Recordar as volver a vivir

 Remember, remember the 5th of November.

Today is my 15th cancerversary. I guess I picked the timing of returning to the blog because I have a moment I want to enshrine.

If you’d asked me four days ago what I would be writing about, it might have been about how I was now on weekend five of racing. It might have been a curious reflection on how I’m still standing—or why. It might have been a thousand things, but in the end, it’s something pretty simple.

I was getting ready for the Livestrong Challenge on Sunday, a tradition that has had its ups and downs—mostly because I was riding on hilly bike courses. This year I decided to do the 10K and was cheering for some old friends biking, since that started half an hour before the run, when I received a text from Kiana asking if I was participating. Before I had a chance to answer, I felt a tap on my shoulder—and then a hug.

I was overwhelmed. I had raced beside her in many places with a stroller, cheered for her—and like many independent children do, she decided she didn’t want to be a runner anymore in late adolescence because she didn’t want to be like her father. That never bothered me because I wanted to raise an independent child.

But this was the first time ever that she had shown up to cheer for me. And not only that—it was unannounced. It was a really bright sunrise that was making my eyes water shortly after that.

Kiana asked, with cheer and joy, if I was going to win. I laughed and said, “No, I’m an old man now, kid.”

Then she gave me a hug, and it was time to run. It was great weather. I’ve finally conceded some mobility and was wearing AlphaFlys. And yet… and yet… all of those things have been true in races before—and it was still the fastest 10K I’d run post-COVID.

A few years ago, when I was having a variety of muscle pains due to organ issues, I decided my 10K goal for the rest of my life was to do it below my age—something I didn’t pull off at 41, but I did at 42, and sped up at 43 and 44. But there, seeing Kiana four times on the course with her sign, I broke 40 for the first time in my 40s.

Afterwards, we had breakfast and took pictures and laughed. She got a Livestrong duck, and we bought raffle tickets. She reprimanded me for having Diet Coke before I had water after the race, told me about the concert she’s going to later today, and introduced me to her significant other. Then I gave her a ride back to the apartment because she needed a nap—she’s not a morning person—but she’d gotten up when she realized the Livestrong Challenge was happening and came to cheer, unrequested and unannounced.

As she shared all that, somehow the sweat from the 10K was still building up in my eyes even though I’d been done for a while and it was cold weather. She asked what song I was trying to sing when I was passing her. It was Remember the Name —

This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill,
Fifteen percent concentrated power of will,
Five percent pleasure, fifty percent pain,
And a hundred percent reason to remember the name.
— Fort Minor

And I smiled, because there are few lyrics that better describe what that race — and this life — have been for me.

I thought about translating the title of today’s blog—but who doesn’t have Google Translate? Anyone still reading a middle-aged man’s meandering thoughts this far in probably doesn’t need help with that.

Today's title comes from a Spanish song. While the education of my much damaged mind are in English, my heart still beats in Spanish. It’s something I heard later that day trying to get more Mexican time in at a ballet folklórico show. It means, “To remember is to live again.”

I genuinely have a damaged memory, but long before that, I was bad at looking back. I’ve always been about what’s next—but cancerversaries are meant to look back.

So I will. I’ll look back to three days ago, when I took 2nd place—my best placing in a 10K in a long time—thanks to my number one fan being there.

More importantly, I’ll look back and realize that we’re both still standing—and that the questions “Can I still keep running?” and “Am I fit to raise a kid?” aren’t as irrelevant as I blogged just a couple of weeks ago.

And remembering that today makes me want to live again.

When will I be changed?

“I’ve been told I’ll find some truth down in my bones
But I don’t know
I know, know
I can’t even seem to find my own road home
And I hope there is some truth down in my bones.”
— When Will I Be Changed?

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I suppose it only took one entry to restart the spark—the writing one, at least—because here I am doing two in a week when I hadn’t done that in that many years.

Today, I spoke for the umpteenth time to University of Texas pre-medical students. It’s been over a decade since my first one, and I’ve actually had “kids” come up and say they heard me at running events or in random circumstances—including one who was in medical school. UT was the first place that invited me to speak shortly after winning a marathon pushing Kiana in a stroller—the first of many places that would have me all over. I did that first one off the cuff, and it became the basis for many of my later talks.

