A Cherry On Top

Prologue:  This blog has taken on a form of therapy for me.  This post, in particular, is very therapy-y.  So, get your wool sweater on, reading glasses down to the tip of your nose, and legal pad out.  I'm laying on the couch in your office, blabbering ....

Since I was can remember, which in my brain is about the age of 20, I've suffered from depression.  Not the kind of depression where you feel sad because something sad just happened. The kind of depression where you feel forlorn/tired/overwhelmed/despondent but nothing has happened.  This is weird thing.  It's impossible for "normal" people to understand and just as impossible to avoid the stigma that goes along with it.  In today's Western age of over-diagnosed/over-prescribed anti-depressants, I suppose the stigma has lessened but when I first began my journey with this, I felt helpless and alone.  Depression isn't cancer for example.  People don't empathize with you when you're depressed.  They say things like: cheer up, it will get better, and my favorite:  hang in there.  Since you can't see depression it's easy to keep it hidden.  Which is what I did.  And if I could just pat myself on the back for moment, I believe it did pretty well.

Depression is a strange and unpredictable beast.  It sneaks up on you when you least expect it.  Around hour 14 of laying in bed (a common place for me when the big D reared it's ugly head), I would begin wondering: what about people out there who have it WAY WORSE than me?  A majority of my twenties were spent grappling with embarrassment and shame.  I was ashamed to feel sad when larger problems are actually sad.  I often found myself thinking about the world and the enormity of it.  The magnitude of human suffering is so vast and atrocious... and here I was, a girl who had everything I needed:  access to more food than I could ever eat (thank you America), shelter- which wasn't being bombed, my village wasn't overrun with disease, a plethora of family and friends who love me... why the hell am I sad?!

So, what happened to change all this:  aging.  Sound the trumpets and sing joyous tunes.  The sliver-lining to aging is knowing yourself.  As I entered my thirties just a short 24 months ago, I began to really understand and know myself.  I was no longer lost in the excitement and constant rush of my twenties.  The depression began to abate.  Life became more tangible and coherent.  The coping mechanisms I used were needed less and less.  It is in this vein, my depression and I reached an understanding.  I recognized he was going to stick around but he realized that I'm on to him.  Insert evil laugh.  I'm no longer blind-sided by bad days/weeks/months.  I'm in control.  While these days still exist, they are now comprehensible and manageable instead of agonizing.

You may be thinking, why is she taking about depression? Isn't this blog about cancer?  The answer is simple.  Since cancer has been bestowed upon me, things have changed.  Perspective is a word thrown around a lot but it actually has meaning to one such as myself.  You would think depression is the first thing that someone feels when learning they have cancer, but not in this case.

When a doctor says the word cancer after you've been though a gamut of testing, nothing is the same again.  N.O.T.H.I.N.G.  Your face is unexpectedly jerked to the right because you've been slapped with a word no one is ever ready to hear.  You're immediately reeled the opposite direction as unknowns of universal sizes spread out before you.  And simultaneously, an impenetrable wall with the word MORTALITY graffitied across it manifests a mere two centimeters from the tip of your nose.  Your mortality stares you in the face and you can't out-stare it, or run, you just have to look directly back at it.  It's about this time you start to think, how the hell am I supposed to deal with this? 

Clearly, I don't know the answer to that.  Nor would I ever claim to.  I've tried some things that work and some that don't.  For example, retail therapy.  Yes, this is a fun way pass the time and it sure takes your mind off the fact you have cancer when you have to decide between the mint green or orange tank with these skinny jeans.... but then Capital One comes a calling and you realize that hiring a human therapist would have been cheaper.  Traveling was a great time!  I know how lucky I was to have a trip already booked two weeks out from receiving word that all my pain and suffering is cancer (not just a something silly as I assumed it would be).  This was great way to escape... for a bit.  Side note:  a huge thank you to Dr. Eadens for giving me the okay to partake in my trip.  Not that I would have skipped it, but I know it made my mom feel better to have the doc's approval.  (After she was initially mad at him for saying yes-- you should have seen her face, priceless.)  

I'm taking time to realize who I am and what I want and enjoying it.  I live in a city nestled up against the mountains.  When not doing one of the million things Denver has to offer, you head up to the Rockies to for the endless activities offered up by Mother Nature.  I love hanging out with my friends in ANY capacity.  Whether its climbing mountains, sitting around a pool, drinking wine on a rooftop, or picnicking in the park.  I find this amazing clarity around my people and it's electric.  I'm no longer adrift at social events, I feel how much people love me and how much I love them!  It's beautiful.  It's powerful.  I wish for you to experience this but since I had to get cancer to obtain this perspective, I won't do so.  The school I work at, am a part of, is overflowing with incomparable, remarkable people who are beyond the words I could put here.  My landing at Brown was so crazy and random and it was absolutely meant to be.  

The silver lining to cancer is falling in love with yourself.  I love me.