Life is hard
I am not creative. I’m not a writer. I’m lazy. I’m not funny. I’m not the same person I was during treatment. I don’t have a good attitude anymore. I’m not the same person I was before treatment. I’m not fun. I don’t want to go out, I don’t want to stay in. I should be on TikTok. Fuck this, fuck cancer.
My brain can’t be trusted, anxiety is a liar. I know, I know. Those are not facts. Just because I know that, doesn’t mean I don’t feel it. Reprogramming those thoughts and not judging the feelings that come with them are a full time job.
Going through chemo, taking care of myself was my full time job. My expectations each day were to eat and sleep. Those are also my favorite things to do. I was high off of trauma, care packages, edibles, and self care. I shut myself off from the stress of the news and the pandemic and focused on getting through treatment. Despite the whole poisoning myself and fighting a life threatening illness part, life was easy.
Transitioning out of chemo has been hard… and I’m not even back to my full time job. All of the feelings I couldn’t handle in the moment are here. Yes, getting vaccinated is a symbol of hope. Still, there’s so much work to be done to fix inequitable systems across society. The world is also burning. Easing back into the world is hard.
My expectations for myself are increasing. Eating and sleeping are still priority but I have more strength now. I want to use it to take care of myself and get more out of life than ever before. I forgot that doing so isn’t always easy and there’s a reason I wasn’t exactly a beacon of self care and health before. Doing the things that are good for you when anxiety is lying to you is hard.
I’m taking a writing class and actually trying to cook. Writing has been a healing creative outlet for me. Now that there’s coursework tied to it, it feels like school. I thrived in school when I focused on grades, not learning. Those grades came easily and got me hooked on external validation. It is also a fact that when other people make food it tastes better. I’m a bad chef. That one is not a lie. Gordon Ramsay would annihilate me. Leaning into a learning mindset, being okay being bad at something, and committing to growth without validation is hard.
My friends have been amazing and I love them with every fiber of my being. As much as I try to deny it though, I feel different. It’s hard to sit in a social scenario and not talk about what I just went through. They’re all here to listen but I can’t help but feel like a burden, a buzzkill, or a reminder to them that their life could be worse. I’m mastering the jokes that make everyone laugh and normalize the elephant in the room but the adjustment is hard.
I’m not sharing this for sympathy or for you to feel bad for me. Please don’t. It’s not a cry for help. I go to therapy, don’t you worry. I just don’t want people out there thinking life with cancer is all rainbows and butterflies. I was unintentionally bordering on toxic positivity. I didn’t realize it until recently, but that’s something that I was already pretty good at. It was easy.
Prior to cancer, I was the queen of rationalizing myself out of pain by over indexing on the positives. Healthy! Other people have it worse, why would I be sad? I have privilege, a great job, and exceptionally supportive family and friends. Sadness, anger, and loneliness didn’t serve me so I conditioned myself not to feel them.
Now that I’m going through this whole cancer thing, I give myself permission to feel every feeling that I willed away for the past however many years. I truly don’t know how long but I’ve definitely been doing it since before TikTok when millennials were still cool. Between COVID, cancer and the decline of skinny jeans, 2020 was already enough to process. On top of that, it’s also bringing up other stuff, as trauma tends to do. Sitting through that emotional backlog now is hard.
Don’t get me wrong, I am still an optimistic person. I’m still grateful for the gifts this experience has brought me. I’m still blessed with a perfectly shaped head. I still practice gratitude every day and have so much to be thankful for. I still want to live a life that I’m in love with. That doesn’t mean I always feel good. That doesn’t mean it’s not hard.
Life is hard. Cancer or no cancer. Society tells us we need to do everything we can to be productive and happy and have it all together. This experience has shifted that mindset for me. Happiness isn’t the end all be all destination. I just want to feel and create and be true to myself and be present. The more we put on a perpetual happy face and numb how we actually feel, the more we’re ignoring who we are and what would actually make us happy. That shit slowly eats at you and manifests in other ways- including but not limited to cancer, depression, and social media addiction. That stuff is even harder.
Be who you are and feel what you feel. Your feelings are valid and they’re complex. So are everyone else’s. You might not have cancer but you still deal with hard shit. If taking care of yourself and being authentic was easy, we would’ve been doing it all along. It’s okay to not feel good every day. It’s okay to wear skinny jeans. Sitting through the negative makes the positive that much better though. Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it won’t get easier. I think, I’ve heard, I hope.
