Post 401: Putting Something Off Is Not Going to Stop It from Happening
It’s the Sunday after the 400th post and, as per usual, something happens to hurt me right down to my toes. And I’ve been putting it off for nearly four years.
The morning was an amazing time, with all my blog readers making me feel warm inside with kind comments about the blog, which might lead towards a biographical book in the future — if I get my finger out.
I opened the back door onto the patio and walled garden and could not believe the warmth outside as I tied the door back with a steel hook.
This is a fairly new sensation, as all the rain clouds had gone for now and rare invisible blue skies had replaced them. Ha ha.
I went back inside the house and checked around for the big orange exercise book I was using to start an outline for the book, which was hiding in plain sight on the dining table, along with a bigger, better pen to try writing with today.
Today’s special conditions out the back made it possible to get some writing done following yesterday’s great response from the book writer; the writer that I’d like more help from in many ways, though equally I didn’t want to hit her with all my problems at once.
The thing was, I wanted everything at once. I’m impatient. I’m not able to slow-learn these talents I may never gain.
I want too much, but I can’t have it all.
I sat on the white patio chair and threw everything onto the old green plastic table with the push-in legs that spends all winter in the bike shed — without the strong green legs attached.
I found the coolest spot at the shaded end of the table, which sits under the flamingo willow tree shaped into a circular canopy.
The flamingo tree is well established in the bed it sits in and, over the last few years, has grown large enough to shade a couple of people beneath.
It’s me in its shade today and I’m loving it.
This pen is a big fat one with a Volvo print on one side. I’m hoping that it writes out my dreary words in a better way.
I say dreary words because the hospice nurse increasing the morphine dose last week takes a bit of getting used to.
So the pen has to put up with the sun’s warmth under the tree and my goofy mind that’s likely to close down at any time with drooping eyes.
As it happened, I had a plan, and the plan was simple. All I had to do was start recounting my Darling’s and my life story, starting with who we were and who our siblings are, then move on to the more moving parts of our lives.
Yep, you guessed it — all the places we lived in, left behind, and moved on to. Ha ha.
That in itself took up a huge page of this huge orange exercise book. She had fourteen siblings and I had two, so that’s why the page filled so quickly — it was filled with names.
But then, while the pen was flying this way and that across the page, I filled it with events and stories that needed to be told.
My hand was getting achy so I went back inside to have a break from this newly acquired skill.
Before I put the book safely away, I approximated how many words I had written and, by my reckoning, I had hit the target area of 1,000–1,500 words with a very reasonable 1,300.
Obviously these words were not a storyline, nor were they stylish. It was fact-filling prior to editing or expanding on the themes.
I hope I’m looking at this in the right way.
I have plenty of data on the computer but I just want to try using my head and hand first and maybe regress to the personal computer later if necessary.
This is day one of book one and I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but today was progress.
If I make a little progress every day I will be in a position to let someone have a look at it.
Let’s move on.
I’ve not had much of an appetite lately, which is likely due to the pill and potion adjustments — especially the morphine increase.
This in turn has made the route from my stomach to the local fresh air a bit of a slow procession. And even with the Laxido attempting to ease the tension, it’s still a hard challenge to cope with.
But all jokes aside, is it wrong for me to eat too many chocolates, worsening the problem?
I have a limited life and a sweet tooth.
This week I’ve been given more pain relief that has got rid of the pain but probably increased the likelihood of egg-sized debris in my lower intestines.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have enjoyed the ostrich egg so much, but it was an egg of a lifetime.
It’s really hard to make good decisions all of the time and the cancer path I’m choosing seems daft, but it makes perfect sense to me.
But it’s bruising, and occasionally I have to enter a place I thought I’d left behind — somewhere I fear going, not for me but for my old pal.
So here goes, but don’t worry if I break down and cry.
Tonight I popped up to see our little godson who is now taking exams and stands at six foot or just under.
It was his eighteenth birthday last week and, as I promised him, we brought some bottled lager from a land far away.
However, recently his mum — my old mate’s wife — saw our youngest doing the mighty hike for me and all prostate sufferers.
This had been kept from them for good reason, and now we were going into the truth zone.
I sat between my old school pal and my Darling. That’s just how it worked out at the start of the evening.
We chatted over their youngest’s schooling, exams, girlfriends, boyfriends, and my Darling being a fantastic router-out of everyone’s secrets.
She has a knack for it and, if the police had her, they would surely find out more secrets from awkward detainees.
But I’m getting sidetracked.
The night went on without a hitch until after the huge pizzas were eaten and the table conversation split down the middle, leaving my school pal and me set apart from the other three.
This allowed a quiet debrief to unfold — details of my life I was starting to get nervous about revealing.
Then the truth I’d especially been hiding from him came out and my eyes filled.
All of a sudden, the mate I’d known for the best part of my life did something he had never done before.
I was starting to struggle with the intensity of how deep this conversation was going.
The depth I had wanted to keep hidden.
I was getting emotional about what these facts would do to him and I was starting to shake and cry when a lifetime of thoughtful distance fell away with the simple touch of his hand on mine on the table we were still sitting around.
My old school pal — the one I couldn’t let become emotional — had shown a side I knew was there but we had never needed to show before.
I sobbed.
I was touched in more ways than one.
We were connected in grief in a way I didn’t expect.
I had kept him away from the truth to save him emotionally.
I didn’t know he would make me feel so connected through all the years we had known each other.
It was a very special moment.
I said no more.
I shook with the effort of trying not to shake or squeak.
I’m glad the hidden cancer had finally been unhidden.
I felt unburdened by his actions.
Actions I did not expect.
Or did I?
I couldn’t stay. I had to go.
I took my Darling home. She went straight to bed and I untangled my thoughts here, writing this blog.
Good night.
I’ll think some more with my eyes closed while I dream.
Take care.
