A bad moment - sad thoughts

A used book store near me is going out of business so I drove there with a metaphorical wheel barrow expecting to clean out half the store. I've been a prolific reader and have a large book collection. In the past, though, I shopped for used books with two thoughts in mind:

1) Oh, I want to read this! I'll start tonight!
2) I want to read this someday, so I'll buy it and read it when I retire and have the time.

This is the first time I hit a sale at a bookshop since my diagnosis and as you may already have guessed, I had a bad moment. Picking books with the thought that I will read them when I retire was suddenly a painful thought. I have more than ten years before I retire, and I don't know if I'm going to make it that far.

I have so many books at home that I'm saving for a rainy decade so to speak that suddenly I'm filled with a painful self-hatred. I'm looking at the books I have that I haven't read yet and thinking, "Which ones do I want to read before the end?"

These may be familiar feelings. I guess you can extend this feeling to anything. Which movies do I want to see before the end? What cities do I want to visit? Which friends so I want to reconcile with? What words do I want to say to my wife? I'm having difficulty dealing with it tonight. I feel like I'm in a downward spiral. I know I'll feel better in the morning, but it feels pretty bad right now.

Some sobering thoughts about our mortality.  Regarding books, I've had some of the same sentiments.  Most of my reading is rereading old, beloved books. Sometimes, when finishing a finely written book, I wonder to myself if I'll reread it, a thought that never occurred to me even as recently as ten years ago.  I hear the winged chariot of time more now than when I was younger.  

All the best on your prostate cancer journey.  Take care and hang in there.

 

John,
Have a bad day, it is allowed here, then tomorrow make sure you pick yourself up and dust off one of those glorious books and enjoy the read! None of us know what lies around the corner for us so just remember that even without PCa in your life you may not have gotten to read them all, no more than the rest of us will probably get through our ‘bucket list’.
Hoping you will wake up in the morning with a positive and happy frame of mind.
Enjoy every moment.
Sending you a happy hug from over the pond.
Susan
x

Hang in there John, and realize we all have our bad days.  Tomorrow (today) dust yourself off and continue onward, and know you've got tons of support out here, 24/7.

When I was Dx'd with PCa I thought (correctly) about how significantly my life - and outlook on life - would change.  And of course it did.

My reaction to all of this has been to appreciate life more for what it is, the little things.  Be happy for what I have, for what I have experienced and will yet experience.  I DO NOT believe I will lose to this beast, but I also know that I will indeed die someday - when and from what are the unknowns, but I refuse to dwell on any of that.

There's a song by country music artist Tim McGraw titled "Live Like You Were Dyin'" that took on an entirely different meaning for me.  Here's a link it, and following are the words.  Best to you brother....

http://www.artistdirect.com/video/tim-mcgraw-live-like-you-were-dying/40039

He said
 "I was in my early forties
 With a lot of life before me
 And a moment came that stopped me on a dime
 I spent most of the next days
 Looking at the x-rays
 Talkin' 'bout the options
 And talkin' 'bout sweet time"
 I asked him
 "When it sank in
That this might really be the real end
 How's it hit you
 When you get that kind of news?
 Man, what'd you do?"
 
He said
 "I went skydiving
 I went Rocky Mountain climbing
 I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Blue Manchu
 And I loved deeper
 And I spoke sweeter
 And I gave forgiveness I'd been denying"
 And he said
 "Someday I hope you get the chance
 To live like you were dying"
 
He said
 "I was finally the husband
 That most of the time I wasn't
 And I became a friend a friend would like to have
 And all of a sudden going fishin'
 Wasn't such an imposition
 And I went three times that year I lost my dad
 I finally read the Good Book, and I
 Took a good, long, hard look
 At what I'd do if I could do it all again
 And then
 
I went skydiving
 I went Rocky Mountain climbing
 I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Blue Manchu
 And I loved deeper
And I spoke sweeter
 And I gave forgiveness I'd been denying"
 And he said
 "Someday I hope you get the chance
 To live like you were dying
 Like tomorrow was a gift
 And you've got eternity
 To think about
 What you'd do with it
 What could you do with it
 What did I do with it?
 What would I do with it?
 
Skydiving
 I went Rocky mountain climbing
 I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Blue Manchu
 And I loved deeper
 And I spoke sweeter
 And I watched an eagle as it was flying"
 And he said
 "Someday I hope you get the chance
 To live like you were dying
 To live like you were dying

JohnKeats -

Oh wow, did you ever strike a familiar chord with me! As a former librarian I can tell you I really do live for reading!

Did you ever see that episode of the Twilight Zone about that mousy little librarian who survives a nuclear war, piles up books to read that he finds in the rubble, then breaks his glasses before he can read any of them? (A librarian's nightmare!)

Well, when it comes to reading, I'm that guy. I don't look anything like that character, but I sure have the same reading personality. I'm the guy who stands in the grocery aisle reading can labels, or reads all the billboards waiting for the traffic light to change, or who methodically reads all the junk mail arriving in his mail box. Fact is, I genuinely believe I may have some kind of OCD for reading. (That was a great problem to have as a librarian, though).

So what do I do when I feel the way you describe (as I do sometimes)? Well, I just reach out and grab a book, any book, and start reading it, and I read, read and read some more. Quickly the rest of the world and its problems just slides away to a remote corner of my mind, and just stays there until I finish my book.

Like the Twilight Zone librarian, I've got books piled up, both literally at home and figuratively in my mind, so I have a wonderful refuge to go to when the need arises. (And I sure won't break my glasses -- have a backup pair, anyway!)

We all need a secret place we can go to when the need, like the one you described, arises. Maybe it's reading, maybe for someone else it's a boat, or grandchildren, or maybe even sharing on a forum like this one. We just need to find out what it is, and then let it help us.

John, I can relate. It is good to have this forum to vent as others have been there, done that. It also helps me not put too much of this on my family by venting here. Last night was not good, but this morning is better and I expect to have many more of those moments that swing from sadness to gladness.

Michael

Johnkeats,

I hear you on the books. Books have always been with me. I like finding new/old authors. Recently hooked on Edward Rutherford. His books are so long and I read so slow that I wear out the paperback covers!

Gotta ask, who is your favorite poet?

Best wishes, good luck and Carpe Diem!

John,

Any man who loves books should have more of them in his house than he will ever read. It makes his house responsive to his moods; it opens up his options and sets him free. Why would you want to wall yourself into an ever-narrowing world just because prostate cancer has reminded you that you are mortal?

My prescription for your blues would be to pick out two books to read next, as time allows, one that you've read before that you know will cheer you up -- an old and well-worn friend -- and also a book you've been meaning to read.

RCS,

His favorite poet might be Jeff the Worried Guy. The first four lines of Jeff's poems were cribbed from that other Keats fellow, but the second stanza came from somewhere else -- maybe from Jeff himself for all I know.

A question for goodlife:

How is it that, after three years of undetectable PSA, you're having SRT?

Wonderful thread. John, after my diagnosis, out of the thousand or so books I have, I got out my original 1949 edition of "Silverlock" by John Myers Myers. First line is :"If I had cared to live, I would have died." The book is my all time favorite and at the time, some of the best medicine I took.

OK John, don't leave us hanging... Hope you chime in and tell us you read a book today

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”

Peter,

Only a Keats aficionado would notice.

Despite having the same meter and rhyme,
The last four lines are definitely mine.

Jeff

John - may you have the strength and determination to ride the storms and waves of uncertainly that makes up this confusing roller coaster ride called PCa.
You have a lot of love and support here at HW - may you find peace and contentment to mellow the bad days and enrich the good ones.

hugs,
Bronson