February 24, 2011
It's been some time, hasn't it?
We've lost the other blog, which got me thinking about this one. It's still here, as am I. So, I will announce a rebirth of this blogger site. I took too much time off, I know, but with good reason. I'll get to that shortly through a series of winding, overly authoritative points which, presumably, I will espouse with an unnerving amount of omniscience and heavy-handed didacticism. Bare with me, please.
So here I am. Now, with each firmly placed X on the calendar, I measure the distance to my future goal, vague and uncertain, as well as the time elapsed from my past skirmishes. In a few days, it will be one year since my stay at Shadyside ended. Needless to say, this fills me with an unending number of thoughts, emotions, and concerns. Certainly, I'm able to relish that I'm no longer in need of constant tubing; the medicinal plumbing that kept me alive for days. I'm grateful that, with every day, my Leukemia becomes less an insurmountable wall, garnished with razor-wire, encased feverishly by a garden of mines. Rather, it slowly devolves into a deviously hidden pothole, lurking in my past.
I am slow to recount what I've "learned" over the past year. This is because of two reasons: I'm still quite in the midst of what is happening/has happened, and I'm no more qualified to share it with you than a giraffe is qualified to pilot a zeppelin. But, for the sake of my spare time, the ease of internet publication, and my selfish interest in what will come out, I'm going to cover what I think I've learned. Sufficient? I hope so.
I'm aware that perspectives shift during a lifetime. Not once or twice, but rather continually and with great uncertainty. Obviously, the monikers of "make the best with the time you have," and "live everyday as if it were your last," apply, but these old cliches don't cover IT entirely. It? What is IT, really? An indefinable, unmanageable article that says everything without properly saying anything at all.
So here IT is. A recognizable greed that I'm sure didn't exist before all this came rushing down the pike. Before the diagnosis, before the hanging bags of blood, before the nights in the hospital, before the snow and frost that clouded my window, there was no sense of IT. Or, perhaps, this greed was uninspired, if not altogether misdirected from the beginning. Just because I didn't see it, doesn't mean it wasn't floating somewhere beneath my subconscious.
Yet, I've found that my greed is not in any sense avaricious or material; but rather a nagging greed for what was stripped in my disease. It's an odd little bird, chirping at my eardrum. It's constant, but not always noticeable, relinquishing when it wants and vanishing when convenient. Yet, it isn't an unlikable greed. If nothing else, it reminds me of where I've been. However, it moves from docile to delinquent if provoked. I find myself ill at ease, amongst other things, because of being hospital-bound for a month. My greed asserts itself in odd ways, reminding me that though I've made it through a small leg of my journey, my life is still a tangled bushel of thorns and vines.
But, I'm not here to worry. Worrying never yielded anything discernibly great or worthwhile. Not for me, anyway. No. I'm here to celebrate my Greed. I'm here to refuse the idea of "ambition," "drive," "motivation," or "want." I'm here to call it what it is. Greed. Wonderful, beautiful greed. Because, it's this greed that got me out of that bed. It's Greed that moved me to Meadville to finish school. It's this Greed that reinforced my confidence when I proposed. And it will be this Greed, pushing at times like a breeze (and at others like a Mac truck), that will spur me towards whatever is next.
Here's to Greed, at least for today.
I hope this post finds everyone well. Rest assured that time can't get past me without whispering memories of the well-wishing, hope-raising, and inspiring people who have backed me throughout this struggle.
All my love,
Chris