I still start and finish with the same jokes. My favorite one—about my Wada tests—gets fewer laughs each year: “I knew my groin and my brain were connected. It only takes a few seconds for them to communicate, and we know which one puts the other to sleep.” Is it me getting older, telling it to 18- and 19-year-olds? Or are they just more PC?

I updated the speech, glad to share that I’m still moving—sharing how, while I wasn’t supposed to make 40, I ran the TransRockies race with 8/8 landing on stage 5 of a 6-day event. In the cancer world, stages 1–4 are a big deal, so somehow it felt appropriate that “stage 5” for me was getting to miles 88 and 100 in mountains connected to the ones I was born in. Last week I took 3rd male in a 5K, and yesterday 1st in another.

But even as I updated, I realized it was a change of a note or two in a song that has mostly stayed the same. I’ve been running there since I was 8 years old, and I put off brain surgery to run a marathon—both things I still share in those talks. Yet in clearing out things that get applause, I realize that keeping moving has kept me alive and connected to the ground even as I fly off it.

However, I think it’s also gotten me into the infamous kind of trouble. My closest relationship right now is with the guy I run with all the time. Oddly enough, after running together for over a decade—and doing a few local races in competition and collaboration (he beat me at the 80’s 8K but I’m not bitter; he paced me to my only sub-3 marathon, but I’ve got some faster PRs on the front end)—we’re traveling for a race together right around 15 years after brain surgery and 13 after that marathon stroller win. I’ll be trying to beat him. But the reason our friendship survives and thrives is because we talk in motion.

I was recently at an event for cancer survivors in Vermont where people noticed I talked much more during hikes than at the dinner table—where I’d just throw in a dry remark here and there.

With Kiana’s mom—the creative-writing major—there was something she wrote that I found recently entitled When He Leaves, about how I was always leaving, never knowing how to do lazy days. The quality that’s gotten me invited to speak is the exact same one.

With Elaine, it makes me think of a new Mumford & Sons song, Run Together, which says:
When we run, we run together.
When we’re apart, we fall apart.

It’s why I proposed on a run—and perhaps the biggest reason why, when our relationship became long-distance, it fell apart.

But that’s not the song I started with. It’s one I’ve listened to many times: When Will I Be Changed? And I think the answer is likely never. In my best relationships and connections, I’ve learned to grow as we go—but growth and change are different dynamics.

And I hope that in this green and peacefulness
That you’ll let me stay,
Let me stay.
Even a poor serpent needs a place to rest
For a while as he’s waiting to be changed.

I know priorities—but even in running, what I’m infamous for, I’m also notorious for not taking a break. I’m on my way to my 3rd 1,000-day streak, not taking a day off, where even my doctors and coaches have given up on getting me to try. I show my priorities in that I realigned my life to be a better father—not just a single one—but even there, winning a marathon with a stroller was part of that alignment. With the stage race, I didn’t race once in July, but I’m at four weekends in a row in October and will finish the year averaging about a race every other weekend (some weekends had two or three).

So perhaps, like a friend shared this morning while he ate bacon—someone was lecturing their 70-plus-year-old mother not to eat it because it was bad for her—I laughed. There comes a point where you have whatever you want. Heck, I started eating more dessert in my thirties because I wasn’t supposed to make it to my forties. It cost me some pant sizes and some dental work, and I still have no apologies for it.

But this speech every few months creates some forced perspective. The professor introduces me by talking about that marathon win from so long ago, quoting media pieces from when I was 32. He talks about how he ran with me the day after my 40th birthday, when I made him run a very steep place called Mt. Bonnell to celebrate being “over the hill.” He shared a note from a student who said that class inspired them to run, and that it’s helped with their health—mental and physical—and perspective.

I’ve chosen to stay active in the cancer and brain-cancer communities, and with today’s speech there was someone sitting near the front who made my day: the daughter of the founder of Austin’s brain-cancer research race, the Brain Power 5K.It was my first race after brain surgery, about five months later. It was also the first race I’d won since college, and I was the top fundraiser. Maybe it was the universe reminding me I still had a role to play.

Kelly—the founder—had put off her brain surgery to carry her pregnancy to term, risking her life to deliver another. That’s as motherly as love gets, I think.

