Refocusing

Nothing prepared Jim for the revelation that his whole life up until his thirtieth birthday had been a hazy of choices not really made by himself. The illusion that he had been the driving factor in the course of his day to day life faded away when Dr. Steinburg gave him the news.

“Thank you for coming in Jim, we got the test results back,” Dr. Steinburg said as he looked back over Jim’s charts.

The synthetic leather chair of the plater white walled room squeaked slightly against Jim’s faded jeans as he shifted in it. An uncomfortably long silence prompted the movement on Jim’s part.

“Oh, happy birthday,” Dr. Steinburg said, though his somber tone did not convincingly convey the message of the words. “I didn’t realize that it was when I called you.”

“Thanks Doc, and it’s alright. I took the day off for it.”

“Well, we can go over this stuff another time if you had plans for your day off,” Dr. Steinburg said as he half closed the manila folder with pages of printed out medical information on the birthday boy.

“I mean, I’m already here, might as well rip the band-aid off.”

“Right, of course,” the doctor said as he opened the folder more completely again.

Another uncomfortable pause ended with a deep sigh from Dr. Steinburg.

“Jim, there isn’t really an easy way to say this. The test came back positive, it’s colon cancer, and maybe if we caught it a few months ago this conversation would be a bit different. Timing really is important in these cases and how we go about with recommendations for treatment. So I want you to keep that in mind,” the doctor started to ramble.

“Doc,” Jim said, his mind still processing the news, “what do you mean it’d have been different?”

Another sigh escaped from the nearly retired medical professional.

“It’s metastasis, spreading to the rest of you, aggressively.”

Jim sat in silence, his legs shifted again against the faux leather of the chair. The sound it made felt as if daggers pierced his skull. His body felt different, uncomfortable, hostile toward him. It worked from the inside to undo him.

“What do we do?” Jim asked as his mind reached out for a sliver of hope to combat the reality of the news.

Dr. Steinburg frowned and shook his head slightly.

“Oh,” Jim said, “oh, I see. H-how long?”

“It’s hard to say, maybe a year, give or take a few months.”

Jim nodded, his eyes burned and his throat felt tight.

“I can refer you to a specialist, there might be treatment options, but I can’t guarantee anything,” Dr. Steinburg said as he leaned forward and placed a reassuring hand on Jim’s shoulder.

“I know,” Jim said, not truly knowing anything anymore, “um, I’ll think about it. Talking to the specialist.”

The doctor nodded, “take your time, call your loved ones. Life’s going to be different for you.”

Life. Life with a countdown clock Jim thought. The conversation didn’t last long after that. He stood and left the office as if a ghost passing through space. Nothing impacted him, and he left no mark on anything as he walked to his car. He got in, and sat in the driver’s seat, his hands moved to the wheel and his fingers flexed around it. Though he didn’t turn the engine on, just sat there and stared at the dashboard. The sun beat hard onto black textured vinyl. It heated the cabin, and he felt beads of sweat start to form on his brow.

Like a crash of thunder his right hand released the wheel, pulled back, and with force his palm stuck back down against the driving controls. Again and again he hit the wheel. Harder with each strike. His teeth locked hard against each other as each stuck sent a stinging pulse through his palm and up his arm.

He didn’t keep track of the strikes, just stopped once he lost the energy to hit the wheel with enough force to cause sufficient pain. The pain pulled him back to the moment as tears started to streak down from his eyes, and his jaw ripped his lower row of teeth away from the upper as a shrill cry rattled out of his throat.

It lasted until no air remained in his lunges. So he sat in silence, his breathing heavy, and tears rolling down his cheeks. The sweat beaded enough to start rolling down his skin and his impulse for the car’s air conditioning caused him to turn on the engine.

The car hummed to life and air started to blow over him from the vents. Slowly it cooled as the modern marvel of temperature control did its job. His body slightly more comfortable, his mind again gripped at the news of his ticking clock.

It was always counting down he thought to himself, he just didn’t know how quickly.

