two sides of a coin

I woke up, sat at my table and tried working through my notes. I couldn’t, I called my brother (more like got him to call me back) and we spoke for 40 minutes. It helped to speak to someone who’s so alike, who doesn’t need pity and doesn’t think that I need it either, to someone who understands that dark humour isn’t out of place in our current scenario, but welcome. We’re funny people, we need to laugh, and our greatest gift (I think), is the ability that we have to laugh at ourselves, and our predicament. Yes, there is that inescapable element of gravitas to the whole issue, but laughing at it makes us seem a little bigger, even though we know that we may full well get slaughtered when we charge in and face the beast.

It felt good while we talked, I miss him. It’ll be fab to have him back, I won’t have to charge alone. But even after 40 minutes on the phone, I didn’t feel as great once I got off the phone. I was happy for 15 minutes or so, managed to study for a bit. I went out and ate me an apple, and as I sat eating the apple, I began considering the implications (not of eating the apple itself, but of the Predicament) and I began feeling low again. I washed my hands, stepped back into my room and didn’t have the heart to work past the slides which had ‘Is cancer treatment possible?’ as their heading. When in doubt, go to sleep.

I slept for a little under an hour, although it felt like much, much more (thankfully). And now that I’m awake, I do feel better, a little more optimistic. There’s two ways for me to approach the whole issue. The first was the way I was feeling before I went to sleep for a bit. I can choose to see this as an inescapable situation (technically, it is) and that optimism is a waste of energy and indubitably leads to disappointment. A logical extension to that thought would be to not put as much effort into anything, and be completely bitter. Sure, I have enough justification to hole up and be an ass and paint my nails black. And not study, and do just enough to pass my exams.

I went to sleep, and got up. Here’s how I feel now, and it’s the other way I can choose to see the situation. True, it’s a trying time, but I will indubitably outlive it (I pray I do, at least) and so will my rationality. It will suck to have to look back on this period and see that I didn’t make the best of it. Because even though I’d like to sit balled up on a landing somewhere and cry (so that everyone can see me), the world still moves on, and so do the opportunities for me to grow, and make me whatever it is that I’m meant to be. The best possible outcome, and the one which won’t induce guilt when I’m older, is the one where I make the best of the current situation, where I don’t deny myself the things I think I’m capable of, actually keep scoring in my exams and yet still make the best of the time I have with my dad.

I don’t know if the days are numbered, they’re extremely vague about these things, and unlike an episode of House, one week isn’t enough for us to reach a resolution to the issue. But if Dr. Wilson (House’s oncologist best friend) had a show, they’d spend a whole season dealing with one patient. And have a lot more drama in the process.

Two sides of a coin, and I’m floating back and forth between the two ways I can deal with this. I need to stick with the second approach until Monday evening.

Did I just spend a whole blog post stating the obvious? I probably did, but then again, dealing with situations is entirely different from adivising people on how to deal with situations. I’m dealing with it, and I just advised me.