on the way to work...

i just ran into a girl i used to work with when i was doing part-time telemarketing at the art museum. it was so nice to see her, she's such a cool girl. i didn't say anything to her about the tumor. why should i? it's good to have people not know. god i hate this. this is so strange and convoluted and abstruse. do i tell everyone? does my life need that level of exposure? and how do i deal with it with the people who do know? i want to talk about it all the time. it's all i think about right now. i took the dog for a walk on monday after work and we went to the dog park and while i was watching her run around, i had this moment of realization that i had forgotten about the tumor. but of course, that moment of realization brought the thoughts back. it's like one of those really distracting high school crushes that you wish you could stop thinking about, but it's always there. always on your mind, if you will. in all truthfulness, thinking about it is all i want to do. i know that this is going to teach me something and that it can change my life forever. what i will learn and how those changes will manifest is yet to be revealed.

it's been 15 days since the seizures. 15 days isn't a lot of time. it feels like an eternity. so much has happened. so much will happen yet.

going back to an earlier thought, i want to talk about this all the time. it is the single most important thing in my life right now. however, it is not the single most important thing for anyone else. not even my dad, not even stean. this is my brain, and my brain's little guest, and it's up to me to situate my need to talk about it within the larger context of life's goings-on. it's unfair for me to talk about it with people all the time. it is the kind of thing that makes people uncomfortable because there are no answers, no correct responses. i remember so well how things happened when mom died. the first week or two, people were so kind and thoughtful and they asked how everything was going. but after that, they moved on with their stuff. it's completely natural--i'm guilty of it myself when the situation has been a friend's. but unfortunately, things don't get better so quickly for the one who is grieving. this totally feels like grief--it has the same patterns of ups and downs, there are moments when i want the coldness of this situation to embrace me and there are moments when i just want it to sit next to me and be quiet. but i can't get rid of it.

last night on my way home from ceramics i got really sad. in class everyone's pretty quiet, working on their pieces. the past 15 days have been uncharacteristically social in that people have been around, have wanted to know updates. but for three hours last night i was back in an element that didn't include this tumor. and, of course, i thought about it the entire three hours. and as i was walking home i felt lonely and sad and i wanted to talk to someone. so i scrolled through the numbers on my cell phone and the only one i felt that it would be okay to call was my brother. of all the friends i have, all the people who have encouraged me to call any time if i needed to talk, the only person i felt i could bother with it was my brother, who was at work and couldn't really talk. i've never really been good at leaning on people. i guess that might be one of the lessons this will teach me, too.