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Sorry for the lack of updates, life keeps getting in the way. I've been working on a bunch of podcast homework, and one of the static pages for my website has ballooned to an absolutely absurd size, so things just kind of got away from me on the blogging front.
The main thing is I'm still waiting to hear back about some medical bill stuff, which has been a very difficult feeling to sit with. I'm not a patient person by nature, famously things being out of my control where I just have to sit tight drives me absolutely crazy, and yet I'm in this position where I have another looming medical bill I'm waiting to hear about appeals on. It sucks, because it changes the tenor of my gofundme efforts quite a lot if I have to a whole other giant bill on top of the already large stack of bills, but I'd like to wait until I know before I start blowing social capital on crowdfunding pushes. It's so exhausting to ask people for money, especially when you know you're kind of spending what goodwill you've built up by working online for a decade, and it's even more fraught when I'm like 'we're close to the goal, but there might be another, even bigger number coming down the road' it just makes you feel awful. I don't know. It's been weighing heavily on my mind as I wait for the apparatus of medical billing and insurance appeals to grind to whatever fate it puts on me.
While I wait, life goes on. Summer is hanging on for dear life but you can feel autumn on the days that aren't too stubborn. My birthday is next Sunday, I turn 39. Most of my doctors appointments post surgery have trickled to a crawl. I see my oncologist every three months but I don't see my surgeon until spring when we begin thinking about putting my guts back together again. I have my day job, which is very demanding. I have my podcast work, which keeps me very busy (less demanding, obviously). I started a new relationship. I'm trying to get over some of my social media hangups in this new world of a rapidly dying twitter and the potential of new platforms. Things just keep happening around the one big rock in the middle of the stream of life, and the dichotomy throws my heart into disarray as I keep sitting with this gnawing powerlessness and yet, everything else that's happening is honestly mostly all good news. It feels insane to be happy as a person just getting by in the world, when I'm also slowly cooking in the powerlessness of tens of thousands of dollars of medical debt. I really wish I could just condense being down to a single feeling and not these wild swings, but I can't and maybe it's fine that I can't. I wouldn't want my setbacks and fears to be my entire life, I'm glad I have things that make me happy and keep me fulfilled and busy to eat up the days I spend waiting for the other stuff to play out.
I know this is all very normal stuff, but I still feel like I'm doing something wrong when I mostly feel okay except for when I don't. I'll go happily about my business until the cold realization of my medical situation taps me on the shoulder and then just immediately feel sucked under by a deep hopelessness. To say nothing of the world. This is all just personal shit. If I think about the world at large there's just nothing to feel good about. I try to not dwell on it as much as I can, I'm working on feeling better and getting healthy and doing good and caring for the people within my sphere of things I can affect. It is humbling to be sick, humbling to have to ask for help, humbling for people to show up for you. And I did and do a lot of crying about it, out of shame and gratitude and fear and relief, but eventually you cry less and have to keep on doing something about it, and I try to live in a way that earns this.
Not because I think that's my obligation, I think people should get health care and not be in debt even if they suck, but because like ... I did almost die, I did have cancer at a remarkably young age and it might very well come back in the future, it is SO EASY to just do stuff and feel an existential angst about a future projected end date and then years go by. And I don't want to do that, I want to be more mindful about what I'm doing, find things that make me feel nourished, I want to grow and thrive as best I can even in bad times, because that's how I thumb my nose at this awful summer I had.
I didn't mean to get quite so live laugh love about things, but it really has been a weird few months, and I'm not really interested in fulling giving into the despair and fear I feel. I can feel them, and sometimes they're overpowering, but when I'm able to I'd rather focus on the other stuff. The fear is for stuff that's mostly out of my control, so what could I even do?
That's it. More hopefully in November, I'd like to get this big page update out soon but it might be so big I'll publish it in drafts and slowly work up to a completed page. Thanks for allowing me to be emotional and indulgent. If you find it insufferably positive, yeah, I get it, but also I hope you'll allow me this indulgence. You see, next Sunday is my birthday, so you have to be nice to the birthday bear.
