The C-Word

I've realized something recently. All the things that make my life the hardest are called cancers.

It's extremely appropriate, I think, that people born between June 21 and July 22 are Cancers. Every boy in my entire life that has cause me large amounts of trouble, with the exception of one, was a Cancer. They stick on you like that, too. In a lot of ways they never go away entirely. You might stop seeing them and you might stop hearing about them, but you start acting differently because of them. You probably never stop thinking about them.

And if my tattoo is any suggestion, I'm more than a little shaken up about my dad's illness. Like Steve Irwin, you keep seeing him do crazy shit and you think "that dude is gonna get killed!" and then when he finally dies you're shocked because, really, how can someone who has to frequently defied death actually die? After seeing someone dodge it so many times, you start to believe it can't even happen. Unlike Steve Irwin, my dad will not go out in a way that's appropriately absurd. He will gradually decline and we'll see it coming, and we'll try to stop it but eventually it will come back and that will just be that.

I've heard before that it used to be that you didn't talk about cancer. It was the c-word, something you didn't want to talk about. Something you only brought up in trusted, intimate company. In some ways, this is still true about the disease. For me, this is also true of all kinds of cancer men. I don't talk about what's happening with my dad to most people. I don't talk about what's happening with my boyfriends to most people. Because it makes people uncomfortable, and it exposes something about yourself that you don't always want to expose.

Unless you're me and you prick it directly into your skin so everyone can see, and then you don't really have to explain.