It’s all thanks to my treatment
break, of course: a timely, precious and enormously appreciated stretch in
which my social activity is – finally
– more actual than virtual. I’ve spent time back home with the family, been out
for swanky dinners, seen more of my mates, had weekend escapes in lovely
hotels, spent a gorgeous week in Spain (so gorgeous, in fact, that we’re off there
again tomorrow), been to gigs, attended a lovely wedding, had my friend Ant from
LA over to stay, thrown a Jubilee party… in short, I’ve squeezed in the all the
life I wasn’t able to live while on seven months’ worth of chemo into seven
weeks’ worth of chemo-break. It’s been bloody wonderful. And, given that this
well-earned rest is teetering on a could-end-at-any-moment precipice, I’m
buggered if I’m calling a halt to the fun just yet. Life, I’ve come to learn,
is very simply about making time for happy memories and spending time with the
people you love – and that’s what I’ll continue to do, until such a time as The
Bullshit creeps back to piss on my chips, when I’ll scrap with all I’ve got to
get back to this; the good stuff.
The only problem with such a
situation, however, is that there are more demands on my time than perhaps ever
before. And in these days of uninhibited openness, constant narration, candid
diarising and ever-growing friendship circles – particularly through the likes
of blogging and social media – it can prove tricky terrain to negotiate, and
I’m conscious of coming across as the kind of person who uses those tools only
in times of dire need, ditching them (and anyone associated with them) when
things are looking up. The truth of the matter, though, is that – as an
advocate of the sharing culture that social media has granted us – I want to let
everyone in on the good as well as the bad. It’s just, I suppose, that when
things are better, and you’re so desperate to drink it up, it leaves less space
to do so, and hence just living takes
precedence over sharing that living. And, you might say, quite rightly too.
Since we’re talking truths, though,
there’s even more to it than that. Because, see, in this wonderful period of
living, it’s not just my lack of time
to share my narrative that’s making me look somewhat on the quiet side, but my
lack of inclination. Since September last year, all I’ve had to think about is how
I’m feeling, how long I’ve got, and whether my treatment is worth the trauma.
But now, all of a sudden, those things – permanently etched into my mind though they remain – have been allowed to sit on the back-burner, gifting me time to
think about the more important things in life, like what to buy people for
their birthday, whether my nails match my outfit, and what to delete on the
Sky+ to make way for more Jersey Shore …all
of which have, on a number of occasions, taken precedence over blogging or
tweeting or replying to Facebook messages or emails. In short, I suppose, where
previously my brain’s been filled with Bullshit, now it’s filled with bullshit.
And so it’s no surprise that where the cancer crap is concerned, lately, I just
don’t want to talk about it.
I apologise if that’s a confusing
message to send out, particularly when we all know that there’ll shortly come a
time when I’ll have to (heck, want to) talk about it once more. Right
now, though, I’m just so over it that I’m, I dunno, under it. Which, granted,
is a bit on the ridiculous side when you’re supposed to be keeping up a blog on
the progress of your health.
Another confusing message I may have
sent out – okay, overused – is the
one that goes thus: ‘Yeah, definitely! As soon as I’m on my treatment break...’
Talk about stitching yourself up, eh? Because, with the disproportionate amount
of time spent in treatment than out of it, there’s only so many times you can
come good on that promise – particularly when it comes to the friends I’ve
never met; the folk whose virtual kindness has been so helpful to me through years
of The Bullshit.
The odd person has become impatient
with me – angry, even – as a result of this state of affairs, but what those virtual
friends perhaps don’t know – where my real-life friends do – is how much of a
knock my confidence has taken over the last few months. Where once I was poised
and self-assured and perfectly fine when it came to meeting new people, now I
only feel confident in the company of my very closest family and friends. Thus,
when you add that side-effect to the lack of time in which I have to see my
nearest and dearest before everything goes tits up again, the result is a
lovely big dollop of guilt about how my treatment break – my timely, precious, enormously
appreciated treatment break – is spent.
In many ways it’s classic me, this,
isn’t it: finding stuff to fret about in the very period I ought to be
fret-free, but old dogs and new tricks n’ all that. You might call it
fatalistic; but I call it funny (albeit the sick side of funny). Because, hey –
in the grand scheme of worries, these are pretty bloody lovely worries to have.
And let me tell you, it ain’t half nice to know that, even after a months-to-live talk, you’re capable of going back to fretting about daft stuff
like how much time you spend updating your Twitter feed.
So I do hope you’ll excuse me if I
smirk my way back to Spain this weekend. But please don’t be offended if you don’t
get a postcard, eh? Chances are I’ll just be having too much fun to write one.
