Jay has his third chemo session today.
I’m not there.
The problem with long-distance relationships is, well, the distance. I live here. He lives there. “Here” is rather far from “there,” actually. It costs money to get from here to there, and back again. It disrupts what’s left of the life I have here (“what’s left of”–now that I’m not working, that is) to spend time there, out of my home, in space that isn’t set up for me.
Be that as it may: I am there a lot. I was there for the first two chemos. I sat in the infusion center and I learned how to unplug the needle from the port and I was there for the doctor consults and the bottle ritual and all that.
We discussed this at great length, the schedule. It’s every two weeks, the chemo. We’ve been seeing each other roughly every two weeks for some time now–long before the excellent cancer adventures started up again.
And so, in our discussions, we asked: did we only want to see each other during the “bad” times, when he is sick? Or did we want to try to space it out, so that we also have some relationship-time during the “good” times?
It made so much sense to do it that way. That’s what we decided to do. Jay has family and many loved ones in Portland and very nearby, who can be with him during the infusions. He is surrounded by love today.
But I’m down here.
And, as it turns out, it sucks.
Earlier this week, he realized that he’d rather have me there during the sessions, that even the “good times” are really not that good… but the tickets are bought, the plans are made, for the next month and a half or so. We can’t change the plans for the next few sessions. I’ll be there for all the ones after #6, going forward.
But this is #3, and I’m here, and he’s there.
So, there you go.
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In other news. I went to the East Bay and had lunch with a friend I haven’t seen in well over a year, and saw her lovely new home. I have baby artichokes and whole garlic cloves simmering on the stove. I didn’t get a nap today. I didn’t write today. Okay that’s enough other news.