Five Year Chip

I came to being a non-drinker in an unusual way, and I say that as if there's a usual way. Multiple motivations exist for eliminating alcohol from our lives: health, religion, civic responsibilities, spiritual reflection, treating addiction, or even required-by-law. A favorite story of how someone came to be sober is from my brother Michael, 61. I won awards for my humorous and poignant short stories written about our coming-of-age years as the unattended children of 1970's suburban privilege. ("Family Time" by Gillian Zed.) Much of that time I was covering up, cleaning up, or coping with, my idolized brother's escalating addiction to liquor. He, like our father, was a mean drunk.

Co dependency: we used to call it love.

When he was 37, Michael was ordered to do 30 days sobriety by the courts, and he did his time, attended AA meetings, got counseling, had his pee tested. He's a US Veteran, a former biker, and generally a 'Don't tread on me' kinda guy, so that demonstrated extreme tolerance for somebody else's rules. His bros at the bar had a calendar with red X's marking down his required time and when the highly anticipated day arrived, Michael did not walk through the doors. He had - in spite of himself- listened in those meetings, and some of it rang pretty-damn-true as to the potential source of his life's fuck ups. The drinking buddies hunted him down, wanting to know when the party was going to start??! But, without the blinders of alcohol, Mike had recognized the fork in the road ahead of him. He saw the choice for the second half of his life, building healthy relationships with his children, reconnecting to family, creating a useful existence, and by the grace of god, he took it. After a lifetime of booze being his best friend, that was brave as hell.

"You know what, guys," he said to the beer-in-hand crowd, "I'm gonna give it another day." He has not had a drink in 25 years. One day at a time.

Gillian Zed, brother Michael & Mum Fall 2019

If you'd told me in my early teens - when we were hustling pool on the boardwalks of New Jersey, selling pot at the top of our brick home's sweeping spiral staircase, and hanging out in a chopper shop - that Michael would one day give up drinking, for good, I'd have called you delusional.

I make a distinction for myself between being a 'non-drinker' and being 'sober' because I smoke a lot of pot. Aside from pregnancy, I've smoked weed my entire adult life. For medicinal reasons, for recreation, cannabis is my anti-depressant and coping medicine. I live where it's legal and at 59, a breast cancer - and now spine surgery- survivor, honestly I could give zero fucks if you think it's a bad idea. But, I also respect that to some people struggling with recovery, smoking pot is next door to drinking, or using, and I'm not about to welcome them on board my boat that does not float solidly on the 12-step program. I believe in, can testify to, the power of the program to, as the Avett Brothers so poetically put it, "Make men out of monsters", but I'm a spectator to AA. I'd never try to fly under the false colors of someone who is 'SOBER' because I recognize that's a whole level of work that I'm not doing, or interested in doing.

No steps for me. No higher power (I actually do believe in the power of the Universe, so box that up how ever you want,) No meetings, fellowship, sponsor, or sharing. Sorry, no.

The Forsyth Hotel, Georgetown, Seattle

Not drinking is a choice for me. Not a requirement. Sadly, after being raised and surrounded socially by alcoholics, I am very clear about the ugly physical and crippling mental addiction associated with the disease of alcoholism. Yeah, I don't have that. It was so unattractive to me after years of Mike's bullshit, I didn't really drink until my 30's, required as part of a 'show biz wife' Hollywood lifestyle from my first marriage. My heaviest drinking came during breast cancer recovery: a year living above a bar in a strange neighborhood. I made some of the best friends of my life on that bar stool.

Still, in choosing to remove booze from my life, I also, inadvertently, diverted myself away from a litany of bad behavior and some very depressing people. I lost weight. I also lost 'friends' who just weren't comfortable sitting across from a ginger ale. 

I've written previously -on this blog and else where- about the devastating and tragic loss of my best friend Terri and the subsequent fallout in my life of crippling grief and depression. (In comparison, it made surviving breast cancer look like getting a cavity filled.) It was that event- loosing a young, vibrant, funny as fuck, 33 year old woman to the decimation of full blown, untreated, addiction- that facilitated a dramatic, life-changing decision for me. People in recovery often speak of their turning points in terms of hitting rock bottom. Their breaking  point of no return, like my brother's fork in the road, the get-saved-or-die-place. 

Looking back, I'm devastated realizing the coping-with-cancer drinking phase of my late 40's, overlapped with Terri's early-but-ascending commitment, emotionally, physically and economically, to getting and staying drunk 24x7, which began in her late 20's. I never saw it coming. Even after all those years dealing with Michael, I missed it entirely. I was stunned discovering the depths of her fall in the five years since I moved away. I listened to everyone's stories, peeling back moldy layer after layer, in a Seattle hospital waiting room, while she lay in what I knew was an irreversible vegetative state. I swung emotionally between remorse at failing to know what was going on, unable to save her, and fierce anger that she was so neglected by those who were supposedly closest to her. 

So, in reality, it wasn't MY rock bottom that flipped the switch for me to walk away from liquor and all the lies it told. It was my closest friend's decent to a hell she would never recover from. 

People in AA - or any recovery program really- sanctify specific dates for what they represent: a personal achievement. The day of their last fix, sobriety date, 'clean' anniversary, often acknowledged annually at their regular group meeting, with a cake, or at minimum, a chip. A chip is essentially a small disc 'trophy' recognizing your accomplishment of time kept sober. Folks put them on key chains, or in their pockets as talismans and reminders. There are several versions of chips, often including the Serenity Prayer and the AA symbol. My brother's sobriety birthday is- no irony here- St. Patrick's Day. (I'm sure he has a good story for that one.) He was gifted a fancy metal coin chip for his 20th.

