Self Examination

It nears the end of the fiscal year–or as some of the wags I work with insist–the physical year. See, first sentence and I do digress. Blogging about anything vaguely work related invites bad juju. I’ll risk it this time and try hard to leave out the snark factor.

At end of year, management invites all of us strivers in the fields of business battle to assess our performance for the year ending. Seems easy enough. “Tell me what you did so that I can tell you whether I value it or not.” I have spent enough time in therapy (and in the workplace) to look into the mirror and see the reflection pretty clearly. I can even articulate a perceptive measure of both my performance and my character. In years past I have been very careful to include the shortcomings with as clear a description as the successes.

This year I am ever-so-slightly pissed that we have not been able to fill an empty position in the group because we were offering 30% below market for the position. In fact, I have been pissed that not filling the position meant that for the better part of twelve weeks I worked 14 hour days, Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays.

HR in its infinite perception has determined a new salary range for the (now 2) positions we have to fill. The bottom of the range is more than 10% higher than my current salary. With more than 20 years in the field, stellar performance, and shining reputation, I do not feel that my value should be anywhere near the bottom of the range. All this is background information. I DO digress. We are asked to assess our performance so that management can better review that performance.

I entered into the exercize in my usual–”what? you don’t KNOW? I should NOT have to tell you this…” mode–and then I shifted gears. By God, I have done some damned impressive things this year. I have changed the way our department sees itself and changed the way others look at us too. I have done it with wit and charm and I have done well. For once in my life, I actually kept the 10,000 atta-boy e-mails and notes that almost balance out one aw shit. In my self assessment this year I have quoted quotes, named names, spouted statistics, kicked butt, and claimed the prize. I have never before rated myself outstanding in all categories. This year I did. This year I do.

I wrote a seven page self assessment that basically claims I walk on water and feed multitudes–sometimes twice a week and in off hours. What’s more, if not for being a perfectionist, I would be damned near perfect. And it’s true. And it felt odd to say so. And it felt impowering. I can hardly wait to see the management view.

At home in suburbia

The other day, I climbed into my minivan–half asleep as usual–but as I turned the ignition, Melissa was sitting in her car in the middle of the street waving frantically in my direction. I knew the garage door wasn’t open–I came out through the front door not the garage. She wasn’t close enough to be calling my attention to the spinach in my teeth. So I turned off the key and walked to the middle of the street next to her driver-side door.

“Chicken,” she said.

“huh?”

“Chicken,” she repeated and pointed to the strip of no-man’s-land betweeen her driveway and mine.

There pecking and scratching was a Sunday’s dinner worth of fluffy red hen. Her feathers were a rich mahoghany color. Her wattle was an unreasonably beautiful shade of red.  Her beak shined golden in the sun and her black eyes darted with each jerk of her head. There was a chicken in the front yard.

In some parts of the country a chicken in the front yard is an expected, even desirable thing. In my bedroom community, a chicken in the front yard is an anomoly. It isn’t done. It is against the CC&Rs. Chickens are not allowed. For half an hour I stood in the street next to my neighbor’s car, stopped in the middle of the street, watching a chicken do chicken things. I forgot that I was in a hurry and half asleep. I forgot that there was too much work waiting for me in my office. I forgot that I had not had a cup of coffee yet, much less breakfast.

I watched a chicken for half an hour and then I laughed all day long.

Relapsing from Survival

One e-mail pops into my mailbox and months of resolution go begging. I must be a poster child for suggestability. I am back on the “fix it” mouse wheel, running for all I’m worth–figuratively, not literally. Titlting at the windmill that is prostate cancer does me little good. It keeps me up nights and it doesn’t make my big guy any more responsive. He is in a haze induced by testosterone deprivation. His attention is on soccer balls, soft balls, and golf balls. I need a new hobby. Needlework is not meeting my needs.

I really don’t want to take my isolation personally. I know all the physiological stuff. I know the science behind what is happening, or not happening, around our house. I also know that my depression comes in waves brought on by the tides of life. If everything else is going great, I can live with celebacy. But everything else is not going all that great and I need to be loved, cherished, and even talked to —about something besides sports that I am not playing.

