Rant

I have had a very poopy year. I have decided that the Universe owes me a beer.
And I'm going to tell you all about it now.

There was that whole drama around buying our new place. Anyone who's been to our place would agree that it was worth it - it IS amazing - but it was hell to get to this point. Screwed over by contractors, legal threats, staying at friend's places and living in a reno-zone with no end in sight, for months on end. May to September was as they say: totally fuxxored.

September we had a lovely little trip to Hawaii. Wow, did I ever need that after the whole house thing. What I didn't know was that I'd need it for what was coming next.

Next, my annual PAP came back with a problem. Apparently my body was hard at work making some pre-cancerous cells, but luckily, the whole point of a PAP is to look for that stuff, so it was caught & dealt with before it turned ugly. But "dealt with" required a very painful treatment of cryotherapy (freezing off the bad cells with nitrous oxide). They claim it's no biggie, so you don't get any sedatives or pain killers, and though it takes about a month to fully heal, you can go back to work the next day. What they don't tell you is that it's invasive and scary, and can totally freak you out. And of course, I believed them, so I just assumed that I was just being oversensitive when I turned into an emotional wreck.
Oh yeah, and after a procedure like that, you're not allowed to get pregnant until you get an "all clear" follow up. Not like I was having much luck with that in the first place, but it sucked to have to deliberately avoid it.
Lucky for me, the follow up was fine, and by March it was "safe" to fire up the baby factory.
Unluckily though, since the procedure my cycles have been punctuated by debilitating cramps. So badly that I have found myself curled up on the floor, crying, and realizing with some measure of horror that I'd prefer to be dead than endure that every month for the next twenty years.

And then Bruce. Bruce spent the month of March telling me that he was doing fine, and that we should have lunch soon, but in reality, his cancer was drilling further into his brain, and his time was running out. I was able to see him one more time before he left us at the end of April.

Within the month, Adel died of heart failure. I could barely even process it at the time, it just kind of washed over me as some kind of distant fact. And less than a week later, T. Paul died, and everything inside me ground to a halt. In five weeks, I'd lost three friends. It wasn't even summer yet.

I felt so derailed, so raw. I couldn't function properly, I couldn't think properly, I didn't seem to have access to the "social graces": even the pleases and thank yous. But I also felt that this was perfectly normal, and I felt oppressed by everyone wanting to "cheer me up", and guilty for wanting to send them away so that I could feel intermittently numb and insane by myself.

Perhaps it was a result of being off-balanced by all these events/experiences, or perhaps I shouldn't take on so much of the blame, but this year also brought a number of uncomfortable, and sometimes hurtful interactions with people that I love. This caused me to think heavily of communication, commitment and support.

I went to Burning Man for the third time, and spent some time at the Temple, as I always do. Normally, I only have my grandmother to bring there, but this year I had three more. This year was The Temple of Forgiveness, and while I was there, I hoped to release my grief, and forgive myself, others, and the universe... let it all go, and come home clean.

It's a nice gesture, but it's really time that does the housecleaning. I've had a hard time "coming back" to myself after all of this, but I function mostly like I normally would. I don't find myself falling into the grief pool and drowning anymore. It's more like, I suddenly become aware of a train of thought. But that train is speeding, on fire, and as it races past me, I see myself in the window screaming.

It is a blessing that to balance out all this death and disease, there is growth, and life around me too. Friends birthed healthy babies, and there are more on the way, and if that whole progesterone thing works out, I may have my own good news in the near future.
It is a blessing that although I felt so unable to function or interact with other people during my Dark Time, those people were there to offer their hand to me.
It is a blessing that somehow (metaphorically of course), even when my legs are broken, I can still stand up.

I feel that there are things that changed inside me as a result of these experiences. Feelings, beliefs, ideas that were so solid, so "for granted" a year ago are sticky, immaterial or mutable now.

Most importantly, I feel that my place is the universe has been jostled. Macrocosmically speaking, I "get" that I am a single cell in a great body that is engaged in an intricate dance: an Everbloom that is simultaneously growing and decaying. But microcosmically speaking... do the cells in my body mourn the loss of the thousands of cells that die and are replaced naturally every day?

I've been preoccupied with the idea of preserving memory. Taking photos, writing things down, telling stories. I think about the nature of these things, and how they immortalize our memories, but only briefly. Only as long as someone remembers... only as long as the material exists.

I've been preoccupied with time, that we always think there's more or less than there really is. I think about the time I wasted doing whatever it was I was doing when I wasn't breaking down Bruce's door, insisting that he accept my help and company. I think about whose life I'm missing out on while I sit here writing this.