I’ve been thinking about it since then. The Brain Power 5K went defunct after COVID, but Kelly and I—and our kids—are still standing. And I’m glad that hasn’t changed.

The Story Is Writing Me

 Torn between what is and what could be.

It’s hard to write the story

When the story’s writing me

— Great Expectations, The Outsiders

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Those of you who have known me a while know I kept a blog of my cancer journey, Picking Up A Hitchhiker, for over a decade. It started as a simple way to hold onto memory when I was worried brain surgery would damage it so much that I wouldn’t remember my life story. I also had—and still have—full intentions of reading it when my time came.

Cancer, fortunately, has become less and less relevant to my everyday life. I’m not on maximum dosage of medication. It’s been over a decade since a seizure; the appointments are fewer and farther between. And for a variety of reasons—one of which is definitely that I’d stopped envisioning since my twenties—middle age has made me as much, if not more, afraid of aging than of dying.

I mean, let’s be clear: I’ve started middle age in style and wildness. The kid born 8/8/80 used to assume before cancer that he’d make 88, so I figured arriving at 44 last year was the midlife crisis marker. It started with skydiving with people I love and trust. It was followed by Burning Man where, well, let’s just say when in Nevada, do as the Romans.

But the wildness refocused, because I think I’m still standing by well—not standing still. In November ‘24, I managed to win, randomly in raffles, entries to both a six-day stage race, the TransRockies, and an Ironman 70.3. I had plantar fasciitis going hard, but despite a good friend saying, “Just because you win an entry doesn’t mean you have to do it,” I signed up for both.

Each of those events would have deserved an entry of their own in the old Hitchhiker days. But both are a bit past now, and they’ll have to rest in my limited and damaged brain. Just to add spice to the mix, I also did my first Spartan Trifecta during that midlife crisis—three of the hardest things I’ve done in about a seven-month span. Aging like fine wine in a damaged bottle, I suppose.

I miss the writing. I still actually do write to process thoughts—type at length—and then just select all and delete, somehow trying to both let it out and let it go. But I miss this intentional writing, where I describe the story.

I even played with the idea of writing a memoir of sorts, titled The Thrill of Hope: A Soundtrack of Quiet Desperation. Each chapter or entry would be labeled after a song, since I regularly think—and my heart often beats—in lyrics, in both Spanish and English.

A few days ago, Kiana and I went to see a musical, The Outsiders. I won’t ruin it, because before I went I’d never seen or known anything about it, but it had two songs that stuck with me enough that an old man downloaded them and has had them on repeat—enough to inspire this writing.

The lyric at the top of this blog captures it perfectly: “It’s hard to write the story when the story is writing me.” Perhaps the blog was never that different from putting off brain surgery to run a marathon, or walking out of ambulances. It was an attempt—quite literally—to control the narrative. But I think the story has written me just as much.

I used to ask my doctors, “Can I keep running, and am I fit to raise a kid? Because one is how I get through the day, and the other one is why.” I’m still running, but I know my PRs are almost certainly behind me, and Kiana’s a full legal adult, no longer sharing a roof with me—so both of those equations are less relevant.

I think about heading to Mexico and just restarting life where it started for me. But I still have some promises to keep, and no matter where, there are many miles to run before I sleep.

While I’m still thankful and grateful for each day, there are more moments—more days—where I’m trying to figure out what all this has been for. People offer things like, “Don’t you want to see [insert great idea here]?” But the truth is, the answer is almost always no. I didn’t stick around to be a passive spectator of anything.

I’m now officially working in race production, but unlike most race directors, I snuck into both the races I’ve done so far—fastest guy on my team at the first relay and third-place male at the second one—so there’s still something in the tank.

Parts of my brain, heart, and soul are broken—some through circumstance, some through choice—but I don’t see myself as a victim of either.

But I’m still running, still singing, still loving, and still trying—as more of my hair grows gray—to stay gold.

⸻

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

— Robert Frost

Love is the Tuesdays

“I've come to know that love's not only the best days Or the worst days Love is the Tuesdays“

Waiting for cancer results is never fun. Cancer friends understand that. Some non cancer friends who have had family also understand it. One of them said, because she knew from her father’s experience who passed away from cancer, that ‘whatever happens it’ll be a relief. I think that all your friends are so used to hearing good news that when the bad news day comes we’re not going to believe it.” I genuinely appreciated that she said when the bad news comes because for very very few of us is it if, it’s just when. 

