I hope everyone realizes that I need the freedom to be real here. And in being real, some of the things I say are going to be upsetting. They're upsetting for me too, which is why I need to say them.

This is a roller coaster. Early this morning I felt pretty good, late morning was ROUGH. I'm pulling out of it now.

No one has asked me what the absolute worst part of all of this is. I don't fault anyone for that because it's probably a strange question, like when Barbara Walters asked Katharine Hepburn what kind of tree she was. None of us actually knows what to say, including me, and personally I think that if we collectively were okay with Baba Wawa occasionally biffing it in a planned and much-sought-after interview, we can all cut ourselves a little bit of slack for not knowing what to say when the person who has been vaguely threatening to crater for 15 years suddenly gets busy doing it.

The absolute worst part of dying is not the knowledge that you are dying. It's not the fear of death. It's not even the stunning realization that some of the things you've held most dear on your bucket list are likely now far beyond your reach, although that thought is certainly a gut punch each time it pops into your head, which it does multiple times per day.  

The absolute worst part of dying-- or more accurately, the worst part of sharing a body with a dying heart-- is that you actually FEEL like you're dying. There are moments when living inside of your own body feels so wrong and exhausting and awful that you find yourself simply making peace with your eventual death. Not because you're some kind of zen master or you're a super-enlightened person or you're especially brave... but because you realize it's going to happen whether or not you make peace with it and peace seems like the better route.

My body is telling me something here. And I'm listening to it.

And then, you feel better again. You stop sitting up and lie down for a while (sometimes I just feel better when my head isn't so high above my heart). Your partner brings his laptop over from the Fun House where he's been officing and sits near you and you don't even care that he's on a conference call because it's not as scary when he's close. He makes you some food to hopefully help your blood sugar situation. And he hugs you and you promise that you aren't done fighting.

I'm not done. If you know me in real life, you know I've never walked away from a fight. I have always claimed that my resilience and inner strength were my finest qualities and I don't expect they will fail me now.

But I'd be happy if this morning never, ever repeated itself. And I hope you don't mind that I told you this.

Also? I have no idea what kind of tree I am. So I've got that going for me.