Mortality

     By the time we're eight or ten, most of us figure out that we are not immortal.  And, if we still think we're immortal, we've run smack into the realization that at least some others are not.  But, beyond that, we don't give it a whole lot of thought.  In fact, if we DO give it a whole lot of thought, we'll have been told not to be so morbid and to be happy.   So we toodle along, content in the notion that while death may indeed exist, it exists only for the old or those far away from us.  For the most part.

     There are a few words out there that can change that in an instance, a prime one being biopsy.  Biopsy, along with it's fellow traveler cancer, can bring mortality, personal mortality, into very clear and immediate focus.  There you were, toodling along with your life; working, playing, laughing, loving, wasting WAY too much time on the computer and WHAM you are pulled up short by a six letter word and all the baggage it carries with it.  No more, "don't worry, be happy" because worry has just taken up residence in your brain and whether that residence is permanent or not remains to be seen.

      And so it begins, the biopsy, the inconclusive results, the referrals, the scheduling of surgery, the pre-op check ups and the terror.  No matter how calm, cool, collected, even sanguine one thinks one is, there is a time around 2:45 in the morning when the terror is undeniable.  No one else may see it.  You may even try to convince yourself that it isn't there.  But it is.  And no one, not your mother, not your spouse, not your friend, not even the very nice surgeon that you just met, can say anything to make that go away.  Because while they hope for the best, and can quote statistics, and can assure you it will be fine; ultimately, they can't know that to be the fact until you've moved through the entire experience.

Of course, all of this takes time.  So you have a lot of time to think.  And think. And think.  You realize rather quickly that you are not where you'd always thought you'd be by whatever-this-point is in your life.  You then begin to wonder IF making plans for the future is some sort of magic you are invoking to get through the situation.  Or if, perhaps, you are just whistling past the graveyard and which graveyard is it going to be.   One sinks to the forbidden morbid regions rather quickly.

Before too long, you realize that even IF this isn't going to be whatever it is that will spell your demise, something will and that every day lived is a day closer to that day.  And you begin to wonder what that means for your life going forward.    Between blood tests and CAT scans and this and that, you have quite a bit of time for reflecting.  

And, if you're me, you wonder if any insights you garner through all of this reflecting will be carried through should the surgery and the pathology reports say that the end isn't coming in that particular way in this particular year.  

Mercifully, the pathology reports came back "negative for malignancy."  Now it's time to see how many of the insights remain and where they lead.

Technological Trip Ups

I’ll just come right out and admit it. I do not fully trust all the technological doo-dads that fill my life. I appreciate them, enjoy them and utilize them to the best of my ability, but I don’t really trust them.

I am old enough to remember when there were only 5 channels on the TV and to go from one to the next someone had to actually stand up, walk over to the set and turn the knob. Telephones were mounted on the wall or sat on a desk. Phone messages required a pen and paper. And if you weren’t at home, no one could contact you. Leftovers were reheated in the oven or on the top of the stove. Games had boards that you laid out on the table or the floor.

I’ve recently had a couple of technological trip ups that led me straight back to skepticism about the reliability of all our marvels. The first happened when I had forwarded a story that I had written to someone who had asked to read it. After a week had passed with no word and feeling a bit nervous that they had hated my story, I asked how they liked it. It never got there. Now, I know how to send e-mail just as well as anyone else, attachments included. But my story had just flown off into the ether somewhere, never to be seen again. I probably would have just written it off as weirdness in the Internet universe, but darned if it didn’t happen a few days later with a message to someone else. This made me doubt that other messages had reached their intended recipients.

The second event went unnoticed for almost two weeks. I had to replace my phone/answering machine the week after Christmas. The new one has so many bells and whistles that I was extremely careful in setting it up. However, I couldn’t help noticing that we had received absolutely no messages since it had been plugged in. Zero. Zip. Nada. So, brilliant girl that I am, I used my cell phone to call the house phone and leave a message. I hung up. The message light was flashing on the phone, but no message. After an hour of going through the not so thorough manual, I fiddled with how many rings before the message machine picks up. Apparently my new phone will record messages after four rings, but, if it is set for six rings, it tosses them into the great void.

Both of these incidents left me wondering if I had inadvertently snubbed someone, or several someones. There is absolutely no way for me to find out, but I wondered. I also got to thinking about how we’ve come to assume things about responses or lack of responses to all of our high tech communications. If there is no response to an e-mail, or a phone message, or a text message, what exactly does that imply? Does it imply anything? There seems to be a different expectation with the electronic messages than with more human based messages. Perhaps the more instantaneous messages make us lose our patience and expect instantaneous replies. And the silences between messages become uncomfortable more quickly than in the days when waiting was the usual expectation.

If there is no reply, does that mean the message wasn’t received? Or it was ignored? Or it landed in the spam folder? Or they don’t want to talk to you? The mind reels through the various possibilities and none of them are good. In the old days, we waited a “reasonable amount of time” before calling back or leaving a second message. But in our high-speed technologically enhanced world, what is a reasonable amount of time?

I’m already on record as being uncomfortable with the layers of technology intervening between humans. Even when communication happens, I feel like it is lacking. And when the technology acts up, it makes me even more uncomfortable. The only solution, I suppose, is to keep trying. But, just to make myself feel better, I think I’ll begin writing more letters. And, if you are expecting to hear from me and don’t, please try again.