On the start of a new year

These days I find myself noticing the textures of things that I touch. The velvet of that duster-length jacket at Coldwater Creek that I wanted for my own. The smooth hard cool of my computer desk. The slight grittiness of my car that needs washing so badly. The acidy crackle of the cats’ coats in the dry winter air. Touch is more intimate than sight or sound. Taste is perhaps the most intimate of the senses, but I’m still sane enough that I don’t go around tasting everything. I do sneak touches of just about anything these days though. The grease on an unwashed pan. The drops of water spilled on the kitchen floor. Shampoo straight from the bottle. Touch tethers me to reality in this time of surrealism.

It isn’t the first time I’ve entered a new year wondering how many other new years I have ahead. I felt this way when 2002 yielded to 2003. Back then I was practicing the Perfect Patient’s Approach to Life. If you have to be sick, then your only chance to maintain most human contact is to be the Perfect Patient. Upbeat. Optimistic. Holly Golightly sunshine, lollipops and everything that’s wonderful is going to come your way. Nobody in their right mind wants to be reminded of their personal mortality, and nothing reminds a body more of their personal mortality than having to interact with the obviously mortal. Ain’t anything more obviously mortal than a seriously sick person who wants to discuss worst case scenarios. So keep it happy, keep it positive, and keep the glass half full. Better yet, find yourself a half-sized glass and pour the remaining water into that one, to maintain the illusion of an endless water supply.

I can be the Perfect Patient. I know the dance steps by heart. There are new advances in medical science all the time. Half the people in that scientific study are still alive after five years. I’ve got the best doctors and hospital possible behind me. I always beat all the odds. I’m invincible.

And the part of me that isn’t the Perfect Patient finds a nice compartment somewhere in my brain, hidden from polite conversation. The part of me that wants to discuss that final “what if” mostly keeps her mouth shut. Oh, she tries to sneak out once in a while. She’ll sneak a comment like, “If this were my last Christmas” into the conversation, only to be told to stop speaking like that. She’ll make a comment that the odds aren’t necessarily with her, to be reminded that she isn’t just a statistic. It’s as though people really are superstitiously avoiding mentioning the devil’s name, for fear of summoning him. And I’ll play the game, as best I can, because the alternative is social shunning.

Wanting to speak about worst case scenarios doesn’t mean giving up hope. It just means that I don’t want to have to worry about things that are important to me while I’m fighting off the latest case of reality to meteor in and shatter my security. But I’m the only one ready to have the discussion, and anyone who has seen “The Incredibles” knows what happens to people who monologue. So I’ll continue to find textures to ground me and comfort me and talk to me of reality until the people around me can do the same thing.