Late in life

I’m writing this post consisting of a number of anecdotes from my life. None of them is related to my condition, and I’m not quite sure it really belongs to this blog. But I think it provides for a good distraction, at least for me, from this depressing thing that is cancer. Also, most people might not know these stories about me, so it seemed fun to share them.

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I’m chronically late in life.

And I’m not talking about being un-punctual, although my records of coming to appointments on time isn’t immaculate either. What I mean is, some things are just slow to happen to me.

I remember growing up, other kids would ride their bicycles around like no big deal. Not me. I saw the skill needed to balance something that would fall down by itself, and also make turns wherever you want, simply not acquirable. Not until I was 9 or 10, did a friend put me on his bike and gently pushed me down the road. I don’t remember the rest. I didn’t get into any major injury, but a day or two later I could ride that thing.

Same with driving a car. Living in Moscow, I never felt the need of having a car. Going to school and back was much more convenient on the subway. When I arrived in the US at 20, even though I knew that most kids started driving at 16, I still didn’t feel any urge to learn. Boston subway, shitty as it is, was still sufficient for me to commute around. Looking back, the only time I truly regret not knowing how to drive was during our cross-country roadtrip in the winter of 2010. Sitting for hours and hours in the back bored me to death and didn’t feel good on my back. While the drivers could switch up, the only thing I could switch was between the middle seat and the side seat in the back. The middle seat was the absolute worse. We had 5 people in the car.

So I decided to pick up the skill at 23 (a full 3 years after that roadtrip). I bought my car almost the same day I got my license; immediately got scammed because I paid at least 3 thousand more than I should have, and got the most basic car of all. No central locking, meaning every passenger exiting the car needs to manually lock the door. No electronic control of the side mirrors, so the driver has to reach out and push the mirrors until they’re in the right position. That’s one piece of a car… But it’s still running fine, fortunately.

I was late to kiss a girl, late to have sex (two separate events, which let’s not get into).

For my grad school applications, I missed the deadlines for all the major schools, because… I don’t know, I was procrastinating too much. I pushed my procrastination so far that, for my Boston University application, I waited until the night of the deadline only to start writing my personal statement from scratch. I ended up submitting everything half and hour before 8AM my time, which was supposed to be 12AM EST, the exact deadline for submissions. But I got in.

When I decided to buy my first house, I went to see a house by myself, decided to proceed without consulting anyone. I gave the agents the deposit and was ready to make an offer. Then, a few days later, I took my friends to see it, and they pointed out all the crap that was wrong with the house – crooked ceilings and floors, a extra bedroom that looks as if it was lazily patched to the rest of the house – things that a housebuyer shouldn’t miss but somehow I did.

So I took my money elsewhere, continued my house hunting, and a few months later ended up with a much better house (albeit far from from the city). Renovated more recently, it was in a much better shape. No more crooked ceilings and floors, no more shabbiness. And it has been my home for more than a year now since I came back to Boston to fight my cancer.

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I am not sure if there’s a real purpose in telling all these stories. You have all learned so much about my condition, I thought maybe you’d like to learn a bit about my personal life.

PS: perhaps there is a point that I now would like to make. I was late to many things in my life, but I eventually got those things done, although the results were sometimes half-assed (the car). In some cases, I was just pushed by time, but in others, what got me the results was perseverance. To get into Facebook, I kept working on passing the interview while getting multiple rejections from other companies.

My current condition has many factors outside of my control, so my own perseverance can only make so much of a difference. But, like the doctors said, we’re dealing with very low odds, so if I, with my determination, can make a change that’s simply to a blip, who knows what it might lead to.