While I was gone, she started chemotherapy. After just one treatment, her hair had started falling out in clumps. We had no idea it would happen so soon.
Jen led and taught me how to prevent that with introspection and a consistent sense of wonder. Jen has that light which lets you know she’s fully human. It is evident that she feels more intensely, more keenly, more loudly. She’s sharing that with the world-the boys just need to show up with an open mind.
I tell him it is because I realize that we both believe that words can rub up against one another, electrifying sentences into dizzying fricatives and vertiginous syntax, because we understand that nouns can be dangerous when the rhythm is sexy.
My panic attacks haunted me wherever I went. I had no idea that six million other Americans were suffering from panic attacks, that forty million were battling an anxiety disorder of some kind.
And you know what happened? My kind and damaged neighbor told me he is so sorry. He said he's been trying to get clean for 15 years and he's still trying and all of his friends that come and go are trying to get clean too but it's hard.
I asked Marlene if I could get her anything, “more time” she replied. I said “Sorry, that’s the one thing I can’t give you. What else would you like?” She said “I have everything I need.”
Thank you for showing up for every chemo session and sitting at my side with my mom as I became sick by it. You were diagnosed just three months after I was.
My STUFF is booze, is food, is fear. My STUFF is pain, is rage, is sadness. My STUFF is believing I am unhireable. My STUFF is ruthlessly judging every word I write. My STUFF is believing I have nothing important to say.
