It was while I attended Jeff Lofton’s performance at UT’s Cactus Café a few weeks ago.

http://www.jefflofton.com/

 Sublime traditional jazz, I presented my rapt attentive face - the one I keep in the jar by my door –

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaRNrDaoMqw

but skitter, skitter, skitter went my thoughts in my mind.
Picture one of those water spiders skittering aimlessly across the surface of a pond.

 I was the captive dweller in the apartment below, futilely banging on the ceiling with my broomstick. “Hey, you up there! Keep the noise down!”

I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me.

I’ve couldn’t seem to find my “unsinkableness”. I know it was just here a month or so ago. Where is Rose on her raft and her bloody bosun’s whistle when I need her most?

Cue Mary Hopkins, “Those were the days, my friends.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9JOmU2jFUo

 Last Friday a guy on a motorcycle gave me (who, ME?!) a second look while I waited in my Honda at the stop light.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UWRypqz5-o

 (I was looking rather fetching that day, if I do say so myself. I had on a puffy sleeved coral top, and coordinating lipstick.)

Hear, oh hear, my litany of listlessness, my meanderings of meaninglessness, oh woe! Oh woe is me:

My eyelashes haven’t grown back as long and thick as before. Ooh, too bad, so sad!

(On the other hand, my upper lip and the hairs on my chinny-chin-chin are doing just fine, thank you, thank you very much!)

My hair is growing in very slowly, curly and unmanageable, so I’m still wearing my cancer wig because otherwise I look like that guy from Eraserhead. Ay, pobrecita!

I still have a ghostly bruise on my leg from falling down a year ago in the shower when I was weak from chemo, and a burn mark on my arm from last Christmas’s encounter with my hot oven rack. Quelle tragique!

So WTF?

I was so boosterish about being cured of cancer I could have filled the Republican Convention Center and America’s Chambers of Commerce meetings with my positivity, you betcha, by golly!

I remind myself how incredibly blessed I am. I’m not getting shot in Syria, I’m not starving in Darfur, not getting droned in Afghanistan. I’m vertical and above ground. A few weeks ago I had my second 3-month checkup and all signs indicate I’m still cancer-free. 

Cue Peggy Lee, “Is that all there is?”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe9kKf7SHco

What the H-E-double-hockeysticks do I do now?

 I’ve figured it out, what’s wrong with me is that I’m in mourning. The Claudia Before Cancer, she’s gone, forever and ever, amen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptDBuNlbG0A

 That life, that job, that person, gone, all gone. Not coming back, uh-uh, no way, no how.

 You know, the five steps of loss: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. Well, guess what? I’ve now realized my relentless positivity was Denial.

Anger and Bargaining? I dunno – maybe I skipped those parts, or maybe they are yet to come. It would be just like me to be a late bloomer in the Kubler-Ross School of Death.

Depression is my long absence from OS. I had approached my blog on OS as a substitute for a meaningful life, but my blog isn’t a life, it’s not purpose, it’s me explaining myself to me.

I know there are Real Writers on OS, people who write because they must.

Me, uh, not so much. Sometimes I play with words. I’m happy if you read me and comment if you feel so moved.

Still searching for Acceptance…