Terri with my 'Fuzzy Palmer', Georgetown

My 'stopped drinking' date is the same as the day Terri stopped breathing. Today. 3/26/15. So, as intended, I am forced to associate this horrible date, one of the worst days of my life, with one of the most powerful decisions I have ever made for myself. And today it is five years.

In breast cancer world, five years is a magic mark. No recurrence can indicate full remission for certain types of cancers: you're in recovery mode, not the 'will it come back' nightmare. It's a goal post to pass with flying colors and joy. (Passing the ten year post-cancer mark for me was like brushing my hands off after a stint in the garden, that's done, Mother Nature- take it from here!) But in grief, I'm not sure where five years has brought me. I cry less, true. I recall more Terri memories that make me laugh and less that piss me off. I have JC, her sister, in my life now, and she has me. I'm writing- and fucking sharing -about it all. So, sure, I'll take the five year chip. I've earned it.

People need support to ensure their success with big life changes that have the intention of improving health and well being. As it turned out, I had a running start on my non-drinking lifestyle because my husband had quit drinking six months previously, seeking relief from debilitating acid reflux. (It worked.) He continued to supply my pinot and I'd order a drink if we went out. It wasn't a big deal. But when this all went down I warned him on the phone to clean out whatever booze was still in the house: 'I'm not going to drink for a year. It's too much.' It's been a much easier path to maintain as a couple. It is not a decision we re-negotiate everyday; it's second nature now. We're still big fans of cuisine, but when we waive off the wine list, the server's disappointment is palpable. Being non-drinkers hasn't expanded our lives socially in Sonoma Valley, go figure.

Much like my brother's friends, my Georgetown crowd were astounded by my decision. I presented it as I felt it: a way to honor Terri for the next year. Mourning. Shiva. I knew every sad thought would be followed by the desire for a numbing elixir in the form of a rich red wine, well chilled vodka, or a frosty beer, and there was going to be a lot of sad thoughts.

The year arrived, and I visited Seattle to recognize the anniversary with folks, ready to 'toast' our friend. They were again perplexed at me saying I was going to continue to not drink, for an undetermined amount of time. There's no easier way to shake the foundation of a self-professed 'functional alcoholic' then to tell them you voluntarily gave up drinking. That weekend I watched, bored, as our circle of friends, in the name of Terri, drank themselves silly night after night. Weed would never catch me up to their booze buzz, and eventually I'd leave, unnoticed, to walk back 'home' in the dark, dampness of industrial Georgetown. 

Mementos in the cookie jar.

In knowing my recovery from the deepest of grief, with its abyss of pain and depression, is possible, I know also that I will continue to choose to not drink. I miss many aspects of alcohol, especially with its embedded presence in the community I currently live in. (It's not called 'Grape Country'.) But, like my brother, husband, and many other family and friends before me, when I lost Terri, I saw a choice and the potential consequences. I felt I had paid a big price for participating in a liquor-laced lifestyle. 

I'll never return to those painful times. 

Occasionally I spy a particularly attractive cocktail in a restaurant, or smell a olive-rich dirty martini wafting by me at a bar, or spot the label for that favorite pricey pinot noir we used to buy by the case because I was worried I'd run out, and I do a little double take. It's like a milli-second of 'Yummm!'. A very old habit. It goes away quickly, usually with a smile. 

But sometimes, often on an emotional trigger date, an anniversary, a birthday, the entire Christmas season, I will start to think about how good a drink would taste. Usually in the car, between destinations, it goes like this: I really want a drink! What bar is nearby, what would I order, what would it taste like, wouldn't it be delicious, isn't this a great idea, NO, no, no it's not a fucking good idea, why am I even thinking about this?

And then I'll see the date, often 26, Terri's number, and recognize the pain prompt my body felt even before my brain. Fuck me, that explains it. God damn subconscious. And I drive by that bar, go home and pop a ginger ale, smoke some pot, pet my cat, and I process the memories. I acknowledge the pain and try to move past it. Alcohol is the siren of self-destruction that depression tells us is comfort: a lie I can rise above, and refute, again and again. In my heart, I'm committed to my health, my recovery, my journey, and not drinking is intrinsic to that .

I'm gonna give it another day.

###
Dedicated with much love to Becca @reblouread who really did the fucking work to earn her 10 year chip January 2020. 

A Surprise Third Act

Niece Tabitha & Gillian Zed, Kailua  Photo @hoff96734

Six months. It can be a lifetime. It can be a deadline. It is one of those increments that's beyond subjective. It's a malleable timeline. It can go fast, or inch along at a glacial pace. It marks a half a year, or two fiscal quarters, and potentially two seasons. I lost Spring & Summer of 2019. Because, in March, I woke up unable to use my left leg or foot, finding it paralyzed, but not without excruciating pain.

I don’t want to recount the blow-by-blow on my injury because it won’t help anyone- especially me- to relive all the truly agonizing steps towards being able to have enough concentration to even attempt to blog. I started this post at the six month mark. It's now been ten months.

I was so smug, thinking a decade behind me surviving breast cancer, made me exempt from further health challenges. I agreed completely with an old friend who wrote recently, saying they felt I had ‘been through enough.’ But I ignored a gnawing backache for years. YEARS. In my late 50’s I physically flipped houses, moved furniture, painted walls and did landscaping, all the while choosing to work through the discomfort thinking it was temporary. In fact, it was the canary dying in the coal mine. I brushed the little yellow feathered body aside. There was more than one.

So, on a Monday morning, weeks after turning 58, trying to get up from bed, I screamed for my husband and said something I have never said in my adult life: “Take me to the ER.”

