Just Desserts

Not that kind of dessert. Dammit.

Have y'all realized how many references we make to food (especially sweet food) on a regular basis. It's a lot. Watching TV is the worst. So many foods I can't eat.

So. Many.

But that's not what this post is about.

I use humor a lot. Arguably not well, but I do use it. I use it as a coping technique, a social lubricant (gross, he said lubricant), and a defense mechanism.

I'm not feeling all that funny right now.

I have ups and downs. That's to be expected, of course. I mean, this is chemo we're talking about. I am quite literally poisoning myself, hoping it'll get the cancer before it gets me.

What's unexpected is how the downs hit you and when they decide to strike.

I had one of my best days this last Tuesday.  It was magical. Nirvana.

Bliss.

And then the next day came. It started out fine--exercise in the morning, getting $#!+ done, kickin' some @$$. Then it started to fall apart on me.

I'm a perfectionist with obsessive-compulsive tendencies. I'm beginning to realize that, contrary to my former rock-solid belief, this is not one of my best qualities. To get totally serious for a second, it's one of my worst character flaws.

It started as I was writing the post Dancing with the Sun. I was so excited to write about my incredible evening. To be able to tell anyone who would read about this amazing show that features so many of my stupendously talented friends. I shivered in antici...

I can't help myself. Srsly. It's a problem.

Instead of being a joy to write, I found myself slogging through the post. I had this idea a few days back that I would link things that were helping me or interesting or made me chuckle. You may have noticed that in that post, I went a little nuts with those little blue buggers. I spent more time linking than I did writing.

I was getting obsessive.

The day went downhill from there. I checked out mentally and emotionally. My chemo side effects worsened. I went to a dark place.

I'm going describe that landscape for you a bit. It's not gonna be pretty.

Srly. Big problem.

For any of you who have read my blog and had the brief thought drift through your head, "He kinda deserves it." Guess what?

I happen to agree with you.

You probably felt guilty about it (or maybe not; I've been a real d*** to people... as recently as this morning, TBH). But the thought happened, regardless.

Your white boy tears taste delicious.
I'm sorry, y'all. I'm so sorry.

I know it's not healthy. I get that. I recognize that it can't be totally true. There are five-year-olds with leukemia. They clearly don't deserve it.

I do wonder if I invited the cancers, though. Two cancers is weird. Like, statistically bizarre. And to have it all occur in the way it did? Mightily suspicious.

I've lived most of my life as a chameleon.

Handsome bugger, ain't he? Lovely shade of blue he's managed to capture.

I had no idea how to live authentically. I was a different person depending on where I was or who I was with. Church? Meet Church Ben. Super straight-laced and utterly self-righteous. School? Meet Teacher Ben. Warm and fuzzy and somewhat fake at times. A total guru-type. *Shudder* Family setting? Heeeere's Family Ben! He alternates between cuddly and a total @$$hole disciplinarian.

There was so much shame around who I truly believed myself to be that I could never present the truth of my daily reality. I was (am still, really--I'm a total work-in-progress) a fraud.

It was sleight-of-hand at its finest. Prestidigitation. Smoke and mirrors.

A smart, sexy, humble, talented, super friendly, appropriately kind and direct, able-to-leap-tall-buildings-at-a-single-bound Superman.

Please pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Y'all should see what it looks like inside my head sometime.

Truth? That man behind the curtain was the piece of $#!+ at the center of the universe.

The illusion was something I was willing to fight to the death to maintain. I sincerely apologize to anyone I may have hurt in that endeavor.  In fact, I've set up an email address for anyone I know whom I've damaged. As long as doing so won't cross healthy boundaries (my own, my family's... yours...), I will email you back a detailed apology and do what I can to make amends.

For the moment, let me just tell you how truly sorry I am. I thought I was fighting to keep myself alive. Instead, I was killing myself and any hope for true connection with others.

So, yeah. That's how I've been feeling the past 24. Like someone who's called cancer down from the heavens as some kind of divine retribution.

Intellectually, I know that's not true. Emotionally, not so much.

It's a pretty bleak landscape to look at.

I'll see what I can do to change the scenery.

Oh, and just to brighten things up a bit, here's a picture of my mug in which I drink my delicious tea.

It's true. I am silently correcting your grammar. Sorry.

Tea time, y'all.
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...pation.


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