Time Markers

The most obvious marker of our time on this planet is our birthday. Each year, we mark another life lived. Maybe we reflect on the year past. Or, maybe we wish for the future as we blow out the candles on our cakes. Once we get past 30, the number of years in our actual age becomes blurred with imagines social norms of clinging to our youth. At any rate, we are still one year older no matter what we offer to a stranger as out true age.
    Birthdays, anniversaries, grade level in school, driver's license, graduation and the ability to consume alcohol in public all are markers of time. For me, I have my toe nails. I was taking the polish off my toes and noticed a line right through the middle. The lower half is pink and smooth. The upper half is yellowed with brittle ridges. Chemo did this. One of the side effects is brittle nails. One friend's nails were so brittle that they would rip off with just a soft blow to the tip. I had wonderful beautiful nails. Strong, pink, smooth, with white tips that I kept short to parallel to the tips of my fleshy finger tips by weekly manicures while watching Desperate Housewives on Sunday. My toe nails I kept lacquered a cheery lavender ever since the night before my mastectomy. If I was going to be naked, I should at least have pretty toes, right?
    The pink, hard nail pushes forward as I trim off the brittle yellow each week. It marks the time. One year and nine and a half weeks since I started my chemo in 2009. This evening last year, I was preparing to endure my fourth round of chemocation. This year, I enjoyed a weekend up at Rocky Mountain National Park with my family, the third summer trip that I missed out on last summer. The first was in June, Father's Day, this is when I had the infection in my left implant and the surgery to remove it. This year, we went up to Dowdy Lake to camp. The second was the trip to Lake Powell with the Brown's; I was recovering from my second round then. And, the third was this trip to RMNP. My sister and her family went in my absence, and I am very glad for that. This summer, I giggled with the family as we shared riddles in the trail to Alberta Falls. If you are in a room with no windows and no doors, how do you get out?
    Yes, I have many new markers of time in my life. I have anniversaries beyond the one of my wedding which I celebrate a year's passing in my own way, for myself. I am still here. I thought I might die. But, I didn't. It takes a year for a toenail to grow out half way and a year to have hair enough to look like you meant to style it in a short...well, whatever you call this cut...mess. In another year, by next summer, I hope to have a cute chin length bob. And, yes, maybe I will forgo the polish and simply buff my nails to display their beautiful, strong, pink natural state.