The New Normal Should F Itself

from a solo show in progress about a queer nonbinary human navigating a biologically female cancer in a very binary medical system. Say that five times fast. Then take a nap. Or a gummy. Or both.

“The new normal.”

It’s this ridiculous common expression thrown at you like a fast ball after you’ve gone through cancer treatment and are expected to leap carefree into the rest of your life. Wheeeeee.

The new normal – what the hell does that even mean?

And why do people think that using that expression is even remotely helpful to someone  who just went through a year of surgeries and intense chemotherapy that made me feel like a walking nuclear test site in filthy sweatpants?

It’s been ten plus years since I had my adventure with cancer and I’ve long retired any daily reality that could be described as “normal.”

The word sounds so benign. But it’s the furthest thing from it. It strips away any sense of understanding, knowing, of an individual’s complex existence as a human being. 

The truth is no one wants to hear about what going through cancer treatment really feels like, is like, what it does to a person. The dense murkiness that still sits in my gut. All people want is to throw fluffy, soft, bright pink shit all over you, declare you a “survivor”, and kick you out into the land of the new normal. Now who’s sick? 

It’s called getting up every day and putting on my pants and feeling my barefeet on the cool wooden floor and breathing in and out and seeing what else I can accomplish in the next minute. And the minute after that. And the minute after that. Until the clouds roll across the moon and I close my eyes again. 

I’m not new. I’m not normal.  Nothing is. It doesn’t exist. But I sure as hell do.