Not One for Meditating

Beyond the obvious physical toll cancer takes on my body, my mental health has also taken a beating the past few months (shocker.) My team of doctors is a seemingly never-ending list of wonderful people. Among them are some whose sole focus is checking in on my mental health. The first time I met one of these doctors, he asked me what I've been doing to keep myself busy.

"What do you do to escape?"

Here are some of the half-completed projects I told him about:

• Starting a blog.

• This weird weave thing. I'll be honest - I have no clue what this is. I don't know how to use it. There were no instructions and contradictory YouTube tutorials so I just kinda started going and haven't stopped. (Also, catch the stripe of blue paint on my couch in the background which somehow got there from my knee.)

• Painting. Much like the weird weave thing, I don't actually know how to use oil paints properly, or how to get the lighting right, or what supplies to use. But they're messy and fun.

(I have never been good at drawing eyes so I'm afraid to attempt them, but now he looks at me without seeing whenever I poke my head in this room.)

(Fun fact: I made the dots in the middle with a pencil eraser. As I said, no idea what real supplies are)

• Coloring. Thanks to everyone's care packages, I am now armed with soooo many adult coloring books.

• Cross stitching. Stabbing things is very cathartic

• Embroidering. I said, STABBING THINGS IS VERY CATHARTIC

• Going to shows. God, I am so relieved I can go to shows again. Shoutout Comedy Bang Bang, shoutout Rematch, shoutout Carloline Polachek, shoutout RuPaul's World Tour.

• Reading. After surgery I was forced to sit still and finally had the attention span to finish a few books. But I said "half-completed projects" so here is a stack of the ones I am only halfway through and reading simultaneously:

• Photography. Next time I get up to Michigan, expect another round of endless nature photos.

• Writing. In this blog, in a new journal with a llama riding a bicycle on the cover, on post-it notes on my mirror, in the notes app on my phone. One of those notes is for "Cancer jokes no one else thinks are funny yet", mostly because they were from early days where I was convinced I would die soon, and me-being-dead jokes seems to be the line I cannot cross until I'm officially cancer-free. Here's a peek:

The doctor waited til I was out of breath and he was sure I was finished before he said, "So... I'm guessing you're not one much for meditation?"

Um. Not really, no.