Anniversaries, CHiPs, The Paranormal, and Other Coincidences

Anachronism or Synchronicity? Does it matter? Maybe? I don't really care and that brings me happiness.

The posting date of this entry is July 9, 2024. It’s an arbitrary date in many ways, but it also represents a great many other things.

Cow Appreciation Day

Sugar Cookie Day

Argentina Independence Day

Call of the Horizon Day

The sixth “anniversary” of when my old life ended and my cancer life began. That is, it is the date in 2018 when I went in for an MRI, was asked for my car keys afterwards, and immediately taken to the hospital because something was terribly wrong with me. I felt fine, but whatever.

Upon arriving at the hospital, I went to the registration desk as I had been instructed. Despite being told the hospital would be expecting me, they did not seem to have any clue as to why I was there. It all got figured out and two surgeries, lots of treatments, and a multi-year existential crisis later, here we are.

Some call it a “cancerversary”… and it’s easy to figure out how that came about. Such milestones represent different things to different people. Some celebrate it as a happy day marking one’s triumph over adversity. Others really don’t do well with it as it is a reminder of some terrible news. Some view it as a second birthday where the person is reborn spiritually with a new view on life. The day the od you died and a new one was reborn. Others just see it as the day they died.

I have mixed reactions… much like my initial response to my original diagnosis.

It really wasn’t heavy for me in the moment. I was more like “Oh okay. So you medical folks do your thing to fix me and send me home”. I just assumed everyone knew what they were doing and modern medical science had me covered. I was more interested in whether or not I had gotten the job I had interviewed for earlier that morning.

Oh did I forget to mention that part? Or that I was in a completely different city (Atlanta) in a different state (Georgia) at the time? I had been going there quite a bit for work around then and the nature of healthcare in my then home of Tennessee meant a very long wait to get an MRI for some weird medical issues I was having so I arranged to have them elsewhere. Like really elsewhere.

I also was fairly anxious to move my family to another state at the time for a number reasons that were mostly a combination of job-related and social/political issues so I had arranged a pretty awesome job interview while I was away from home.

After I met with a doctor at the hospital who told me I’d be getting emergency brain surgery, I compulsively checked my email and discovered that I had gotten the job.

Confused by all of this? Just know that cancer gives zero fucks about anything else in your life. It doesn’t care what science think it knows or anything else. Cancer gonna cancer.

But I’ve made it through several statistically presumed expiration dates so there’s that to say about science. But up until today when my family officially become residents of Virginia, I was still living in Tennessee. I lived in good ole Rocky Top for nine years… only three actually working at that job I was trying to get away from. The other six have been spent dealing with cancer stuff.

And the company that offered me a cush job? Out of business.

Ain’t that sumthin’?

Maybe this move marks the start of a new chapter, a chance to dump some heavy baggage… an opportunity to view life differently.

Or maybe it’s more of the same.

So where does CHiPs come in? While in limbo between our old house selling and being able to move into our new house (the same I previously mentioned having a premonition of dying in), I was killing time watching a streaming channel and decided to see if I could find the punk rock episode of CHiPs. I thought I had, but it was actually “The Busboys” episode from season 3 (episode 21) which has a lot going on in it story-wise that seemingly had a ton in common or nothing at all depending upon your mindset while watching. One of the characters sort of (and also sort of not) explains the concept of “synchronicity”.

The leads me to Carl Jung. He, along with his one-time friend and mentor Sigmund Freud, are considered the founders of modern psychoanalysis. And then they had a falling out and Jung veered off into an interesting world that included mystical and paranormal influences that may or may not have any scientific validity.

Depending on who you’re talking to, the concept of synchronicity states the simultaneous occurrence of similar events have causal similarities. Some say this is hogwash and that synchronicity is simply when similar things happen simultaneously due to random, though curious, coincidence. But ultimately, synchronicity is a brief appearance of order amidst chaos. Seriously, look it up. There are different definitions out there depending on who you consult, even within the world of psychoanalysis. And it gets way more “out there” into all the significances of various components.

Jung was a fairly brilliant and compelling man. He was also a horrific anti-semite. Or he wasn’t. It also depends on who you’re talking to. I mean, Freud was Jewish and Siggy viewed Carl as the natural successor his work. But Jug also published some pretty awful things about the nature of the Jewish psyche and took a very high profile position awarded to him by the Nazis. Like the actual Nazis.

So yeah, it’s all kinda vague and weird. Kind of how I really love cows, sugar cookies, Argentina, and “seizing the day” as Call of the Horizon Day mandates, but I also can’t not think about all the ways the last six years could have gone, good or bad. Do I think too much about cancer stuff? Do I think too little? Could I have I learned all the lessons differently? Is there any point to all my “creative advocacy” efforts? Am I a part of growing movement in healthcare that approaches long-term issues a bit differently? I don’t know, but these things flow through my OCD (undiagnosed) mind all the time whether or not I’ve taken my (prescribed) Adderall yet for the day. Nothing means anything and everything means everything to me all at the same time.

My day today started with waking up in a new house in a new town. No one said anything to me about the significance of the day. But, yes, I thought about it.

PS: Isn’t this song a jam? Oh wait… so is the song below with a similar title. Maybe it’s even better? The two don’t actually have much in common, though that was the original intention. But somewhere along the line, that changed.