As if a switch flipped in his mind he put the car into reverse, back out of the parking spot, and proceeded out of the parking lot of Dr. Steinburg’s office.

His mind emptied during the ride back to his apartment. The usual absent minded state of a transience space within a moving vehicle offered a brief fifteen minutes of escape until he reached his building. In keeping with his routine he parked, turned off the car, got out, and walked to his door. He fumbled slightly with his key and unlocked the bolt. As he walked through he barely remembered to close the door behind him.

The respite of the coming home routine over, the previous flood of thoughts and emotions broke the beaver dam of a mental block his drive gave him. His back fell against the door and he slid down to sit on the floor. His legs splayed out in front of him over the hardwood floor, and his arms fell to his sides, keys left to roll out of his hand to the floor. Silent tears resumed their traced tracks against his face.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, his eyes unfocused and staring off into nothing that hung at the end of his entry way. The trance broke when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Slowly he turned his body slightly to allow his hand to reach in and pull the phone from its home. The caller ID showed “Mom” and the tears started fresh again.

He answered it.

“Happy Birthday Sweetie!” Came the voice of his mother on the other end of the line.

“Hi mom, thanks,” he said as he tried to mask the frog that jumped into his throat as he spoke.

There was a pause of recognition of something off from his usual tone.

“Are you feeling alright? You sound sick.” She said with a tinge of motherly concern.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m feeling okay,” he said as he coughed slightly to clear his throat. “Just got home and the pollen hit me a little hard today I think.”

“Okay, that’s good. You don’t want to be sick on your birthday. Did you make any plans for the day to celebrate?”

Celebration was the furthest thing from his mind.

“Not really, took the day off from work, but didn’t make any solid plans,” the fair mundane statement gave him some sense and comfort of normality.

“Nothing wrong with a lazy day,” his mother said in her usual chipper tone, a tone that he really only noticed when he and his siblings had reached adulthood. “Well, if you’d like to come over to the house, your uncle stopped by yesterday and gave us a whole stack of venison from his last hunting trip. Your father could make up his famous stew and I could make you that lemon cake you love, make a party of it.”

The suggestion came earnestly and his mother’s care to provide him a special day even into his adulthood cut back to his heart as he blinked back tears.

“Uh, yeah, that sounds great mom. I’d love that,” he said, his voice slightly breathy as he fought back a sob.

“Oh great! I’ll let dad know to get it going and I’ll run to store and grab what I need. Six o’clock sound good?”

“Six sounds great.”

“Perfect see you later sweetie!”

“Okay, see you later mom.”

The line disconnected and the phone left his ear. The sob that he pressed down his throat escaped and a fresh wave of crying escaped him. Though he didn’t remain on the floor, he grabbed his keys and slowly rose to his feet. He walked into his apartment. As he walked past his kitchen he set his keys and his phone down on the counter and kept walking.

His feet carried him to his bedroom and he opened the door to his closet. Coats and shirts hung in a dense lineup across the length of the small storage space. He reached into them, and pushed them aside to reveal a cardboard box that sat on the floor of the closet. With a little struggle he freed it from the heavy hanging fabrics.

It was heavier than he remembered, or his body was more tired than the last time he lifted it. He wasn’t completely sure. With a little bit of effort he lifted it and set it down on his unmade bed. A thin layer of dust covered the top of it that he brushed off, doing his best to direct it to the floor and not where he slept.

Once cleaned off he opened the flaps of the box. Inside he saw the collection of memories that he relegated to the darkness of storage. He sifted through them. On top of them sat his first film camera. It belonged to his grandfather, a Nikon F3. He never did get film for it, his grandfather gave it to him when he got a new Nikon 35Ti. Jim remembered just running around taking filmless pictures of everything with the camera, providing his own ‘click’ and all.