I’ve reevaluated the job I have and had genuine conversations with my boss about where I feel in it. I shared things candidly and bluntly. I had conversations with the boards I sit on that were blatantly honest. I also let the pain dictate too much and didn’t run despite two rough nights until finally this morning I ran. Running was the better decision. I dealt with a couple of organizations I’m on the board and let them know what I think we should be doing for long. I talked to Kiana about how she’s closer to an adult and what she’s thinking about today, this summer and the rest of her life. I also finally started working on the ‘memoir’ of sorts (who knows how it’ll go but if you want to see it painfully in progress send me a message and I’ll send you a link). I don’t think it takes someone with a whole lot of psychological training to wonder whether or not these are mistakes but they certainly point to someone who wants to know they are or did contribute while they are facing their mortality. 

In the middle of all this, a friend from elementary and middle school shared something online mocking Tuesdays. It was definitely amusing but it reminded me of a song quoted above (https://youtu.be/IdZvEZlBJPU ) that was shared with me a few years ago, Love is the Tuesdays. I had a friend get married on a Tuesday last year and unfortunately was not able to make it but shared it with them and they used it at their wedding. I don’t own it unlike my favorite music but I listened to it because the guy who doesn’t get relationships right still somewhere believes in love and life after love. ‘

But the theme there is what matters to me. I appreciate the friends and family who showed up at the hospital, at the weddings, the ones who will come to the funeral. They will be among the best friends who had the capacity to also be there when the messes had subsided to just take the random walk during injury or the random ride when I couldn’t drive or just called to talk about nothing. It wasn’t the concert or the happiest memories because the human mind isn’t wired for that being a big impression but like proper regular nutrition as opposed to an occasional salad or regular flossing more than biannual dental cleaning or the regular runs that create the heart, lungs, legs and mental health which is even more important than the races, it is the things that occur regularly that shape us even if we don’t recognize it. 

So as I headed to get the results, I focused on who had been there on Tuesdays and random regular moments, the ones that occur and occur and shape you slowly and steadfastly like a river carves it’s path. Perhaps it is the flood of cancer that leaves some damaged and permanent shaped scars both below and above the surface and can literally flood too much and change the landscape forever but the Grand Canyon wasn’t created by a flood, it was created by a river. It is those deep and shaping influences that I hoped to focus on, those who know who to show up and those who I showed up for. And honestly focusing on that helped me realize that whatever the results had been made thankful for a very good life. 

So that’s what Tuesday was but then came Wednesday, the day of the results…I woke up early and I ran, slow and easy and without focus. 

When the results finally came in, and as I drove there, I realized I hate that neighborhood. I can’t shake the trauma of it. I’ve been to a wedding within a  block of it. There was a girl or few that I’ve taken on a date near there.  Kiana was literally born in the hospital that I’ve had some work done and that was the original memory but now I can’t seem to shake the most persistent memory of the WADA tests, and the ER visit and the neuropsychological and the MRI results and the and the and the. It’s like the house where I had a seizure next to I’ve run it by a hundred times next to it, other than shortly after it, I haven’t avoided it but it still comes to mind. So much for a damaged memory you have to accept that trauma can be king. 

The results were stable. The doctor who spent most of the first decade telling me it was a if not when it grows and said at 10 years that for most people it grows before 10 years. He’d seen it too much between 10 and 12. But here at 12 he said maybe I’ll be one of the lucky ones. He also shared that he recently had a transplant from LA that’s had it for 30 years. He hopes I’ll be a patient that has it that long longer and maybe I’ll also get lucky. I genuinely appreciated that he kept saying lucky. I have too much guilt in knowing the friends I’ve buried along the way to have the arrogance to say that it’s my running or my health habits or the importance of my parenting or because I have something left to give. The only way I assuage any of that guilt is by believing the old proverb that the race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong but chance and circumstance happens to us all. I am okay with that being why I got it, why I survived it. 

We covered the car accidents and how similar they were. He said that may also have been dumb luck (does it all balance out that you keep having bad luck that doesn’t kill you but just costs you money?). However, we are going to do a more thorough vision test, a neuropsychological like the ones we did early in the cancer journey and possibly a wave test to see if I am having focal seizures that I’m missing. There were no residual signs of trauma or impact from the accident though everything seems to be consistent that I am having inner problems when it’s happening. 

