The Two Kinds of Decay

Oldies

I wrote this three months after the diagnosis:

I listen to Oldies 103 now because if I listen to other people’s music then my life won’t really be mine. All day I hear songs about girls dying in car crashes and their boyfriends having to be good so they can see them again in heaven.

If I get better, I know my life will be the same as it was before, and I already know it isn’t worth suffering so much for. Not this much. And so I am trying to change.

I started listening to Oldies 103 because it reminded me that something had happened to me while I was sick, and that I was different. And that even if I forgot to stay that way, I’d keep the habit of listening to the new radio station, and it might remind me.

I wrote this four months after the diagnosis:

I want to get better so I can be with the other people, the other dying people, who know the things they know.