Following up on my post from a few days ago: Today, salon.com's advice columnist replies to a letter-writer who, in her 30s, has survived cancer and isn't sure she wants to go back to her exact pre-cancer life. It must be really tough to be filled with a fire for living and have everyone else standing around you with buckets.
The letters section already has a little debate going (and, as of this writing, there are only 5 or 6 letters). Should she do what she wants, bucket brigade be damned, in the spirit of living her life to the fullest? Or should she rein in those impulses, recognize the precious gift that is a community of loved ones in her life, and accept some limitations in exchange for those ties that bind her to others and to this world? It's a hard question, and heck if I know the answer.
Showing posts with label meaning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label meaning. Show all posts
Monday, August 18, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
Who I was/Who I am
The NY Times, in its ongoing fabulousness, has an article today about coping with identity changes, and I love it.
Two quotes in particular stand out. First,
This is so true. And once the critical illness is over, the permission fades. You were allowed to deviate, given lots of leeway, even permitted to say NO to things and to live your life to maximize health rather than busy-ness. But as time passes, people stop thinking that you are delicate and must be handled with care; they start thinking it's time you stopped whining and started being like everyone else again.
The other quote I loved:
I alluded to this in an early blog post. At first, I wanted so much to maintain my professional identity, to be the smart, strong person who just happens to be going through cancer treatment. I didn't want to be like those grey, wispy, shadowed people sitting in the waiting room in their headscarfs and their wheelchairs. When I had surgery and couldn't wash my own hair, it was hard to accept help because it just drove home my incapability. When I couldn't walk outside for a full half hour at a time, I felt the loss of my physicality more than I had ever felt its presence.
What the writer doesn't say, and what happened too slowly for me to watch, is that you really can go back to something like your old life, and leave that self-loss behind; but it's almost like a projection of your old life, one rendered in all the same colors and moving in the same patterns, but against a different screen, parallel to the old but never quite touching.
I actually have to fight with myself not to just go the straight denial route, and turn my back on the truth that I had cancer, and ignore anything to do with cancer. Someone close in my social circle just started chemo (her first treatment was on the 2-year anniversary of my last treatment). It is surprisingly hard for me to see her go through this, in part because I just want to deny, deny, deny; and, unexpectedly, her reality becomes a constant undercurrent for me, reminding me of what I experienced and what I am as a result.
Two quotes in particular stand out. First,
A critical illness is like a great permission, an authorization or absolving. It’s all right for a threatened man to be romantic, even crazy, if he feels like it. All your life you think you have to hold back your craziness, but when you’re sick you can let it go in all its garish colors.
This is so true. And once the critical illness is over, the permission fades. You were allowed to deviate, given lots of leeway, even permitted to say NO to things and to live your life to maximize health rather than busy-ness. But as time passes, people stop thinking that you are delicate and must be handled with care; they start thinking it's time you stopped whining and started being like everyone else again.
The other quote I loved:
I wanted to be someone, a recognizable personality, a full-blooded, memorable human being, and not just a cancer patient. I had already lost the person I used to be, that healthy, energetic 45-year-old woman. I wasn’t capable of losing more. Other friends had their own spins on claiming individuality in the cancer world.
I alluded to this in an early blog post. At first, I wanted so much to maintain my professional identity, to be the smart, strong person who just happens to be going through cancer treatment. I didn't want to be like those grey, wispy, shadowed people sitting in the waiting room in their headscarfs and their wheelchairs. When I had surgery and couldn't wash my own hair, it was hard to accept help because it just drove home my incapability. When I couldn't walk outside for a full half hour at a time, I felt the loss of my physicality more than I had ever felt its presence.
What the writer doesn't say, and what happened too slowly for me to watch, is that you really can go back to something like your old life, and leave that self-loss behind; but it's almost like a projection of your old life, one rendered in all the same colors and moving in the same patterns, but against a different screen, parallel to the old but never quite touching.
I actually have to fight with myself not to just go the straight denial route, and turn my back on the truth that I had cancer, and ignore anything to do with cancer. Someone close in my social circle just started chemo (her first treatment was on the 2-year anniversary of my last treatment). It is surprisingly hard for me to see her go through this, in part because I just want to deny, deny, deny; and, unexpectedly, her reality becomes a constant undercurrent for me, reminding me of what I experienced and what I am as a result.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Living (off topic, but not really)
I am not a traditionally religious person at all, but this story of a street preacher in Oakland just blows me away. One thing that cancer taught me was the importance of living fully and authentically, with courage, following the deepest part of your soul. I also feel that there must be some meaning, some way that we build something that will outlive us--whether through creative works, or academic articles (me), or through the impacts we can have on others. Well, this guy is like the poster child. I just find it very moving.
Then there's this piece from the NY Times, which also moved me on several levels. First, it's an echo of The Wire, my favorite TV show, which depicts the complexities and heartbreaking realities of the life of a modern city. The show and the article both focus on Baltimore, on inner-city kids who don't have much of a future to hope for and about whom most of the world doesn't really care. The article, which is about a lottery for inner-city kids to get into a new prep school, reminded me also of cancer--of that lottery of luck in which your wheel spins agonizingly and stops, the black ball dropping into that slot and a year of surgery and chemo and radiation and weakness and hair loss becoming your prize. Such random fates distinguish the blessed from the forgotten. I got cancer, and lost that particular lottery; generally, in life, I'm quite blessed, and have the kinds of fortune that others might dream about. There's nothing at all fair about any of it, and nothing understandable.
Then there's this piece from the NY Times, which also moved me on several levels. First, it's an echo of The Wire, my favorite TV show, which depicts the complexities and heartbreaking realities of the life of a modern city. The show and the article both focus on Baltimore, on inner-city kids who don't have much of a future to hope for and about whom most of the world doesn't really care. The article, which is about a lottery for inner-city kids to get into a new prep school, reminded me also of cancer--of that lottery of luck in which your wheel spins agonizingly and stops, the black ball dropping into that slot and a year of surgery and chemo and radiation and weakness and hair loss becoming your prize. Such random fates distinguish the blessed from the forgotten. I got cancer, and lost that particular lottery; generally, in life, I'm quite blessed, and have the kinds of fortune that others might dream about. There's nothing at all fair about any of it, and nothing understandable.
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