Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain

Welcome to a mid-non-chemo-having-not-in-the-hospital-nothing-really-wrong-physically-week edition of my blog.

Today was the closest I've felt to "normal" in quite a long time. Surely I've had good weeks, even great weeks such as my recent vacation down at the Outer Banks, but today was almost back to the pre-cancer Billy. I was having trouble sleeping this week as I await the results of my recent PET scan, so last night I doubled up on the meds and took some ambien along with the normal dose of Tylenol PM, and I slept like the proverbial log. Since I got a good night's sleep, I was able to wake up early and get to work at a normal time. I also took the train to work. This is not the way it's been for the last couple of years. Usually I sleep a little later and drive into the office. But, back to my normal commute, I felt a little bit more like myself. I spent a full day in the office, another rarity these days, and then joined some friends after work for a birthday celebration. Back to my old self....sort of.

I noticed something tonight, something different about me. I've written before about the solitary nature of having cancer; about how it's a very personal situation. For the most part, this part of it has been fine with me, I'm a rather solitary person. I loved living by myself, and now that I have a roommate I often enjoy the idea that Vinny is never home, it's like living by myself. But there has been a change that in retrospect, started when I first got sick. I'm not so happy being alone anymore. All day I looked forward to being out with people, and when I was, I didn't want to leave. I didn't want to be alone. Taking a strong honest look at the situation, it seems that now, when I'm healthy enough to be active, I have an almost compulsion to be around other people. It's strange, this is not me, it's a little scary. I'm not afraid of being alone, at least I never was, and I am not overwhelmingly sad when I am alone, but still...there is something going on. I didn't want to leave my friends tonight. I even called and texted a few other friends. I felt something, I don't know what it was, but it was heavy, as I walked to the train station alone. I listened to some melancholy songs on the way home. And when I got off the train I called Dave because I knew that he would still be up. I called just to hear his voice. I called just so that I wasn't alone walking from the train station to my apartment. The phone call didn't last all that long, and I know that if Dave is reading this he's going to tell me "why didn't you just say that you wanted to talk? I would have stayed on the line with you." but Dave, don't worry. I'm just venting here.

I'm a strong person, and as you can tell from the things I've written before, I depend a lot on myself. It's not that I don't depend on other people, it's more that I don't feel like it's anyone else's responsibility to take care of me. My parents raised me well, and I am a man, so I should be able to take care of myself. I can remember the first time I was in the hospital. I was there for three months. It was great that during the day I had people around, lots of visitors. But, at the end of the day, when the sun was no longer streaming through my window, and the floor was quiet, I was alone, all alone. It was just me and the trauma that put me there. Those nights hurt. I've never told anyone this. I would get pretty freaked out looking around the empty, dark room, knowing that I had to get out, and I was really the only one that was going to make that happen.

In case I didn't mention this before, I'm a little drunk. I offer that as some excuse for the disjointed and probably incomprehensible thoughts I've presented here. I think what I'm trying to say is that there is a new part of me, a part that I'm not all that crazy about, that feels a need to be around people, and I'm having a lot of trouble dealing with it. It's not easy to say to someone "hey, can you come hang out with me? not do anything mind you, just be there, be a presence." I can't figure out why this should surface now, why cancer has brought this on me, but I'll figure it out.