One Order of Gratitude, Please

I sharply remember a moment soon after the diagnosis when I confronted the brutal possibility that this new cancer could be a death sentence for me. It was one of those Lifetime Movie Moments, when you go all Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and bargain : I'll do anything to live. If You (God, fate, the Universe, the cancer itself, those teenage boys in outer space who are using me as their avatar in their amusing video game) will only let me live, I will be grateful... So grateful that I will have a proper sense of perspective on all complaints about the woes of my life, the annoyances and sad absences and worries, the relatively minor discomforts of other ailments and such.

This seemed like such an epiphany that after the tests and pathology report came back with news so good that many patients would rejoice to hear it, I said to my friend, "You know, everyone should go through the interesting experience of thinking your life may be over." He kind of snorted, so I added, "That is, if it turns out it's not." This may be true. It certainly seemed true for a while.

Because here I am, 10 weeks or so past that moment of recognition about the larger perspective that cancer can bring, and I can tell you in all honesty that I cannot hold onto it. It's slipped out of my fingers like smoke and disappeared into the overwhelming desire -- need -- for the mind to orient itself to the normal and everyday. The truth is I am not any more grateful than I used to be, except in small moments when I shake myself and scold that I have got to stop bitching about the usual stuff (as on Valentine's Day, when being no one's Valentine seems particularly, if ridiculously, oppressive). I do not revel in the incredible excitement of just being alive, damn it...except for other small moments, when I actually do.

So much for all those books and movies and guests on talk shows telling us that they "now realize" something-or-other, which "saved" their miserable lives, and how that empowered them to never do Whatever again, which explains why they are So Happy now. I am here to say it has not worked for me. And I can't say I much want to try it again so I can get it right next time.