At Home When I'm Homeless

Day 23 - Reflections

I found out today a very close friend has cancer.  My gut reaction to an email he sent me this past weekend saying “lots going on, some good, some bad” was initially: “Maybe he finally got that cancer he’s been manifesting his whole life.”

I don’t know why this was my reaction.  It’s a fucked up response to have.  Especially because I am not one of those people who believe that you magically bring a disease upon yourself.  But it was definitely why I avoided calling him until today.  I knew.  I’m not sure how I knew, perhaps just an intuition.  I’m not really even sure how to feel right now.  But I feel weird.  I just feel weird today in general.  In fact, come to think of it, not a day of my life has gone by when I didn’t on some level, feel weird. 

My friend said the phone call from the doctor "changed his life".  I’m sure it did.  That it’s one he "never expected to receive".  It never is.  Now he’s become “a part of the herd of lost souls haunting the oncology department.”  I think with an attitude like that, it’s going to be hard to stay positive—but hey—as a writer I can appreciate the dark imagery.

Our phone conversation struck me more than anything has in a while due to its extraordinary grounding effect.  I've been here, there and everywhere for the past month, observing my life from the clouds, like some out-of-body experience.  His diagnosis brought me squarely back into my breath (and my hypochondria--is that nipple discoloration normal...?).

Narcissistic tendencies aside, back to my point: someone close to me is facing his mortality.  It’s not some bullshit about the premiere of Two Men and a Cup (or whatever the fuck it's called), or our retarded political system or a question about what I’m doing (I promise you it's pointless); nor is it a fucking waste of breath about fashion or celebrity or some shallow, pop-culture fix we’re all addicted to—it’s a conversation about the meaning of life.  

Truthfully, these are really the only conversations that have ever interested me & it’s put me at odds with most of my generation—because most of them could give two shits about the meaning of anything, let alone life.  I don’t really know what they care about, other than money, popularity, Twitter and a bunch of other trivial bullshit I’ve never been good at pretending to care about.

Now that I look back on it—I’ve always had a very hard time relating to my peers.  Writing books about the cycle of life when you’re six usually puts you at odds with the girls drawing rainbows and in with the nose-picking weirdos.  When I was a teen, my family used to chastise me for being “too deep”.  It was true.  I thought too much about philosophy, questioned the nature of reality too often and never really bought into all of the societal agreements everyone around me seemed to buy into hook, line and sinker.

I was not a normal young female.  I didn't want what other girls wanted.  I hate clothes with every fiber of my being.  I used to cry the whole time my mom would take us Back To School shopping.  I'm not exaggerating.  I'd literally cry.  My sisters still make fun of me.  Malls, consumerism, fluorescent lights and shoe shopping in particular made me want to crawl out of my skin and scream. 

I never had dreams of walking down the aisle in a white dress, my husband shedding a proud, single tear as I slowly approach.   I never had a desire to belong to a sorority.  I don’t have a large group of college friends and therefore (thank GOD), lots of weddings and baby showers to attend.  I fucking hate Sex In The City with the passion of 10,000 burning suns.  I still don't even own a hair dryer.

Moving around a lot and constantly tormented by legions of evil school children everywhere gave me a fantastic perspective into the true nature of humanity.  It also gave me a birds-eye-view of pecking orders, social niceties, social ladders and socialites.

Because of this early training, call me crazy, but I have never really felt like belonging to any sort of system or clique.  I feel imprisoned by the structure of marriage.  My soul feels like a withered, desperate, yellow-eyed plant in Ursula's garden when working any sort of 9-5.  School felt like jail.  College felt like jail I was paying for.  The idea becoming a “proud home owner” makes me feel like a sailor dropping anchor in the middle of the vast possibility of an endless sea of opportunity.  

That’s where drugs and alcohol come in to fill the void.  They definitely dull the sick feeling that our whole entire society is careening out of control down the wrong path.  The feeling of helplessness in the face of unstoppable consumption.  The feeling that no one cares about the fact that all of our priorities in life are completely misplaced and we're FUCKED. 

Well, guess what, I'm off drugs now.  And booze. 

So.  Here I am.  Where I am most comfortable--most at home when I’m homeless.  Floating outside all of it, taking it all in.  The not-so-silent-observer.  The happy outcast.  Self-banished to a permanent surreality.  A place where, in the face of my face off with the inevitable, only two things plague me: how the fuck do I get as much writing done as possible and how do I drink in and experience as much as this Blue Planet has to offer in whatever minimal time I have left? 

Once again, I’ve left the daily, regular routine, the illusion of stability most of society finds comfort in--until they receive that life-changing phone call that suddenly puts it all in perspective.  The traffic.  The rat race.  The silly worries.  The incessant complaining about long lines or crappy service.  The absurd amount of time we waste on meaningless decisions like detergent, deodorant and cereal.  Once again, I find myself observing it with the bemused perspective of an alien observing another species. 

Or perhaps, as I realized today, with the same perspective of the guy who just found out he has cancer.   And in that weird, backwards Phetastical, God-is-laughing-at-us way, I guess that’s not such a bad place to be after all.