Support following a traumatic life experience looks like different things to folks. Similar to the ‘love languages’, care and concern can manifest in a variety of ways. I learned this to my joy, as well as deep disappointment when realizing that, although in my new community for several years, I did not have a true friend. Not. A. One. No one beat a path to my door with a casserole. I got a few texts. A funny card, mailed from a client, (after I'd run into her husband three months in, while wearing a back brace, with cane,) was a bright spot.  I asked someone considered a good pal of three years, to come hang out a few days post op because I had run out of family to keep me company, and she came for a few hours, but I didn’t hear from her again. Not. A. Word.

This revelation resulted in a great deal of self-reflection, wondering if I was, in fact, that undesirable as a friend? Or had I not contributed any energy towards these imaginary relationships, and this acrid desert of kindness, the result? I reviewed my actions. No, fuck that. I was present for these people. I listened to their family dramas. I helped them professionally for no monetary gain. I'd initiated social outings, given gifts. And, I tolerated their bullshit. It was not enough social currency apparently: I’d wasted that investment in several people.

That was another blow to my balance, beyond the shattered-into-pieces-disc between L4 and L5. I struggled for solid footing.

But there were shining lights at the end of my seemingly endless road to recovery. After losing my dear friend Terri almost five years ago, her sister JC and I have become very close. We’ve managed to usually spend the painful anniversary of Terri’s passing together, with me venturing to Seattle. But in 2019, I offered JC a ‘wine country weekend’ and she bought a plane ticket.  We were going to spend time smoking weed, eating good food and laughing till we cry. But three days before, about to go into emergency spine surgery, all I could think of was how I fucked up our weekend. My husband called to waive her off, but, no, she was coming anyway.

Sonoma Valley Sunshine

And this is where I will be a little ‘woo woo’ because in my drugged up, pain crazed mind, I still chuckled, thinking: Terri, you fucker, you timed this disaster so it would go down like this. That I would have a true friend, family,  full of unconditional love and good humor, to help the first 48 hours home. When I thought I would never walk normally or function independently again. And the kicker? JC is a nurse practitioner for a profession. She briskly set the household up for post-op success, created the medication schedule, made me protein smoothies and gave my exhausted and buried-in-work husband a vital break. 

JC did not get the promised wine tasting or farm-to-table-dinner, Sonoma-Valley experience and there were no complaints. (We'll make good on that, girl, I promise.) We still managed a few Terri laughs, and she let me read her the opening chapter of my first novel that I'm determined to write in spite of life's detours.

When I had to tell my family about having breast cancer, 11 years ago, everyone jumped in to offer help. But I knew I couldn’t take my mum’s nervous concern daily or interrupt everyone’s busy life with ease. But my niece, Tabitha, 20 years younger than me and a good friend, was who I needed to help. My sister bought her plane tickets and over the course of not one but two surgeries, she up-rooted her life (then in San Diego,) and came, missing work and income to be my nurse. After this recent mess, when I told my older daughter F. about JC coming anyway to take care of me, she humorously replied, “Well, that saved Tabitha a trip.”

Tabitha continues to be a rock of support for me. It was her that I called, hysterically sobbing, the night before the back operation, anxiety, and pain meds, pounding through me. Seeking escape from the fear of a major surgery, and all that came with it, trying to find an option I knew was not there, babbling on, she calmly offered: 'Sometimes science is the answer, the best choice. Trust it.'

It was the second weekend home, I was physically uncomfortable and struggling with my new reality and lack of mobility, when F. and her partner H. came to visit. This was the first non-holiday related visit to our house made by these very-busy-almost-30-professional-women, who drove over an hour in Bay Area traffic, to come sit on the couch and watch me do nothing. It meant everything to me. They had not made other plans “for later”, they did not linger on their phones, they were present and sweet and doting.
They fucking showed up.

F. told me she had called her younger sister, now unseen by us for about 10 years, to inform her of my brush with mortality, and ‘Thanks for telling me,’ was the response. I heard nothing from her. It was the same silence after my husband informed her I had lost Terri, someone she knew. That -painfully - revealed the depth of her contempt for me. I easily can drift into self-blame for being the awful mother she is so certain I was. But, at some point, you have to look forward, not back, or there is no movement at all. It strengthens her hate and resolve to remain aloof from us, but in reality, only deprives her of the unconditional love and support that family offers. The value of that has become clearer to me with every health hurdle.

(And if I was such a failure at parenthood, why did F. turn out so awesome? One out of two ain’t bad? Is that parenting today?)

Oahu Blooms

They used to say you can’t choose family. But anyone associated with the Queer community knows that's very old-fashioned thinking: sometimes the best, most loyal, is in fact, chosen family. That artificial-but-very-real connection is what kept me going through my self-destructive, often suicidal, teens and twenties. However, this debilitating  and life-changing experience showed me that blood family can show up for you too. It is a mystic, unbreakable bond that can keep people afloat in the worst of times, physically and spiritually. I'm grateful for it in my life, to be allowed the privilege to be vulnerable. To trust.

I asked the surgeon early on if it was possible for me to take a plane trip six weeks post op, a long planned trip to my beloved Hawaii, this time just a week to celebrate my great-nephew’s graduation from high school. The doctor was cautiously optimistic and I managed to go, even though I probably should not have. My husband flew with me and spent the weekend, arranging a first class (horizontal) ride home for me.  I wore a brace, used a cane and was perpetually exhausted. But I stayed with my sister and her hubby, in a swank rental at the end of a quiet road, and they treated me like gold. I felt like a Five Star spa guest as they handled food, chores, outings, and made sure I was comfortable at every turn. It was touching, appreciated, and also so necessary in order for me NOT to over due it- and undo all that expensive doctor work. Family.

