I found myself thinking a lot about my high school literature classes lately. Well, not a lot but two things in particular.

Junior year, my teacher said that the reason so many books are sad is because happy people live life while sad people write about it. It's something I can definitely relate to these days. The cyclical nature of the chemo treatments leaves me going through a period where either the treatment itself or the side effects make life more unpleasant than pleasant. I tend to write more during these times because there's just more to write about how I'm feeling about it all.

Then about a week after the last treatment, once the side effects have mostly worn off, I'm feeling pretty good and mostly forget I'm dealing with all this (minus when I look in the mirror and see myself without hair). I tend to write less during this time.

But then the next chemo cycle ramps up and I go back to whatever the emotion du jour is.

This lead me to Sisyphus who we read about during my college English class senior year. In greek mythology when he passed into Hades he was condemned to roll a boulder up a hill for all eternity. Once he got the boulder to the top, it would begin to roll down again. He'd then start the process over and so on and so on.

Albert Camus posited that you have to imagine on the walk down from the top that Sisyphus had to be happy in that moment as he was free from the burden of pushing the rock (if even momentarily). And that gave him something to look forward to every time he had to start over.

All that is to say, the second week between treatments is the time I get to look forward to. I'm not in the chair. I'm not feeling the effects. I just get to be Josh again (for the most part).

I'll take it for now. Fuck Donald.