The other day I was talking to my only "close-as-family" friend, who is also a cancer survivor.  He's a good 15 years my junior and has a crush on a girl. He told me the constant of someone being in his thoughts amused him in a way he felt only another cancer survivor could relate to.

I listened.  

He poked fun at himself for giving into the excitement of someone new.  He said he liked to think about her, but that sometimes he caught himself STILL thinking about her. He said that's how he knew it was a crush. Everything was great - lots of talks and laughs - and the future seemed wide open. 

But there is a little part of her that's under his skin, like an itch he can't scratch. Like the feeling of carrying something too large down an unfamiliar staircase, and feeling, with the fall of every step, the momentary fear of it all coming tumbling down.  Like a word that's on the tip of his tongue that he can't quite remember, driving him crazy.

He said if he hadn't been through cancer (and chemo therapy in particular) that he might FEEL uncomfortable with how he is feeling. We had a good laugh at what an absurd but omnipresent concept that seems to be for most people - getting freaked out by what they feel. What is it to be alive if not to relish the moments, recklessly swallowed whole, AS THEY'RE HAPPENING, that once past will either kill you OR make you stronger?

I told him I knew EXACTLY what he meant. I told him this story.

This year when the Saints met the Vikings in the playoffs, I went over to a friend's house to watch the game, arriving a few minutes into the first quarter. 

Already being entertained by my friend, his wife and his grown daughter was MY houseguest, visiting from Long Beach CA - one of my oldest friends, my beloved Dr. Feelgood (I shit you not).

The good doctor has his green card down in California and is renown in pot circles for an absolutely crippling strain of  "O.G. Cush."  I had sent him over early while I took care of a family engagement of some sort. The five of us had spent the previous evening together and everyone got along so well that plans to watch the game the following morning were hatched. 

The Dr. had made it known that he had made his first ever batch of cookies and brought some along on the trip if anyone was interested in trying them on for size.

By the time I made it to my friend's house, his wife and grown daughter had each had a little piece of cookie, and the doctor himself had eaten a whole one. The girls seemed to be just fine, and although I am NOT a fan of ingesting pot that way, I got caught up in the moment and ate half a cookie. 

By the time the first quarter was over, the girls had disappeared upstairs. We wouldn't see them again until we were forced to make our own departure.

I got EXTREMELY high - far higher than I would have chosen or was immediately comfortable with. It was something I couldn't get away from. I couldn't get comfortable. It was hard to get a full breath. I felt cold, put on a blanket, then felt too hot. I felt this blinding white light shooting up and out the top of my head like I had stuck some kind of marijuana shotgun in my mouth and pulled the trigger. I was sure it could be seen from space.

I kept asking, "How far into this am I?" Meaning, have I peeked yet, or is this going to get a lot worse before it gets better? There was no way of knowing for sure. No answer was forthcoming. 

Even as intense as it was, as irritating, and annoyingly overwhelming, I knew it would all pass. I knew that tomorrow I would wake up and be (almost) the same person I had been before this ocean of thinking, feeling and energy washed over me. This too would recede. 

These comforting thoughts didn't make the present any less overwhelming... but while pre-cancer I might have REALLY had a hard time holding onto reality, the me that lives today has been to the end of the world and come back. 

I was definitely high enough to get to the top rung of my mental ladder, the one that for everyone else has a big red sticker on it that warns "NOT A STEP. DO NOT PLAY ON OR AROUND. EMOTIONAL WELLBEING MAY BE COMPROMISED!" 

Mine doesn't say that. My last mental stronghold says to me, in a VERY reassuring voice, simply, "You did chemo, man. This ain't shit. Enjoy the ride. I promise it won't last." 

Nothing is ever going to be more trying than sitting in "that room" for six hours at a time, watching some of the most toxic poison known to man drip, almost literally, straight into your heart.

Drip... drip... drip... drip.... drip....

Whether it's letting down a well-established guard and eating marijuana baked goods - ending up having to be driven home before halftime - or crushing on a girl in a way that makes you feel out of sorts or out of control - worrying maybe you'll put yourself out there and find nothing in return, but hoping beyond anything for just a smile and another day of your footsteps feeling a little lighter than normal - it's still just life smiling on your being alive. Its just life trying to make sure you're paying attention.  

And just like life, these moments can't last.

Drummer Geoff Reading - who writes a bi-weekly online column (Fridays) for the Weekly Volcano called "Holding Down the 253" in addition to his weekly Wednesday music column - has played music in tons of Northwest bands - Green Apple Quick Step, New American Shame, Top Heavy Crush and most recently Duff McKagan's LOADED - to name but a few. He's toured the world several times over, sharing stages with the likes of Slipknot, The Cult, Buckcherry, Korn, Journey, The Sex Pistols, Nine Inch Nails and on and on. He has called Tacoma home since 2005, and lives in the North End with his wife and son.