Jealous

Connie

We got to know each other during chemo, months ago. We are nearly the same age, she is 3 years older than I am. We got to talking, about nothing in particular, then we talked about work, we talked about food, we talked about our mutual disdain for Hillary Clinton. We disagreed on the topic of Obama, we agreed on the subject of pizza and movies. We laughed about the funky hoses in our chest as they pumped toxins into our bodies. Deadly chemicals that were suppose to cure us. There has to be some sort of statement there. Which is worse? The cure? Or the Disease?

She had a blonde bob, I had long, long hair. She was tall and round in all the right places, I am short and had a lot less curves. We exchanged phone numbers, e-mail addresses and went our separate ways. She called me the very next day. It was kind of a shock. It is kind of one of those things where… do I want to get to know someone, whose connection brings up negative stuff? But we agreed to meet at Panera and stuffed ourselves with muffins and old coffee.

We talked about the chemo mostly. All the other small talk was awkwardly out of the way. The only connection we really had was the port we hid under our shirts. Like blood brothers, or maybe it was drug sisters. She had breast cancer. She found a lump in the shower one morning and called the doctor the next day. Went in the day after that and 2 weeks later was in the chair getting her tubes in.

She was dating, a subject I didn’t really want to touch. She worked at a bank in the loan department. She hated her job, but made decent money. Her boss was frustrated with her time off work, but her insurance was good and he couldn’t really force the issue of her medical leave.

We never did chemo together again, but we talked almost every day and occasionally we would meet, usually at Panera or Starbucks.

We started to lose our hair together. There is something within a female that wants to somehow believe that we are attractive, that we possess the ability to make a man’s head turn, or frankly to turn a man on. And oddly our hair plays a large part in that. Ask almost any woman and she will tell you that she focuses a large part of her morning on her hair. So when I started to see handfuls of hair coming out in the shower I fought it tooth and nail. I first cut it shoulder length so it wouldn’t be so shocking to see those long strands piling up on the floor. Then in despair I cut it into a short bob, not unlike what Connie had started with. Connie however, totally succumbed to the process and shaved her own head and the next week proudly walked into Panera with a henna tattoo on her shiny skull. She laughed at my reaction and I laughed to keep up with her. That was when it hit me that I was jealous of Connie. How did she have the ability to be proud of what she was going through?

We stopped meeting at Panera when we both realized that neither of us were eating, and the smell was making us both nauseated. So we met at the river park walkway. She brought her boyfriend and their 9 month old Labrador. It was the first time I felt awkward around her. It was as though I saw for the first time, that she had an ongoing life outside of the tubes and needles and drugs.

We missed a week here or there over the next few weeks. We were both in the middle of being too tired to move and too sick to move too far from the bathroom. We were both trying desperately to get better. We finally e-mailed and promised to touch base and meet at the mall the next week. She called me a few days later and said that she had an appointment and we moved it to the next week.

I hadn’t seen her in a few months. I am not sure what I expected. When I saw her, her henna tattoo was gone, disappeared under her fuzzy new hair growing. She had gained the weight she had lost, she looked strong and resolved and powerful. I was suddenly embarrassed that I had lost more weight, that my eyes were hollow despite the makeup that I wore to try to hide it. My head was covered with a baseball cap. We had a ritual when we met, that we would compare heads. She came in with a bandana and whipped it off to show fuzzy new blonde hair. I tried to laugh and I clapped and reached over and rubbed her head. But when she said… your turn. I couldn’t think of a good joke to come up with, I couldn’t think of a clever way to decline, I couldn’t think of anything at that moment…. But the differences that were separating us. I took my hat off and grinned that stupid grin that explains everything and nothing all at once.

She grinned back and started talking about visiting Florida with her boyfriend. She was going to work on her tan and…. Blah blah blah…. I never heard much more of the conversation. I smiled and nodded at all the right places.

We talked about chemo again, but… she was done, and I wasn’t. We had both done chemo, that topic was old now. She was moving on. Her blood work was getting better, she was due to have a mammogram in the next couple weeks.

This time 2 months went by. We still e-mailed, but not as frequently. They were short.. Hey how are you doing baldy, type e-mails. We said stuff like, hey we have to get together again, and I think we both meant it at the time, but time was marching on for both of us. We finally set a date, we were back to Panera.

I got there early, I didn’t know why I was nervous. I sat at the window in the corner and watched her park. I quickly put my coat back on, to hide how much weight I’d lost and that my clothes hung off me. She looked wonderful. Her hair was dyed bright red/blonde and it was short, but growing well. She wore a blouse cut low to show off her figure and that the breast cancer had not won. Everything about her said…. I WIN! I suddenly wanted to sneak out the back door and call her cell and tell her that something had come up, that I couldn’t come, I’m sorry, maybe next week. But I had committed to this humiliation. I had to see it through.

Her mammogram had come back clean. She was now technically cancer free. She and her boyfriend had moved in together with their crazy lab and she was talking future. It was not a shock to me that she did not ask about the bone cancer. So I talked about shopping, which I hate, and the movies I’d love to see that I actually never really planned on seeing. I laughed and did the whole, girls night out gig. Inside I was dizzy.

Was I not happy for Connie? I think I was. I wanted to be. I did not want to see her grow weak and sick and see that grey/yellow pallor that … well, that I had. What was wrong with me? Am I so incredibly shallow, such a poor friend, that I could only see her success as a threat to my failure? Am I really that flawed and selfish? Would I have rather had her be sick just so she could be sick with me? Is that really what went through my mind? I tend to quickly tell myself … NO, I would never do something that horrid. But I am left wondering if that’s quite right. Does misery love company? Would I have been more gracious if the tables had been turned? Would I have made sure to ask her how she was doing? Instead of quietly avoiding the obvious answer.

We hugged a quick, pals hug on the way out of Panera. She said … I’ll be in touch! An obvious lie. I said, Absolutely! Another lie. Did we both know then that we were moving on two different tracks away from each other? What did I expect? If I were free today, from the tubes and the cold floors and the clinical cleanliness and the masks and the beeping and the gloves and needles…. Would I swallow my fear of this place, to go back in and invest my life in my new little friends who are still… on the inside….like prison. I sit at my window and watch visitors come and go. There is a difference when they come in… they’re on a mission, they plod forward, bent on the purpose of going into the institution… getting the name badge, going through the big swinging doors and hearing all those sounds that tell them that this place is not where people are suppose to be. This is where they keep the inmates. When I see them leave, their steps are lighter, almost always they move faster, they hold their heads up, maybe to feel the wind, smell the fresh air. They are free. I remember seeing him ride in on a flame red softail and park it on the sidewalk. I laughed outloud and clapped at him though he had no idea I was up there. He walked in the same way they all did, head down. I watched his bike for him while he was in the hospital visiting some nameless faceless person. I saw him coming out and suddenly something inside me made me grind my teeth. “Come BACK!!!” I feel like screaming….. Begging, take me with you. Please….. As he jumped the curb and got to his bike, I stood up and put my hands on the window…. please….and stood beside his bike and threw his leg over …. Wait…...please don't go… and I imagined the roar, and then he was gone. I shut my eyes and imagined being on that bike, feeling that vibration rumble through my body, the acceleration and the wind coursing over my body.

Everyone moves on. Connie, visitors, me….. Everyone moves on. I just can’t see where I’m going anymore.