HI.
For real though, I'm back now. Chess is over, and I've had a week to readjust to the typical daily college life: wake up, class, maybe I sit on the bike in the gym and reluctantly move my legs, more class, Jodi Arias trial (crazy bitch, right?), sleep, and food sprinkled in somewhere. I dunno. You get the drift.
But I decided that during the weeks I am wayyyy too preoccupied with school to do this blog, so posting will now be sometime from Friday-Sunday. I mean it though. I know I've pussed out before, but I'm really gonna post each weekend and try to think of things to say about shit.
Omg I just got distracted for a few minutes because Jason DeRulo "Mmmm Whatcha Say" came on the radio, and then I had to go watch the SNL short Dear Sister. Go watch it.
I don't really have a specific topic in mind this week. I realized the other day that as I get further and further away from that disastrous year of my life, I become more and more disconnected with it. It's possibly one of the reasons I didn't make more of an effort to post in here while I was busy. Once you get in the habit of blocking that shit out, you don't really want to write about it. I get going and get busy and start to feel like a normal person again, and cancer continues to make less and less appearances in my daily thought-process.
Which is a good thing and a bad thing.
It's good because I'm not letting it drag me down and shit, and I'm becoming more and more adjusted to life without monthly doctor-monitoring.
It's bad because it's a part of who I am, and is still a big aspect of my life that other people associate with me. It's part of the reason why I stayed in my room with a book during my first two years of college. People don't connect with me very well, and I realize it's because they don't know what to say. I always preach in this blog about how people say stupid things to me all the time about cancer and death and stuff like that, and what I don't do a very good job of is trying to be understanding of how it feels to be my friend, acquaintance, what have you...because in this blog I'm always like RAH RAH RAH I'm a cancer survivor, hear me roar, tremble at the thought of my giant tumor!
Ha. Anyway.
My very best friend is going through a health crisis not quite of a 'life-and-death' nature, but scary and upsetting nonetheless, and she often tells me that she doesn't want to be weak in front of me. She sees what I've had to deal with, and tries not to complain about her struggles in front of me. This is a common problem I have with people.
I've come to the understanding, over these few years since cancer, that it is completely unfair of me to compare other people's problems to my own. Easier said than done...
Now hold on because I'm actually going to quote a book and shit and it's gonna get rulllll deep up in here but maybe a little off topic but who cares end of run on sentence.
I was reading a book by Aimee Bender, who's become one of my new favorite authors, called The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. And I came across a quote that summed up this abstract jealousy I had of other people when I was sick:
"It can feel so lonely, to see strangers out in the day, shopping, on a day that is not a good one. On this one: the day I returned from the emergency room after having a fit about wanting to remove my mouth. Not an easy day to look at people in their vivid clothes, in their shining hair, pointing and smiling at colorful woven sweaters.
I wanted to erase them all. But I also wanted to be them all, and I could not erase them and want to be them at the same time."
When you're very sick, you view everyone in the "outside world" as perfect. You see people going about their daily routines and think how lucky they must be--whatever their lives may contain--to not be where you are. You'd give anything to be among them.
So when I first re-entered the "real world", I was finally going to "be among them". I had this mentality that because I was no longer in treatment, because I was "normal" again, that all other problems would be easily fixable. And I was wrong. I started having "normal people" problems again...and often found myself unable to keep them in perspective with what I went through. People go through terrible periods of their life, and what might not seem so terrible to the "cancer survivor/patient," is life-changing and heart-breaking to someone else. It's taken me some time to understand that. But I think I'm becoming better at it.
It's hard for me not to compare people's problems with my battle sometimes. I won't lie. But I try, and believe it or not, really do understand deep down.
If you take anything from this post that has been really all over the place, let it be this: I understand that not everyone has problems as serious as cancer. I will not judge you, condemn you, or shame you for struggling with your own problems. You can tell me about them. I'll listen. Because while they might not seem as crucial to me, I can relate to feeling trapped by a shitty situation. Suffering is the human condition after all. Ghandi or Buddha or Lil Wayne said that shit I think.
I don't know if this post makes me seem more approachable. For the majority of these recovery years, I've kept most people at arms length, and really sheltered myself under the idea that no one will ever understand me. But I'm at the stage in my recovery process where I'm ready to make more connections with people, and ready to be a more understanding person.
That being said, try to keep all your really trivial shit in perspective, because I'm not afraid to give you a reality slap. I said I'd be more understanding. I didn't say I'd be any less disgruntled.
With that, Kelly Clarkson has come on the radio, and alas, I must go turn it off.
Jesse
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