That Was Fast

In this vortex that we like to call our lives, it can be hard to keep any true sense of the passage of time. Sometimes it stretches out like taffy, then folds back on itself, then whooshes past again.

My markers for the past year have mostly been medical: the days are segmented not by weeks or months but by surgery dates—mine and my dad's—or treatment schedules. Or they are measured by whether I've had hair, or joint pain, or this loathsome port.

I am a creature of order who has lived in a near-constant state of disorder these past 12 months.

Perhaps I should call it unplanned disorder, because for several months before that I lived in a mess of my own making. I chose to leave my steady, secure job for the vagaries of graduate school and a profession that is if not less stable than acting, then at least a close second.

But planned disorder is one thing. I am a planner above all else, and I even know how to plan for uncertainty. I factor it in, and then I forge ahead.

This, this is something else entirely.

This is having the rug pulled out from under you and then rolled up and used to beat you senseless.

This is the scene in the movie that goes too far, for which it is no longer possible to suspend your disbelief—the scene at which you involuntarily roll your eyes and audibly rebuke the screen.

"Oh, come on."

And this has been going on a long time.

And while there have been very few constants as this vortex has continued from one day to the next, there has been, on most days, this chronicle, this outlet, this connection, this inelegantly named instrument we call a blog.

It is a year old today.

This is how it began.