Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Hmm...

Currently listening to: whatever, it's on shuffle. Currently feeling: weathered.

I feel tired today. It is now my seventh day of treatment. I can tell my strength is diminishing. I took a walk earlier around the halls. All I wanted to do was take pictures of the outside. Because it's beautiful here outside. The sky is pink, offset by purple hues of pollution and the last of the drifting, gray clouds. The clouds are feathered, wispy and ephemeral as they do their "I don't care about earth" thing. I want nothing more right now than to be able to go outside. To take pictures of outside. My nurse came in a minute ago and was like, "Hey, so I just want to make sure you know not to take pictures of people and their name-plates and stuff. Because there was some concern expressed about your camera." My response: "All I did was take pictures of what's outside. I'm not that stupid. But thanks." Because I'm not that stupid. Why the hell would I take someone's picture like that? I took a picture of my door. Whoop-dee-freaking-doo. Calm down folks, there aren't going to be any incriminating pictures up on the internet of the oncology ward. Although we all know how sketchy it gets here. Anyway. That upset me a lot. It also upset me as I was walking around and I realized that I'm really freaking tired. I noticed my balance was off when I was taking the pictures. Now, that could just be because this camera's much heavier than the one I'm used to, but it's also because my muscles are atrophying. I know they'll come back; it'll be one hell of a workout, but they'll come back. But it scares me right now. It's killing me that I'm not my usual self. This isn't a will-power thing. I have plenty of that. This is a, I hate myself for self-destructing to this level, thing. For not being able to eat everything I love. For not being able to hop on a train and wander around downtown Chicago by myself, walking along State Street with my camera and my confidence, smiling at cute boys who don't notice me and little girls with ribbons in their hair, holding their mother's hands as they look at the shop-display windows. No. Instead, I've been relegated to a floor of a hospital wing, a bedroom with a big window that the sun never shines through. That's what's hard about this. The drugs, the shots, the bone-marrow biopsies (of which I had another this morning), whatever, fine, I can take that. I can't take confinement. I can't take people thinking I'm some stupid girl with a camera who is going to go and invade all of their private lives with her lens and "click click." So that's what's on my mind. Happy Boxing Day.

1 comment:

Megan/Yuping said...

I'd say you were just a victim to a case of good ol' age-ism, the only "ism" that'll exist forever because those who are affected by it are inconvenienced long enough to get upset, but not long enough to get impassioned and do something about it.

I never learned HTML, but I made shitloads of websites when I was younger--there are a ton of programs that will let you cheat it. I was a fan of Frontpage, but I think the new "in" thing is DreamWeaver, but I have no idea. I'm going to let Justin field this one, since he does run an amazingly complex without reason website for some BU professor.