The elephant in the room

My hair has started falling.  Not in clumps, but individually.  My bathtub drain got clogged.  That's how I knew. The more I run my fingers through my hair, the more it comes out.  It's finally happening, people.  Hair loss.

Thursdays seem to be the day chemo effects manifest themselves the most.  I am utterly drained tonight.  My legs weigh a ton each. It feels like I am moving in slow motion, like in those bad 80s movies!

The above was from Planet Cancer.  Back on earth, my brain is preoccupied with something else. 

A preoccupation.  What's a preoccupation?

How do you snap out of it?  When do you know you've been mulling over it long enough and you need now to let it go?  What should you do to float back to your normal self? Is it even possible to do such a thing?

Some smart people have made a pile of dough answering the above.  But my point is not in finding an answer. 

I say...sometimes a preoccupation needs a status.  It needs to be acknowledged as the elephant in the room and saluted. 

Now, no one wants an elephant-size preoccupation.  Unfortunately, some preoccupations come in that size.  If they do, you really can't mess too much with it. 

I say...the best thing to do then is to leave the elephant-size preoccupation in the room and go find yourself a little corner where you can scream your guts out and howl like a wounded animal.  You will feel wasted, silly and you may be drenched in your own tears and snot.  But then, you'll wipe all that off and walk right back to the elephant and again salute it.

Because, you see, at the end of the day...you've won.  You are the intelligent human....the elephant is just an animal with big ears and lots of fat.  Humans don't do elephants.  They leave them alone.