Before Coffee

It's hard to think about cancer when there's a flatbed truck in front of you with eleven drummers and six women dancing in g-strings and feathers. It's hard, but not impossible. Still, as distractions go, it's hard to beat a carnival parade.

But today's today, and there's no parade. There's no movie we want to see. There's no picnic planned. We're too tired for a hike. We won't be setting up any volleyball nets or selling tickets for the booster club raffle.

I don't want to be left alone with my thoughts, which are big and sad or anxious and shrill. The ache in my chest is worse. It got better and worse many times before I knew it was cancer. Now that I know what's causing it, the fact that it's getting worse just freaks me out.

But I won't think about that now.

For a long time I tried to write about my experience with cancer for my entirely-content-free website, ohmartha.com.

I was too afraid to write it. This was a conscious thing. I was afraid to write a summation of the experience, because it felt to me like I was "wrapping it up". I was trying to put a period at the end of the breast cancer sentence, and I figured that the Fates would slap me down for that.

But eventually, I did write it. I can't even look at it now. It was full of optimism, and kind words for women with an initial diagnosis. It said that even though there's no "cure" for breast cancer -- no one can tell a woman that it'll never come back -- that, still, no disease can be a physical reality in a woman's body.

I wrote it, and less than a month later I found out that the cancer had spread to my bones.

I'm going to find something to make this day okay.