It’s July and I have just two more days until my last chemo treatment.
I have such a strange relationship with time now. If this global pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that time is completely made up anyway. What does five months feel like? How much longer does it feel when the world changes so completely many times over during those five months? I have no answers, only questions.
My body feels like it has aged a decade in the past few months. It probably has. Jerry Seinfeld had a stand up routine in the late 90s called I’m Telling You For The Last Time*. Sean and I listened to it in the car on cassette tape so many times we have the whole damn thing memorized. We still quote it incessantly. Anyway, Seinfeld has a bit in there where he talks about pain killers and how we all want MAXIMUM STRENGTH. There is no strength anymore, just maximum. “Figure out what’s going to kill me, and then back it off a little.” I think about that line a lot.
Now it feels a bit jarring to start to plan for things that can finally happen post-chemo. I’m not going wild, mind you. We are still living in a global pandemic and I have surgery coming up.
I mean, I’m talking about things like arranging to have our furniture that we ordered in February to be delivered. Or finally scheduling my car to be serviced. I know. Crazy times at the Weaves’. But we’ve had to go to pretty extreme measures to keep our house a safe space for me.
I have only left the house for our neighborhood walks and to go to chemo treatment. I tried once to take the girls to the park near our house to ride bikes and walk around the path that circles it. I lasted less than 10 minutes because no one was wearing masks and people kept showing up and walking the opposite direction of the rest of the crowd. (Can we take a moment to collectively recognize that, if everyone walks the same direction, it’s infinitely better? If you walk in the opposite direction of everyone else, you pass each other TWICE for every trip around the circle. Make it make sense, people. Also, wear a damn mask.)
I’m still wiping every delivered grocery item down with Clorox before it comes in the door. I know that experts say it isn’t really necessary, but it makes me nervous to think about not doing it. Even if it doesn’t do much good, the ritual makes me feel like I’m doing something. Years from now, the girls’ kids will ask why Grandma wipes all the groceries down when they’re delivered.
Anyway, I’m excited to think about life past chemo. It has been hard to live in a cycle of vulnerability for so long. Chemo - vulnerable - start recovering - do it all again a week later. After this Wednesday, I’ll get to start recovering and keep recovering. The journey is far from over, but we can move on from this chapter.
I’m nervous about it. But I’m also celebrating. BIG TIME.
We’re celebrating. Our family reunites in just over a week. When the girls started their paper chain, it stretched all the way around the door. And now look where we are.
We’re definitely celebrating. And thinking a lot about what comes next.
* You really gotta see/hear his bit on the horses. It makes me cry laugh every time.