I had over 12,000 emails.
Again.
I think this emblematic of my enthusiasm and hope.
I have so much enthusiasm for new (and existing) interests and then hope I will follow through with them.
Only to ignore them for months on end.
Maybe to unsubscribe completely.
This has been your Daily Moment of Existentialism With Heidi.
This months marks the 10 year Anniversary of my Cervical Cancer diagnosis. Kind of a big deal. At the outset of it all they gave me a five year survival rate, with high probability of the cancer returning since it had spread to my lymph nodes. Still, it never did return. Not to say during the first year of my treatment that there weren't hella snags and bumps and plain old disasters. Even so, I'm here, 10 years later, for what I'm calling The Reunion of the Scrape. Today was my yearly pap smear and when I alerted my Gynecological Oncologist and his team of the particulars, they thought that was pretty damn funny. I am so lucky to have had The Hunstman Cancer Institute and their staff during all the original treatment and my follow up care. And just like before, today The Moms was there. Supporting me. Reminding me how loved I am. How grateful I am to BE HERE!
After the stirrups, scraping, and reminiscing were over, Mom and I went for a treat. Nothing too fancy, being with my Mom is fun enough of a celebration. I ran into Sprouts and picked us up some lunch. A turkey wrap for Mom and veggie sushi for me, that the sweet kind lady made fresh because I asked if they had any without avocado so she made some! We ate in the car and had a great time of people watching.
Not everyone gets to celebrate such milestones. They didn't get ten years, not even five. They don't get to make up silly crude names like Scrape-Aversay. Stephie didn't. So do me and Stephie a favor, go get your hoo-ha checked, your boobs squished, your testicles inspected and regularly get bloodwork done. The people that love you will thank you and you'll be thanking yourself.
Here's to ten more years.
The Moms and I were at Costco today (I KNOW RIGHT she's out of the house and doing stuff it's WILD 🎉💖) and of course we're the minority of the minority wearing our masks and she's in the awesome little motorized cart and I was just not having it with people being clueless derps not possessing any sort of spacial awareness. I kept telling Mom to just go, not wait. If we didn't crowd into spaces we would still be there. An elderly handicapped woman in another of the motorized carts was struggling to put products in her basket. How many people walked by without helping until I did? It took two minutes and it totally made her day. I usually love the spectacle of humans at Costco. I engage, I smile, I joke and interact. Not today. (Well, not totally.) I even had a teenager say about my super cool sparkly sequin mask "If you're gonna wear a mask just wear a regular one." I circled him like a twinkling vulture in the pastry aisle until his shoulders dropped to his navel and he shuffled away. Forget eye smiles, I have murder eyes.
And yet, there was the woman trying on a hoody, modeling it for her daughter. I voted two thumbs up. The sweet lady that smiled at me in the chip aisle and when I thanked her for it she thanked me for yes, my "eye smile." A man by the potatoes that told my Mom to "just run him over." The hippie in the tie dyed shirt that let my Mom go ahead in a crowded aisle that said "This place is mayhem!" There was the kind worker that helped with my old frames and their new lenses (I'm OFFICIALLY old now with progressives.) The sample girl handing out jerky that when I kindly followed up my no thanks with a "I'm vegan anyway" she giggled and said "I'm vegetarian!" We both laughed. Then as we were checking out, the checker told me how much she loved my mask and I overheard the other checker say "Working checkout is like directing traffic." My Mom and I laughed so hard.
I suppose, after allllll that, what I'm wanting to say is, help the little old ladies in the handicap carts. Be aware. My Mom seeing my impatience told me "I'm not special. I can wait." If you know my Mom you can hear it in her kind sweet voice. She is special. We are all special to someone. Let's start acting accordingly.
Talking with my Mom today about her old address book, I asked her not to throw it away. She asked, "do you want it?" I told her it was history. She is saving it in her bottom drawer for me.
She had been wanting a new address book for a while. So many people have moved, numbers changed. Family members have died. You know, life. So, I got us matching address books for Christmas. They are sweet, with delicate blue butterflies on the cover. Blue is her favorite color.
Now that she has updated her addresses and numbers, her sister and brothers aren't in there. She misses them every day. As we talked about all these changes I brought up how I still have Grandma Heugly's number on my phone, same with Sandy's cell. I started texting her when she moved to Arizona. But I don't have any of Stephie's numbers or even her address and this saddens and embarrasses me. I feel ashamed that someone I love so dearly, I have lost that physical earthly piece of them. I could drive you there. I have driven to her old house, just to see it. But I have no physical or digital record of it. Steph passed before smart phones and Facebook. We used to IM on AOL and send goofy emails, but they are gone. Lost in the ether with bouncing sheep and dancing babies.
Here's where my brain went after that conversation; so many of us are so digital now that each of our devices, our phones, our laptops, our tablets, they have become time capsules. They hold soooooo much of our lives, our memories that they need to be entrusted to someone if we aren't here anymore. I have designated a dear friend the keeper of my Facebook, why is there not a protocol for all our other devices? I mean, with my Mom and Dad they are mostly analog and gladly they are analog enough to have a notebook of all their passwords.
Now on to the likes of us, with the multitudes of social medias and passwords and SO MANY PICTURES IN THE CLOUD. These little posts we make every day, these Facebooks and Grams and Tik Toks, are the choice pieces of a life journal we are choosing to share. Some are light years more choice than others, and still, they are part of our whole. I think they are worth protecting. So start making a plan with someone to save them. It is history.
List Of Things I Have Done Today
Last night my junk/tool drawer became stuck. The hammer inside the drawer had become imperfectly perfectly wedged under the lip, blocking the drawer. I couldn't see into it. There was maaayyyyybe a quarter of an inch gap between the outside of the drawer and just under the countertop. I legit started to panic.
Me in the kitchen - "No no no no no no no no no."
Me still in the kitchen after using the pliers (the only tool OUTSIDE the junk/tool drawer) to disarticulate a small metal clip that I use on bags for dry goods thinking I could bend it over the lip and shove whatever was jamming up the works back in time - "Huh, who even knew I could... DAMMIT! Too short!"
Me sweating in my kitchen, stomach gurgling, full on internal dialogue of - "Is this an allegory or a metaphor about having tools? Irony? The tools are in the drawer that is needing tools to be opened."
Panic increasing, Cassandra Mode rearing to take over ( will I or won't I poop my pants?)
While trying to stop the images of hordes of germy maintenance men invading my living space and sledgehammering my countertop to get to my drawer, I went into my bathroom to search for something, anything that might fit the bill as a tool.
Flash to me brandishing my plastic drain snake. No joke, this was a gift from my Bosom Friend. It was never intended to unblock a Junk Drawer and yet, here I am, telling you of its powers. It was ideal for this job. I shoved that sucker up and over the lip of the drawer and once it found the edge of WHATEVER MALARKEY was going on inside there, it snaked the shit out of it.
I am not so secretly proud of myself for fixing this on my own.
I have the saying from Poltergeist (altered to fit my situation) playing in my head "This drawer, is clear."
Hot tip - get a plastic drain snake. They work on drains too.
