Five Years Later

So September of last year came and went.

She was so quiet about her business I didn't even notice as she passed by my window.  

Perhaps I was simply too busy with my life of perpetual forward motion.  Perhaps I was just oblivious.

Upon closer inspection this might be considered somewhat odd since September was the five year anniversary of my remission from lymphatic cancer.  Five years out and you are mostly considered "cured".  So some would think it strange that I should let such a momentous occasion slip by unremarked, even overlooked.

Because I didn't celebrate at all.  I didn't have a small gathering of my closest friends.  There was no sedate, reflective dinner party or a raucous all-nighter spent ingesting spirits with wilder acquaintances.  Nor did I venture forward on a camping trip, taking my girlfriend out for a chance to stare up into space, remarking on stars and time, pondering the World and our places in it, discussing deeply our future life together and the final definition of love.

There was none of that.

This is somewhat out of the norm because most people, many people who get to their five year mark go balls to the wall in some way, shape or method.  They buy themselves something outrageous, they go skydiving, they take an amazing trip or maybe they finally, blessedly just let themselves breathe for the first time in a long time.

Maybe I'm not built like that.  Or maybe the wait took it out of me.  

Because let's face it - five years is a long time to live in fear of death - 43,800 hours to be exact.  These are the months, years where you eke out a smile or two between cat scans and hope against hope you will be one of the lucky ones.  Five years is half a decade.  It is a long time to be robbed of real joy, to not be able to count on anything, to not feel able to make long-term plans.

I was told I had a 40% chance to live this long.  Imagine how that can keep you up at night, especially the first thousand hours.

So partying down hard-core just doesn't feel right to me.  Partially because I feel angry, like I was robbed of a tremendous amount of inner peace for a long time and also because I'm not sure my life is anymore important than anyone else's or even that a huge party would be a correct and proper way to reflect and honor what I've been through.  

In fact I'm sure it's not.  So what is it I can do to stamp this moment?

Plenty.  I start by celebrating it here, not with an artificial blowout surrounded by people special and not-so-special to me.  Here is where I reflect on what surviving the last five years has given me and I do it with words because when all else failed me, when my body turned traitorous, when nothing worked but my eyes and my mind, the only thing I could count on were words - prose and poetry, fiction and non-fiction.  

Language was my salvation then and so I use it now to exalt in all that has happened in the last 1,825 days, all I would not have experienced had I expired at 29 instead of the day sometime in the future when I will fall fast asleep and cease to awaken.

So let me share with you what I need to share.  Because these are the things I know and a man should always tell you what he knows.  Of that I am certain.

Because I know that even if I die tomorrow I fell in love again.  No one, no disease can ever take that from me. 

I  know that I can also celebrate the gains I've made as an artist.  For I am better now than I was then.  

That is all an artist can ask for.

I know that I have seen Australia, New Zealand, London, Paris, Ireland, the Middle East, Africa, Canada and almost every state in the union.

I know that I have learned to love and feel for others on a level I did not think possible.  Perhaps the greatest gift of this extra time has been being able to read a very special four year-old and two year-old girl the "Ferdinand the Bull" children's book at night as they fell into a deep slumber on my chest.

This was all truly grand.  Every minute, second and hour of it.

But don't get me wrong.  Life has not all been sunshine and roses.

These past five years have been extreme at times. Because life always is.

I've been lied to.  I've been told the truth.

I've made the right move.  I've fucked up beyond repair.

I've heard music that makes me want to live forever.

I've been so full of hate and pain I thought I would combust if I had to go on another second, another mile, another night.

I've seen places so beautiful even Wordsworth, Donne or Dylan Thomas wouldn't have been able to describe them if they'd had Will Shakespeare as a co-writer.

I have gone through hell, loneliness and sorrow, joy, elation and an undeniable closeness to something larger than this World all in the space of a 15 hour road trip alone in my car.

I have dedicated myself to learning as much about this planet and the people who have lived upon it with a vigor I never knew I possessed.  

Through it all I have been alive.

I desperately hope to continue as such.  

But that is all I will say about it for now.

Goodbye September.  Thank you for treading so lightly on my little existence.

I hope to welcome a hundred more of you.  But whatever number I get to see I yearn only that I can accept my fate with a dignity befitting the men and women who did not make it this far.  

Because I need to honor every day the people who did not get to join me here at five years out.

You were the brave ones.

So I will try to live my life in a manner befitting the days I have been blessed with.

It won't be easy.  Rather it is a nigh impossible task.  

Because how do you do it?  How do you possibly pay back the Universe for sparing you?  

How do you ever live fully and completely enough to make it all make sense?

I have no idea but for now I  know one more thing - I shall have the opportunity to try.