I know about affirmations. I have been affirming healing for six years, I have been affirming acceptance for six years. Right this moment I am not feeling healed, hopeful, or accepted. I am feeling damned lonely…and I am not by myself.

Survival is an interesting topic. It has been on my mind since Donna first had breat cancer twenty some years ago. Is survival just escaping death? Is survival a state of being, a state of extreme agitation, stasis, or is it an attitude? What is survival anyway? Is it one year or ten? If you lose yourself and stay alive, have you really survived? If cancer kills your spirit or changes your persona beyond easy recognition, have you survived? Donna stayed cancer free for five years and then had the second mastectomy, what? fifteen yearts ago? Joyce stayed cancer free for ten years, but the breast cancer migrated to her colon and now she is gone.

John helped me and the big guy through the first few traumas after prostate cancer. John is a fair warrier who has been fighting prostate cancer for fifteen years. Some years he seems to be winning and some years he has to go back on horemone therapy that makes his skin smooth, his beard thin, and changes his bustline. He hasn’t talked to me lately about intimacy. Six years ago, his advice was helpful and hopeful.

The problem with us is that if you don’t think about it–if the big guy doesn’t think about it–there is no intimacy. I cannot beg any more. I cannot say one more time what I want or need. I cannot initiate and be rebuffed again. I hate the passion of my pain and I hate that the big guy doesn’t notice. He doesn’t notice that I have left the room. He doesn’t notice when I leave the bed. He doesn’t notice me. I know the science behind it and it doesn’t help a bit.

So  I sit here with my keyboard feeling sorry for myself and sorry for Erin and Mrs. Chuck and Mrs. John. I try hard to feel sorry for the big guy but lately it just turns into anger and a snappy retort. Tonight, I wonder if I can survive prostate cancer. Tonight, I am not sure I am up to recovery.

 

Revisiting old pain

I have been too busy to write. I have been too busy to read and too busy to take care of myself, I have been altogether too busy. I don’t recommend it. Not only will no one actually wish to have spent more time at work as the Grim Reaper strops his sythe, but also no one will wish to have spent the few other hours asleep. Yeah, I am working and sleeping my life away and I am none too happy about it.

Today I heard from an old e-friend. He is active in the prostate cancer web lists and for a very long time I trolled those waters looking for meaning that I never quite found. It is supremely odd to get copied on an e-mail to someone you do not know by someone you only cyber-know about one of the most personal aspects of your life. It only underscores that I have boundary issues!

Another youngish man has lost his prostate. He hasn’t lost the fight yet. His wife sounds a lot like me–titlting at the cancer juggernaut. There has to be a cure somewhere that does not totally immasculate the patient. There just HAS to be.

Then there is the issue of Viagra, Levitra, Cialis–the ED triumverate that mostly doesn’t do anything for prostate cancer patients except give them a headache and a runny nose–and with Cialis the headache lasts 36 hours. The issue is that even the sure things, injections and so forth, that will make an erection are damnably expensive and some fool decided they are ‘lifestyle’ drugs. How, pray tell, is sexual function less a part of human health than, say, an artificial limb or a breast reconstruction? Ah there is the parallel. I see a letter campaign in my future. How is it that a woman having had a breast amputated is entitled to reconstruction but a man whose nerve bundles are severed in removing a cancerous prostate is only seeking recreation when he asks his insurer to pick up the tab for trimix?

I am off on another Quixotic adventure. It makes me crazy that I think about the big guy’s erection or lack of it more than he does. Maybe I just talk about it more. I have been trying not to. It really just gets me all in a tither. Since my parts don’t work so well either right now, I don’t know what I want.

I lied. I know exactly what I want. I want to roll the clock back 6 years and have my horn-dog honey back. I want him to grab my butt just because it’s there and hold me like the day can’t end soon enough. I want to be dessert. Instead, I am here and he is there and there is a giant gulf of silence, memories, and wistfulness between us. There isn’t even anything more to discuss.