Just Here

Some words spill out

Painting of a Deer by Jonica Bradley; This image has nothing to do with the story.

I’m just going to start writing and see what shakes loose. It has been too long since I’ve put my words to paper. But just now, while watching a German series on Netflix, I have been jotting down random thoughts.

“I don’t feel like writing. I just feel like escaping.”

This is one of my favorites. It sums up how I have felt this entire year. You can replace the word ‘writing’ with just about any single thing I’ve done so many times this past year. Radiation. Chemo. Changing dressings. Flushing feeding tubes. Eating. Walking. Exercising. Getting out of bed. Staying in bed. Vomiting.

“I can’t taste it but I’m forcing myself to eat it.”

This one reminds me of all the shit I’ve done for the past year that I didn’t want to do but did anyway. Things like going to work at Walmart. I’m poised to take care of my niece when her mama goes back to work instead of my brother and his wife paying out the nose for day care. They’ll pay me instead. Jen is very happy being a stay at home mom and nothing else. I don’t blame her. My niece is delightful.

I scribbled down some random german phrases, too.

It is obvious to me that words need to come out of my brain onto paper. There’s a lot in there. Words in my brain. Thoughts stuck in my skull with nowhere to go. My friend tells me to put my writing on my Patreon. What writing?? There has been very little, precious little, new words. Nothing really called “writing” at least.

Just more of this.

I don’t know. You survive cancer and all the treatments (I’ve heard it isn’t the cancer that kills you, it’s the treatment) and suddenly people think you have become suddenly profound. That your thoughts matter more than other peoples’.

club soda, water flavoring, onion, cream sauce, spinach (frozen?), sprite

It just isn’t true. Most of the words in my brain are not profound. I also jotted down part of my grocery list. I doodled an arrow. I wrote down info on my latest medical appointment, too. I crossed out Dr. Summers and replaced it with Somers (like Buffy — which I said out loud to the receptionist who didn’t get it).

That’s all I have for tonight. Bear with me.