Monthly Archives: November 2019
Cancer Feelings: Gratitude
A few Thanksgivings ago, Julienne wrote this. It can be hard sometimes to find gratitude. I am still, and always will be, in awe of her strength. I love you and miss you every day, my love. I’m grateful for you.
Yes, I saved this post for Thanksgiving. I like to be seasonal, sue me.
Truth is, I’ve been struggling to write this post for a while now, mainly because this blog is largely comprised of snark, sarcasm and side eye, and I didn’t want you to worry that I’ve gone all Kumbaya on you. Also because the gratitude I feel is so profound that it’s hard to find the words. But I’m gonna try because it’s important to tell people that you appreciate them and again, I like to be seasonal.
Doctors, Nurses, and Medicine in General
I realize that for many of you, this section falls a little flat because most young people don’t have to worry about finding a doctor that does more than the standard “turn your head and cough” until they hit middle age. Before I was plunged headfirst into a health crisis, I had no idea about the…
View original post 2,478 more words
The Hospital, Part One
This is the fourteenth chapter of Love Song by Julienne (ft Cancer). The other ones are listed below.
Prologue – Julienne
Chapter 1 – Meeting Julienne
Chapter 2 – Finding Julienne
Chapter 3 – A Kiss, and a Confession
Chapter 4 – Of Spaniel Day Lewis, Parents, and Dothraki Love Nests
Chapter 5 – Brioche French Toast
Chapter 6 – Halloween with Becca
Chapter 7 – A Ring, and a Conversation
Chapter 8 – Her Woods
Chapter 9 – Christmas, and a Chase
Chapter 10 – Alantimes Day
Chapter 11 – A Dress and a Concert
Chapter 12 – Graduation (or, Freeeeddddoooommmm)
Chapter 13 – The Joy Before the Storm
Here we are. OK.
I start of a lot of these with these semi-parenthetical asides about how hard these are to do or start – sorry about that. Here’s another one. Sorry about that.
A lot of the time… well, most of the time, OK, I guess every time, I’m not exactly sure how to start writing these. I have things I know I want to talk about, but the way they are written is a surprise to me every time. Before I write them, I’ll read our old messages and look through pictures from the time to make sure I’m not forgetting anything. Then I just open up Word, start typing everything in a stream-consciousness style, take breaks when I get super emotional, then come back and continue. Then I read over it once for typos and clarity (such as it is), add pictures (sometimes I know which ones I want to use, sometimes they come to me when I’m typing), and schedule it (usually for 2 pm for some reason). That’s it.
I don’t ever know what’s going to come out. The Julienne post that started it all was like that. It went in a direction I never would have consciously chosen. I reread it last week and it’s so disjointed and confusingly written to me now, which makes sense because when I wrote it I was both disjointed and confused, not to mention distraught, bereaved, and broken. It hasn’t changed much since.
I don’t even know why I’m writing this, other than the fact it’s what my brain wants to say for some stupid reason. I’ll leave it in, even though any half-competent editor would remove it (although I lie to myself that a fully-competent editor would leave it in because it’s emotionally true, and half-competent editors are all hard at work at the latest celebrity ghost-written nonsense anyway, and it’s a lie that feels good to me so I’ll keep whispering it to myself). I think I’m writing this because what I’m going to try to write about makes me feel like a sculptor armed with a hammer and chisel staring at the cliffs of Dover and wondering how the fuck he’s going to carve out the thing he needs to without burying himself in an avalanche.
But I guess it’s like eating an elephant. One small bite at a time.
Fuck. OK.
***
In the days before the 17th of July in 2015, Julienne had been busy with more than engagement party planning and crafts and bar study. She was also wrestling with something very heavy and difficult. Something that bothered her was becoming very real and inching ever closer and she didn’t know what to do about it.
Leaving her family and moving to California.
Of course it was for her dream job, the thing she’d been actively planning her life around for years after she accepted that she would never be able to be a stage performer due to stage fright. It was why Julienne had gone to law school and gotten her double major. It was the reason for her internship. Being an agent for classical composers was the thing she burned to do. And in order to do it, she needed to go to L.A. It was the obvious choice.
Except.
The Joy Before the Storm
This is the thirteenth chapter of Love Song by Julienne (ft Cancer). The other ones are listed below.
