My life feels like some kind of Greek myth these days. The heroine has to undergo four trials, each with its own set of obstacles and dangers, and if she endures these trials then... something good happens. Or, more precisely in my case, something bad (hopefully) does not happen.
I realized tonight, as I was walking the dog back up the hill to the house, that the myth of Sisyphus is also applicable. Sisyphus: the guy who was condemned to pushing a huge rock up a hill, only to have it roll back down so he can push it up all over again. We all know him; he's the ultimate metaphor for making the bed every morning, washing the dishes, the 40 hour work week. We love him because he embodies futility itself.
I think that the Camus version of the myth is where I got the following theory, but I may have made it up. I've always maintained that the curse does not come on the uphill push, with the muscles straining and the rock threatening to crush. I've always maintained that the curse finds its true sweet spot when he's walking back downhill, in the consciousness that he is doomed to push the rock back up all over again. In other words, the doing is not the problem; the thinking about doing is.
In between my four trials I have regained my health, or something that feels really close to it. In between, I walk more and more, I start to bike, I feel better and better. Arguably, the third trial (chemotherapy) had five separate sub-trials, each one of which had the same cycle: down into the underworld with the infusion, five to seven days of feeling super crappy, and then two weeks of feeling better and better, until the weekend before the next infusion I felt like I was bursting with life and abundance of health.
Like Sisyphus, I also measure my well being in terms of hills. I live on a cul-de-sac at the top of a moderately steep hill. I can't really walk around the block, so I walk varying lengths of distance down the hill and then back up the hill. There's a cul-de-sac that branches off from my street that's only a few houses long, and I always dip into there because that's where there are the most squirrels and Sam really loves the squirrels.
On the bad days, I can make it down to Squirrel Alley and back. Barely. In the heat of the summer, I would have to sometimes pause and sit on a wall for a few moments to rest my laboring heart and catch my breath. On the bad days my legs felt leaden, filled with aches and heaviness, and I would trudge through the walk, head down, looking at my feet as I forced them to go one after the other until we were done.
I could always tell when I was feeling better because I would start going one driveway down past Squirrel Alley, cross the street, do the lap around the Squirrel Alley cul-de-sac, and then come back up the hill to the house. The next day I would go one more driveway down and then back up. Eventually I would make it all the way to the bottom of the hill, twice a day, and then back up... all without stopping except to let Sam sniff and do his biz.
Kind of like old Sis, huh? Down the hill, up the hill. Down the hill a little bit more... up the hill a little bit more. And I have to say that... in real terms... it really is worse coming back up the hill. Existential angst and consciousness notwithstanding, when the going is tough, it's the tough going that is the problem, and easing up is gratefully accepted.
But in the metaphorical sense, I have to say... I think there is more mental and emotional pain involved in the spaces between trials. As I get healthier I drink in the sensations of feeling good in huge greedy gulps, altogether aware that the feeling of vitality and strength I am currently enjoying is going to, once again, be taken away from me.
It's extraordinarily bittersweet, and as this marathon drags on into its seventh/eighth/ninth months, I am finding myself cracking a little bit beneath its ongoingness. Like, really? Give me a fucking break here. I just want to take my ability to walk down the hill and up the hill for granted again. I want to keep the feeling of my legs having muscles, and my heart having the strength to pump. I want to get stronger and stronger and stronger, and not have ceaseless pain in one part of me or another. I want to be able to move my arms without them hurting. I want my hair back. I want to have a morning where I don't have to decide how much like a cancer victim I want to look today.
Sisyphus. Up and down. I do think the moments of health are the most chaotic for me. When you're slogging up that hill, pushing that rock, well, there's not a lot else on your mind. It sucks, you know it sucks, and you just can't wait for it not to suck. It's very binary.
But the way down hill is infinitely more complex. It's mixed with relief and knowledge of the future and the sense of futility and gratitude, all at once. Do you curse your life because of what you've just been through and what you're about to go through again, or do you revel in the fact that the present moment is so very sweet? It's both and neither. And the emotions whipsaw between the two poles with chaotic randomness. One minute glorying in the aching beauty of the now, and the next minute cursing the gods. Weepy from the profound exhaustion of the whole ordeal.
And yet... and yet... I am still so grateful for the opportunity to feel it, and learn from it, and dig in oh so deep. Without fear or ambition, I am grateful for this moment. I don't know if something good will come from my undergoing these trials, or whether I will (hopefully) be graced by avoiding something bad. But I'm in this myth for a reason, and the only way I can understand it is by embracing it fully.
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