"I keep hanging on while this old world keeps spinning and it's good to know it's out of my control
If there is one thing I've learned in all this living is that it wouldn't mean a thing if I let go
Just one more candle and a trip around the sun;
They say you never see it coming; you wind up wondering just where it went
Only time will tell if it was time to spent"
There is nothing I could say, write or feel today that would be adequate. I feel inadequate about many things in life but this will be high in the pecking order because I genuinely believe I should not be here. There are people who want me to believe that it was the running, the fathering, the loving, the being loved, the hope, finding home, the right doctors, the prayers. It would be easier to absorb that except I've been in the circles where people who were doing all those things those as well if not better than me are now, falling below the median, exactly at it or after it. This thing has a 12% 10 year survival rate. To misquote a few lines from Hamilton that we had a sing along too a few days ago, "Love, life, death doesn't discriminate between the sinner and the saints and we love, live and die anyway."
How do you measure a day you thought you wouldn't arrive at? I've met many cancer survivors and patients who genuinely for reasons of hope, or fear of death that they will be in the small percentage of statistics when the odds are stacked against them. But I'm a poker player and I bet on the odds. That's not what I hope for of course but what you bet on and what you hope for don't always match. Trust me, I'm a Dallas Cowboys fan. In poker though the kid born on 8/8/80 always bet on pocket 8's. In almost 15 years of playing I'd never once lost with the. They actually failed me for the first and only time ever in online poker during corona virus zoom poker with friends... it's silly but the loss of the poker game wasn't the upsetting thing, it made me nervous about getting to this 8/8.
How do you measure relationships? Almost everyone who visited the hospital when this all started is still someone I'd reach out to. But that almost is key. I imagine Kiana's mother is not sending her well wishes but I do still have plenty of love all around me. I am now living with 3 people who are family, two adult women and Kiana. In home boundness, how they get along with each other and with me varies on any given day (I grew up with 2 brothers and too much testosterone and my dad and now I have 3 women in my house with a lot of estrogen, the universe balances itself in the end doesn't it). Still, there isn't any day where I don't feel genuine love and affection and appreciation for the balance they bring to life.
I was putting off brain surgery to run a marathon at age 30, now I'm wondering if and when I'll get to do a race again. But I'm running and running hard sometimes and running easy more and rarely running alone, something I did a fair share of the time then because it was unusual to drive somewhere to run and also I couldn't drive anywhere. But between 30 and 40 I've ran next to my family for their first 5k, spartan, 10k, half and marathon. Heck, between 39 and 40, I've ran with the women I love from my own household for their first 100k, for their first half marathon, for a Boston Qualifying Marathon. I didn't care about their time or place; okay that's not quite true but it wasn't the primary purpose for running with them. I cared about my time and place with them. I've ran with male friends too helping them do their fastest 2 miler and trail marathon, keeping pace. Is running next to someone, walking next to them perhaps one of my love languages?
There is an awareness of the privilege, the obligation, the responsibility of still being alive. It is perhaps entirely appropriate that the first gift I got was one from someone who was widowed due to brain cancer, a clear reminder of how fortunate I am. The most recent one was someone giving me a crappy beer but also making a donation to a cancer organization that I've recently joined the board. I always say hope is my 4 letter words but how much did luck play out because I've been to enough hospices and funerals to where I have no doubt better people than me have been taken by this. And there are days where 'the obligation of the cured' makes me wonder if it wouldn't be better if we were in opposite spots of the ground of which one is above and which one is below. I've been criticized for expressing that 'dark thought' but I imagine it's darker underground so I have no apologies for it.
I've gotten to be somehow both more passionate and more calm over the better part of a decade. I focus or at lest try to more and more on picking the hills I'm willing to die on and letting everything else be flexible. And I make less and less hills the ones I'm willing to die on. But I live on climbing mountains and running through forests and fixing things around the house and making home. Turns out some of the things I believed at 30 before cancer were big things are pretty small, and some of the small things I believed at 30 before cancer were pretty small are infinite and important.
But boy has time flown. I spent 5 years as the volunteer president of a non profit and just stepped down and have now been asked to be part of 3 non profit boards in a smaller role. I had a 3 year old when this started who was wide eyed and wonderful and wondering, now she's 13 and wears glasses she wants to constantly take off and knows everything but is still wonderful. I had amazing connections and they're still getting better. I loved good food and good wine and despite spending a few years broke and having to live cheaper, the taste buds never lost their flavor. Even the smell of things has gotten richer even if I'm not.
Some things besides being alive were just so doggone fortunate I almost can't believe it. Everyone of my seizures were 'convenient.' The first one was at a restaurant with friends. The most 'dangerous' one was on a run where friends found me not long after. The rest were at home or with someone I cared about who handled it well. Not once did one happen on a night where Kiana was staying at her home (she was with her mom). I got to see the best brain surgeon in the world at Duke, a neuro oncologist has moved to town. I've gotten to share my story with cancer survivors, doctors, a dean of a medical school, cancer navigators, runners, students, corporate people. More importantly, I've gotten to share it with people I love.
The smartest thing I ever said was that you have to work on the relationships you want to keep. I keep navigating those relationships. In the last year, I've connected better with my brothers. I didn't meet my father until I was 15 and somehow despite his efforts I never really connected but here we are 25 years later working on it. Who knows when international travel starts again but I already have a plane ticket to the town I was born in where he already lives for March 2021. I've made little drawings on my board, something that despite that board being there for years I'd never once done, that was the girls territory. I'd never noticed that 40 is in two very important words to me, hope and home, home is where the story begins isn't it. But I'm still thankful it's not over.
I'm heading out for a run because I've long said that statistics are like bikinis, what they reveal is interesting but what they conceal is vital. And I keep running to defy statistics and to look good in a bikini. This blog starts comes from lyrics from a band I went to hear months ago, when that was more common. They call themselves the renegades cause they were all secondary singers in other bands and they get together to sing together and take turns being the lead. I even took my favorite one's info to see if could have hired him after hearing the song above to play it at my 'birthday party' if one had come together. It's a great song but the concept that no matter how hard we try to create legacy and do things right, the truth is that only time will tell if it was time well spent. I may never know but today I am grateful for the time I've gotten and I genuinely hope and believe that it was time well spent.
