagnosis day, I would have said that the life that I have with The Husband was ordinary. We do the things that we do, no big deal. But if I look at it from the outside, our life together has been truly extraordinary. We have road-tripped all over the country, had spontaneous adventures, and embraced the unexpected in so many ways.

I have been stuck grieving my before life because there is not enough room for the extraordinary anymore. I can't skydive (I assume the rockstar neurosurgeon wouldn't approve). I don't have the stamina to go for a multiple-hour hike and multi-day camping trip. Frankly, I am far too anxious to try the things I used to enjoy trying for the sheer fact that they scared me. I feel like there is no more room to be Before Melissa anymore.

Before, The Husband took me on a short helicopter ride at the county fair because it was reasonably priced and I am terrified of helicopters and I occasionally enjoy doing things that frighten me. I cried and/or hyperventilated because helicopters are terrifying, and I loved every minute of it.

Before, The Husband took me zip-lining even though I am afraid of heights and in my mind, the zip-line is always thisclose to dropping me to my ungraceful and messy death at the bottom of the forest floor. But I got on that zip-line, and cried as my knees shook. I watched everyone else go in front of me while I stood there and cried, snot bubbles and everything. The guide had to hook up and push me to get me to go, and I cried the whole way. And suddenly, I realized that zip-lining is amazing! It feels like flying. But also, I was crying because I was scared to death, and sometimes, scaring yourself to death makes you feel alive.

Before, I got The Husband skydiving tickets for Christmas one year even though I am afraid of heights, afraid of flying, and afraid of falling. I didn't eat or drink anything the night before because I was worried about puking on the guy who was my tandem guide. The next morning, we got on the plane, and I thought maybe I would pass out. The plane climbed to 13,500 feet, and they opened the door. I had already signed the waiver that basically said skydiving is stupid and you might die and you can't sue us, so it was too late to back out, right? The tandem guide pushed me toward the open door and yelled in my ear that we would go on the count of three: "One! Two!" That sneaky bastard pushed me out the door! I screamed. I blacked out. I cried. The photos show a giant grin on my face. But you better believe that I was terrified. But by the time we landed on the ground, I was ready to go again, so we did! And it was just as scary as the first time!

I have so many before stories.

What after stories will I have to tell?

Don't Read with Me: The Eternal Ones by Kirsten Miller

So, I found a book in my bookcase that looked interesting called The Eternal Ones.

The Amazon blurb says:

Haven Moore can't control her visions of a past with a boy called Ethan and a life in New York that ended in fiery tragedy. In our present, she designs beautiful dresses for her classmates with her best friend Beau. Dressmaking keeps her sane, since she lives with her widowed and heartbroken mother in her tyrannical grandmother's house in Snope City, a tiny town in Tennessee. Then an impossible group of coincidences conspire to force her to flee to New York, to discover who she is, and who she was.
In New York, Haven meets Iain Morrow and is swept into an epic love affair that feels both deeply fated and terribly dangerous. Iain is suspected of murdering a rock star and Haven wonders, could he have murdered her in a past life? She visits the Ouroboros Society and discovers a murky world of reincarnation that stretches across millennia. Haven must discover the secrets hidden in her past lives, and loves, before all is lost and the cycle begins again.

In the very first sentence, we hear about New York. Four sentences into the blurb, we find out she has to flee to New York.

I am 97 pages into this book.

Guess where we are not.

The first 97 pages are full of cliches and stereotypes:

• The gay best friend in a small country town who helps the protagonist make prom dresses. 
• The God-fearing grandmother who believes the protagonist is possessed by a demon.
• The semi-creepy clergy-man who seems just a hair over the line with his familiarity with the protagonist (a 17-year-old girl).
• The protagonist describes herself as ugly, when the description is of an objectively pretty girl. 

97 pages in, and I still haven't reached the hook. I gave it 97 pages, and it very clearly feels like it is still in the introduction part. There's no hook yet. I do not have time to read 97 pages with no hook.

I have always said that Life is Too Short for Bad Books. The thing is, Life ALWAYS was Too Short for Bad Books, but now it is REALLY Too Short for Bad Books.

So.

I'm not finishing this book. If it sounds interesting to anyone (especially local), let me know and I'll give it to you. If no one wants it and you are not local, I'll mail it to you.

What book should I try next?