Middle age is sometimes poetically referred to as life's Second Act. I was fully prepared, entering stage left, with my revitalized character, re-written as a patient and compassionate human following the wizardly transformation of cancer and reevaluation of my life's priorities. Formerly a power bitch in the deadline tight world of marketing and advertising, I'd just started to learn the rhythm and pace of my creative retirement gig: re-designing homes and curating people's crap. I loved the physicality, the 'before and after' accomplishment of that work. But, no, the (physical) reviews were in! My part was being cut entirely now. I had no more lines. My only hope for getting back on the boards of life was, in fact, to re-audition with a completely new set of talents. 

Honestly, I have no idea what those are. 

Writing, always my first love, is now subject to my random, volatile, levels of anxiety, comfort, inspiration, and yes, health. It's become a manic enterprise: there are hours of flowing, meaningful words, and then the blank page and dearth of ideas. (In other words: writing.) I don't allow myself self-pity in any way. Believe me, I know I'm beyond lucky. Dodged a bullet. Again. I have my leg under me. And I deeply appreciate my improbable life as a spoiled 'wine country housewife' (albeit, sans the wine,) that puts no monetary stress on me, and allows even my most complicated neuroses to be indulged, or at least accepted. Today, as we watch our parents age, and the little ones become young adults, I fully understand that family is also one of my blessings. That won't-put-you-through-BS-when-they-know-you-REALLY-need-them quality, the emotional short hand of a lifetime shared. 

Sunrise at Lanikai Beach, Oahu

My lucky stars have brought me back to Hawaii for some time near the ocean, far from town, quiet and peaceful. To reflect. To hopefully write. But this time, most importantly to heal.

Now, as I navigate the challenges of this surprise Third Act, I stare at the sea and follow the moon, ready for their messages. I continue circling this book I'm undertaking, often sneaking up on it, to sit and crank out pages before the self-doubt and editing that cripples the creative, begins. I often ponder: does it matters at all, if I continue with this work, especially now that it seems to be the only game I have left? 

Like a passionate lover, too good to be true, I want to abandon the words, first, before they leave me. But I've reached that place where I know, beyond a shadow of the moon, that now, I must press on. My future in this tentative theatrical planetary production is dependent on my willing, conscious, participation. If I don't string the words together and write them down now, tell my story, no one else will. I won't have any more lines in the play. And what then?

Exit, stage right.

One step forward, two steps back.

Author Gillian Zed - Photo by hoff96734

2019 was not my year. It started well, a prolific, relaxing month writing in HI, then launching this blog, and my ambition to - finally- share share share. But I didn't make it through March before the Universe sent me a completely different message.    

I will someday, no doubt, write about the long version of this experience- but it seems too hard still. So, the bullet points are this: A shattered disc in my lower back, a dropped foot, partial paralysis, pain at #14 on the 1-10 scale, emergency spinal surgery, and months- MONTHS- of physical therapy. I still have no feeling in a few toes, but it continues to improve.

Essays on aging? Kiss my ass.

FREE on Amazon 12/27-12/31/19

Needless to say, I have not really been able to write anything worth a god damn. So I've had to reflect. And re-reading the last big piece I published, Pier View, (an optimistic short story about acceptance and friendship between a breast cancer survivor and a transgender pre-teen surfer,) left me with two feelings:

1) PROUD of the completion. It is so fucking hard for me to finish anything and put it out there for judgment. (Creatives- show of hands?) All the reviews were kind, and one in particular, saved me when I was wondering if my queer mom POV message even mattered.

2) PISSED OFF that in five years, not enough has improved socially for trans kids, LGBTQA youth in general, and conversion therapy continues to exist. Queer kids are still abandoned by their blood kin for the sake of public (read: church) appearances. Further, society continues to ignore the growing list of missing and murdered trans women of color, as if they are disposable. Under this country's current dark political cloud, it has become acceptable, maybe even status quo, to not acknowledge, or engage with, an entire segment of Americans worthy of respect and dignity: someone's family.

So we have not moved forward in a meaningful way in those areas and that is deeply troubling to me.  And, yes, as I have written before, we continue to fail Leelah Alcorn who pleaded, with her last breath, for us to fix society.

A few weeks after I published Pier View, a tale driven by my hopefulness for the future as a breast cancer survivor, as well as a member of a queer family, I, along with the world, learned about Leelah Alcorn: a young transgender woman from Ohio, whose parents denied her existence, sent her to conversion therapy and isolated her into a level of depression that caused her to choose to walk in front of a semi truck to end her life- and suffering. I mourned a child I never met. 

I re-dedicated Pier View to Leelah Alcorn in January of 2015. The fifth anniversary of her death is tomorrow, 12/28/19, and the story is available for FREE download as an e-book from Amazon today, 27th to the 31st. You can click on the cover graphic above or HERE

Thank you Aleks, whoever you are, THIS is why I write.

Maybe this short story can help start a conversation, or give a kid a glimpse of what support might look like? It's that time of year for lots of human interest stories filled with warm and fuzzy happy endings. I admit that I write that stuff too: even in the face of people's ignorance, judgment and bigotry, I'm looking for that glass half full of humanity and compassion. 

A new decade looms and I'm frustrated by being able to focus on only the simplest of tasks, as I continue to physically heal. But perhaps I can at least encourage basic understanding and appreciation for fellow humans, and plead with adults not to shy away from letting a trans kid in your community know that you see them, and accept them, just as they are.

