currently: @002 (3:04pm) on thursday 1.8.09 | 140 hours since last post
"Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that even He couldn't eat it?" -Homer Simpson
So. We haven't really spoken for a little while. How are you? I've missed you; you should come around more often. I'll make cookies.
Last night, I had trouble sleeping. It's this weird thing that's been happening lately where my legs are terribly restless and can't be comfortable, and while I'm sleepy as hell, I can't even come close to sleeping. Along about 2am, I rolled over and turned on the bedside lamp and got out my book of collected wisdom of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. This particular book, which was sent to me several months ago by my cousin April in her infinite wisdom, is one of several Dalai Lama books I have, but this one is special in that it's basically a "quote-per-day" book; each page is dated and meant to be read and contemplated separately from the rest. Well, I haven't been keeping up and my bookmark was back on July 30th. I started reading through all the past entries, and along about August 10th I came upon one that hit me like a freight train (or a truck, for those who've been keeping score at home).
I should explain something before I continue with the story of the freight train quote. I've told you I'm in remission, and that excepting the chemotherapy treatments I'm really starting to feel good. I feel almost normal most of the time; weak, out of breath, too cold, too hot, but basically normal. However, that's just too nice and too easy for my fevered brain to successfully process. Along about last week, I started feeling weird. Too much good stuff was happening to me. The cable guy didn't help - he came to fix our internets and while he was here, he told me all about his best friend who had lung cancer, went into remission, but a couple months later starting breaking out in tumors the way tweens break out in blackheads; he's now got it in his brain, in his colon, in his stomach, in his lungs, pretty much wherever you can think of cancer growing. Great, I needed to fucking hear that story, thank you very much Mr. Cable Guy mother fucker.
Too many good things happening - my apparent health, the kids being their amazingly great selves, Debbie going back to work and enjoying it even though it can be irritating as fuck, spending time with friends and relatives, going out to a bar and having a freaking beer for the first time in 10 months - I think I was unable to accept that this good stuff was mine for the taking. I started worrying about when the other shoe is going to drop, whether the next scan shows 18 more tumors in my lungs or in my brain or in my ass. I started not sleeping well, regardless of how many pills I took. I spent the next few days in a dazed depression, even while interacting with Deb or the kids. I was freaking out because I couldn't accept how fucking awesome my life is now. How stupid is that? How goddamned shortsighted and ungrateful? I'm kicking myself because the truth is, jesus, I wouldn't trade my life today for anything. I went to the dentist today and he drilled the crap out of my back molar after giving me two separate anesthetic shots, and I realized as I sat there trying not to writhe, that I am so goddamned happy that I'm healthy enough to go to the dentist in the first place. EVERY FUCKING SECOND of this life is precious, and it doesn't matter what tomorrow will bring. Today, I will be happy and grateful and I will love all of you forever and ever.
So, yeah, back to the main story - the quote. I don't remember it exactly, and it doesn't matter. The gist of it was this:
"It is the perception of the continuity of consciousness that leads to rebirth and reincarnation."
I read this and was suddenly out of breath, as if a donkey (or a truck) had sat on my chest. Tears started leaking from my eyes. I had to put the book down because it suddenly seemed to weigh 50 pounds. Three words ran through my head, as if projected on the inside of my corneas like the Times Square news scroller... "I hope so."
I hope so. I lay there in a daze, thinking, "please, let this be so." I can think of nothing in life or death that would mean as much to me as meeting with Debbie, Sierra, and Madison again, and with all of you in my extended family, in the Bardo or purgatory or the afterlife or Never-Never Land. The idea that we go through our continuing lives with the same group of people, helping us along our karmic pathway, is so alluring to me, and the Dalai Lama's words made it real to me in a way that none of the rest of my reading has done.
I will not be afraid. I will not spend my days worrying about what may happen, but instead I will spend them in happiness and love for you, my friends. Every second of our lives is precious, and whether it is God, Buddha, Allah, or Morgan Freeman that we blame for giving us these seconds, we MUST. BE. THANKFUL. for every one of them. I am so thankful for my life, and I am so thankful for your life, and I am so thankful that we've been able to spend even five minutes together. Thank you so much.
Now wipe your nose, you look a mess. Me? Why no, I'm not crying, why do you ask? I just bit into a pepper. And Oprah was on. Let's have cookies now, shall we? Take my hand and we'll go together.
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