Went in a Man, Left an Old Man

So much of culture is focused on the transition between youth and adulthood. There are hoops one must jump through to be considered an adult. Getting up before noon, cooking food before you are so hungry you will pass out, opening your mail when you get it, being able to dissect the weather, and other measures of growing up. Some people take pride in their adulthood, while others live in Neverland and promote their brand. 

There is less literature on the crossing from adulthood to the elderly. People live in complete denial that at some moment, one is just an older adult that has no idea what is happening in the world. 

I believe that I crossed this barrier on September 4th, 2014, when I was diagnosed with cancer. I was walking the fine line between the adult and Peter Pan. Suddenly my body betrayed me and landed me in a heap of pain & suffering that plagues me to this very day seven years later.

I think of that day a lot. I think of that day more than I think about my birthday or my sober anniversary. I think about that day with both gratitude and resentment. 

It is easy to think of that day since I have felt exhausted and in pain ever since that day. From the moment I wake up to the minute sleep overtakes me, I hurt. It hurts to walk, and it hurts to stay still too long. My joints freeze up and turn into molten lava and killer bees if I sit too long, but after walking less than a few city blocks, my joints start to do the same thing. 

I look fine, and I try not to complain about it since most people don’t want to hear that someone can live in constant pain all the time because that means they could face that, and that doesn’t play well in being an adult. Also, I wouldn’t say I like to bother people.

I look on with resentment and jealousy of other chronically ill people who fund their lives with constant pleas online. I go to work. I never call out. I pay my bills. It doesn’t make me a better person, but it is what it is. 

I have to keep seeing medical professionals and get poked, prodded, zapped, touched, handled, and I have to pay money to let all of that happen. I have to pay money to stay alive. I have to spend thousands of dollars to make sure I’m not getting sick again. Sometimes I want to not go to more appointments because I don’t have to pay thousands of dollars. Sickness and death can be a surprise like they are for other people. 

I got a job almost solely on the fact that I would get excellent health insurance. I’ll work 40 hour weeks to make sure that I pay a little less on keeping myself alive. Dreams that I might have had for doing other things turn dark.

It isn’t all fucked joints and existential dread, my friends! There is always a shiny diamond in a pile of shit!

My life looked a lot different in the late summer of 2014. I have not a single complaint about it. If you had asked me several years before that, I would have said that is precisely what I want. I worked at a music venue, had a great partner, and enjoyed my life. On my birthdays, I would destroy printers with baseball bats and set off fireworks. 

While the cancer and its treatment dashed that life on the rocks, I got to start a new life. A woman was smoking cigarettes outside of a church in SE Portland that liked goofing off. I was wearing my softball uniform and not smoking – I quit the day I was diagnosed. 

I was in a relationship with this lady a few months later. I was up and moving around after several months of being laid up from chemo and surgeries. She had been in a car accident that ended her career and had time to hang out.

We explored and went on adventures together. We walked along mountain rivers and coastlines, looking for rocks and treasures. I fell in love with Oregon and the Pacific Northwest again, showing her its beauty. We stayed in motels, Airbnb, and beach houses all over. 

It seemed like a normal relationship, one that people get into. You hang out; you spend more and more time together, you have dinners with other couples, you play board games and go to movies, you fight, you publish pictures of yourself on social media claiming how good of a relationship you have. Then the magic wanes, the work gets too hard, the fun is gone, and you break up.

During the beginning of this relationship, I was waiting for news. There was a spot on my liver that wasn’t going away from the chemo. It didn’t get smaller, but it didn’t get bigger. Livers are a death sentence. My prognosis ranged from nothing to die in a few years. Being the drama queen that I am, I just knew that I was to die soon.

I found out it was mostly nothing, but just a little something that they will have to continue to be poked, prodded, zapped, touched, handled, and pay lots of money for. 

Now love is presented in a way in media. This does include movies, music, and TV, but this also is presented by all of you and how you talk about love – and what you don’t say. Work must be done. Things need to be learned. Changes have to be made, or what’s the point in having a partner? We went to three different couple councilors. We did it because we believed in the relationship. We wanted and desired to do the work. We believed in each other.

Rufus entered our lives. It’s as if a dog was created custom-made for her and me. We took him on an extreme hot camping trip and then a windy four-hour drive through the Siskiyous where other people had gotten lost and then died. 

We got married. We went to Italy for our honeymoon. We moved to a small town in central Oregon on a haunted cherry orchard. We took long drives through the high desert and the mountains. We looked for sheds and skulls. 

I moved from my beloved Oregon to Rhode Island. This is where I am now. We are planning on a trip to the western part of New England for Thanksgiving. 

The point is, if I hadn’t gotten sick with cancer, I would never have met this woman and got to start a crazy life with her. I would never have gotten to share Rufus with her and have the guts to move across the country with her. 

I don’t know what my life would have been had I not been diagnosed with cancer. I could have quit smoking on my own. 

Life can take a lot away before giving you something better. Sometimes it feels like life takes too much. Sometimes life takes so much away that it doesn’t feel like it feels impossible to rebuild any of it. It can be hard since we want what we lost back, and the idea of anything new is not in our minds. Putting one foot in front of the other and just trying to do the next right thing, things start to fall in place, and all of a sudden, the old life seems alien. 

I walked to the hospital the day I was diagnosed. I thought I had a heart attack. I smoked my last cigarette while reading on WebMD why my chest hurt. I left the pack of Camel menthols behind the bar where I worked, thinking that I would be back that night to pick them up. I never smoked again. It’s been seven years. 

I walked to the hospital as an adult with childlike tendencies. I walked out of the hospital an old man, but an old man with lots of potentials.