Maybe this time

I've thought I was back before. Quite a few times over the past few months/maybe a year, it's occurred to me "Ah, now is the time when I've put this all behind me." "This all" = cancer, cancer, dementia, dementia, overdose, dementia, emotional breakdown....none of it mine (yet). One of those dementias is my dog's, for the love of GOD.

It occurs to me that this is what the second half of life is all about: learning to live without. Without certain beloved people, without certainty, without routine. I went back to work--and failed miserably. I went back to writing--and wound up staring out the window for hours at a time, contemplating (with a depth of contemplation I'd previously never experienced) the ass end of a plastic goose on an overstated plinth in the neighbor's back yard. I went back to yoga--and remained in the fetal position in the dark until they turned on all the studio lights and made "we are closing this building" noises.

But something happened the other day that made me think that there's a new chapter writing itself. It went like this:

Russian mammogram technician: Maybe you have *face* of first wife, but you have breasts of second wife."

RIGHT?

I'm back, aren't I?
!!!