So I’m calmer and hopefully I sleep better tonight from relief and exhaustion. And I’ll definitely going to live from the dreams I’ve thought through and about in the last 48 hours. But I”m also going to focus on those who  can share the Tuesday jokes and moments with. 

In Restless Dreams I walked Alone

“ Why live life from dream to dream and dread the day when dreaming ends?”

If anyone wonders if scananxiety is real, it’s 2:26 am and I am blogging. I had an MRI yesterday roughly 12 hours ago to see whether or not my tumor is growing. Somewhere the logic says, just 6 months or so ago, the doctor told you that he believed you’d be one of the lucky ones. Somewhere the eternal optimist says come on you’ve gotten through so many of these this should just be a ritual. But the nightmares still came the night before and tonight, one of two between results. 

Somewhere the hopeless romantic wishes I was better at real connections to where the nights weren’t alone, somewhere the guy who has inadequate approach to at least those types of relationships is relieved that if something goes wrong there’s at least one less worry. I have a ritual, habit, of spending that time framing my mindset of it’s my time, what will I need to do to get ready and if it’s not what do I dream of in the future. For better or worse, the older I get, the shorter both lists get.

This is the closest these have been since my 8 year cancerversary. There is nothing gigantically critical that I or anyone has told about why the tumor has been growing that prompts this 6 month interval instead of what had now become annually. But I had two car accidents since then, both of which I was behind the wheel. I wondered then and now and had conversations with some other brain siblings was my brain failing to send some signal, was it just an actual accident or are there gaps? I’ve had a lot of vertigo since then, mostly occasionally but still happens as recent as yesterday. It can apparently be relatively normal because of some dislodged ‘rocks’ in your ears and can last for a while. Anyway, this MRI is both to see if there is tumor growth or some other type of brain damage. 

There has been some highlights since then. If anyone wonders if I still care about running despite that I had been on a string of my slowest races ever with little exceptions for most of a year and a half, it’s not a coincidence that I scheduled it the day after a half marathon and four weeks before the marathon. They give me a medal dye that sometimes makes me nauseous (it did yesterday) and so I wanted to disrupt my training as little as possible. 

It was a good half, the weather was perfect. I made a playlist primarily of old songs that remembered and focused some of the concern and worry and anger about having cancer. There was a nod to my 92 year old grandfather whose independence even as he is less mobile and has lost his partner of 71 years is still pushing. There was exactly one new song on there that had never been used on a playlist, purchased that morning, Rihana’s love on the brain thoroughly appreciating the nod that I would run for miles just to get a taste, must be love on the brain. 

I appreciated that immediately afterwards the song Humor of the Situation came on, reminding myself of the reality that somewhere I still appreciate that running arbitrary distances at arbitrary speeds is some measure of self worth. It was a sub 1 30 marathon. That was my goal for my first half marathon ever and I didn’t hit it till my second one. It was nowhere near my fastest but with the way the last one went (1:34) I wondered if there would be another one and I was glad that day was not the last one. 

Sometimes life leaves you high and dry, feeling abandoned on the side of the road. I’ve even woken up in ambulances on the side of the road in the middle of a run. Here, a friend with me in the middle of the road but on both sides of the road there were friends both old and new cheering while traffic was being held for us to run this town. 

I’ll get results on Wednesday and maybe, probably? it will all be fine but the scanxiety is real, the loneliness at 2:52 am is real, the feelings are real even if the fears that cause them may all be imagined. You know, the guy and friend I run with the most, said that there’s a study that showed once you make a certain capacity of money happiness is measured by how many friends you have you can call at 2:00 in the morning. I know there’s no need to call anyone about scanxiety but I also, I also know there are good people I could and that makes me very grateful.

I know someday I’ll fly away and leave all this to yesterday but while Moulin Rouge may wonder why you life life from dream to dream, I am not going to dread the day when dreaming ends. I am going to acknowledge that I am thinking some of what if the dreams are wrapping up if my time is too. But if it’s not, even if it’s just between MRIs, even if it’s just one race at a time, one day at a time I’m going to keep dreaming.

