This is one of the most difficult things I’ve been coming to realize over the last couple of years: I can’t write anymore. It has been so difficult to admit this to myself that I have barely even considered admitting it to anyone else.

It’s not that I’m losing the ability to create prose. Whether it’s good or bad, interesting or boring, properly punctuated and grammatically correct – or a miserable mess – I can create prose. I just can no longer commit it to paper with handwriting.

I’m losing my ability to physically record my words on paper. I can type, and I do a great deal of my work and writing on computers and tablets and my phone. But I feel a sense of loss.

I’m fifty. If you are eighteen and you care about your future and you’re working on yourself, then you are at the front of the pack, regardless of grades, regardless of any standard test or measure. The future is a path that changes wildly, is fickle, will surprise you, enrapture you, and disappoint you at times. You can’t prepare for everything. You have your entire life ahead of you. Find what you enjoy. It’ll take years, learn patience. It’ll change, learn to adapt. Take time every day for fun, to keep your mind and spirit moving in a positive space. Get help if you need it. Know that people love you, even when you don’t see it. Learn to love yourself – My best friend has spent almost her entire life trying to learn that, by the way. The cliche life is a journey is true. I got my tickets to my destination at a travel agency, and this trip has really been f*kd up! But it’s worth it, and I have my peeps, and I have friends all over. I have a life that suits me. You will too. You just don’t know it yet. Xoxo

Yep, got that. Diagnosed a little more than a year ago; prostate. So last week, last Friday, my prostate was removed. After a few days in the hospital, I was sent home. It’s all very exciting. Cancer isn’t what this blog/site is about: but for a while, at least, cancer is still in my life and front & center stage. Prostate removal, or “birth,” as my boss was happy to call it, is pretty major surgery – and because of that, I’m home with plenty of free time. I think I might squeeze writing in between reading and video games, watching the entire ten seasons of SG1, binge watching Orphan Black, Dr. Who and BBC’s “Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.”

I blame him. Shel. For the title of this blog.