Thoughts 2022-03-14 INVINCIBLE

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=CtiuMnhP3Qk&feature=share

I have been obsessively listening to Invincible by Tool again. What an amazing song. It resonated with me prior to the cancer diagnosis, but it really registers now. It is so melancholy, but proud at the the same time. The first verse is a good summary.

Long in tooth and soul

Longing for another win

Lurch in to the fray

Weapon out and belly in

I love the line, “weapon out and belly in,” it says so much with so few words. You can literally see this grizzled veteran sucking his ponch in and over emphasizing his readiness for battle. I love the bass line for this section. Amazing. Obviously, I am longing for another win. I need this one. There is nothing like sitting in a chair, hooked up to an IV that is feeding poison into your bloodstream, to make you feel old in tooth and soul. It really doesn’t matter how old you truly are.

Warrior

Struggling

To remain

Consequential

As I said, this song resonated with me strongly even before the cancer diagnosis, but at this point it should be pretty obvious why this hits home so hard. It is basically a summary of my current life. I am a warrior struggling to survive, that is where I am at now, but I am weakened by the weight loss and the cancer. That weighs on me as well. Maynard uses the words Consequential and Relevant for these sections, and I find them…well…relevant really. Perfect word choice for the feeling he is trying to impart. It is unsettling how important it is to remain consequential, to remain relevant.

Bellow out loud

Bold and proud

Of where I’ve been

But here I am

It is funny how often I find myself trying to convince people I have not always been 120 lb cancer patient. I can’t even tell you how many nurses I have told that I hiked the Skyline Trail in August. Always trying to let people know, “hey I was human a year ago, this is all new, this might be me now, but a short time ago, things were very different.” You shouldn’t need that, but I do, that is for sure. I am not sure why. Pride? Vanity? Something else? Hard to say. But here I am, and that is what it is. No more six pack, no more muscles. I was skinny before, but you don't realize what skinny really is until you hit the level I am at. No muscle at all, can't even open the pickle jar.

Beating chest and drums

Beating tired bones again

Age-old battle, mine

Weapon out and belly in

As I sit in this chair and the chemo is being pumped into my blood stream, I feel the beating of my tired bones very distinctly, this battle starts out with optimism and then quickly degenerates into feeling sick and tired, drained really, empty. Earlier this week, when discussing my upcoming CT scan, the doctor went out of her way to emphasize the fact that she does not anticipate me going in for another surgery. She does not think the chemo will work well enough to get the tumor down to a small enough size. It is hard to keep the spirits up in those situations, that is when the shield starts to dip and the belly starts trying to drop back out. She has to pick the odds that are most likely. I like to focus on the fact that I am not like 99% of pancreatic cancer patients. I am otherwise healthy and comparably young. I think the odds are misleading, but that is just me maybe.

Tales told of battles won

Of things we’ve done

Caligula would grin

I definitely connect with this passage, a walk back through my battles and vices would certainly make Caligula giggle. It is funny how important it becomes to you that others understand you have not always been this shallow husk of the man you used to be. That, I think, is the thing I found most surprising about this whole endeavor. I’ve never been all that worried in convincing people I have had a full life, of some good times or whatever, but somehow it has become important. Hence, everything I am doing now. It is like a cry to the world, “Hey, look, I lived. I was here, and I gave it my all! And for a time I was doing pretty well!”

Beating tired bones

Tripping through remember when

Once invincible

Now the armor’s wearing thin

Heavy shield down.

Oh man, I love the line “Tripping through remember when.” It is true, that it is no longer a smooth walk through your remembrances, it is a struggle, and you trip and stagger through them. You lose confidence in your memory sometimes. Rightly so, memory is fragile, there are a million studies showing that. What you remember is seldom exactly what happened. Time and distance exacerbate that fact.

I certainly remember feeling invincible, 40 is an age where those illusions begin to reveal themselves as such, but for me they went next level with the cancer diagnosis. It wasn't real at 40, it is mostly real now. Man, I feel like I struggle every day to keep my shield up. Even today though, I am convinced I will be the outlier in the cancer statistics. Sure 99% of people in my situation do not have their tumor shrink enough for another surgery, but 1% do, and I am that 1%, I am hanging on to that. Still invincible Maynard, thin armor or not. I still have another fight in me. Maybe many.

Warrior

Struggling

To remain

Relevant

Warrior

Struggling

To remain

Consequential

That verse speaks for itself really, as does the rest of the song. Before moving on, however, I would put some more emphasis on the last few verses:

Tears in my eyes chasing Ponce de Leon’s phantom soul

Filled with hope, I can taste mythical fountains

False hope, perhaps

But the truth never got in my way

Before now, feel the sting, feeling time bearing down

Ponce de Leon was famous for supposedly seeking the fountain of youth, while he was busy in Florida and Puerto Rico. I am chasing that phantom myself, hence the website, the stories and the poems. Maybe it is a false hope, probably is, but, like Maynard, the truth has never gotten in my way before now. Have a good listen to the song. It is a gem, Tool have many, this one is floating at the top of my list of favorites. It has since the first time I heard it. Anyway, that is all I have for now. Have a great day and I’ll see you all in eternity.

Remember When?