My Cat is Named Tamoxifen

Mr. Tamoxifen Tabby, near the hearth, Sonoma, CA

We call him Moxie for short. He and his ‘sister’ came from separate litters at Northeast Animal Shelter, one of New England’s largest no-kill shelters. We shopped long and hard. Originally, we wanted two troubled cats- you know, older and couldn’t be adopted apart, or maybe special needs. After being the patient for a year, I wanted to help heal something else. We had time. We had money. But in the end, after weeks of looking to ‘save’ something that just wasn’t there, we came home with two regular ol’ rescue tabbies. 

Mr. Tamoxifen Tabby was the formal name I eventually gave the pumpkin colored kitty I plucked from the back of his cage where he leaned, staring with giant peridot eyes, challenging me to love him. My husband went old school and named the petite, dark, mackerel striped girl he selected, after his teen (and current, I’m sure,) actress crush, Winona. Both animals were ‘juveniles’, less than a year old, no longer kittens, but not yet full grown.

All pet parents (like children parents,) will tell you theirs is 
the smartest/brightest/best-est ever boy or girl. Moxie, not so much. Don’t get me wrong, for a may-as-well-be-Garfield-incarnate, Moxie has some smarts. For instance, he knows that being called ‘douche bag’ is NOT a form of endearment in response to his bullying Winona. He is a big orange dude who, like most cats, seemingly gives zero fucks about anything but his next meal.

However, he did help me recover from breast cancer. So, there’s that.

Moxie's Person, Gillian Zed 2019    Photo @hoff96734

People go on and on about 'who saved who' and which living being really needed to be ‘rescued,’ and the whole litany of touchy-feely verbiage around adopting shelter animals. But I have proof. I know that my on-the-surface lazy, apathetic, bird-TV-watching, sunset-colored, lout of a cat, in fact, showed up in my life to help me heal. I don’t know where he read the job description, or why he decided to charm me among the parade of smiling fools that passed by his cage daily. But Moxie definitely chose me and told me so. I had no idea that little fuzzy orange thing was a Trojan Horse of physical therapy and calming energy. 

Less than a year out of my last breast re-construction surgery, I was still sore and favoring my left side where a breast was removed and eventually replaced with an implant. Sometimes it hurt like a mother-fucker. (A decade later, I still get treatment for mild lymphedema.) I was in a new town and alone most of the time. I didn’t feel confident, or strong enough, to venture far out of our New England cobblestoned village or my little job. I watched a lot of old movies.

Sitting in the center of our big sofa, feet up on an ottoman, with snacks and wine, (those were the days!) Moxie would join me. In the early weeks, I’d put him in the cradle of my extended legs, and he would purr as I pet him. But one night, after a month or so, I looked over at my husband and said, “Either my lap is getting smaller, or this cat has gotten a lot BIGGER,” and we both laughed.

And eventually, what was purported to be an average, orange male tabby cat, in fact, became a healthy-but-huge-fifteen-pound bundle of indifference. His sister remains a svelte nine pounds.

When Moxie out grew my lap, he could have chosen either side to settle on, or switched back and forth. Or, he could have abandoned me for one of the numerous carpeted shelves we had made to float over the heaters, providing a cozy perch in New England’s chill. But he didn’t: he would circle the couch and always land on my left. Even if I tried to move him, he would return to my left side. He STILL will only sit on my left. He made me work that arm, the one I really didn’t want to move, even though I’m fucking left handed. It was uncomfortable, but if the arm wasn’t active, keeping the circulation moving around the implant and all those scars, I ran the risk of permanent limited mobility. Moxie knew I could not resist petting him, or sometimes pick up his growing frame to hold against my chest, facilitating daily, and vital, physical therapy. I believe this to my core.

Moxie at sunset on the ranch, Sonoma.

And then, there’s his name. If you clicked on this story, it may be because you know EXACTLY, what tamoxifen is and perhaps it made you smile at this preposterous idea for a kitty name.  But you may also know that people who hear the word ‘cancer’ can react differently. I was a pragmatic patient, very busy keeping together a business that, unbeknownst to me, was about to tank along with the nation's economy. Fortunate to have a scientist husband who, ironically, was working in oncology. He was literate in the language of tests and numbers and codes, able to read my recovery road map. In the beginning, thinking I could control the beast, I tried to delay surgery. But in a rare moment of complete defiance of my wishes, a stack of my test reports in his hand, my life partner shook his head and said, 'No, that's not how this works.'

Eventually learning I had the ‘cut it out, get it out’ kind of breast cancer (DCIS) and tested negative for the BRCA gene mutation (which denotes disposition to breast and ovarian cancers,) I basically followed protocol. A lumpectomy, then full mastectomy, was done over the course of six months. I fought to keep my healthy breast, an uncommon but respected decision, resulting in over a year of breast reconstruction. I was spared radiation and chemo. I wasn't spared the depression, anxiety, and general post-multiple surgery discomfort that seeped into every aspect of my life, ultimately crippling me in an entirely different way: creatively.

Here’s the drill about tamoxifen in lay terms: a medication prescribed to be taken every 24 hours, for 5-10 years (yes, years, not months,) post mastectomy to diminish the opportunity for cancer to recur by creating, and maintaining, an inhospitable environment at the cellular level. But, down side, (and there always is one with cancer treatment, am I right?) is that it pushes you into early menopause with all the hell that comes with it. Tamoxifen amplifies the inevitable course a woman’s body would take, while also fast forwarding it.

So, (a-hem,) to be clear: strong and fast, chemically induced, hormonal, out-of-now-bloated-body outbursts, mood swings, appetite shifts, debilitating and drenching hot flashes and insomnia. Fucking A!? I was miserable a great deal of the time and had no one I felt safe enough with to share my pain. Except our cats.

