That's what the doctors keep saying. Any treatment I have for my brain tumor at this point is nothing more than a delaying tactic. Months, maybe years. It won't stop me from dying young, it just might make me die a little older.

"Inevitable." It can be cut down, but it will grow back. Eventually, it will grow back stronger, more aggressively. I can't realistically expect more than 15 years, and probably it will be less than ten.

I saw the MRIs, the pictures of my head. The part of my brain they removed the first time is only a small portion of the entire tumor structure. More has to come out - this infestation has taken my entire left frontal lobe. And whether or not it comes out, I get to look forward to all sorts of fun symptoms, the worst being 'cognitive decline.'

I'm an intelligent, creative person. The things by which I define myself are all internal, cerebral. It is also the lens through which I view and interact with the world (which, for better or for worse, leads people to think I'm showing off, or trying to prove myself, when really I'm just exulting, as everyone should do in the things they do well).

So, to have the one part of my body - this horrible lump of flesh - that I consider ME... to have that attacked, and degraded, and torn apart, while the rest soldiers on as healthy as can be. To know that I might very well lose myself long before I die, I don't know what to do about it.

But really, there's really nothing I CAN do. It's incurable, it's inevitable. And it's untenable. So I have to live like there is no shadow, pretend that the inky blackness is sunlight. "Hope" is the watchword - not hope for survival, if I wanted false hope I'd still have religion. Instead, it's hope that I'll find value and meaning in the time I have left.

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A big part of me is thinking "why bother" to the surgery. Any treatment is just a delaying tactic anyway - so, basically, my health insurance peoples (and me) are going to be shelling out massive amounts of money to, what, buy me a few more years? 2 years, 3?

The cost of the surgery and the various MRIs and the like that I've gotten already are around $250,000. As I look back on my life and consider everything I've done, I wonder whether or not I can justify that, if I can look at the life I've led and say 'yes, that was worth a quarter of a million.' And, well, I can't.

So now I'm looking at possibly another surgery, which I can't imagine being any less expensive, and I wonder if I could possibly justify that cost in the 2, 6, 10 years I have left. And I think to myself, again, no, I can't. I know myself enough to know that I won't. Even the threat of death doesn't seem to get me moving. There have got to be more deserving people to which a new chance at life could be given.

Every cell of my being screams at me to take the chance, but that's instincts, and how can we call ourselves civilized if we don't rise above our instincts? And when I do, and look at myself critically, I don't see how I could be worth it. What have I done, or what might I do, that would make it worth it?

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I feel stupid for ever putting money into a 401(k). I hate that my life is pretty much not going to have a 'retirement' stage. Maybe I should just sell my house, skip the country, and disappear. I wonder why I'm continuing with school. It was one of my own delaying tactics, really - putting off living, escaping responsibilities. I've been homeless before, maybe I should do that again.

I fear loneliness. My dating history speaks for itself - I don't have much that entices people, as the vast voids that dot my romantic life make abundantly clear. However awesome a person I am, the evidence shows I am not an attractive one, because I do not attract (in any productive way, at least). And now, on top of all my other faults, I get to serve any potential new mate a big heaping helping of death warmed over. It's probably better than I am alone, but that doesn't make it feel any different.

I wonder why, even now, I can't cry at anything real. I can cry at movies, at books, at stories I've known hundreds of times - cry like a baby, sometimes. But at real life events, I pretty much stay dry. I stay solid, I stay hidden. On stage this past week, I learned that I'm more likely to blow my brains out than actually display a ten on an emotional scale. And I don't think it's just crying, it's everything. I wonder if I'm capable, or am I too broken?

I resent this sack of meat and bones for working perfectly well apart from the one part that has any meaning. It feels like a betrayal. Of course, now I have even less reason to take care of the treasonous husk than I ever had before. Sometimes drinking myself into oblivion is tempting; it's probably a good thing I never liked the taste.

There's probably more, but I don't have words and this is too long anyway.