And She Returneth to the Earth, Changed and Yet Un-.

Just Kidding.

Sort of.

This morning, I awoke in my own bed, jauntily off the floor, thanks to my new adult bedframe. My cat prowling around me, with a mewling, Are you up? You up now? [head butt] You up?

I lay in the last moments of a dream where G-d came to dinner at my house, and I greeted him like a loved Uncle, and he literally wore a buttoned sweater vest.

A friend sent me a text last night to continue a conversation on adulthood we’d been having, and she reported a quote she’d heard that Adulthood is a continuum, and usually we’re the last to know where we are on it.

I considered the event of “CANCER,” and what changes have occurred in and around me since this began in the middle of last September. My friend who sprung me from the hospital yesterday morning reminded me over brunch that perhaps “20/20 vision” didn’t mean twenty minutes. That perhaps the lessons or changes that may or may not have occurred are going to be a little more subtle, and lotus-like, if I see them at all.

I have the beginnings/endings of the normal – ahem, if you can call this normal – side-effects and routines of post-chemo treatment: My taste for water sours, and I drink enough fizzy flavored water to make me feel bad about the environment (but it’s better than getting dehydrated because water tastes like a fetid pond). My taste for coffee sours too, which would make this a great time to quit the sucker, but as the line goes, “I can’t quit you.”

My muscles begin to ache as if I’d done an intense work out, a soreness that permeates down close to the bone, so I know that whatever it is they dripped into me this past week is working somehow to search and destroy any lingering leukemic cells.

And, I get the typical fatigue, needing more rest and naps, but feeling more restless as well and wanting to get back out into the world. A desire I will temper, considering the fall-out from last chemo round’s adventures.

I begin to think about a party, hosting something to say thank you to everyone, to think about a trip to the Great America theme park, to compile a list of everything that’s happened in the last year, in the last 7 months. I start to think about a closing.

And yet. It is of course unknown if it is or not. Like anything. A continuum.

I get to talk with others about my writing and the viability of trying to “do something” with it. I get to talk about how I want to be different, but also how I want to stop trying so hard to be different.

I get to hear others reflect that my writing has inspired them to change x, or confront y.

I get to recognize that no matter what is “NEXT,” I have faced cancer. Cancer, people. That thing that says, Hey, you lug, guess what? You might die soon. Surprise!

I get to reflect on how well I’ve done, whatever that actually means to me. I get to see that I didn’t fall apart and never return, or regress to childhood (for any length of time). I wasn’t destroyed by this.

Does that make me stronger? I don’t know. More perseverant? I don’t know.

These are the questions I asked my friend over brunch yesterday, and so, I’ll leave myself with the thought: Relax. Whatever it is, whatever it’s done, this part, this phase is done.

And even if it should come back, I never, ever have to do this part again.