Back in May, when I started writing what I hope will someday be a book, the memoir of my Babies or Not journey, I thrilled at the mounting page count like an excited child tallying her age in quarter-year increments. But now, as the total creeps up toward four hundred pages on a first draft manuscript I thought would be finished a hundred pages ago, I'm facing demons bigger than the number of candles on my middle-aged birthday cake.
The bottom line is, I feel like I'm blathering on and on, and the story isn't over yet.
Believe it or not, I've never been good at telling my story from start to finish without worrying that my audience, real or imagined, isn't getting bored and fed up.
No wonder I have files full of half-finished books.
But I'm pushing forward with this one and I'll keep at it until I find the tail of this beast.
And then I'll tame it.
Or maybe I'll ride it, wild, into the sunset.
Or maybe I'll simply edit out all the silly metaphors.
In the meantime, I'm way behind on the videos, and even more behind posting them to the blog. There's another after this on the youtube channel. I'll post it here soon...er or later.
Medical drama and family fun in this one. More videos here.
Last Friday, on a whim, I packed up and took myself for a day at the Rhode Island shore. It was just what I needed, both a reminder that my beloved ocean isn't so terribly far from home, and an affirmation that there is pleasure in my own company (how nice to not have to hurry from the car to the beach, for instance, because taking my time gathering my things was holding someone up).
I'm a bit behind on posting videos, but cranking along with writing. My manuscript is now over three hundred pages. I feel the weight of all those words. It's harder to write lately, perhaps because I'm just coming to the crux of the story.
It is my hope that I'll be able to get to the end of this draft by the end of the first week of September. And then I'll return to the beach for a couple of days, this time with Jim. Because I like his company too.
(From this spring. Uploaded the sequel to this one today. More of my videos here.)
I'm closing in on page three hundred of the first draft of what I hope one day will be the Babies or Not book. Once I'm finished—I figure I've got fifty or so more pages to write—I'll print the whole thing out and sit with it some place comfortable. In the warm sun I hope, maybe in a meadow or perhaps on a beach if I can finagle that, or else on the couch or sitting up in bed. In any case, I'll have a good red pen and some snacks and a notepad at my side.
I imagine I'll have some new writing to incorporate into the second draft, and a lot of older writing to strip away or wrangle into something more tightly honed. Eventually, I'll have a completed manuscript, the story of my journey through the reproductive years, which turned out very differently than I ever expected it would.
Early on in writing this, I began to imagine pitching the book to an agent or an editor, saying, "It's the story of an infertile abortion counselor's urgent but ambivalent desire to have children."
This imaginary conversation spawned a worry. What would I say if the editor or agent asks, "How does it end?" At first I drew a blank. So I asked myself, How does it end?
The answer came without a moment's hesitation. It's not exactly a fairy tale, but it's close enough for me:
"She gets cancer and lives happily ever after."
I hope the world wants this book, but if not, I'll be okay. I'll live my way into the next story.
With all the digestive difficulties I had before I understood that by staying away from gluten and dairy products all would be fine—I have been dreading colonoscopies for a long time. Sorry to be so blunt here but there's little that feels quite so scary and vulnerable as turning over control of what comes out of and goes into that particular orifice.
Thanks to my history of breast cancer, I'm told I'm at increased risk for colon cancer. My oncologist told me to get a colonoscopy now. Don't wait, like most people, until I'm fifty. I put it off for an entire year. But now, forgive the pun, my first colonoscopy is behind me. I did it without anesthesia. And for me anyway, it was no big deal. One less thing to be afraid of in life. Actually, make that two. I don't have colon cancer.
I did this video a while back, but have been busy working on my book (I'm about 185 pages into the first draft now) so it took a while to put together its sequel. That one is uploading today. You will be able to see it here soon.
I'm in the process of loading my latest video to YouTube, number #150!
But I haven't yet shared with you #149!
So here it is!
More of my videos here.
