Three Months to Three Years

Last night I met a couple of friends at a tapas bar in Los Feliz for drinks and superfluous food. Superfluous because all three of us had eaten dinner already and were full, but we had to order something to justify our sitting at a table while other would-be diners waited to be seated. Nothing like putting the contents of "Six-Piece Cheese Plate" and "Flourless Chocolate Cake" on top of a belly full of Italian food...yeesh. Anyway, at one point in the evening Friend 1 mentioned someone she knew who is "dying of cancer," specifically mouth cancer, and has a prognosis of "three months to three years" to live. This startled me right out of my food coma because, presumably, the woman is around my age: late twenties, early thirties.

At the time Friend 1 mentioned this woman, I felt alarmed and very sad. Then the conversation turned to other things and I lightened up again. On the long drive back home, however, I was caught in a traffic jam on Vermont and found myself pondering the stark bleakness of people dying young. I wondered what I would do if I were terminally, gravely ill and given a prognosis of "three months to three years" to live---a range of time which, incidentally, strikes me as grotesquely cutesy and tidy, and weirdly meaningless. People sometimes talk hypothetically on long car trips and during late-night conversations about what they'd do if they knew they had only a limited time left to live, and it's kind of a game and an amusing way to pass the time. "I'd have sex with as many people as possible," someone might say, or "I'd travel to China" or what have you. But in the isolation of my dark car last night, when I tried to imagine what I'd do, I became panicky and a bit hysterical. I also despaired at the huge number of mundane details that would require my attention were I to prepare for my own death. Never mind bungee-jumping off The Great Wall---what would become of my 401(k), and to what extent would I clean out my closet, my end table, and my overstuffed Box of Important Papers? I wouldn't want to leave a mess behind. But would I have the physical and emotional energy to do these chores? I can barely face them right now.

I decided I would quit my job---I wouldn't want to waste a single second of my dwindling remaining days trapped in a gray cubicle doing unimportant work. But then, without benefits, would I get on S's health insurance so I could continue receiving whatever treatment I was prescribed? Would that be financially burdensome? Would the subtraction of my income force S and I to move to a smaller apartment? Would the stress of moving further ruin my poor health? Would I even stay in Los Angeles? One thing I knew was that I'd want to be with my family as much as possible. Part of me immediately concluded I'd move back to NY to live with my parents in the home I grew up in. But then, would S be stuck in LA without me? He'd miss me, and I'd miss him. Maybe I'd stay out here but fly home often. Would I eventually become too sick and frail to travel? In that case, would my family fly out to spend time with me? I wondered, too, about getting pregnant. Would that still be feasible? Would it be irresponsible to knowingly conceive a child under the circumstances? But I think S would want a child---our child---anyway, if it were possible.

I think I'd have to sit down and make a list of Things to Do, People to See, and Places to Go in my remaining days. I'd have to brainstorm, then I'd have to narrow down and prioritize and consider what was practical and possible. Would I wish for trips to exotic places? I've wanted to go to Australia since I was eight. Or would I simply want to return to favorite, comfortable spots that define who I am...like my grandma's front porch, or childhood vacation spots like Cape Cod? I'd definitely want to spend lots of time with good friends, old friends, and my parents, brother, aunt, uncles, and grandmothers. And then, of course, there's S's family, too. I'd want to be with them as well.

I feel as though I wouldn't be interested in being online a whole lot...sitting in front of a computer making my way around the Internet is a nice way to pass the time but also confining and sometimes depressing. I think I'd feel differently about movies, though. I might rewatch old favorites and keep seeing whatever interested me in the theater. No bars, no clubs---well, maybe somewhere with dancing.

And that's about as far as I got, thinking it all through in the car last night. The whole exercise of imagining this situation was upsetting, certainly. But mostly it was inconceivable. I mean, try as I might, I of course could not truly put myself in the place, mentally, of someone who is dying. It's impossible, and futile, and foolish, really, to try to imagine you're living in a way that you're not. But I tend to always try: What would being in a major car crash feel like? What if S died? What will it be like when Mom and Dad are in their eighties? And then I concentrate on trying to summon these things in my imagination such that I can "rehearse" living through them. I read somewhere that this is actually a thing certain people do as sort of a defense mechanism---we don't like the feeling of being unprepared, so we try to imagine, in detail, what some event would be like, so that if or when it ever happens, we can say, "Come on now, Self. We've mentally prepared for this! We can handle it."

Strange.