Just when I thought I was out

When you're "cured" of cancer you spend years hoping it won't come back. Then you spend years pretending that you have stopped worrying that you spend so much time hoping it won't come back. Slowly, you start to believe in tomorrow.

After a few years you stop worrying each time you have an unexplained bruise, feel tired for a few days in row, or feel a mysterious lump, that there is a malevolent cause. You start taking an aspirin when you have a fever. You laugh about how busy you've been when you're tired. Your heart doesn't miss a beat when you raise your arm in the shower and give yourself a breast exam.

You stop pondering the fleetingness of every moment. Your breath comes easier. You start sleeping through the night.

Then a friend dies. Another friend relapses. And a person you only know through the news and his political organizing steps down from his job to fight a new round of cancer.

But, everything is fine.

You say good-bye to one friend, you hope for the other,  you wish all the best to the brave stranger and you continue to live your life.

Then your focus shifts.

People start appearing in crowds. You know they aren't the people you once new. You know they aren't ghosts. But, for a moment you when you see them you want to be fooled.

But, everything is fine.

You jump a little when people come quietly into your office.

But, everything is fine.

By the time you walk from the meeting to your office you forget what your task was, and hope you wrote it in your notebook.

But, everything is fine.

You wake up in the morning and struggle with your bed covers. They feel like they're nailed to the floor around your bed. Pushing them aside and rising to start the day seems almost impossible.

But, everything is fine.

You start searching for a greater meaning in what you do. Are you at the right job? Are you following your true path? Is there meaning to this life?

Everything is not fine.

But, you hold on. You try to trick yourself into believing in permanence again.

--
treena and kootenay
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