I named him Moxie because I knew he would help me remember. And he did. I was always terrible with pills, even remembering vitamins was a non-starter.  But every night, just looking at him, my Tamoxifen Tabby, reminded me; his purr and tail wag did not stop until I took my meds. (Not long ago, my older daughter told me she employed a version of this, see text.) Then he would settle in- on my left- to watch every Ava Gardner or Myrna Loy or Ingrid Bergman movie all over again, while I petted him absentmindedly, loosening my scar-tissue-tight armpit. His name was the drug I had to remember to take, but the medicine was also the cat. Over the years, when told of my pet’s useful name, I’ve had a few smiling oncologists ask if they could pass that idea on, and of course I said yes. I wonder if there are other Tamoxifen Tabbies out there?

Winona & Moxie

It has been almost ten years that we’ve had the cats. For spoiled pets, they are in excellent condition. Moxie still is spry- and optimistically stupid- enough to chase his own tail, whirring in a cartoon-like blur of orange fur on the rug in front of the hearth. He likes to get drunk on the fire. Lingering far too long directly in front of the glass covered flames, until his coat virtually steams, then standing, staggers a few steps, flops down and rolls, stretching his sinuous frame across the rug, finally passing out, languid and at peace. He does this on purpose. No one is telling the cat to overheat himself in front of the damn fireplace. To enjoy it until it may become dangerous or detrimental, like staying in the sauna too long.

And in that, I see the old me, the pre-cancer me, finishing the entire box of chocolates, remaining in a toxic relationship, or staying too late at the bar. Part of surviving a life-threatening disease is a clearer perspective on when to say when. The dark allure and romance of self-destruction diminishes when if may no longer be up to you. It’s not that you are required to make better choices, it becomes natural and intuitive to do so, it just feels better, to feel better. (A complimentary mantra to AA’s reference to ‘sick and tired of feeling sick and tired’.)

Creating coping mechanisms is in a cancer patient's charter. We have to find our balance in navigating the real world's demands, responding to family's ever-hopeful-but-twinged-with-anxiety-smiles, and a lot of fucking information flooding our brain about a disease we wished to remain ignorant to. We all respond differently, to what is NOT 'just like' a well meaning friend's Auntie's experience, but our OWN individual dance with the demon that is breast cancer. And I'm here for whatever works for YOU, sister. No judgment and no criticism, veiled as support. Me? I got a cat and named him after an icky drug I had to remember to take, everyday, seemingly forever, to help the odds of me living longer. 

We didn’t have pets when our kids were little. We told them they were allergic, one of numerous lies fed to them over the years for our own comfort or convenience. My older daughter has settled into being a full on crazy-multiple-cat lady in her late 20’s, so she clearly got over this childhood abuse. I admire dogs though didn’t really have a relationship with many growing up. The Basset Hound, Rufus, who lived in our home when I was 5-16 was not my dog, but the facilitator of communication between my parents. They divorced, after 26 years married, less than a year after he died.

Moxie's bed, left of my writing chair.

Realistically, I am too selfish for dogs, who deserve full time attention and focused energy. Cats, with their emotional distance, perpetual napping and solitude are more forgiving of the traveler and the screen-focused human. I leave my robe for Moxie when away on long trips. It takes him less and less time to greet me when I return, his aloof coyness supplanted by longing. Even though the rest of the family is there, I'm so blessed to be his person, a special love, missed when gone.

It's been ages since I stopped taking tamoxifen and Moxie's reminder meowing is now prompted only by his breakfast and dinner times. (He has an inner clock I'm pretty sure you could set Greenwich Mean Time by!) But we'll still be rescuing each other for years to come: from chilly evenings, from moments of despair, or worse, from the loneliness of grief. With breast cancer far behind us, we're stronger together, as an entire family, ready for what life brings next. I'm especially grateful for my cat, who remains my creative muse and inspiration to enjoy Every. Single. Day. You can usually find Moxie the cat in the window and perch filled, garden view room, we built just for Winona and him. Bored by birds he can not catch, often he is curled up snoring in his favorite bed, dreaming about snacks, right here, on my left.

,

No One Owns The F**king Sunrise

I’ve spent the better part of the last ten years getting over myself. As another birthday comes to greet me, I review my uncertain and arduous path between 47 and 57:  three years of breast cancer, diagnosis, reconstruction, and recovery; the crash of the economy at the height of my creative career marketing products people didn’t need; and the younger of my two daughters electing at 20 to remove herself from our lives. It all took a sharp swipe at my ego: I was broken, inside and out. Even if I could have mustered up another round of ‘power bitch’, it was doubtful I had enough energy- or interest- to follow through on anything.

Gillian Zed January 2019  Photo by Meri Hoffsten

Learning to be vulnerable in my late 40’s, to ask for help, was a challenge to my stoic, self-reliant form of feminism. After a career rising above blanket misogyny and inner-corporate drama, I no longer had the sanctuary of my professional setting to hide in. My group of adoring clients, my network of collaborators, essentially paid to agree with me, that was...... ALL GONE.

I had to make friends. I had to join support groups. There was just no way in hell I was going to get through all that shit alone. Being a strong, independent, and superior woman had brought me that far, and then, unceremoniously dumped me at the doorstep of humanity. My talent as a copy writer was shot. With no ability to concentrate, I couldn’t string together words in the clever ways I once could. (You can still find one of my tag lines printed on product packaging in some dusty gift shop.) Work as a potential art director or photography stylist, even if the gig wasn’t physically strenuous, left me deeply apathetic and indifferent to potential customers. I was no longer engaged with all that ephemera I'd built a career launching into the marketplace with my proven, unique vision.

