summer 2009

this has been a big month in this small life.

i got a motorcycle.
i took a new job (on the same floor).
and i might have cancer.

i suppose i should probably start with the last one...
in the middle of july i found a lump on my throat. i went to the doctor. i got an ultrasound and they found 3 lumps on my thyroid. so on friday i am going to have a biopsy done on them. if they find no cancer cells they will just watch things and make sure nothing changes. if they don't know what it is, or if they find cancer cells, they will cut me open and take out my thyroid. and the thing is, i am really not that scared about this at all. i actually feel really lucky because, in the grand scheme of things, 1 in 4 people these days gets cancer, and thyroid cancer is like winning the lottery of cancers. it has a better than 97% cure rate. treatment is relatively simple. and i will be able to live a pretty much totally normal life afterwards. but it is still a total and complete bummer. i really don't want them to take a part of my body out. and i don't want to be dependent on pills for the rest of my life. and i don't want to have a scar on my neck. and i don't want to deal with insurance and hospital stays and absence from work. and i don't want to worry my family. and really, mostly, i just want to be normal. and whole. and really what all of this makes me feel is lonely. i don't entirely know why, but i feel very alone.
if you are the type, or perhaps even if you usually are not, please pray that it is nothing. i keep thinking it must be nothing. i mean, i don't feel like i have cancer...

the thing that has been really scary to me this summer is my new motorcycle. i will post pictures once some are taken. it's a totally awesome bike and i feel so happy to have found it after hundreds of hours of searching and researching. i like it. but it is totally terrifying. the reality is that riding a motorcycle is a stupid means of travel. sure, it gets awesome gas mileage, and it is totally fun. but when you think about it, it's stupid. balancing on two points and potentially slipping out, falling... being totally exposed to the elements, and to things flying at you... possessing little visibility to the suv's around you being operated by drivers distracted by screaming children, or by new drivers, or by college kids texting... in my motorcycle safety class we tallied how many different ways they told us we could die. 21.
it is interesting to me how, even at 29 years old, there are still so many totally new skills to learn. i remember when i was learning how to drive stick i had a feeling similar to this one, this complex combination of excitement and anxiety, fear and determination. the first day i drove rufus to school i remember feeling so excited, so proud that i had done it and that it had gone so smoothly... but wondering all day how i was going to get back home at the end. in some ways this is easier because i already get the concept of working the clutch and shifting gears--but there is definitely more fear of imminent doom and destruction. i hope i can look back after 13 years of riding and feel as confident and comfortable as i do today about driving stick.

and i also took a new position at my work. i'm still on the same floor on the same unit, but i will be working on day shift for 6 weeks, then nights for 6 weeks, etc. in some ways it was a hard decision because it's a huge pay cut and a much busier shift. but i will say that i'm pretty excited to be like a normal person and sleep in the night for a few weeks at at time. there is definitely a part of me that wonders if all of this thyroid bullshit is somehow related to working night shift this past year. i know it's so bad for me, i feel how terrible i feel sometimes and try to remember what it was like to feel normal. i guess sometimes, in some ways, bad health things can be sort of good for you. i guess, despite all of my sadness and loneliness and questions with this and whatever is going to happen i am seeing how much my life is not how i want it to be. and i wonder if things will ever change. i don't know when i became a person to accept something bad just because it's easier than the unknown. and i'm not sure i respect myself very much for being that person. i have never been good at making decisions, especially big ones. i am good at taking chances and opportunities when they arise, but i am terrible at finding them. and so i pray that an opportunity will present itself to me.

anyway, this day was a very good day and i am happy for that. i barely slept, but i was awake for most of the daylight hours. i had a lovely breakfast with some lovely folks, spent the afternoon with my mom looking at antiques and chatting in a quaint nearby town, rode my motorcycle, and ate some ice cream. and i got the butter dish of my dreams (thanks mom!) and a pyrex casserole dish that is exactly like one i remember from my childhood.

this life is such a mystery to me. most of the time i like it so much. most of the time.