I think I might be...healthy.

It’s been surprising to notice how nice I’ve been to myself this week as I crawl out of the hopeless, “what am I doing with my life,” place.

Without real conscious intention about it, while I’ve been wading through the mire of job postings and life meaning, I also allowed myself to buy a silly book, read it in the sun, and then go see a funny movie. I went to a community party, even though I still don’t feel “cool” enough to be a member of that community. Surprise! I know people who were there, so I guess I must be. I mean, I knew several people, wasn’t lonely, had many conversations, so I guess I belonged, right?

I made another nice meal for myself after therapy last night. I painted my nails for my job interview, and I’m awake again early to go to the gym to feel strong and proud and accomplished. 

I participated in a staged reading Tuesday night, my first. And I had the insight and perspective, as I sat in that empty stagehouse, to notice that I was doing what I told myself I wanted to do while going through my chemo. I could realize I was accomplishing my dreams. Following them. They sure don’t feel accomplishy (yet) in the dim lighting of a poor cast and poor audience. But, it’s a case of feelings aren’t facts.

I’ve had several long phone calls with good girl friends. Went out to coffee with a co-worker and sat in the community garden nearby, plucking a strawberry off its vine. I stood on a dock swaying in the Berkeley marina one day after work.

I showered.

Despite going through what feels like a dark time, a lost time, I realize that I have an impulse toward self-care I didn’t know I had.

Two friends texted me yesterday to reach out for support in their own journeys. To ask me to remind them that life is abundant and fear is an asshole. Which I gladly did. And it reminds me to remind myself of these things too, but moreso, it reminds me that those are core pieces of myself, pieces that friends see in me, and reach out to me for: I’m an uplifter. Not always, I’m not Pollyanna or inhuman. But, I am someone who more often than not is there to remind my friends that what we’re doing is not impotent. That life is worth living.

I’ve been prefacing my sentences this week with, “Despite the fact that the planet is dying…”! Despite the fact that the planet is dying, I want to leave an imprint in it; I want my life to count; I want to move the needle of human progress forward. Despite the fact that the planet is dying, we continue to bring children into this world because every generation has had its reasons not to. Despite the fact that the planet is dying, I will go to the gym today; meet with a former theater collaborator to who reached out to me about a book she wants to write; I will go to the farmer’s market and eat a plum off a tiny toothpick.

My habit toward self-care, toward health, has become something so natural in me that it’s unnatural. And if such things as this can make seismic shifts, I guess I can remember that life is abundant and fear is an asshole.