Over the last few days I’ve been going through every single blog post since April of 2008 in order to build an index of my cancer blogging. As of last night, that would be 768 posts out of about 4,000. The raw index (ie, not yet curated by me) can be seen here.
It’s been quite a journey. Reliving the original presentation and the multiple metastases, including the erroneously diagnosed steatosis. The fear, the grief, the pain. Watching the rise and fall of my relationship with calendula_witch
Not a wayback machine I really needed to climb into.
But this is important. It’s important to have a summary index of key posts so that people new to the blog can get a handle on the cancer blogging if that’s what they’re here for. It’s important to have a listing of the posts so I can begin teasing out a coherent book about it, whether that’s part of the Antarctica project or its own, freestanding effort. It’s important to put some structure on the experience. Because my philosophy from the beginning has been that this is so damned terrible, so damned hard, that I may as well harvest something of value from the experience.
But this review of the past three and half years has been tough. It’s eaten a lot of my time and brainspace, and left me a little more emotionally and mentally numb than I am already wont to be.
The past isn’t such great territory for me these days. Neither is the future. Good thing I can live in the now at least part of the time. Because right now, only the now seems the least bit tenable.
Originally published at jlake.com. You can comment here or there.