Editorial: Swords, Sorcery, and Cancer

In the interest of planning ahead, this issue was supposed to be the Sword and Sorcery issue, but it ended up being the cancer issue. (If you haven’t noticed this mag is coming out 5 days late.)
Lately my family has been dealing with a lot of cancer. My dog has cancer. My father-in-law is currently hospitalized with lung cancer and coming to terms with the fact that he is probably never leaving the hospital.

Then, to make matters all the more exciting, my long running visceral issues hit a head and I was feeling a lot of pain. One colonoscopy later and guess what? That’s right, I have cancer. In my case it’s colon cancer. After a couple of days and a lot of tests, I’m set for an operation and all looks good. With any luck, as of a week from you reading this, I will be cancer free. If you never get one of my editorials again, you’ll know how it went.

Finding out I had cancer made me think about a lot of things. All the things you would expect a person to think, I’d guess. But cancer brings with it one thing that is becoming more and more elusive as I enter the dawn of my twilight years. That thing? An epiphany.

As a dreamer, I used to be swimming in epiphanies. I’d lose a job and BAM an epiphany. I’d date a girl and BAM, I’d lose said girl… again BAM. But, as life has gone on, stability came with it, and nothing kills epiphinies like stability.
So far I have had two “cancer epiphanies”.
One, my life has been a good life. For all the mistakes I’ve made, I’ve done a decent job at making up for them. I have raised a good family. My impact on them, and theirs on me, is enough for me to die and feel that my existance was worth while.

The second is, “What the fuck am I doing?” We all live this life chasing an end that never comes and when it does come we think, “Is this it?”. I don’t know if it’s video games, the hero’s journey, or our own inability to view life in the grayscale in which it is delivered, but we all seem to be chasing a completion point, a milestone, a point where we can sit down and pat ourselves on the back for a job well done. The problem is, as a human, there is only one completion point, death. I don’t mean to be morbid, just honest in reminding myself and hopefully you that waiting for an ending only really means one thing. So stop waiting and change things up. I’m not saying carpet bomb your life, just that your life is what you make it. If you make it a waiting game, then that’s what you will be doing.

So I hope to see a lot of positive changes in my life, and with any luck, there will be more epiphanies around the corner. We’ll see.
P.S. To the model that said that we were ruining your career by putting out the magazine late… fuck you. Nah, just kidding, but please try to remember that other people have shit going on too.