Worry & Sex (Not As Interesting As You Might Think)

Another thought I had on the recent retreat was...well really it felt stronger than a thought, it felt more like a vow. I thought, I cannot live for the rest of my life, however long that may be, afraid of getting cancer again. I simply will not do that. At the same time, I do feel committed to taking better care of my body, eating more nutritious food, getting regular exercise more consistently...

In what ways is my body
like this bleached beer can?

Over the last few years I considered, and eventually lost interest in, the idea of becoming an anagarika (shorthand: a nun), at least in doing so formally, but now I'm coming at it from a different angle...My body does not tend to feel sexy. More often it seems like a wad of symptoms. For example, yesterday, this sort of swath of reddish freckles, a lot of them, appeared on both my shins. It almost looks like a heat rash. My lower back aches. And I have some degree of either chronic fatigue or inveterate laziness. In order to be less unhappy, and reduce physical discomfort, I spend a great deal of time meditating, eating/cooking healthy food, doing medical stuff with both doctors and alternative medicine, stretching, taking supplements and medicinal tea, writing, and eventually, I hope, working.

But you can't say these things in a personals ad...or can you?

Low income 48-year old Buddhist Leo just learned a new phrase, 'medical menopause'. Otherwise, hopefully recovering from vaginal cancer, going hot and cold like a broken fridge in the tropics, soon to be unemployed, and blogging about it all. Care to swap suppositories?

Perhaps I sound bitter? I am not. Just not sexy.

I'm simply unaccustomed to not being...hearty, and being in pain. I am not in a lot of pain, and not all the time. It's a lot more work. Will I get used to it? I try not to complain. I need to look back over what I wrote before, the things I wanted to remember about life.

A delightful moment on Skype

My sister Kathy said last night that it seemed from this blog that I am not angry or fighting the fact that I have cancer, and that it seemed like that when she saw me. Geez, talk about adding insult to injury, at least I'm not doing that. As the Buddha said, like throwing a handful of dust into the wind.