anniversary

[drunkensailor]

It's been five years to the day since I was diagnosed with cancer. Here is the journal entry of how I reacted to my diagnosis five years ago today. I won my coin toss.

I don't have any real thoughts on this, at least none that I want to share; it just seems like something I should acknowledge.

I don't want any congratulations. Five years removed from

Comments

[drunkensailor]

I'm really glad we're friends, too. I'm sorry it took a while.

It's not selfish to like having me around. :) I just think I'm selfish for not appreciating what's basically a second chance. I feel like I should be grateful, like people expect me to be grateful, but the truth is that cancer and all the things that stemmed from it have basically ruined my life. It's hard to feel appreciative when I've lost so much. Structure, friends, independence. Replaced with scars and immense social anxiety. I have lost it all.

I'm pretty sure you're the only person I know now who didn't know me before I was sick (you know that I don't meet new people often or well), but I did use to have a full life with all those things I so frequently miss. Didn't appreciate them like I should have, was instead frequently extremely depressed about the things that weren't and never understood the goodness of the things that were. It took my losing my health, my education, my friends, my place to live, my day-to-day affairs- practically everything- to realize that I really did used to have all the things I wanted right there in front of me. I just couldn't see them, couldn't hear them screaming at me.

And I don't mean to downplay you or the other friends I do still have when I talk about having no friends or connections. I do have a very small handful of meaningful connections left in my life, probably so few I could count them on one hand, and you're among them, it's just that none of them live locally or are a regular, routine presence in my life. Everybody has their own lives, in their own places. The closest friend I have, geographically, lives in Seattle, an hour away; I no longer have a single person left who lives in the same city as me. Not even one. Of the people I know in Seattle, none of them would come down to Tacoma to hang out for an afternoon, or a weekend, or whatever. I see them no more frequently than the people living a nation away. Sure, I talk to my few remaining friends on the phone once in a while, or in emails, etc, but there's nobody left to go grab a beer, or to stay in and watch a movie, or just to have a face-to-face conversation with.

So I'm sorry, I really don't mean to marginalize you or anybody else when I write that I have no friends left, because I cherish the friendships I have, but the vast majority of the time, I am alone with precious little to fill my time.