Matters: Doesn't and Does

Nothing like staring death in the face to make you think -- what really doesn't matter? and what does? Funny how you can tell yourself over and over to focus on the real priorities of life, and how that can be fuzzy and often forgotten. Why is that? But when you think, Wow, I may only have a few months left on Earth! well, then it seems pretty effortless to let the petty things, the petty annoyances and worries, go take a long walk off a short pier, all by themselves.

I used to lecture myself, Do I really want to waste 3 minutes of my life being annoyed about the toothpaste in the sink? Now, I look at something like that, and almost laugh. It's even kind of precious to me, like Oh, look at this cute evidence of life, of living with those I love! Sound weird?

So I just got the official word, werd, wurd, and I do indeed have breast cancer. It's really hard to sink in. You mean, me? A member of that club? But I'm sure I never sent in my application. Don't you need references? And then, it's kind of like after you have sex for the first time, and you keep expecting to look different, for the world to look different, and yet it just goes on, but still you're not a cancer virgin anymore. Like it or lump it. (Haha, cancer pun.)

I wanted to stand on a mountain and shout it out to everyone, post it on facebook as my status, start wearing a t-shirt with an arrow pointing to my right breast and the words "Cancer Here, Can You Believe It?" in bold, because the disconnect is so disorienting -- that life should go on as always, all around me, when Don't you know, friends, everything has shifted?!!

Here's the poem I wrote in a funky fugue, for my Facebook status yesterday:
* * * * * * * * *
It's positive.
Baking a pumpkin pie from "a real pumpkin" and it smells great.
The sun is shining across my arm, warm, bright.
Kids outside are laughing and calling, rolling wheels scratch on the sidewalk.
Chase is chewing on a bone under the table, at my feet, contented.
The side of my nose itches.
Yep. Still positive.
* * * * * * * * * *

Do you know what I mean?

Of course, I'm super sad and scared.

But that's only some of time. Other times, I seem to be dealing with it automatically in the same way I deal with life and things I have to take care of, generally. Such as, I actually caught myself thinking, Should I finish this hummus off now, since I might not be here tomorrow to eat it? As if I were thinking about clearing the fridge of perishables, before leaving on a journey. I actually followed the last thought with, No, it's okay, I'll still be alive tomorrow. All in my is-it-time-to-put-the-next-load-in-the-washer state of mind. Then two heartbeats later, I felt the craziness of that.

Well, really, I don't intend to die. (But who does?)