I haven't spoken up about this yet, here or otherwise. I wanted you to be the first to know: I'm finally writing the book, the Babies or Not memoir which this blog was originally intended to foster, all about working as an abortion counselor while struggling with infertility and the story that brought me to that place in my life and then beyond that place. It's about how "Babies or not?" the question became "Babies or not..." the resolution to live a full, brave, brazen life, regardless of cancer and marital upheaval and how parenting fits (or doesn't fit) into the picture.
I write every day, have been for a month or two now. I'm about seventy pages in and going strong. (I'm aiming for around 250 pages for the finished manuscript), and it feels like the most important, right work I've done. I look forward to sharing more with you about this - but for now - back to work!
The latest vlog: Prosthetic Breast Show & Tell, Cancer Q & A. More of my videos here.
Every six months Dr. Z, the specialist who did my mastectomy, examines my remaining breast and the chest wall on the other side. It's not uncommon for breast cancer to grow back in the scar or just underneath it, but so far, thankfully, this has not happened to me.
Last week was my fifth follow-up with her to date, and I'm struck by how much less I worry. The rocky road of breast cancer has become much less rocky these days — knock wood.
It was Dr. Z who sat with Jim and I for two and a half hours explaining my diagnosis. She was a stranger to me then, a stranger who had the daunting task of impressing upon me that I required some major, life-altering and risky treatment, despite the fact that I felt just fine. Despite the fact that I didn't automatically believe she had all the answers.
I remember the tension in the room in that long first visit, and the suspicion I felt that the tension was not Jim's and mine alone, though she responded candidly, patiently, and respectfully to my ten thousand questions, reassuring me that she would give me all the time I needed.
It struck me then that this job can't be made any easier by the fact that she has to do it regularly. Perhaps there was an emotional burden for her. So I asked about this too, my ten-thousand-and-first question.
Too often, she admitted, a scared woman diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer and a good prognosis will simply walk away. In these cases, Dr. Z can only hope that the patient will go on to find quality care elsewhere. But sometimes she'll return at a later date, having risked it all on some unproven alternative therapy, or having done nothing but curl up inside herself in fear. Now the cancer has grown, sometimes right through her skin. She's stage four. What could have been a bump in the road has become the end of the road. "It's heartbreaking."
Last week, after completing the exam, my doctor confessed that she had worried, in the beginning, that I might join the ranks of these women. "But you trusted me," she said, her voice breaking just a little, her eyes moist. "You were very brave. And I want you to know, it really means a lot to me."
I like this doctor a lot. Jim likes her. My brother David, who came along to one of my appointments in the early days, likes her so much he named his cat after her. Dr. Z thinks this is a cute thing my brother did, that it has everything to do with how much he loves me and not much to do with how impressed he'd been by her.
That's what she does, this doctor of mine. She deflects compliments. But on my blog, I get the last word and I intend to use it. Because if it wasn't for the trust she extended to me, in all her patience and openness and devotion, my rocky road of breast cancer could have been a whole lot rockier.
After two years of procrastination, I finally get fitted for a prosthetic breast. More of my videos here.
I started this blog in hopes that someday I'd wrangle a book out of all my experiences around the question of pregnancy (at the time I was working as an abortion counselor, facing my own infertility.)
Since before I could properly hold a pencil, I knew I wanted to grow up to become a writer and an an artist, that I wanted to make books. I've made swipes at it for years. I have several more-finished-than-not manuscripts and book proposals tucked away. And the few times I've put myself out there, I have had some encouraging small successes.
This is not the first time I've bent myself to the task of being a writer, but this time, I can tell, it's different. I'm not sure I can put my finger on what has shifted. Maybe it's because of the cancer, which doesn't let me forget that life is a precious and fleeting thing. Maybe it's because I have reached critical mass to counteract the inner doubt machine - finally enough people in my life who consistently express interest in what I have to say. (How do you work through the hard parts of expressing yourself when you don't believe anyone will ever be interested in your vision?)
So if I'm not writing on the blog so much as I once did, and not making so many videos either, I hope you'll understand. I'm busy taking it to the next level.
