Unfazed

Will no one rid us of this turbulent weather? It rains every weekend now. That’s our new climate here in Maryland. It seems that we just have to learn to live with it. 

We’re one week away from MDW, but nothing seems further away than summer. Yesterday, Saturday, it rained almost all day long with very brief breaks that promised some a lightening of the sky and a few dry minutes but then ended abruptly with more rain. The temperature remained in the dismal low 60s. It’s Sunday morning now and the forecast called for a reasonably nice May day. It’s not raining at least but it’s not sunny either and if I had to guess I’d say that it’ll probably rain again. It’s gloomy, is what it is, and everything feels damp. 

One nice thing is that everything is very very green. The grass is lush and our shrubs and flowers are wildly in bloom. Yesterday, I was looking out my kitchen window at the riot of growth, and I saw what looked like a turkey parading across the front lawn. But it was a vulture. I wanted to chase it away but I know what these vile creatures do when confronted with anything resembling a threat, and I wanted no part of this. Thankfully, it flew away on its own, obviating the need for any action on my part. 

But plenty of other things do require action on my part. Right now, I am fighting my way through a very long list of medical appointments and administrative tasks, two of my very least favorite things. It’s Tuesday now, a beautiful summer-is-coming day. I have a mammogram appointment this afternoon. Last week, my new doctor ordered a series of routine tests and screenings, all of which I had been avoiding. The mammogram was the first on the list, and it was the very last thing that I was planning to do. But they didn’t wait around for me to call and make the appointment because they’d have been waiting around for a while. They called me, catching me unawares, and next thing I knew I had a mammogram appointment. I hung up the phone feeling a little resentful, a little shanghaied, but I also acknowledged the wisdom of their approach because I’d have avoided a mammogram like it was a carrion bird on my front lawn. I even thought of canceling the appointment because I still have to take my car in to get it fixed, but the car can wait, I guess. 

It’s Wednesday now, another beautiful day. My son came in from swim practice at 7 this morning, just as I was getting ready to leave for work, and he said that he got a “whiff of summer” when he got out of his car. It really does smell like summer now. It feels like summer too. The mammogram was fine and I scheduled my car repair and reserved a rental car. I packaged up some items that needed to go in the mail, and I activated my new debit card and cut up and disposed of the old one. So much progress! Buoyed by this unexpected little burst of get-things-done energy, I decided to tackle Verizon, too, always one of my least-favorite things to do. My lifetime record in fights vs. Verizon is a whole other topic about which I might write because I won this round. 

*****

It’s Thursday now and it turns out that the mammogram might not have been fine. They called me yesterday and I have to go back for a second look. There’s a “shadow,” a term that apparently covers everything from scar tissue to cancer, and the only way to find out is to get another mammogram. 

I am surprisingly unfazed by this, considering my well-documented tendency to lose my damn mind over every little thing. In fact, the only thing that really bothers me right now is that I have to fit yet another thing into my schedule for next week. Not only do I have another appointment, but I have to add something back to my to-do list. I had “get mammogram” on that list and when I came home from the appointment, I crossed that item off with a rather triumphant and smug little flourish, and that attitude came back to bite me in the ass, didn’t it? Did I mention that medical appointments and administrative tasks were among my least favorite things? Well having to re-do a task that I thought I was done with is even worse. That’s the thing that bothers me most about this unexpected callback. 

*****

It’s Friday now, Friday of Memorial Day weekend, in fact. It looks like summer and it feels like summer and other than the possibility of a terrible diagnosis next Thursday, I have no problems that summer can’t solve. 

Again with the cavalier attitude. Will I never learn? 

I’m actually not cavalier about this at all. I’m kind of worried, but strangely far less worried than I would expect to be. There's really nothing I can do right now except to rejoice in the return of summer and put one foot in front of the other. It’s a three-day weekend, and other than catching up on the minutes from the last neighborhood association meeting, I can’t check off a single to-do list item until after the weekend. Until next week, everything is fine. After next week, it’s all in God’s hands.