Tis the Fucking Season

Yeah, I know. I have things for which to be grateful. But excuse the fuck out of me if I cannot work up a decent set of humility and praise for the life I have been entitled to this year. I think the only gratitude I have is a deep one: Those of you who came and made my roof happen, those of you who donated and made it possible. At least there’s that.

Thanksgiving week is a bunch of pointless doctor appointments with people he will never use: His radiologist, when he can never again have radiation Monday, his surgeon, when he cannot have surgery Wednesday, and bloodwork Friday. Of course, each fucking appointment costs us an arm a leg and a left tit, even after our bullshit insurance; and not one of them can tell us a fucking thing until after the weekend, the following Monday when his Cat Scan occurs. Even then? They drag their heels for days before we get results. Its one big dragged out stressfuck of “will he live or die?” I cannot imagine my life without him. Its fast growing, of you remember, and his last appointment told him flat out – 25% or less chance. In the immediate. This year.

So, since Mike can’t eat, Jake only cares about the cranberry and pie, and I really don’t like Turkey much, (I’ll eat it, and I hear I make the best freaking bird around… but meh… its not my thing) why the fuck should I go through the whole brine-ing the night before, getting up at 5, making 2 kinds of dressing, seasoning, side dishes and baking fresh breads and pies? I can’t afford that shit anyway. I usually have a couple stray friends over, but I can’t afford that financially or emotionally either.

I guess I should be grateful for finding out who my real friends are, death is the great equalizer in more ways than one.  

I really am not looking for pity. Every single one of us has had a loss-year, a dire year, have or will.

My situation is not unique.

I just cannot be grateful.

Its not just Mike having cancer. Its living in a world where I cannot trust my own instincts about people. Its living in a world where most people are so fucking stupid they vote to cut their own throats so the rich get richer. Its living in a land where people shit in our nests with impunity, and tell us how inevitable it is. Its the world where white-cancer is insidious as real cancer.

Its finding out one friend has to be paid to help you, then 2 weeks later, asks you in the middle of all this if they can move in with you. Its finding out another friend cannot take maybe 60 minutes or less out of his week to pick up a little slack while you are buried in so many levels of hell you cannot breathe. Its finding who will not call you, because your messy life might just bogart their self-absorbed happy. Who will never really ask how you are.

I can’t even find a reason to thank whatever version of spirituality I once held. If there is a God, I’m pissed. Cholera? Really? Fuck you very much. Sure sunsets are pretty, and we have this cool kid, but that is all math and science, and both are being poisoned by evil beings exploiting us. Why the fuck can’t you wave your magic god-dong and make us a little more perceptive, a tiny fucking bit EMPATHETIC to one another? Or for science, why the fuck is evolution not working?

Its knowing damn well my future is damned, financially and emotionally.

Sure, I look forward… but I also look back. I have the introspection so many who never look back do not. In fact, I think the very inability to question oneself is vastly vacant in humanity – and is the cause of all suffering. If you are certain of your correctness? Even if you happen to be right on occasion, you are dead wrong.

I realize I am in many ways responsible for my present life, not the random shit, not the inevitable illness that takes every life, but where I am in general, who I’ve chosen to trust, my own feelings that result from choosing badly.

But where is that in Americana as a whole?

They are too busy giving thanks perhaps. Maybe I’m just bitter this evening. Maybe my ass. I am.

But if we spent more time thinking about one another? Haiti would never have come to be the disaster it was, our borders wouldn’t be all drug wars, no one would be tortured, no one would be drone-bombed, and friends would care about you.

I could always give Thanksgiving a pass as a harvest celebration… but this year I didn’t even have time for a garden. Its really celebration lent of help from a people we genocided anyway.

I’m trying to find the light.

I know I have a few, very few and becoming fewer people to whom I entirely trust my heart. There are things in which I am very blessed.

But right now?

Its going to be a couple hell weeks. Watching my man suffer, perhaps die within months, and my child have to go through what no little boy should.

And seeing my circle for what they are, not what I wished them to be. Kind. Giving. Everything I would be to them. Some are, but very few.

I’m very alone now.

I’ll fucking survive. Always do. Survived childhood abuse, the dissolving of my family, rape, homelessness, being paralyzed, whatever.

I’ll live.

But I really don’t fucking feel like giving thanks for it.