It’s all about the socks

 I grew up poor in Mexico and then came over in the same financial state to the United States at 8 years of age. Christmas memories vary for us all but for me I genuinely don’t have the memory of getting super materialistic happiness on December 25th. Most of my clothes were hand me downs or garage sale shopping (we didn’t have a Goodwill in the town I was in and now I work for them!). 

The present I remember most often is socks. I’ve always enjoyed athletic endeavors and whether that be running or team sports, my huge toes lead to worn out socks. So very often I would unwrap something under the tree that was a nice package of sacks likely from the dollar store. I remember always being greatful, though perhaps not excited. The one time I received a just for fun gift that I remember was a Heman tiger that I accidentally dropped into the neighbors friend and whose dog quickly destroyed it. Even fake cats were the enemy… 

I’m 42 years old now and I realize just how much those socks meant. I’m a runner still and on Christmas Eve it was the first time in my life that the year, the temperature and the mileage all matched-22. I was pretty consistent and just faded a little in the last couple of miles which made it the longest I’ve ran in over a year and in the entirety of the year. The wool socks mattered. 

But as I sat and thought of this, I realize that well I’ve gotten socks from lots of people including raffles (hey modern running socks individually are more expensive than the packs I got as a kid). But it takes me a moment to realize, without exception, everyone I’ve ever purchased and given socks to is someone that I love. It’s family and friends that could call at 2:00 in the morning and I’d be there in a heartbeat. 

I have socks from Kiana about how cold of a dad I am, I have gag ones that are bright colors that I rarely wear but don’t dare to discard. I also have some race ones and some recovery ones that are solid memories of events. Kiana for a long time was horrible about putting socks away and would just throw them in a drawer and then rather than looking for a match one day, decided to just grab two different ones whether or not they matched in color or length. I loved the non conformity and creativity of it. 

I hope whoever or however you’re spending this holiday season or the upcoming New Year, you reach out to those who lovingly provided you socks or have provided them for. The only person who I’ve never shared a home or a bed with that I’ve gotten socks to is my friend Chris, who is by far the person I’ve ran with the most and somehow will run with holes in his socks. My to go gifts for him are vodka and socks; I should combine those two someday. And believe it or not, it’s not a bad time to still get socks from someone. (If you’re thinking about me, somehow I’ve never gotten socks with an 8 or a lion!).

I am at the house I would always visit when I would come to west Texas. It’s a home my parents have been buying but my grandparents have been living in. Since my grandmother passed away last summer, my parents have been living here with my grandfather. I’ve struggled with the signs referencing that it’s grandpa and grandma’s house. It’s the first time I’ve ever visited and somewhere between the turkey or the tamales or the Mexican hot chocolate, I still feel like she’s just around the corner. I’m dreaming of a fully brown Christmas because there’s less of us now who don’t speak some if not fluent English but with her we had to talk in Spanish or be quiet. I’ve cried a bit but mostly I have tried to focus on the pictures of her smiling with different people at different stages. She was one of those people who gave me socks. 

So, let me emphasize again, that I hope you use and I certainly intend to, call, text, dm, shout at someone and thank them if they took  care of you from head to toe, those bare necessities whether or not they provided you the luxuries of life. Tell them you love them and appreciate the way they took care of you or the privilege you have in taking care of them. Maybe if you’re lucky, it’ll knock their socks off. 

Carma running over Dogma

 This thing is called picking up a hitchhiker because I’ve picked up every hitchhiker I’ve ever passed by and then needed rides for 3 years. But my carma has caught up in a different way in the last few weeks, I have been driving in 2 different cars that have been totaled in the last few weeks. I’ve also had my car on my ‘new’ 2007 Prius broken by someone who was breaking mirrors and biting people and then after that got repaired, the hybrid battery ran out. Somehow all the car bills from 3 years of not driving almost a decade ago got caught up and then some in 3 months. It’s a good thing the world is so car bill and purchase friendly right now… oh wait. 

I would like to apologize to whoever I pissed off because after a few runs of the best years in my life from like 2016 to 2018, I have been on a downhill trend since 2019 in so many ways with 2022 being the worst year of my life in about every way possible. Still, my email signature reads “ I am and always will be the optimist, the hoper of far flung hopes and the dreamer of improbable dreams.” Some people have interpreted that to mean the simple colloquial meaning of an optimism of seeing the glass half full rather than half empty. I’ve never quite understood that allegory since it’s an even split. When it’s not, are we supposed to say 1/10th full rather than mostly empty. Optimism for me is to stand in the pouring rain and believe the sun will shine again. 

