We want what we want–like back in college. Once we’re not kids anymore, we earned some privileges.

But remember that rule some well-meaning nursery school teacher taught our kids? “You get what you get and you don’t get upset? Keep that lesson for the kids. When we adults don’t get what we want, we get the blues.

When I don’t get my way, if you try to tell me what I need, I’ll put my fingers in my ears and scream like any kid, “Nah. Nah. Nah, I can’t hear you. Nah. Nah. Nah.”

That’s how it goes. I didn’t want cancer; some chocolate would have sufficed. But I needed to get cancer instead. So then I kicked and screamed and finally came around. I might as well make the most of it. Right?

So in October, I started on my chemo journey, not having high hopes for it. But I figured it out as I went along. And now I’m about to say I passed chemo. We made it fun. We did it!

So I’m forcing myself to enjoy this milestone, regardless of whether I want it or not. Yes, I will dance when I ring that bell! Thanks to those of you who voted on my best chemo theme song–to be revealed next post!

So don’t mind me now that I jump to the biggest fear on any graduate’s mind. What’s next?

The horror of cancer is striking me all over again. And this is when I get myself into trouble. I don’t want surgery! And come to think of it, I never wanted cancer, either.

How am I going to come up with fun games to keep me laughing through this next phase?

I need to live in this place where I can leave the front door open for 3 hours and swear it wasn’t me. I can even say: “Why are you all looking at me? I told you I didn’t do it. I’d remember that.” And 24 hours later, it would vaguely hit me, “I remember opening the front door, but oh no, maybe I didn’t close it.” And then I’d fess up to the family, and they’d say, “Of course it was you. Who else would it have been?’

As dazed as I am, I’m not even prepared to come up with a re-entry plan. And I’m hardly ready for mainstream society: Covid, all the division that our country still feels over who is or is not our president, and Barry (or was that supposed to be Bernie?) Sanders memes.

Back in my chemo bubble, everyone’s so beautiful towards me. I throw on a beanie and I get the royal treatment—a man from the parking lot runs to open the door for me.

Our pharmacist drove from his home in New Jersey to get me the medicine I failed to pick up during business hours because I couldn’t get myself out the door.

Or I tell a customer service manager who’s yelling at me that I have cancer and she stops and changes her tone.

Alex said she had no business treating me differently because I used the cancer card. But I say, isn’t this how we should be treating each other anyway?

We have a wounded country and world in need of compassion, love, and understanding. If we all treated one another like we had cancer, the world could heal, too.

Alas, these are just chemo dreams spilling over from the golden bubble I’ve been living in. The big, scary world awaits, like when it was time for my college graduation.

I didn’t want to go. I spent all my time feeling sad that life would be different when we were gone–“it’s the end of the world as we know it” was a popular song quote of ours; so I checked out of my History of Jazz class.

It was pass/fail anyway. I didn’t go to any classes or take any tests, so I had everything riding on my final. I only needed to get 70 points. How hard could that be? Plus, I had more significant concerns about what would become of me.

I came around to reality the night before the exam. Whether or not I wanted to graduate, I needed to make that happen. I needed to study for my jazz final.

I stayed up all night listening to cd’s to remember the artist, title, and jazz period. The professor would play any random part of a song and expect us to identify everything about it. It finally hit me what I had been missing all semester: a three, four, or even five-minute jazz song never repeats itself. And there are no words to give any clues either.

After the exam, I came back to the sorority house punchy and managed to tell my roommates while getting under the covers, “I failed by three points.”

My friend said, “Every senior goes through the same thing. They convince themselves they failed. It’s just nerves. You’ll feel better when you get some sleep.”

But when I woke up, I was still saying the same thing, “No. I’m serious. I don’t think I failed; I know I did, and by three points.”

When I came to my senses, I started rationalizing. Charles Kuralt best known as a CBS journalist/correspondent didn’t graduate from UNC either–he didn’t take the swim test. (That’s the story I made up for him, who cares if it was real?). If not graduating was good enough for Charles Kuralt, and look what a name he made of himself, it would be good enough for me.

I was getting some mileage out of it until I told Mom. As much as she loved Charles Kuralt, she didn’t buy it. “You will graduate, so you find a way how.” She may have even pointed out that I wasn’t Charles Kuralt.

So I called the professor’s office and explained, “I was a graduating senior until I took your final. I failed by three points.”

He called me to his office after he had tracked down the exams. He said he was only helping me because I didn’t have to take Jazz and chose it as an elective. That was the only thing I had going for me.

He flipped through the exams and got to mine. He said, “You didn’t fail by three points, but 30. “In that case, you’ll have to write a twenty-page term paper on a Jazz musician.”

I was ecstatic and thanked him as profusely as I shook his hand. I came home, and when I told my roommates, they were like, “What? I’m sorry but that sucks.”

But it jolted me out of not wanting to graduate and helped me focus on what I needed to do.

And then I heard a sorority sister yelling for me. I had a phone call on the house phone. No one ever used that phone except in the beginning of the year before we got our phones connected in our rooms. We all looked at each other, wondering who it could be.

I walked down the hall and opened up the little closet door. I picked up the handset and heard a male voice ask if this was Stephanie. It was my Jazz Professor. A mistake had been made with the grading. I hadn’t failed by 30 points as he had originally thought, but three. Instead of the term paper, I could go to a jazz concert and write a one-page critique,

Maybe it was just the closure I needed, but after our main graduation in the stadium, J school had a private ceremony for us. After I received my certificate from the Dean and walked off the podium, I spotted my Jazz professor playing in the band. I went over to show him my diploma. I pointed at it and mouthed. “This one’s for you!”

So I’m older now. I didn’t almost have to fail chemo to finally get what the Rolling Stones could have told me back in college if only I could have listened then, at least they had words. “You can’t always get what you want…you get what you need.”

So I don’t always get what I want. I’ve lived long enough to get the drill. Granted sometimes I still get upset when I don’t get my way. I must remind myself God will provide me what I need and that will pull me through. And some upbeat dance music (preferably not Jazz).