Bettie Bookish

Four years

Four years ago today, I spent a full day in bed. A hospital bed, getting scooped out and diagnosed with cancer. It was one of the more eventful days of my life.

Even still I am discovering the ways that that day has changed me.

One of the things that has become clear is the way cancer - and specifically surviving cancer - distorts your sense of self and sense of accomplishment.

"Hey, Bettie, You've just survived cancer! What are you going to do next?"

"I'm going to start a new career start a new family write a new book go back to college write a different book start a different career be a stay-at-home mom be a church secretary be a monk be a priest be a bishop no maybe write a book but not that book or the other one but a third one or move across country and have more kids and wait the life of an alpaca farmer seems pretty awesome maybe I would really love that and I could keep alpacas and learn to spin their fleece into yarn and learn to knit and travel to fiber shows or maybe I am going to be a social entrepreneur and start an art spa or get a degree in business or get a degree in nonprofit management or get a degree in communications or get a degree in creative writing and then get my MFA from an easy program or get my MFA from a hard program or get my MFA from a residential program that will mean moving again maybe there's a program in someplace like Nepal or Antarctica or Greenland or some other place that's even harder to live than here and I will blog about it every single day but first I should probably have a regular job so I can pay these oil bills and maybe that job will be my real calling and maybe I'll be really good at it then again maybe I'll be a teacher no wait maybe I'll start my own school no not just one school but a worldwide franchise of schools or maybe I'll write a book."

That's what's in my head every minute of every day, only without the nice spaces between the words. Instead of spaces, there is this incessant reply that groans and drones and lets me know with absolute certainty that no matter what I do it will never, ever be enough.

And that is why my Lenten vow was so utterly unrealistic.

I am so unbelievably happy to be here. I am so happy for all the ways my life has transformed. I am not scared anymore in the way I was before (eg: clinically, pathologically). If anything, I am clinically optimistic. Pathologically idealistic. I want to put on a show in the barn. No - I want to put on a thousand shows in a thousand barns. I want to put on every show in every barn.

No, seriously. Nothing else. Ever.

I may never do anything else

now that I have discovered Polyvore.

Oh my crap, it is delicious.

Check it.

At least I'm not the governor of N3w Y0rk

Because I once ordered a gift for someone, the Tiffany catalog comes to my house every so often to remind me that I will never ever own these. And I am 100 percent OK with that. On the other hand, I wouldn't mind owning these, which is also not going to happen. Whatever.

This morning, Bee was up early and apparently browsing the catalog. She picked out an eternity band with diamonds and pink sapphires, and she just could not understand my reticence to order it for her right away.

"It costs a lot of money, Bee."
"I don't like that. I just want it without giving any money."

You and nearly every adult in the United States, honey.

Permanent Snow Day

All of the students in the distance program I've been enrolled in the past two semesters got word this week (Spring Break week - ya - parteeeee) that the interim dean of special programs, who oversees this particular program, is recommending its closure. He assured us all that the school is committed to helping currently enrolled students finish their degrees either at the school or at another institution (Hello Phoenix University!). The students are rallying. Certain members of the faculty are rallying.

I have no idea what this will mean for me.

Do-Wa!

As I have mentioned before, Posey loves Dora with the intensity of a thousand suns. She would walk 500 miles to be the girl who walked 500 miles to fall down at Dora's door.  She says, "BAPPAK!!"

All morning, she has been asking to watch Mermay Kingdoh. That would be Mermaid Kingdom. We wanted also to look at the disc, which features a vision of Dora as a mermaid princess.

Posey smiled and tenderly placed her finger on the picture of Dora. "Das Do-Wa's cwown. Dat make me feel happy."

What must it feel like?

When I was 16-years old, I learned that not every person has allergies. I learned that many, many people breathe effortlessly through their noses almost every day of the year. Seriously, I had no idea. I thought everyone spent the first hour of every morning blowing their itchy noses and coughing.

Today, I think I had another, similar realization. Some people feel successful. Some people go to sleep feeling like they've done the best they could and are absolutely happy with that.

Just as I once realized that I experienced allergies that not everyone feels, all the time, like they could have and should have done more.

I also have never felt exactly like a failure - it's not that dramatic. I just have always felt like I didn't quite live up to potential. Like all those notes my third-grade teacher wrote on my report card were not just correct, but an eerie premonition.

I live under the constant, pressing, URGENT notion that I should be doing more, doing better, achieving something I'm not.

Is it just me?

Or is that Clue No. 1 that, hey, maybe you should be doing more? Maybe it's not neurotic self-doubt, but an actual, constructive self-realization that has lasted for 38 YEARS.

I've been thinking about this for days, and another realization came to me. During the year after my surgery and cancer diagnosis, that feeling was gone. It's as though I was so focused on getting better, I gave myself a short reprieve from the constant strain of being better.

MyBloPoLe, SchmyBloBoLe

Have I been observing my Lenten promise to post every day? No. Do I feel guilty about that, like it's one more area in life where I've failed? Yes. Am I the product of a Roman Catholic legacy? You tell me.