Integrity

So the melanoma thing happened. I was cut up and stitched, all went well, "good as new".
I did not feel too bad after the first couple of days after the diagnosis. The impertinent, irreverent need to make fun of tragedy (that runs in the Duran Ribas family) compels me to make jokes that involve saying "now that I am a cancer patient". Today, two weeks later, I calmly observe in me what looks like a low grade depression. Why? All went well. "I am ok" I repeat. The best way I have found to explain the possible cause of this "sadness" is saying that I am mourning the loss of my "integrity". I was never cut up before now. I never had stitches. Ok, there is the one small surgery in the breast for a biopsy when everything went well. No stitches though, just glue and that amazing sedative that makes you want to get more sedative. This time around I feel that there has been serious tampering with "the vehicle". "The vehicle" that carries my soul around got a scar. Now, as Joaquin clearly pointed, scars are cool. I agree. But here is the thing: There is a portion of my skin that was taken away, removed, biopsied, thrown out. A piece of me is just gone. I feel the tightness in my cheek. I worry when I yawn or sneeze or want to LOL. My guess is that most of the tightness will decrease, the scar itself will fade quite a bit (note to self: Think of alternative story for the scar, melanoma is not cool).  I worry about the constant follow ups and check ups and more worry. Here is the other thing, this is -once again- the breaching of the distance between "horrible things that could happen" and "horrible things that do happen". This event reminds me of mortality, of death, of inevitability, of the brevity of life, of the imperative to live every day as it is the last, because it could be. Here is where I feel I am putting the finger on what bothers me: I am getting old, which is frankly a privilege considering what goes one in the world. But the thing that bothers older people, and that has started bothering me, is that death is what comes next. It is like the feeling you have when you realize the only way out of the pregnancy is giving birth. Only in the case of death, things are just so... boring?... scary?... nothing?.... who knows... I think that I am not afraid to die. After all, if there is an afterlife I know plenty of people there. But it is my belief that there is no such thing as an afterlife, and all we have is here and now. The low grade depression is because I want to hug my kids and my husband, I want to smell the spring (not in February though!), I want to do it all, but then I realize that I've done it all, except for perhaps visit some 100 countries that I still want to visit. I've done it all but not write more scientific research. I've done it all, but not help all my students understand science and the value of facts and critical thinking. I've done it all but I have not delivered my children to their own adult lives. So, have I done it all? And this is where the light and the darkness meet. This is everyone's place of struggle. Probably what the psychoanalysts called Eros and Thanatos. The life instinct, the death instinct. We are caught up in the middle.
This melanoma event has hit once again the reset button. What am I doing? Am I happy? Do I life gratefully? Do I live a useful life? It will probably take a few weeks to evaluate this, regroup, restart, move on. I might not choose to reincarnate, the Dalai Lama might not either. "Everything is ok".

This old post (originally written in 2014)

Not everything happens for a reason. The fair world view may fuel people to think that way. Many stories are about how if you "hadn't been to that place, that particular day" or if you "hadn't made that turn, or change your routine" then you would not have met an important person in your life or made a life changing decision, etc, etc.
But for some of us, that stopped believing that there is order in the world, things are simpler. Perhaps devoid of magic, but fantastic just the same. Fundamentally the world is random and chaotic. It is hard to predict many things. Whatever order exists is created by humans. The protestant work ethic so popular in the US, which often times annihilates the human spirit and severs the parts of life that are not work related (most notably leisure and art) also shows how the chaos can be tamed. The order is not imposed from above, from a unique source of infinite wisdom. The order is created from beneath by hard working people with good intentions and sometimes successful plans.