I crashed into someone at a race recently, one of only two ‘good’ races I have had in over a year and like the days of old, one I signed up for the day before. They said my social media posts and this blog is not quite as positive as they remember it. I didn’t know what to say to that. There is some acknowledgement in that; I know that I’m worse for the wear, more than I’ve been in anytime I remember but hey I have a damaged memory. That’s a great irony because people still say I have more energy than anyone I’ve met but one of the women from the past recently said that my vitality in life was one of the attractive features of mine.  Only so much credence you should give to your exes (and I have enough in Texas to where I may have to retire in Tennessee) since it didn’t work out but it definitely made me wonder. 

I’m thankful to be alive each and every moment of every day. There are moments of those who are supposed to be the keepers of the flame that feel more abusive, more chokeholds or slaps in the face of those who are supposed to be caretakers. The medical bill for some bloodwork that was quoted to me for $50 came in at almost $4000. Several phone calls etc end with ‘there’s nothing else we can do for you” but they didn’t do anything for me to begin with. As I write this, I think I’m done with anything new in the medical world. I know I’m only 42 years old and this and that but I made peace with dying a long time ago and I’ll do the upkeep that I’m supposed to on what we know but I am exhausted. I’m not quitting; I don’t quit (trust me I did a half marathon yesterday in the slowest time I’ve ever done that course in a lot of pain in the humidity yesterday and there was not a moment of walking despite all the pain). But there is acceptance and not signing up to tilt at certain windmills anymore. 

I know no one fully gets it; I still have people who know that I walk into the room and am happy to be there and to see everyone because I genuinely am still happy in the freedom I take. But again “oh freedom, that’s just some people talking when my prison is walking in this world all alone.” I don’t think I’m getting bailed out of that prison ever cause a poor boy from an immigrant family in Mexico and small town West Texas to college in Napa Valley has lots of friends but such an odd story that relatability is both legion and hard. As a college professor once shared, “you are unique just like everyone else.” I have turned town book deals though it was offered at two different points in my life. (In case you’re wondering, I would call it “The Thrill of Hope, a Soundtrack of Quiet Desperation” with each chapter named after a song.) I am tempted to write it more and more these days but I don’t think I could with the honesty and rawness that I’d want because while I see and would project most of what’s gone wrong on to myself, sharing the details of other people’s lives who matter to me, well oddly enough too many of those people read this blog and appreciate but are very private. Most of them realize that it’s just hiding in public which is actually far more freeing than just hiding or hiding in therapy or telling almost enough to your friends to where you feel honest. But while some people live life to add this time or that one to the memoir, I think all/almost the things I’ve ever read that were based on true stories it was people living with intent to live more than intent to remember that made interesting. 

So I’m ready for this year to end. I’ve kind of given up all old traditions about Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s that I once had in this rough era thinking maybe it was time to let the old ways die. I’m hoping the carma days run over my dogmas and I just hope for a really really boring year in 2023. I am going to run the Austin marathon in February which is the furthest I can dream ahead. It’s odd, in July it was the first time my oncologist stated/believe I wouldn’t die of cancer according to the stats but my father’s death in 2021, my grandmother’s in 2022 and invariably the number of cancer friends that continue to give me survivors guilt make me have a harder time envisioning too far down the road. Right now I’m tired enough to where I’m not even thinking to my next MRI which was my previous method of keeping time. But for today and at least tomorrow, I still want to live like Don Quixote but not die like him. I want to die an unreasonable man, tilting at windmills till the end. I want to love though I gotta get better at that pure and chaste from afar if Dulcinea even exists anywhere except in my projections.  And when I walked away from totaling car accident number 2, I ran the fastest race I have in about a year and a half, the only good one since June of 2021 (a friend joked I should have more car accidents). But with simple materialistic or any other sorrow, even if I can’t go as far, I still want to run where the brave dare not go. And well if I can do that, I think my heart will be peaceful and calm when I’m laid to my rest. 

