The Abyss of Nothingness and Everythingness

I'm fucking tired.

I am.

I am not unique in this.

I have nothing and everything, depending on the day and of who's perspective.

I am alone and supported.

Loved and loathed.

Some days the latter pleases me and gives me a rest from needing to be everything or anything to anyone.

Most days, I just don't give a shit what anyone thinks other than me and my kids, because no matter how close you are to people, there are only so many people directly affected by your choices. My kids are those people.

Some people wonder "what Jesus would do" or what The Joneses think...

I wonder if my kids will be proud of me...

If a decision I am about to make will hurt or hinder their life experience...

I don't care what Jay or my friends think, because they are supposed to love me regardless, so long as I stay on the correct side of moral decency and principles...and I must do the same in return.

I've made some tricky decisions over the past year that have kept in line, but have made me walk the line between quality v. quantity of life.

While this topic is always a rich one, I have always been on the side of quality.

Most people have supported this and others are too confused or scared or selfish to consider such support.

In November of last year, at the start of cyclocross season, a tumor posed a problem. It was advised that I undergo surgery to remove it.

I told them to find another option.

They told me that all they could do was better prepare my body for surgery.

They destroyed me.

By the end of November, I could barely make it through a cyclocross race and couldn't ride my bike except on race days.

They told me they could "make me comfortable"...

Jay and I packed my things that Tuesday before Thanksgiving and planned one last bike ride before he drove me to the hospital...

As we took to the road in the dark, my mind went a little mad...and free.

The pain ripped through my insides as I made each revolution of the pedals and I felt myself burning as if my body was a paper cut doused in lemon juice...

Yet as the cold air hit my face, I realized that the pain meant I was alive...

I was not numb or "comfortable"...

I knew who I was and who this man riding next to me was...

I didn't want to stop this.

I remember the cold night air and every detail because at the time I was mentally recording it in the event that I did not see such a night again...

When we got back to Jay's house, we talked, cried and thought hard about my options...

We went home and talked to the kids.

I wasn't ready to be "comfortable".

We worked my plan as the pounds fell off.

16 pounds in 2 weeks.

Where was I going?

They were killing me.

I showed up at 'cross races every Sunday and died a little bit, but lived a little more...

Some races I didn't have the energy to even lift my bike over the barriers.

At Cross Nationals, my body simply fell apart.

"They" almost carried me off the course until I gathered what remaining composure I had and crawled under the tape to safety...

My world started to shut down.

My body was now too weak for surgery.

Fast forward to a year of trying to get a taste of racing...

A year of trying to make my body stronger.

A year of living life to the fullest with the kids and trying to cover every base...

I am now faced with the very real reality of interviewing surgeons and making plans for what I had hoped I could always put off...

Placing myself in a temporary state of denial while I prepared for my favorite race season, while in hindsight wishing I had sacrificed the road season with surgery so that I could be there for every single 'cross race in The Lou and surrounding areas...

As it is, I will be going under the knife in the far too near future, to remove the tumor in my stomach.

While I plan to schedule the surgery on a weekend when I have "nothing going on", my doctors have reminded me that while that is so sweet of me to squeeze them in, I will not be in the saddle the following weekend...though they readily admit that they know I will try every imaginable way to attempt it.

As my birthday weekend wound to a close today, it was with heaviness that I had to mentally and emotionally prepare myself for certain hell that is about to become my life....at least for a few weeks.

Tomorrow I will begin preparing my body for battle.

My bike rides will be very different.

My sleep will be very different.

My food will be a joke.

*sound of life, blog, thoughts screeching to a halt; in the distance, something clicks/snaps*

You know what?

I started writing this to update friends and family and I really don't know how to do that.

Typically I tell people what is going on after it's done.

I don't know what to say here.

I'm so fucking lost and confused and scared and in pain that it's all a fucking mess.

I just want them to cut the bitches out of me and let me get on with my fucking life.

I don't want to just be a survivor. I want to be cancer-free.

I want that for everyone.

I want that guy that I saw in Chicago without shoes but with mangled and gnarly toes to have good feet and good shoes...and a bath and toothpaste and a straight spine...and I want to be cancer fucking free.

(Jeeze that was random!)

I don't want anymore fucking stitches.

I don't want to hear the drone of anymore pathology reports.

I don't want a fucking repeat of 1999 when they apologized but informed me that they didn't get it all and I would have to do "a little chemo".

You know what?

There is no such fucking thing as a little chemo.

My organs are still suffering the damage from the shit they injected into me to fuck my world.

I had everything I needed before that...then lost it all.

I built it back up and had it all again...only better...and they did that shit to me again and I lost it all again.

*rinse and repeat*

I am not fucking willing, nor do I believe I have the strength, to lose everything and build it back up again.

I am old for my age and fucking tired.

I want zero stitches, many cow bells and endless hot chocolates with Baileys after I kick someone's (anyone's) ass in every 'cross race I enter.

Besides, it's going to really piss off X-Factor if I bought that Ridley and can't race it for some candy-assed reason like stitches, cancer, blah, blah, blah...

...and I'm sort of on his side for this one.