Something Bigger, Something Better

On the list of great things that I read about today: "A vaccine that can train cancer patients' own bodies to seek out and destroy tumor cells has been developed by scientists."

On the list of not-so-great things I was told on the phone today: My family went to a festival today in celebration of Easter, and as my mother was trying to take a photo of my sister in front of a mural, she tripped over a low cement wall and hit her head on a palm tree. She had to go to the ER to get her ear glued to her head. On the plus side, my mom was laughing and my father sent me a picture as confirmation. I keep getting this bizarre mixture of beautiful and dreadful news from my family. Like a reminder of the lovely tossed salad that is life.

Or whatever. That metaphor makes a ton of sense in my sushi-and-Starbucks-stupefied brain.

I'm sitting in a chair in Starbucks trying to write an essay on feminism and my identity as a female while listening to Amanda Blank and Rosi Golan, which is another really odd combination. Today is about contrast, I guess.

Lately it's hard to make anything I write sound elegant and cohesive. I feel like my every step recently is more like the step of a fawn learning to walk than the step of anything more graceful, with grace being the ultimate goal, here. We all want to live life beautifully like the subjects of a painting or the characters in a book, right?

But (obviously) life isn't a painting or a book and sometimes, we have to get over it. Even if it's hard, even if we have to go to counseling (at some point--I may or may not have slept through my first appointment and have an apology e-mail sitting on my mental to-do list) and drink too much coffee and cry four times in one day.

It's taking a lot of convincing, but I'm coming around to believing that these things are okay. That coping is just as acceptable as breezing through--and it's extremely rare that anyone breezes through.

Time lapse: I'm obviously no longer sitting in a chair at Starbucks, 'cause it's 1:02 AM. I never finish my blog posts when I mean to; things always come up. I'm doing my laundry: sheets and a bright load. I'm at the halfway point and it's nice. I love having clean sheets and more outfit options. I've also done my dishes, and as soon as I'm finished with this laundry I'm gonna vacuum. I think this essay is going to be really nice once it's cleaned up, and I've gone through some e-mails and sent out at least one of the few I need to send, and I've figured out a way to get some more service in before the year comes to an end.

This week is gonna be good, guys. I just have to keep believing it.