On my last bullet point post, Biting The Bullet, I started with the wind sock (stuck in the gutter) and ended with the idea that I wanted to be like wind sock when it is flowing free and fulfilling its nature. I linked that old post if you are interested in my idea of metaphor. (Hint: It is a rambling post that SEEMS to go nowhere and then doubles back and actually finds a point.)
Let's try it again.
- The wind sock is once again hopelessly caught in the gutter.
- I would snap a photo, but I already did that once and, seriously, how many photos of a wind sock in a gutter does a person need to see?
- I finished reading the book The Fault In Our Stars, by John Green, a little over a week ago.
- Yes, there is a movie based on the book at the movies. I have yet to see the movie, but I laughed and then cried through the book. Since I know how it ends, I think I will save it for home viewing. As much I love sobbing at the movies, I will take a pass.
- I don't think this is any sort of spoiler alert, but the teenage characters in the book (and movie) have cancer. The boy, Augustus Waters, is a huge fan of metaphor. His constancy in looking for it in everything around him made me fall in love with him just a bit more than I expected.
- Okay, it is a little creepy saying that I fell in love with Augustus Waters and then SEEING Augustus Waters. He is a teenager. It was a whole lot cooler when he was just a character in a book.
- But, I still love that metaphor clip. It was exactly the way John Green wrote it. So, maybe it is HIM I fell in love with just a little bit. That is slightly less creepy given that he is closer to my age, but married.
- Let's move on...
- So, I read this book about cancer and had a bit of a breakdown. I did mention the crying, right?
- One of my friends from high school has been battling cancer since his 20s. I thought constant, chronic migraines were a bitter pill. Lest you ever forget... there is ALWAYS someone who has it worse than you do.
- So, anyway, he posts these horribly long (and dreadfully sobering) updates on his Facebook page. The cancer is slowly becoming him. As it is in his brain, spine, lymph nodes, legs, and now pelvis. The fact that the guy lived this long is a miracle in itself. The treatment stopped working a while ago and he has decided No More. So, now it is just a waiting game.
- I told you about my friend from high school whose son died of cancer. Well, I mentioned it. I didn't really go into it. That was last December. I feel surrounded by cancer.
- A friend from college just announced that her teenage daughter has been diagnosed with osteoscarcoma (bone cancer), which is the same cancer Augustus Waters had in The Fault In Our Stars.
- Since I just read that book I know a whole lot more about osteoscarcoma than I did a week ago. 80% of people beat it. That is a great statistic unless you fall in the 20%. I have debated sending my friend an email to NOT read this book or watch this movie.
- Yesterday I just had tissue biopsied to determine if I have cancer. Isn't that exciting? I could be the next person on Facebook to create a page that is devoted to cancer!!!!
- Before you get too excited, the doctor who performed the biopsy took me aside after and said that it was unlikely (though not certain) that I had cancer. He had seen cancerous tissue many times when it was OBVIOUSLY cancer and mine wasn't.
- So, for right now, I am riding on the good side of the stats. Of course, he was less than thrilled about everyone on my father's side of the family dying of colon cancer. Well, not the young people (as in my age or younger) yet. He made sure that we had a sobering talk on the importance of colonoscopies. I assured him that I am well aware.
- I am well aware.
- I am currently reading George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones. Now, that is a tome. And it is the first of a series. The first book tops 800 pages.
- I watched the first three seasons of the TV show that follows the book and am glad I did. It makes the book much easier reading.
- Spoiler alert: No one dies of cancer in Game of Thrones. No one lives long enough to die of cancer. They live in a medieval time and are much more likely to be run through with a sword, battle axe, or one of those wicked spiked balls that warriors like to throw around.
- As I read it, I find myself pondering the bigger issues of holding to honor and valor and honesty when lying, corruption, and deceit seem to repeatedly win the day. I think on how things are going down in George R.R. Martin's fictional world and then take a look at how things are going down right here... and it all seems frightfully the same. The surest way to lose the game is to fight it honorably and the surest way to win it is with cunning and deception.
- And that brings me back to the wind sock. You knew we were coming back to the wind sock...
- All the wind sock desires is to blow free and fulfill its Nature. That is its greatest happiness.
- Yet it remains glued to the gutter. And so it shall be until I walk out there and give it another good yank.
- Is it our destiny, like that of the wind sock, to constantly return to the gutter and consistently require a good yank from an outside source to set us right again?
