Day 37

So while I was bumming about, on Thursday mama and I went to orientation at Gilda’s Club, a haven for patients and those who have been touched by cancer. It’s founded in honor of Gilda Radner, the SNL star who passed from the ovarian type. Check them out at www.gildasclubdesertcities.org. Support groups, art classes, tai chi and meditation – it seems like a great way to connect and learn and to not feel so alone going through these experiences. As part of the routine interview, the program director asked me some seemingly innocuous questions, like ‘How has cancer negatively impacted your life?’ I mumbled something mundane, cuz really thinking positively had been de rigueur for me up until then. Still, to deepen understanding, you gotta think of all sides good and bad, so I went there. By all estimates of the end of this experience, I’ll be almost out of my twenties. In a way, I’m robbed from this era of my life; my new marriage, my new career, my healthy body, my energy are all being taken away from me or being perverted by this illness. What I wish I could do is savor every delicious, lingering moment of innocence and youth. I know I’ll be forced to once again grow up too fast. I’ve already accepted it as something that I must do, that is somehow suited to my character and will continue to shape this consciousness, but I can’t help but mourn my loss, selfishly, just a little.