Deep thoughts

Obviously, things are getting bad when friends and loved ones intermittently burst into tears while talking to you at random times.  The fact that I end up consoling THEM is also pretty ironic, but after thinking about it, it's really not.  Because one thing I've learned during my time on Earth is that it's way easier to leave than to be left.

I am really getting off easy here, if I do die in the 6 to 12 months that some sources have laid out for me.  Don't get me wrong- I hope they are incorrect, but if you had to choose your own death, what would it be?  Dying young certainly has it's advantages.  If I die of old age, given my habits, family history and body habitus, it would certainly be of things like diabetes, a stroke, heart disease.. something insidious and slowly painful.  I'll lose my youthful glow, my friends, my family.  I'll end up in a nursing home, alone, since I have no husband or kids.  There will be birthday parties where nobody comes.  Thoughts like that terrify me.  Here's the saddest picture I have ever seen:

I know, right?

So I have been given a several months heads-up that I might be a goner from stage 4 cancer... but I feel pretty good right now, I am surrounded by friends and loved ones, and for the first time in ages, every single member of my immediate family is in regular contact with me.  I don't think that I have been this happy since my early 20's, when I was gallavanting around the world.  (And probably contracting melanoma).  Is there a better way to go?  I can't think of one...

But after the third (usually stoic) friend ran off from me in choking tears the other day, it was then I realized- from now on, my life is really not totally my own anymore.  I need to be there for other people, making sure they get from me what they need.  Whether it's an apology for not being a good friend in the past, or spending time with someone so they have some more good memories of me, or just letting people help me, which is hard for me... I may be gone soon, but you guys will still be here with what you remember of me, and I want to make sure it's positive.

So you will continue to see more of me at social events, and yes I will call you back if you leave a voicemail, and yes I want to have lunch with you.  And yes yes yes a thousand times yes I am going to continue to fight this thing- my new round of chemo starts next Monday.  And you will hear about me making movies and TV shows and anything else that allows me to leave even the tiniest shred of evidence that I've been in this world.  And I want to write and blog and sort through old photos and make up with people and do everything to make things right... just in case.

I hope to see you all soon.  xxx