Funnel

     Several things give me the sensation lately that the world is shrinking -- my world is shrinking. The election first. The closer we get, the narrower my reading becomes; in the last couple of weeks, I've found myself sticking close by and constantly refreshing WashPo, NYT, HuffPo, Politico, Wonkette. My fingers type the URLs almost automatically. I have no use for other news, never mind other outlets. I have fallen off my habitual grazing of writing sites in favor of all politics, all the time. I'm a junkie who can stand ever less time between hits. 

     Second is writing. The novel is stalled. Anxieties burst forth in short poems. Nothing is lyrical anymore -- everything I write is pistol fire. Time seems short.

     Third is this fucking illness. Less time between hydrocodone; whereas a few weeks ago I could count on several hours at least of feeling OK, these days I'm hurting within an hour of getting out of bed. When I eat, it no longer surprises me that I feel like shit immediately after. One of the chemo nurses told me to blame the medicine, not the disease, but it's hard when I feel progressively worse. 

     Socially I'm caving in on myself. One of the hardest parts of being sick (and being treated with poisons) is that it becomes increasingly difficult to plan ahead. I've been invited to a birthday tea for a close friend this Sunday, but I know I'll be feeling like hell by 3:00. Should I accept the invitation and hope for the best? My inclination is to let everyone off the hook and send regrets. 

     A's birthday party was a low point last Sunday. I'd had chemo two days earlier, and was in full-throttle freakout (steroids? anti-nausea meds?) by the time the guests arrived, a blathering snotty mess. The prospect of functioning -- i.e. acting like a real grownup person -- in the thick of a dozen kids and their parents was just overwhelming. I was so afraid of pulling attention away from A and having the highbeams on me, I didn't make it downstairs until the tail end, hence disappointing the most important person in my life on the most important day in hers. Fucking awful. 

     I was very, very sick in 2007. Gather-the-family kind of sick. And I recall the perverse urge to pull away from A. I don't remember much about that spring, but I do remember thinking that she was going to have to get used to me not being there, that she and M were going to have to learn to do things without me. It must seem crazy -- it has seemed nuts to me, until recently. Now, though, I'm getting to the point where the logic doesn't seem quite so twisted. I understand the impulse, even as I reject it. That scares me.

     So. Shrinking, funneling, retreating. Illness is isolating. Cancer is a whirlpool.