Prologue – Julienne
Chapter 1 – Meeting Julienne
Chapter 2 – Finding Julienne
Chapter 3 – A Kiss, and a Confession
Chapter 4 – Of Spaniel Day Lewis, Parents, and Dothraki Love Nests
Chapter 5 – Brioche French Toast
Chapter 6 – Halloween with Becca
Chapter 7 – A Ring, and a Conversation
Chapter 8 – Her Woods
Chapter 9 – Christmas, and a Chase
Chapter 10 – Alantimes Day
Chapter 11 – A Dress and a Concert
Chapter 12 – Graduation (or, Freeeeddddoooommmm)
I just want to begin by saying that this one has been a real challenge to start. Revisiting this time, a two-month span that felt like the beginning of something amazing and turned out to be just a pause before the start of the end, has been a real challenge. I think I’ve been holding off on writing it because this is the last one before the Rest Of It, when an uninvited guest would crash into our lives and slowly but relentlessly snuff out everything but the memories and the could-have-beens. We had about 68 days living together before it all changed. As of today, as I write this, she’s been gone 96 [and now that I’m finishing it, it’s been 99]. It’s all so incomprehensible to me.
***
On May 17th, 2015, Julienne, Lewis, and I pulled into the parking lot of what was finally, truly our apartment complex. She was free of Miami, of law school, of her master’s program, and now she could take a nice break from all of that.
Lewis really made himself at home.
Just kidding. She had three days before her bar exam prep courses started.
Now, as a non-lawyer person (although when I first went to college, fifteen years before I actually graduated, I was pre-law and had every intention of becoming an attorney and politician, which is kind of mind-boggling to me now, honestly), I had only the vaguest notion of what the bar exam was like. I had done some prep for the CPA exam back before I realized that I wasn’t going to be allowed to take it (for needlessly complicated reasons that literally no one cares about or craves an explanation), and it was challenging, since like most students I forgot just about everything the moment I took my last final. So, in my mind, it was kind of like that. A lot of questions about things that you learned in school, to make sure you have a basic grasp of the job you’re looking to practice.
In fact, it is not like that.
(Post) Cancer (Caregiver) Feelings: Grief, Part 1
This is part of the series of posts that Julienne began back when she was diagnosed. They’re on Julienne’s blog and linked below. The ones I have done are below as well.
Cancer (Caregiver) Feelings: Yin and Yang
(Post) Cancer (Caregiver) Feelings: Hope
Strap in. This isn’t pretty.
Grief.
It’s a little word that packs a lot into it. Loss. Sorrow. Pain, both physical and emotional. Longing. Loneliness. Honestly, Grief is just too big for a blog post, which is why I added the Part 1 part to the title. It’s sort of a joke, since I don’t plan on doing a second part, but it’s not a funny one because there is just too much to say about grief, even if I just focus on my own. So what’s the point, you could rightfully ask. I don’t know is my truthful answer. I guess I need to say some things about grief rather than have them rattling around my head like I rattle aimlessly around my empty house.
Here’s the fun thing about grief, which isn’t fun at all, it’s the tragedy of grief – here’s the tragic thing about grief: It’s different for everyone. That’s essentially the first thing you read or hear in any book or discussion about the process of grief. It’s different for everyone. The moment when that sunk in for me, days after I lost the light of the world and the main reason I woke up every day happy to be alive, I came to one very stark realization about what those words actually mean.
I am so fucked.
Everyone in grief is just plain fucked. Because it’s different for everyone means there is no template, no procedure, no standard of care that works. There are a lot of commonalities, but no overarching principles or guidelines to say this will help you. “Therapy”, of course, is helpful, but that’s like saying “medicine” is helpful to the sick. As an abstraction, they are both true. But what form of therapy is the right kind? What approach is best? What should the focus be? Well, it’s different for everyone.
Graduation (or, Freeeeddddooommmm)
This is the twelfth chapter of Love Song by Julienne (ft Cancer). The other ones are listed below because I felt bad about being lazy last time.
Prologue – Julienne
Chapter 1 – Meeting Julienne
Chapter 2 – Finding Julienne
Chapter 3 – A Kiss, and a Confession
Chapter 4 – Of Spaniel Day Lewis, Parents, and Dothraki Love Nests
Chapter 5 – Brioche French Toast
Chapter 6 – Halloween with Becca
Chapter 7 – A Ring, and a Conversation
Chapter 8 – Her Woods
Chapter 9 – Christmas, and a Chase
Chapter 10 – Alantimes Day
Chapter 11 – A Dress and a Concert
So much for managing two posts a week. These are getting tougher, so I’ll shoot for one a week. Anything else will be a bonus. Thanks as always for reading. I love you (*finger guns*).
There is an interesting phenomenon that seems to lurk around any long-anticipated event, especially one that took a lot of work to bring together. There is this high during and after, especially if it is a rousing success. Then, unfortunately, there is a depression of sorts that sets in. This thing that was a labor of love is over and done, and the higher the high the lower the low. Julienne had a day to deal with both of those conflicting emotions. Then, sadly, she had to turn around and look at all the plates that were wobbling and slowing down as she’d kept the Frost Plays one spinning.
Luckily she had Lewis to help her study.
Winter in Derenemyn 