“Light is green, trap is clean”
That quote is from Ghostbusters (the original recipe film).
I am using the quote to express that the trap of my body, according to the best medical imaging, is absent of any visual cancer. That’s a great feeling. I would like to keep matters this way.
I do have a fucked up thyroid and colon.
Dr. says, “Fucked up thyroid? Fucked up colon?”
Say, “Sounds about right.”
Defer to wife. Wife nods, “Colon and thyroid been fucked up long as I’ve known you.”
Of course we weren’t cursing. Of course it would have been so much more hilarious if we were. The gist of the conversation is still preserved in my above paraphrase. The gist is that I’m probably not in immediate danger of dying from interior/organic issues. Whether or not the Christian Trumpers will put my queer, politically radical ass in the gulag by this time next week is another matter. A matter that’s pretty much entirely out of my control at this point.
I am happy today, reader. I feel hope today, reader. I feel like I can take a breath. I don’t feel I can put down my guard, fully relax-and-let-go, and there’s a lot of work I need to do before I can really sit back and watch Rome burn, as it were . . .
I took the whole day off school because I knew if the results were “not to my liking” I would have been in “rough shape” to be around kids, and I also knew if the results were “to my liking” (and they largely were), I would want to take some time to celebrate — celebrate my life, celebrate my growth, celebrate my blessings.
When my doctor, today, shared the news that I had a “good scan,” I had a fleeting thought: a whiskey! Seriously. That’s how “real” my alcoholism is/was. The very worst thing for me on the planet was the very thing I wanted to “celebrate” my health with. That’s some fucked up shit. That’s alcoholism, for ya.
Instead, Sarah (it’s her birthday today, and she chose to spend her birthday morning with me in a doctor’s office/chemo bay respectively) and I came home without stopping at the grocery store or the liquor store for me to get booze.
She wanted a mid-morning nap.
I wanted mid-morning coffee and time to write.
We accommodated our needs.
Life can be so simple.
I asked my oncologist if I could get another tattoo.
She begrudgingly said “yes.” This is a Truth I have noticed: doctors are not fans of tattoos. I know they have their reasons, and in the pantheon of sadistic shit I was once inclined to inflict on my body (including, but not limited to: Camel Lights, beer, alcohol/drug fueled hook-ups), tattoos are pretty innocuous. I want a tattoo to commemorate my new life as a sober woman in The Dirty T, in the borderlands. I want a tattoo to commemorate my dedication to Life because there have been days, reader, many of them crammed into the past two years, where I have questioned whether or not I wanted to continue with this iteration of life. Before I got sober, there were days when I didn’t want to be in this life, in this country, on this planet.
I was so scared, reader. And I will be scared again. However, today’s solid medical results, the kindness of my new doctor, my new medical helpers, has bought me a solid three to six months of considering what I want to, what I must to consider: my sobriety, my ongoing health (of which sobriety is a key factor), my students, my loved ones, my immediate community — the latter being the only community upon which I have any say at all.
The other day, I stopped into the coffee shop next door to my school. I was paying with cash because Sarah and I had to cancel all my cards after I thought I had lost my wallet (it was . . . um . . . in my possession; I don’t want to talk about this anymore), and I came up a little short for my order (prickly pear lemonade, a muffin) and the young woman behind the register waved her hand dismissively as I scrounged for more paper money. “Get me tomorrow,” she said. “You come in here everyday.”
I came back the next day, and instead of paying forward the dollar gave her a ridiculously lovely tip. This is the only way I know. Those of us who must conduct our work in public settings — medical professionals, k-12 teachers, hospitality workers — are struggling to keep our shit together. This is a Hard Time (capitalization fully intended, fuckers).
All this to say that, for the next little while, I fully intend to be back on my bullshit.
What’s my bullshit? Progress. Health. Freedom.
That’s my bullshit.
xo,
Gruber