I just didn’t care. I wanted to. But that broad was gone. She had checked out somewhere between the third breast surgery and my kid moving away without a forwarding address. I was struggling with trying to figure out who was this shell of a woman that remained?

After a move east for my partner’s job,

<Side note soap box and shout out of appreciation to R. for working the ‘square job’ that provides our financial stability and health care, including the routine mammogram that saved my life with early detection. Because it was not on my radar, or family history, I wouldn’t have elected to pay for this basic screening at 47, therefore it’s doubtful the cancer would have been discovered before becoming potentially deadly. That very practical reality -having reasonable, preventative based health care/insurance- is a blessing- a privilege- I am acutely aware of. Every. Single. Day.>

I took a job at a quaint little New England soap store and became a 48-year-old shop girl. That was until the first Massachusetts winter. Then, just months out of my last reconstruction surgery, I played the recovery card, and began a tradition of going somewhere warm – or just warm-er - for January. To get away. To heal. And, hey, maybe I’d write. I kept it affordable by hitting up friends and family for house or pet sitting gigs, lucking out with locations.

Over this last decade, during those weeks alone with my thoughts, walking on a beach in San Diego, watching the rain from a Seattle brownstone, I’ve sorted through the junk drawer of my emotional clutter. With my new perspective – eminent mortality - it seemed I’d saved all the wrong mementos and discarded the snippets of joy that DID exist in my life’s story. When looking back I’d chosen to focus on the areas where I believed I had failed, came up short, disappointed others, myself or simply did not achieve the lofty goal I had set for myself. Having been so accomplished in seeing the potential in others, my clients, my children, I assumed there was nothing for me beyond that. I was defined by making other people successful. Not myself.

I did write during my winter sojourns, and other trips tucked into the year when I could. I began to write about subjects that affected my world, tore at my heart, made me want to help, to change society: I wrote stories about people I admired for their ability to be who they were, authentic in themselves, unapologetically. Having been given a second chance on life, I wrote about the person I wanted so badly to become. I wrote for myself, publishing a short story I was proud of, Pier View, on Amazon.

In recent years, I’ve been lucky to visit Hawaii for my January trip. I often rent a place near family in Lanikai or Kailua Beach on the east side of Oahu and spend a few weeks writing, walking, eating good food, and sorting through that -thankfully less crowded - emotional junk drawer. Although far from Honolulu, there’s plenty of tourists, it’s one of the most photographed beaches in Hawaii. The sun rising above the sea next to the majestic Mokulua Islands is a spectacular sight; humbling.

Dawn is around 7am in the winter and sometimes I would manage to wake up early, inspired to get down to the sand and watch mother nature do her thing. Often, I settled into a spot far down on the beach, removed from the tourists and tripods, sit on my towel, drink my coffee and thank the goddesses for being alive.

But today, waiting for the glimmer of a day that will not be held back, I feel tears rise, and alongside my gratitude, I must also again, recognize my loss. Not my breast, not my career, not my daughter. Thinking that sequence of events was the lowest, the worst, the place in my life that made me not only crack open that drawer of emotional bric-a-brac, but fucking pull it out and dump it on the floor with a clatter. That wasn’t it. It was another fat chunk of life’s shit, dropped right into my lap. Something else had changed in the ten years since I had vanquished breast cancer.

     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In 2015 my closest friend, Terri, a funny and acerbic woman of 33, my bar stool companion during the exhausting recovery months, died. She’d been drinking herself into seizures, eventually had a heart attack, the resulting coma, and inevitable death. Thirty-fucking-three.

Terri had been one of the first people who loved me without obligation or potential benefit, a true friend after my lifetime allowing so few. I felt lucky to have her next to me while I battled the undefined demon that was breast cancer. She did not care who we’d been in our abandoned careers, (she’d worked for corporate at Seattle’s coffee king until the crash,) or where I’d traveled, or what the doctors were doing for me. Terri just loved my sense of humor- biting and sardonic like hers- we made each other laugh, which was good medicine for both of us.

Even though we came to live far from each other, we spoke often, (she never forgot my birthday,) yet I had no idea of the level of her addiction, or the havoc it was wrecking on her health. Terri, of course, omitted much in our long-distance chats, but she was never one who shared. Her disinterest in the details went both ways, and even when I sensed something was maybe off, I did not press.

We had been drinking buddies yes, but that time period for me was a temporary escape. My recovery refuge. Through my naiveté or warm-hearted blindness, I never saw it to be the all-encompassing lifestyle of self-medicating, (and self-destructive,) numbness it was for Terri. I’d grown up covering for my  alcoholic older brother’s relentless bouts, yet never saw the same illness in the beautiful, energetic, young woman next to me. There was some deep pain there, but I didn’t learn about it until after she was dead. I felt responsibility for her slipping through my fingers, for missing the signs of the depth of her crippling addiction, believing I had ultimately failed her. As a friend, a woman, as family. 

Standing over her twisted, tube fed body in the ICU, (I made it to her side in less than 20 hours from three states away,) I recognized my humanity then, in a way I never could have fathomed. It wasn’t that MY time might be shortened on earth. Suddenly it was evident that those I love, even those 20 years younger than me, also had tenuous expiration dates. Alone with her, I sobbed, loud and snotty, clutching her lifeless, wired hand, begging her forgiveness, gasping, over and over again, in a pleading, begging-for-it-to-be-different voice: “I didn’t know, I didn’t KNOW.”

