Uncommemorated

I let the two-year anniversary of my Big Boo-Hoo diagnosis slip by without mention, and I'm not really sure why. I thought about it briefly a few times, both before and after the date, but dismissed it as something unremarkable. As in: not deserving comment.

But today is my two-year anniversary of this blog (I think?), and that can be remarked upon. Two years ago, shaking and crying with terror and self-pity, my new friend MaryAnn told me to get over myself and start writing. I thought at first that the blog would be a place where I could keep my friends and family informed all at once, without having to talk to everyone over and over, rehashing my self-absorbed dramas, ad nauseum. What I didn't anticipate was that it became my therapy and my daily touchstone, a routine to measure out the days and a way to work out my fears, my anger, and my despair. Bless you, M. You changed my life as profoundly as the cancer did.

The blog has changed. Hell, I've changed in ways I'm only now discovering. I guess I really have moved on, and the whole process has been documented through these posts. But they have acquired the aura of a dusty old archive, stuck away in a back file cabinet, of a person I don't remember being anymore.

I still have to be on guard against smugness. The evil mugger still lurks, always just around the corner, waiting for an opportunity to destroy my carefully reconstructed peace. I suppose it will always be there, like a random meteorite hurling towards Earth, ready to smash out all-life-as-we-know-it, while we all go about our lives unaware of the looming disaster to come. But that's tomorrow. Scarlett O'Hara's dictum applies.

With all the milestones, life will never be the same. But it never is really the same, is it? Each experience, each day changes us in imperceptible ways. The big events just make us aware of the changes because they require a radical mind-shift from what was to what is and what will be.

I find myself actually looking forward again, something I haven't dared to do for a very long time. I am coming around to the idea that I might have a future again, a span of years that stretches so far into the distance that I feel like my mortality might not be imminent, but later. Much later.

The original purpose of the blog has been fulfilled. But I find I enjoy writing about everyday things, random thoughts, simple triumphs and small discouragements. And so, I will continue to struggle for peace and humor, and I will continue to write.