COMING HOME
This week feels like coming home. From war.
Well, I imagine this is what coming home from war feels like. They call cancer a battle. People even call me a warrior. And like we do with our war adversaries we demonize cancer. Most people don't like when you say fuck but no one's offended by FUCK CANCER. We talk about it like it's an enemy comprised of pure evil, a demon whose destruction must be ordained, aided, and prioritized by God himself.
Perhaps the most disturbing thing about cancer is how it kills without motive, like Michael Myers from Halloween. Why does it pick you? No reason. Can you prevent it? Not really. Does anything ever get rid of it? Sometimes. Oh, and when you think it's finally gone, it can just… come back.
These questions and answers can spiral you downward really fast unless you decide to fight. So you create a battle plan and you hope it works and then you wait. You try to enjoy your life while you've got it. You love the lovely people more and give up on trying to impress the rest. Your fight is quiet. It's in the pills you take with breakfast and the tears you fight back because the people you can cry in front of are the only ones sadder than you. Eventually, when you're able to drive to your own appointments again, work again, go out again, you realize that you also quietly returned home. There wasn't an embrace on a tarmac or a banner with balloons. But everyone says, "You're back!" with a big smile. So you smile too. You don't say, But I'm different now. Everything's different. I don't know who I am. The threat still feels imminent. I am still afraid.
There is no back, only forward. And forward feels scary and unknown. I've never liked war. I never thought I'd use it as a metaphor for my own experience. But it's been there in the language for a long time. It’s how I’ve finally made some sense of things.
I've "come home" now, but with the knowledge that on any weekday afternoon I'll be told it's time to go back. Some days I feel relief, I feel free. Most days I feel I was freer before.
To those of you who have followed along, checked in, helped out: thank you. The future is much less scary when I think of those who accompany me into it.
Sincerely,
Mitzi
PS - I have returned to my studio to create portraits. If you’d like me to take some of you, please do
I’ve got just a few spots left for 2022.