The Narrative To Come

 “Narrative is one of the best intoxicants or tranquilizers.” ― S. Byatt, Still Life

I imagine most, if not all of us, have stories we tell ourselves, songs we listen to, something that makes our inner self release what we want to come out. Maybe it's right, maybe it's wrong, maybe it's neither but life with a better flow makes a little sense. 

People have said about this blog, or my speeches or even work presentations that I'm good at narrative. I may just be doing awake what we all do at night, writing a story that connects the randomly received to the remembered reality. But here I am again, reflecting on one more year of cancer. Remember, remember the 5th of November, 13 into them, 12 anniversaries where the damage in my brain is relegated to still being secondary to life. 

I celebrate it or acknowledge it in someway every year, every year. That is more times than I have acknowledged my birthday in the entirety of my life and if it makes will surpass the wedding anniversaries I've celebrated despite being married twice. This year, acknowledging that some people you adore and appreciate deserve quality level stuff, I had a "what ages well" themed celebration Saturday night asking people to bring fine wine (even throughout the dare that whoever brought one from the same year I was diagnosed got extra points). 

There were more bottles brought than drank but early on, someone brought one called Austin Hope and as they did they asked me to make a toast. It was off the cuff and I don't remember it all but it started with a joke about how I often get paid to speak and they weren't paying enough for me going very long. I shared the appreciation of those in the area and those not there and I finished remembering that almost to the minute 12 years ago I was being admitted to a hospital and because I had shared that I had something going on in my brain, good friends were coming into the room. When others showed, the nurses asked them "Are you here for the party room?" and pointed them the right way. 12 years later, the party goes on! Who can't say cheers to that?

It was low key, talking to old and new friends from the one who helped raise money to get me to brain surgery, to the one who ran with me outside the hospital and helped keep me safe in the marathon I put off brain surgery for (they just had a baby!), to the one who flew me back from Duke to different ones along the way, most more established friendship but some brand new ones to though those I could count on one hand; this was a more established relationship invitation primarily. Even Kiana realized how important it was because while she was supposed to be at her mom's for the weekend she was there for it. 

We broke in the newly built patio (the previous one rotted) and it was the first real gathering since pre pandemic with roughly as many years as I've been alive people coming through and going. At the end of the night we had finished exactly 12 bottles of wine, some light, some dark, some blends, one non alcoholic. Speaking of good stories that seemed like a good parallel to the last dozen years. 

It would be dishonest to say that between year 11 and 12 was not by far the suckiest time of my life ever and well... that's saying something. But it took a little bit of fire and hope to realize that even during the rough times, I want s'more. 

The next day I ran a 10 mile race that I once ran by myself in under 60 minutes, that I once ran with Kiana in a stroller in 63 minutes and that I ran next to Kiana in about 75. The muscles are worn and tired these days and still have unexplained deficiencies. I barely beat Kiana's time. But at the finish line and now, I realized that while it may be what got the world's attention, my speed was a release point not the point itself. The playlist I have made for the last few races have had different music and it was as I cheered friends in that I realized the angry songs don't make my playlist anymore. There's no more Eminem. They are still up beat and rhythmic but I don't have much anger left in me. I'm not sure, despite my damaged memory, I even completely recall what I was so angry at and why that needed to be absorbed through shock on concrete and pavement. There was a point late in the race when I knew that my competitive spirit it at least not what it used to be if not entirely gone when a woman in a stroller past me about 3/4 past the race and I was more proud of her than I was ashamed of me (but both were true for the record). 

But focusing too much on the past was never my style no matter how good or bad so I ran and finished and smiled. And I cheered people in and I loved that I am still part of this community and part of the run of it. 

I don't know what life holds next but that's always been true and the guessing game of just reading this blog shows you that it's about as reliable as Texas weather reports. I may be true to my word but there's other people and circumstances that I wouldn't have ever ever guessed. 

It's Election Day as I write this. In this representative democracy where we each should do our own part and really all do whether it's passive or active, make a choice in what comes next. But I'm going to keep focusing a lot on today and plenty on tomorrow and even on the nights that end harshly, I'm going to be thankful for each day, challenge myself and those I love to make tomorrow a little better in its own way. Perhaps, with that, there will be a dozen or more 5ths of November and days to make choices and the narrative to come will be not a perfect but a great experience.