I haven’t written since January 4th. Since Dryanuary. I cannot believe how fast time has flown this year but it has been four whole months and I haven’t written a single post. It isn’t due to lack of wanting to write or even lack of having anything about which to write. So why?

That is a very good question. And now I will try to figure it out. I think I know the reasons. More or less. You see, I kind of feel like I’m in purgatory. I’m between worlds. As time has passed I must admit that although — in some shape or form — I think about “the cancer” every day, I don’t think about it the way I used to and I really don’t dwell. It’s more like I catch a glimpse of myself naked or something and think oh yeah, cancer happened and shit. And then I move on. The passage of time has caused me to think about it less, pure and simple.

Sometimes I worry that this failure on my part to obsess on what was such a life-altering event is arrogant. That for such I might be punished. I mean, who am I to say there isn’t some nasty little cell taking hold in my liver as I type. I sit here in bed trying to block out the idiot outdoors who is drunk and having an altogether too loud conversation with his comrades and what I really ought to be doing is freaking out that hey — this thing could still kill me.

But I won’t do that. I am a realist, not a masochist. And there really isn’t any point to doing that. For now, I’m done with cancer. I’m not ever going to be done thinking about it or indeed talking or writing about it, I don’t think (although never say never). But for the most part I have moved on. And I should not feel guilty about that. I can still write about it — now with some distance and perspective, I like to think.

I consider turning this blog into a book. Something I would very much like to do at some point. And I consider that I never bothered to input SEO into this puppy (search engine optimisation) so that people would actually find and read my GD blog. This I do regret. Although I can and will do it retroactively, at some point, once I figure it out (what? It’s on my list…).

So why is the title of this post “purgatory” (which incidentally I didn’t know how to spell since the first time I wrote it I used an “e” rather than a “u”)? Duh. Well see it is because I have now begun the third and final term of my interior design course. And when I get my certificate I would like to start a design blog. I want to write. Desperately. Just it’s going to be about — as Monty Python would put it — something completely different. But I don’t know what that means. Does that mean I cannot still write killingitblog? Does it mean I do both? What do I do? Quel conundrum.

At the end of the day, I think that my voice is my voice. Irrespective of whether I write a blog about cancer or about design. Because either way I will probably write about more than either of those things. Either way I will be writing about life. Either way it will be me (yes I am being agrammatical on purpose) and you get what you get. I will not pretend to be cute. I will just be myself and, as usual, will let it all hang out. Like it or not.

The hard part is to know how to make the transition and when. And whether it will be weird that if people Google my name this funky cancer blog pops up in addition to whatever design thing I eventually have going on. But then I think, “oh who cares.” Why shouldn’t they know. It’s amazing what you can tell people that might shock the hell out of them and what they will forget — or at least won’t focus on for long.

And speaking of letting it all hang out… Today I went to work out at my gym with Anna, my personal trainer. Anna has helped take me from a pathetically skinny figment of my former self (I was pretty much skin and bones after chemo, let’s face it, not to mention bald and pale so generally looking pretty hot) to my current fit self.

After my workout this weirdo who likes to strut around the gym wearing a Richard Simmons outfit (if you don’t know who that is Google him for crying out loud), generally all red or all blue, with shorts soooo short that at any minute you could have a loose ball situation, came up and told me that I work out too hard. “What?” I asked him, incredulous. “You don’t need to do all that with the trainer. You are already fit. She pushes you to the limit.” I blinked and for a moment thought I would just smile and get on with my stretching, but then I let him have it. “You have no idea where I’m coming from,” I said. I told him I had cancer two years ago and I was skin and bones. All this muscle we have put on since my treatment. It didn’t just happen by itself. And furthermore I am not being pushed “to the limit” because it isn’t like I am throwing up. He looked pretty surprised and was speechless for a moment. And feeling rather satisfied for having shocked him, I threw in “bet you didn’t know that, didja?” “No,” he said.

But before I could feel all self-righteous he started babbling about how I shouldn’t eat dairy because “it’s a killer” and how soy is okay and how he only drinks goat’s milk. Then he went on about some Japanese mushrooms that will keep cancer away for sure and some weird salt that I have to go to Croydon to get. “Cancer won’t touch you then,” he said. Well gee, great. If only he and his too-close-to-being-loose balls had been readily available when I moved here I could have dosed up on shrooms and designer salt and cancer would not have touched me. Alas. No such luck.

So of course I immediately regretted having spilled the beans, which I almost always do. Because people don’t know what the hell to say to you so they fill the void with nonsense or just irritating bullshit — wait is that redundant? Rather than just saying, wow, that’s something else. Right on, motherfucker, keep killing it at the gym. Serves me right. When I left I said goodbye to him and he looked thoughtful for a moment and then offered up another turd — ahem — kernel of wisdom: “you know, sometimes people’s stressful careers can cause it too.” “Yes,” I agreed. Wondering why on earth this person decided to take it upon himself to try and figure out why I got cancer, when the top doctors in London and Boston cannot answer this question. “I guess I was just lucky,” I said.

But really I do feel lucky. I feel like Andy Dufresne, who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side. And I feel particularly lucky that I haven’t been assaulted (yet) by a loose ball from my pal at the gym. But there’s always tomorrow. Anyhow, I got pretty off topic there, didn’t I? But that’s okay. Let me know your thoughts about creating a new blog and what to do with this one. I’m all ears. And meanwhile I will be hanging here in purgatory, just trying to figure out how to get to the place I need to be.