Nov. 22: “Peeking at my drafts” sounds naughty, but it isn’t

This morning I opened the drafts folder in Windows Live Writer—the program I use to write my blog posts, which is awesome because it makes curly quotes and apostrophes instead of those neanderthal-like straight ones—and I found a whole bunch of long-forgotten posts. Since I began writing them, they have lost all their “punch,” which is kinda funny because that suggests they once had “punch,” and I’m quite sure their lack of “punch” is why I didn’t finish writing and post them.

I’ll let you decide.

1.

Here’s an excerpt of one I wrote while being treated for cancer last year.

I really wonder about those terminally ill people who never complain. Y’know how witnesses to their suffering always say that about them? “And she never complained about her illness. She never questioned why this happened to her. She accepted this fate with her head held high.” If anyone ever says that about me when I’m gone, you absolutely must punch them in the eye for being a big fat liar. I bitch and whine and moan about being sick more than anyone… because I’m human and humans suffer and it’s not fun and it’s not painless and there is NO way even the saintliest of people can go through something like this without having the occasional negative thought. I’m gonna call bullshit on “she never complained.”

Fine, maybe those non-complainers know something I don’t. Maybe they have something I don’t. Faith helps the fight, there’s no doubt about that. But if you don’t have faith—if you’re not sure that a higher power even exists—you miss out on the peace that comes with turning your worries over to someone/thing else. I’m the first to admit that it sucks, facing cancer without the safety net of prayer. Prayer is something I grew up believing could “fix” everything, and it’s a slow, strange transition to go from praying without ceasing to not praying at all. I’m not going to go into how I got to where I am belief-wise (not right here, right now, anyway), but I will say that my cancer diagnosis got me no closer to adhering a Jesus fish to my car.

I know that some people think that’s my problem—that I need to turn my cancer over to God to relieve myself of the burden that it brings, and only then can I have a more positive attitude. And to that, I say that I have a positive attitude. It is occasionally suppressed by fear and frustration, but it always comes back. Because I want to live. I will do what I need to to make sure I’m around to see my kids grow up. I don’t think prayer would keep me from going to the dark place once in a while, and I don’t think it’s going to take my cancer away, either.

If it makes you sad that I haven’t turned to God in this, feel free to pray for me.

I think I intentionally didn’t polish/finish/post it because I was afraid of offending my many Christian friends. I post this now, not because I don’t care about offending my friends, but because I have since realized that my Christian friends who truly love me will respect my beliefs the same way that I respect theirs.

2.

This next post was from a year ago. Here’s just one paragraph:

I may be wiser, but Victor is a way better person than I am, even though he can be annoying as hell (he can! trust me!). His goodness makes me want to be gooder too. (Fancy Anthony™, please forgive me for just making your wife’s ears bleed.) I’ve made more friends in recent years who manage to bring out just enough of my fun, light-hearted, cheerful side that I like who they help me to be. It’s good to feel good about ourselves, isn’t it? Most importantly, it’s good to walk into a room without sending people screaming in the opposite direction.

This happy-sounding bit turned into a very depressing post in which I opened the floor to suggestions about how to fix things between me and my sister. I actually stopped writing mid-sentence because I could see where it was going (nowhere). So sad about this, still.

3.

Here’s a post from May:

You need to be aware of what others are doing, applaud their efforts, acknowledge their successes, and encourage them in their pursuits. When we all help one another, everybody wins.
—
Jim Stovall

My intention, I assume, was to write something that would relate this quote to my life, but we’ll never know because that’s all I wrote. Ooooh, aren’t I mysterious?

4.

Another unposted draft in my folder was the beginnings of a long meme that Sherilee posted. It was fun and interesting and I wanted to play along, but when I started answering the questions for myself they seemed like nothing but nonsense. Pretty sure this means that Sherilee’s life is much more exciting to other people than I think mine is to other people.

5.

This last draft was written a few days ago, when I was crazy-busy with things that kept me from everything but occasionally checking Facebook, which basically kept me out of the loop of what my friends are/were doing.

But the new Facebook makes decisions FOR ME about which posts are important, and for this I am pissed. (Yep, that kinda rhymed. I’m a genius.) One friend has been in a local ICU for nine days, and it just showed up in my feed yesterday. Another one moved Far Far Away. And Sunshine went to that new vampire movie, which I heard about immediately EVEN THOUGH I DIDN’T EVEN CARE. What I’m saying is that Facebook is kinda being a jackhole, keeping information from me about important people and opting to put nonsense front and center.

Sorry, Sunshine and my other friends who like those vampire movies, but OMG I DO NOT CARE!!

I’m deleting all of these drafts. They will never be published in their entirety, for which you are probably grateful, in which case you should pretend that you aren’t because that will make me feel better and remember? I like friends who make me want to be a gooder person. Please be one of those.