A Vivid Fear

There you are, and we are talking.  It doesn’t matter who you are, whether I love you or just barely know you. You are a you. 

We are talking and I am happy. I like to learn about you and generally enjoy sharing myself with you, whoever you are.  

To be honest, some times I am shy and find it difficult to be with other people. A social anxiety can take over, and has often, since I was young, where I absolutely fear you might see me and find me worthless. 

That was not an uncommon experience when I was a boy. I would meet another boy and hope I had met a friend. After we talked and it looked like things were going well, they met the other guys in the class or the neighborhood. Then, they turned on me, sometimes violently. They realized there was some sort of stigma on me—I never really knew what, just that I had been judged a pariah. 

That was then, when pubic hair had only a year or two on my body. It laid a pattern and became a model of fears deep within me. I have lived some sixty years since then and have slowly relaxed my fears and come to really like other people and enjoy talking, even if there are still triggers that can make me cringe, turn inwards, and try to proactively wall my self up and lock the gate. 

That minefield, I have learned to negotiate, mostly without explosions. A new one has appeared. Like yesterday. 

We were having a good conversation. You had told me about a friend of yours who had just been diagnosed with advanced bone cancer. In turn, I was sharing with you my experience of having AML, Acute Myeloid Leukemia as an older than average patient. 

In the midst of my sentences, when words just came from inside and found my voice, suddenly a silence, a gap. 

A word was missing. I knew its content and where it should be, but there was nothing for my voice to deploy. 

Ok, I vamped. I talked around it hopefully without making its absence obvious. After a bit, thankfully a relatively short one, the word appeared. I spoke it, relieved and continued with my portion on our conversation. 

Another gap, another silence, and another. 

My path to interacting suddenly seemed a cobbled path  with lots of dirt and few stones to step on. 

Shame wanted to take me over. I did not let it, but had it insisted, I would have spoken it and the problem I was having instead of keeping it inside.

Sometimes this silence came attached to another within me.  Normally, when I stumbled because the stone was not there, I remembered that there was a ground and that I knew what the word was supposed to say.  

At times, the lost stone pairs with a loss of the ground. There is a bigger whole where I seem to have not retained a memory, even one important to me. 

Before you can say, there, there. this is just part of growing older. I know that the massive chemotherapy that saved my life caused the loss of much memory and I am slowly learning what. It is when I loose that ground beneath me that I realize chemo had its way.

There is more, my friend. Believe me, I wish it were that simple. 

When my energy level drops, or when I am not exercising enough, It feels like my mind is actively throwing away knowledge and experience. Once I eat or get a bit of a workout, things may return to normal, but I become aware of how fragile this mind is and how easily iI could be treading that slippery slope towards forgetfulness that claimed my grandfather and my aunt. 

So my friend, when the rhythm of my conversation slows for a fraction of a second, and you become aware I am searching for a word, please see it for what it is:

A desire to engage and interact, even if it becomes more difficult as the days advance. Sadly, I realize, my will, my commitment, may not be strong enough to overcome this challenge as my years continue. I may really be facing the end, pasting a vapid smile on my face while my eyes show little comprehension.  I sincerely hope not, but of that I have so little control.