Under that was the first photo album he put together. He set the camera down on the bed next to the box and picked up the album. As he thumbed through it, snapshots of memories came back to him. The album contained pictures of a summer trip he took with a few friends the summer before their senior year of high school. They drove to the Grand Canyon, camped and hiked for a week, and drove home. Jim brought a camera and three rolls of film. By that time his grandfather had passed away and left Jim the 35Ti and all his left over unused film. So the young man brought them all on the trip and used them to capture the adventure.

He wondered as he looked back through the pictures if he’d have acted the way he did if he’d known that that trip was his midlife crisis.

He chuckled slightly at the framing of his ideal thought.

Eventually he set the album down and dug through more of the box. Framed photos, envelopes of film, a few odd accessories and parts of other cameras he no longer owned. College treated him well with his passion for photography. He took classes, photographed nearly everything and everyone on campus, and even submitted to a few art shows. Nothing much became of it apart from the contents of that box, some interesting conversations with others, and a few dates from girls that found the topic interesting.

When he graduated, and bills came due, and life pulled him into the working world. It all faded from him into a prison of cardboard. He got a job at a marketing agency, he took photos of fruit, car parts, or cleaning products. Whatever company that came to them and wanted to sell more. He told himself it was a way to do what he loved and pay his bills. A lie he always knew the truth of, but just didn’t think about it.

Without real enthusiasm he shuffled into the line of corporate work. Punched in and out at his 9 to 5. Jim knew that it was easier to just work his job, pay his bills, and live with the comforting falsehood that he turned his passion into a career. He slipped into the mold of working life.

He looked back down at the album and his grandfather’s camera. He fell in love with photography, the art of capturing a moment large or small. A moment that faded forever, but with a thin piece of glossy colored paper could be memorialized far past human memory would allow. Not dolled up mop buckets in the Sunday ads.

For nearly ten years his mind put a box of logic around his passion, telling him he was doing it. What people dreamed about, finding a job within your passion. Though that was a lie. Did he want to keep lying to himself the last year, or six months, or week, or day?

Aggressive, the word from Dr. Steinburg returned to him. Jim figured he could be dead tomorrow.

He turned from the open box and strewn about memories on his bed and walked to the kitchen. With purpose he picked up his phone, scrolled through his contacts for the one labeled “boss” and let the phone do the work of dialing. It rang several times before Mike picked up.

“Hey Jim, happy birthday, how’s your day off treating you?”

“I quit.”

There was a pause before a, “what?”

“Mike, I quit, I won’t be in tomorrow. The Sherman’s project folio is in the top drawer of my desk, all my other open projects have been sent to the touch up team.”

A slightly more frantic, though still just as confused Mike spoke up again, “what Jim, you can just quit? We need you, we’re going to be swamped with work, you’re our best photo guy.”

“I know, I’m sorry, I quit,” Jim said before he ended the call.

Jim’s heart raced, his head felt light, a smile burst its way onto his lips. His mind told him it didn’t feel right, that he should be happy about this. Though his heart persisted. He picked up his car keys, turned around, then turned back around again to the counter and set them down.

“Okay, what am I doing? What did I just do?”

He talked to himself in his kitchen and he paced.

“Calm down, calm down, calm down.”

His voice progressively became more frantic.

“Mom and dads, go there, I can be early.”

He turned to his keys.

“No,” he paused, “if I go early and tell them I’m dying, they might not finish making dinner.”

“I could wait to tell them over dinner,” he thought on that idea for a moment. “No, if I wait that long they’ll be pissed I didn’t tell them sooner.”

His hand scratched his chin.

“Camera. A new camera. That’s it, I’ll go get a new camera then I’ll head over. Film too,” he tacked on to the end.

He rushed back to his room and picked up his grandfather’s camera.

“Maybe I can find someplace that can get film for this,” he smiled slightly. He wished now he hadn’t given away the other camera from his grandfather, and sold all the other tools of his passion over the years. Though he could hopefully at least find some film and a nice camera that’ll last him the rest of his life.

Nikon F3 in hand, he grabbed the car keys, and left his apartment ready to live again.