The main thing is I'm still waiting to hear back about some medical bill stuff, which has been a very difficult feeling to sit with. I'm not a patient person by nature, famously things being out of my control where I just have to sit tight drives me absolutely crazy, and yet I'm in this position where I have another looming medical bill I'm waiting to hear about appeals on. It sucks, because it changes the tenor of my gofundme efforts quite a lot if I have to a whole other giant bill on top of the already large stack of bills, but I'd like to wait until I know before I start blowing social capital on crowdfunding pushes. It's so exhausting to ask people for money, especially when you know you're kind of spending what goodwill you've built up by working online for a decade, and it's even more fraught when I'm like 'we're close to the goal, but there might be another, even bigger number coming down the road' it just makes you feel awful. I don't know. It's been weighing heavily on my mind as I wait for the apparatus of medical billing and insurance appeals to grind to whatever fate it puts on me.
While I wait, life goes on. Summer is hanging on for dear life but you can feel autumn on the days that aren't too stubborn. My birthday is next Sunday, I turn 39. Most of my doctors appointments post surgery have trickled to a crawl. I see my oncologist every three months but I don't see my surgeon until spring when we begin thinking about putting my guts back together again. I have my day job, which is very demanding. I have my podcast work, which keeps me very busy (less demanding, obviously). I started a new relationship. I'm trying to get over some of my social media hangups in this new world of a rapidly dying twitter and the potential of new platforms. Things just keep happening around the one big rock in the middle of the stream of life, and the dichotomy throws my heart into disarray as I keep sitting with this gnawing powerlessness and yet, everything else that's happening is honestly mostly all good news. It feels insane to be happy as a person just getting by in the world, when I'm also slowly cooking in the powerlessness of tens of thousands of dollars of medical debt. I really wish I could just condense being down to a single feeling and not these wild swings, but I can't and maybe it's fine that I can't. I wouldn't want my setbacks and fears to be my entire life, I'm glad I have things that make me happy and keep me fulfilled and busy to eat up the days I spend waiting for the other stuff to play out.
I know this is all very normal stuff, but I still feel like I'm doing something wrong when I mostly feel okay except for when I don't. I'll go happily about my business until the cold realization of my medical situation taps me on the shoulder and then just immediately feel sucked under by a deep hopelessness. To say nothing of the world. This is all just personal shit. If I think about the world at large there's just nothing to feel good about. I try to not dwell on it as much as I can, I'm working on feeling better and getting healthy and doing good and caring for the people within my sphere of things I can affect. It is humbling to be sick, humbling to have to ask for help, humbling for people to show up for you. And I did and do a lot of crying about it, out of shame and gratitude and fear and relief, but eventually you cry less and have to keep on doing something about it, and I try to live in a way that earns this.
Not because I think that's my obligation, I think people should get health care and not be in debt even if they suck, but because like ... I did almost die, I did have cancer at a remarkably young age and it might very well come back in the future, it is SO EASY to just do stuff and feel an existential angst about a future projected end date and then years go by. And I don't want to do that, I want to be more mindful about what I'm doing, find things that make me feel nourished, I want to grow and thrive as best I can even in bad times, because that's how I thumb my nose at this awful summer I had.
I didn't mean to get quite so live laugh love about things, but it really has been a weird few months, and I'm not really interested in fulling giving into the despair and fear I feel. I can feel them, and sometimes they're overpowering, but when I'm able to I'd rather focus on the other stuff. The fear is for stuff that's mostly out of my control, so what could I even do?
That's it. More hopefully in November, I'd like to get this big page update out soon but it might be so big I'll publish it in drafts and slowly work up to a completed page. Thanks for allowing me to be emotional and indulgent. If you find it insufferably positive, yeah, I get it, but also I hope you'll allow me this indulgence. You see, next Sunday is my birthday, so you have to be nice to the birthday bear.