I shared this pain with Terri’s sister J.C., while we waited in the hospital for the angels to come for the girl that we both knew better than anyone else who had gathered there for good bye. J.C. herself a health care practitioner, thoughtfully looked at me, tilting her head kindly. “Gill,” reaching across the table to touch my arm, “She didn’t want you to know.”

I was silent.

“You would have tried to do something. She knew that,” I was nodding vehemently now, “Then, it would have been just like me, our parents, and everyone else. The end. Cut off. Pushed out.” I learned about a failed intervention, Terri hadn't spoken to her family in years, 

I was reeling. How had I let my friend off the hook so easily with all her bullshit excuses? Why hadn’t I pushed harder on the phone for more information about her health? I had failed. I had failed, big time.

It was almost a week of waiting. I drank more than ate, at breakfast, lunch, and dinner and never got drunk. I rolled joint after joint and never got high. I sat, numb and alone, in a loaned apartment, staring at the Space Needle through the rain, waiting for the phone to ring. Sometimes, I would call my niece, a therapist, and put her on speaker while I cried uncontrollably, rocking in agony, and guilt. She offered insight that helped then and has stayed with me.

“Terri needed to keep that place safe, where you two could remain close, where your love for her would be as friend and not a fixer. She loved you enough to not want to lose you, and knew if she revealed her truth, that would change. You were able to just be her friend, and that it what she needed from you. Unconditional love.”

That was the same gift Terri had given to me, with her giggle and wink, for years, as I was coming through my cloud of loss and scars and self-doubt: love you, long time.

My focus shifted. I made sure my family- blood and chosen- knew I appreciated them, showing them love and forgiveness. Asking for forgiveness. I wrote my lost daughter a letter. She didn’t respond. I began calling my mother more. J.C. and I became close, sharing our best Terri memories. Like knee-buckling grief, I gradually got over the anger, the should-have-beens, the gotta-wins. And yes, worked hard on getting over myself and the self-perpetuated mythology of being together and in control.

So, in the last ten years: I officially ended the bloating and mood mangling post-cancer meds, found a comfy bra solution for my mismatched boobs and ceased bitching about it every morning, we returned to California, and I opened a little vintage store with a beachy theme to keep me in my happy place. And then, on that day Terri died, almost four years ago now, I stopped drinking completely, to honor my dear friend, who, even when told it would probably save her, could not. It’s a good way to be close to her. I do miss the wine.

The person I was before, before all this fucking loss, was oblivious to the pain I was operating under. Carried over from an emotionally isolated, nomadic, and lonely childhood, I was intent on constant motion under the guise of moving forward, even if that was not always the case. I often missed happy moments and enjoyment sprinkled among the uncomfortable reality I was avoiding.

Finally, in my mid-50’s, new lessons eventually seeped through my grief: self-preservation is not a healthy emotional path, you are not in charge of the universe, choose to take care of yourself now, in a meaningful and genuine way, not out of fear. There’s no longer an inner power struggle to be the one that has it all, to be the best, the smartest, the strongest. I am none of those things. And I’m at peace knowing that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today is Terri’s birthday, I wipe away the tears and wait for a late-January dawn over the sea, setting my phone’s camera. Looking up, I see there’s now a cluster of visitors standing in front of me, at my prime spot that I’d invested a half hour walk into. This has happened before. A couple years ago I would’ve cleared my throat subtly and the oblivious tourists would look around, for the first time realizing they were not alone in paradise, say ‘oops’ or ‘sorry’ and move sheepishly out of my view. But today, there is a different reaction inside me. I’m not pissed off. I’m not agitated by their ignorance and selfishness. I am thankful they too, have come to see this beautiful moment.  Grateful, now believing the sun will return for me for many years ahead, and blessed to share it. Without a sound, I get up and move down the beach.

I miss my best friend. I miss my younger kid and sure, I guess I miss my breast too. I don’t have remorse however, for the loss of my stress-fueled career that mostly made more money for people who didn’t need it. There is no nostalgia for that bitchy broad who once resided inside me, that knew everything and had to tell you so. I shift my gaze to a quiet future, where I write for myself, sell my sea shells, and cherish every brunch date and funny text with my older daughter - who somehow has learned about this self-love shit at a much earlier age.

It is a world of commercialism and commodities. We expect so much from our investments of time, stress and money, but so little from ourselves. There is no optional bottom line here: you will miss out, your emotional junk drawer will fill up, making it harder and harder to open. I don’t know how to help you do it for yourself, I can only share what happened for me.

Cancer, unemployment, losing connection to a child- all facilitated for me a desire to change the path that had not served me, that had only brought me to unhappiness. I shed my self-centric thinking enough to understand that I’m not so powerful that I can make people leave me. They do that all by themselves, for their own reasons. I set out to be a more patient, kinder and caring human. I strive to avoid stress at all levels in my day to day. But, Terri’s death, tragic and preventable, was the final push for me to become present in my life. I miss her enormously. I have, with time, shifted to mostly recalling the laughter we shared, instead of the painful end I couldn't fix.    

It’s a work in progress, sure, but I’ve accomplished changing my stars a bit through self-love and self-forgiveness. I’ve learned that the important things can not be packaged and sold. We're simply here to help each other, and should respect the planet that provides for us. Ultimately, we’re all connected: by the wonder of a baby’s first breath, the love in every family embrace, our endless devotion to animals, and the beauty of each fruit and flower.





A decade later, now healthy, with much pain in the rear view mirror but joyful memories to make ahead, I appreciate each morning, every dawn, even if I don’t watch it happen. Because no one owns the fucking sunrise. It’s there for us all to share, gratis. That beautiful gift of possibilities. Every day.