THE END

“…and they lived happily ever after.
The end”

This is the classic wrap up and the end of a child’s story. So satisfying, so calming. It lets everybody know that the world and everyone in it is safe.

Very soon we grow up and know that ending is way more complicated. The ever after has a lot of wrinkles and surprises.

I’m at THE END of my cancer journey. I beat breast cancer, then thyroid cancer
TWICE

Am I at the end? I don’t know. A lot of people stay attached to the worry of it, carrying around a burden about whether it makes a comeback.

I’m reminded of Mr. Incredible saying “Sometimes I just want [the world] to stay saved! You know, just for a little bit?”

I made the intentional choice NOT to hoist that worry burden. However, a negative leaves a vacuum. If I don’t worry, what will I do instead?

I first wanted to hide during the time of weakness, and then I went very public. I was scary to be public and show my changing visage while I went through it.

People ask “How are you doing?”

I can say with justification, “I’m done now.”

And all those within hearing can feel the calming warmth of that “happily ever after” we’ve learned to expect. Still as grownups we see the shadows at the end of the firelight.

I’m a writer and an artist. How do I creatively express this story I’m in? It’s mine to tell. Real life gave the gift of an ending. A conclusion, for whatever that means in the long years of my life. If Joseph Campbell’s hero has a thousand faces, this hero has faced a thousand epic adventures.

I get to craft how to tell it. I think for the moment, I’ll side with Mr. Incredible and let my world stay saved for a little. I look forward to another day when I get to tell more of this story

I finally called my friend—I hadn’t called her at all this year. It was high time to catch up. I was telling her about the work I’m doing at the new job.

There is this document for the inspectors. Every 5 years, the inspector come and inspect. They last inspected 5 years ago. After the last inspection, the inspectors gave us a list of things that should be improved and corrected.

I was not there 5 years ago. Since I am here now, I can read the report and help the team verify whether any of the items still need to be done.

It’s a very common task for a project manager.

There are records that some of it got done quickly after the inspection, and that some things they asked for more time.

I took on the task to review and confirm which was what and help the team to do as much of the work left as they could.

As I explained to one of the engineers,

There is the doing of the thing

Then there is the documentation of the doing of the thing.

They are separate and different.

We’d been concentrating on the doing of the thing. Until now, when the time has come to catch up with the documentation of the doing.

The engineer said, “the doing of the thing—that’s the most important part!”

It might be. If the point is to keep the system working, it certainly is important. I smiled, “There is another possibility. A person could be tempted to skip the doing the thing, and create a documentation of the doing of the thing that doesn’t include any doing. A person could document that they have a plan to do the thing which skips over any doing.

It can feel so much like doing a thing: writing out a plan to do that thing. Or even a plan to create a plan to do the thing.

It’s hard to do things. And that’s the part I like.

I am finishing a physical book this week, The Witch’s Heart by Genevieve Gornichec. I’m crawling through the last bit of treatments, and I’m trying to read physical books like a person with stamina and strength.
I don’t have much strength, but I will have the stamina to get through these treatments.
The witch heroine of the book is the mythological norse witch that foresaw ragnarok, drawing the painful attention of Odin.
Ragnarok, the twilight of the gods and the end of the nine worlds—she saw it and Odin desperately wanted what she knew.
Odin wanted to control it. And the witch knew fates were not to be bargained with. What would they have done differently.
I am in the twilight of the last cancer treatment, the 2nd dose of treatment for my thyroid cancer. Because I KNOW I am near done I have the room to contemplate. In the storm of the next hard thing and the next I allowed myself no room for what-if or if-only
My ragnarok. That diagnosis and all that came after was fated, right?Odin tortured that witch future seer to find out and control it. The witch also tried to wiggle through the uncertainties
The gaps in fate
To save what she loved most

I look around, thinking what other paths were not taken. What if I had made the inevitable choice, but earlier? Would I have avoided pain?

With the extreme treatments and surgeries ending on March 28, I feel like I am walking out of a crowded fate and into freedom

Odin, king of the gods of Asgard, was jealous to get as much of that freedom as he could. HE lost an eye for it.

Like a memory of a distant sound, I can hear a time when I called that kind of freedom “Tuesday”

It was that ordinary.

What will I do now, without being squeezed between medical tortures? How long will I remember to cherish how good ordinary feels?

I don’t want to squander it.

I’ve spent most of my career in IT, as corporate as it gets. Today, I am in a job for a city government which is very different.

I’m living the life of to a city mouse.

As the men come in and out of our ground floor work area in their high visibility vests, doors can be left open for convenience. Real work has to get done, and our customers—the Residents—call to tell us about water leaks and felled tree branches.

We are not virtual. We are close to the earth.

This week, I was wrapping up my work in preparation to leave for the day when by cube neighbor asked “Did you see the black widow?”

I slowly turned to him—confused and with growing horror.

He nods at me, “Yes, it’s spider season and there are probably a lot of them around.”

Oh, that’s reassuring. “I thought you meant one in this building.”

He smiled, with male delight at my horror. “I did. I’ve been watching it to see where it will go.”

“Why would you watch it? It should be killed! What are you waiting for?!”

“I agree, I definitely want it killed.”

I’m out of my seat now. “Do you know where it is?”

He’s gotten out of his chair too, now that I’m activated. “It’s right there,” he says, pointing to the corner of the room.

“IT’s HERE!? Are you sure it’s a black widow? Show me.”

He cannot hide his glee at my alarm, and he takes me the 20 steps to the exterior door where a fat-bottomed horror hangs between some unused cube shelves in a little alcove.

“See? He’s very happy there, no reason to move. But if he’s gotta be killed, I want to make sure he’s dead.”

Spider was cleverly not in a squishable position.

“She. All black widows are female.”

“Oh, right.”

“She looks like she’s about pop into hundreds of baby poison spiders.”

He chuckles. “I guess I should put in a request in a work request to have the exterminator handle it.”

I’m looking around for some spider killing spray, but nothing is nearby.

“Or I could ask Eduardo..”

I grabbed my stuff and got out of there. I forgot about the spider until halfway through the next day.

I knew what he meant about Eduardo. This guy liked insects, and had a pet scorpion in a cage about the size of a shoebox. Everyone knew this about Eduardo because the scorpion cage came to work almost every day, spending time in different offices. He had trick of glowing in the dark, so people would sometimes turn off the light and admire the him by flashing a special flashlight on him that made him glow even brighter.

It wasn’t until I saw Eduardo in the coffee area that I remembered the Widow.

“Good morning!” I said with a big smile. “How’s you pet?”

He gave me a dark look, “Which one?”

Oops. Had I stepped in something? “Your scorpion..”

“Oh, the scorpion. He’s fine.”

“Is there more to the story?”

“My centipede hasn’t been doing so well.”

Curiouser and Curiouser. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“He’s not with us anymore.”

“oh no. Did anybody talk to you about the Spider?”

Eduardo bobbed his head up. “Oh yeah. I said I didn’t want to get involved with that mess”

We both separated with our coffee and I wondered about Eduardo’s definition of a mess when it came to insects. It was clear why my co-worker thought of him as a place to home the spider.

I went over to the spider’s lair and found an empty web.

This increases my concern.

Now I am worried about multiple baby spiders crawling out of unexpected crevices.

I suspect this won’t be the last unexpected surprise in my life as a city mouse.