Star-struck

Michele visited her plastic surgeon on Wednesday (Sep. 28) this week and we think and hope it his decision to cancel the surgery to close the wound on her breast (originally scheduled for Sep. 29) will be a permanent one. He sees the wound making progress in closing but did not want to totally rule out surgery so Michele has another appointment with him next week to reevaluate.

Our lives at home have started to return to normal and by that I mean that I am certain the hairs growing back in on Michele’s head serve as an official counter for the number of times Michele has pointed out how many things I do wrong on any given day. This creates a very odd psyche within me as Michele’s onslaught on my imperfections, while irritating, simultaneously serve as a very comforting feeling that our lives are turning back to a sense of normalcy.  That said, I am in the beginning stages of a new hobby which is researching if chemotherapy drugs have an undocumented side effect of periodically impacting patients with spasmodic episodes resembling a sex starved orangutan in a branchless jungle when it comes to criticizing their spouses.

The night before Michele went to see her plastic surgeon I ventured outside to stare at the sky for a few moments. I do that from time to time when I feel I need to ground myself and I will normally pick out one star arbitrarily.  My skyward gaze never fails to deliver an acute sense of insignificance.  There is that star, light years away, blinking at me. And there I stare, knowing that it took light years for that beam of light to reach my eye. All of human existence that we know of has taken place before that beam of light left the starting gate from that star.  Taking it in, it is enough to make you feel stripped of significance, wondering whether you and your troubles or your fortunes amount to anything at all.

I believe we would all be consumed by these perplexing questions about our own significance if it were not for that unquantifiable human emotion of love. Love forces us to steadily grip the things in our lives that ground us, the experiences that deliver meaning and motivate us to carry forward and lead our lives as best we can.  This self-reflection always ends up with my realization of how fortunate I am to share my life with Michele.  Whenever dour circumstance rears itself and that lurking sense of insignificance creeps into my head, there is Michele, reminding me that she is so utterly significant to me and who I am and how I love her unconditionally (she is also reminding me of the things I need to do around the house).

So as we await the next appointment with the plastic surgeon who will hopefully decide surgery is unnecessary, I will steal some lyrics and hope what I wrote in this post resonates with you.

“Last night I fell apart,

Broke from my swollen heart,

Born at a simple time,

Raised with a simple mind,

You may be a natural woman

I may be worthless without you

I’ll never decide to replace you,

Amen, the worst is behind us now”