June 13, 1995.

Two more days of courses left and then, I'm on holidays. I just
made an appointment to get my hair colored. Something dramatic,
something that changes me completely. Some red, some blonde
streaks... Then I'll look like Frederik who just dyed his hair
blonde. People say we look more and more alike. Now, I have to
keep up with him.

I'm worried. I have discharge coming out of my breasts. It
doesn't look healthy at all. My body is also sore all over that
at times, I have a hard time sleeping. I don't want to think
about it but I feel it's the end coming. I'd like to think it's
just milk but how can I still have milk after 10 years? I try to
do visualizations but I just can't concentrate. The thought that
I have infection coming out of my breasts grosses me out so much
it makes my throat tight.

I look around me to see if my perception of the world would be
different if the doctor diagnosed me with terminal cancer and I
can't say that things would much change. The world can't get any
more beautiful for me; or any uglier for that matter. I've seen
it at its worst in my moments of deep depression and I've also
always been able to appreciate it's beauty, even in its most
minor details. What would I do if the doctor said to me that I
had to follow treatment. I am not convinced I would. I thought
I might travel and do my bit as a foreign and war correspondant
but the I Ching says I'm not to take on anything spectacular.
Which means that I'm perhaps just made to improve my teaching and
give those around me the love of language and communication I
have. Maybe I'm to stay here and live in my little apartment
until I croak and make it the cozy nest I've always hoped for.
It feels cozy. It looks nice to me. I think, wouldn't that be
the ultimate irony, dying now that I've finally had the guts to
go my own way, to be truthful to myself and to others, to be
courageous, to be willing to go out on a limb in areas I've never
dared to before. I think of love for example: I'm ready to open
myself up, no... I wasn't quite ready, but regardless. I had
decided that I would try. I would accept to make an effort at
not running off like a frightened hare and work on letting others
into my world, men included. Maybe even on an intimate basis.
The thought I might be sick changes all that. Someone touching
me when my body is sick and so sensitive? I don't think I could
bear it. In any case, I would feel like a hypocrite. I look the
picture of health. For the first time in years, I'm tanned. It
makes me look leaner. I'm not stressed out. I'm financially
O.K. I have a social life. I can't imagine at this point being
told: you have to undergo treatment. Treatment that makes you
so sick you can't function. I remember now, that awful man on
Walnut street telling me I was sexually repressed and my breasts
were all black. I already had a sore back by then and I had
already had discharge but had convinced myself it had to be milk.
To this day, I don't understand why that man felt so much
hostility toward me. I could feel his hatred and it made me
horridly ill at ease. I felt I was too innocent a person for
him. He tore at me in all kinds of ways; said I was a
bullshitter, a liar, that I wasn't to be believed in any way.
That I was nothing but slow-witted, there was no fast flowing
energy in me. I was too slow to be intelligent or creative.
There wasn't an ounce of creativity in me. In a way, I sensed a
lot of what he was saying was true. I was blocked and that was
why I was going to see him but I could never have been prepared
for the hostility I was to encounter. I'm tired. I have to
sleep. But before I do, I just want to say a few words about
love. At this point, it has lost all its importance. I have
difficulty imagining it would be a priority if I was dying. I'm
not talking about the love of family and friends of course. I'm
talking about sexual love. Maybe it's the ultimate strategy I've
developped to prevent myself from getting involved. It's strange
but all around me, I see women far less than perfect in many a
way and men, too, constantly falling in love or developping new
relationships and I cannot imagine myself being a part of that.
Maybe it's too difficult for me to share. There are men I find
attractive but from a distance. I suppose to me it's all a lot
of trouble. I definitely see it as work: juggling all there
already is to juggle and a relationship too. Maybe in ten years.
Maybe my breasts have decided they've had enough to do with the
male species. Maybe I just no longer want to be touched. I have
a feeling Steve will not call when he returns, I'm certainly not
banking on it. In any case, all this fantasizing was childish.
Writing about it even more but I have decided since I wasn't
allowed to mature properly as an adolescent, I will regress now.
It's quite embarassing. I imagine my children or grandchildren
reading this many years down the road and scoffing at their
mother and grandmother. How could she have been so naive they
will ask? So stupid even... so childish. Better to live out
those fantasies in your youth. Today, I thought of Frederik who
dyed his hair and Thierry whose hair is in dreadlocks. It
doesn't phase me. It's just hair. Yet I suddenly imagined what
would have happened had I done something similar without asking.
I would never have done it. I was so weel trained. How like an
animal I was. Trained; and my mother was proud of the way we
were trained. It disgusts me. A.C.


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