You know, I'm not really sure what I was hoping to gain by talking about this. Strangely, I guess I just wanted people to be more open and willing to talk about depression and purely on that level, it failed.
However, why on earth would I be expecting anything different from what has been happening for hundreds of years? Silly me.
The people who have always supported me, continue to. Sure, there were a couple of lovely comments on facebook but really, and this is one of the issues I have with facebook, the easiness of that means absolutely nothing at all.
Facebook makes us feel that we are closer to people. Facebook takes the things we say, the things we want others to "hear" and overwhelms those things with utter banality. Facebook makes us think we have friends, when we don't. And facebook stands in, and badly, for real, actual communication.
I've been spending a little time each morning writing emails to keep in touch with people and I find the time and effort is much more valuable and real - at least to me.
I headed out a couple of days ago for my repeat mammogram and ultrasound - a follow-up I usually go though every year - and the ultrasound part of it took a long time. A way longer time than usual and they went up into my armpit. The tech left to talk to the radiologist and came back to tell me that, "He is not overly concerned but after further review, there will be a request for more tests."
MaJen has survived breast cancer twice and was insistent that she accompany me so on the way home we chatted about the whole thing.
My initial reaction is that if something is wrong, I'll end up with chemo and lose the dreads I've spent so much time cultivating and that sort of pisses me off.
My second reaction was this: "They will cut it out or cut it off, poison me a little, I'll feel shitty and then I won't." And I thought, wow, that seems so straightforward, so simple, so easy. The last 8 years of my life have been nothing like that - it would a relief to have something wrong with me that the doctors can 'fix', instead of this horrible daily struggle to live through the pain, to find a way to enjoy even just a little bit of how I live now, to keep my head above the waves.
It doesn't even seem ironic or even a little bit weird that my attitude is, "Wow, Cancer would be so easy."