They said it was a tumor.

One of those cancers with the long swooping names, packed tight with all the syllables you learned to say in grammar school. But boiled down the word was simple and yet somehow harder to say than most: cancer

People began watching the clock. They began trying their hardest to treasure the moments or hoard them in corners where no would could try to suck them away. They filled conversations over coffee with things like, “No, not him. He’s a fighter. He’ll get better.”

And then the doctors said it and they all sucked in, bit down, and gulped. Six to twelve months. And his keys would be in the ignition no more. And they’d light candles they never wanted to light. And cry because they never wanted to weep. And say goodbye to a someone who they only wished would get a rewrite of his story. “More hello’s, please. We just need one last hello.”

And then he was gone.

And the world got quiet. And they lit candles. And they wept. And they somehow learned to say goodbye. They learned the word but it never got any easier. And the Happily Ever After never showed that day or the next.

When they lost a love to cancer, no one rode off into the sunset. No one waved from their palace. No one danced in the moonlight in a little longer. They all just got quiet. And they forgot the words to their songs. And they stopped trying for a little while because no one really felt like singing.

Not a soul, not a shred, sighed a deep breath and found the Happily or the Ever or the After.

We’ve learned to hold tight to something that was never given to us– A Happily Ever After. We hold it tight to our chest as if it is a guarantee as we devour stories that end well. Stories that tie up neat and pretty with a big white bow. But stories don’t usually resolve. And characters we love cannot always stay. And there is an underlying hymn of heartbreak that follows each of us throughout this world–not because life is bad or cruel or something to always cry and moan about, but because this lifetime hurts. Over & over again, it hurts to watch the fleshy, broken messes of We love and lose and love and fight and love and break and love and let go.

It’s the After. That is where we all drag out fingers along the dotted lines of life and point to when we find ourselves missing someone so deeply.

After they were gone. After they left. After. After. After.

That’s the part of the story we forget to focus on. The After is never the thing we think about when our jeans don’t fit and there is gossip sitting ripe on the screen of the iPhone and we’re late for an appointment and we are trying, trying so damn hard, to just be someone who is “known” in this world. We never think, in all the clutter of waiting for life to grow sane and livable, that we should have already begun to crane our eyes towards the After.

A legacy. A legacy.

It’s time to find out if you have one. If it is already in the building stages. If other people have the bricks. If you’ve passed them out in just the right capacity.

If you have one, it will mean you thought to live your life with someone else in mind. You’ll be the warm spot in the memory of another. People will carry you in a way that means so much more than the carrying you ever thought to do of your own stories, and your own accomplishments. Yes, a legacy will mean you thought to make this place better as you came on down to this dirt and water and thought to make it home for a little while.

A legacy gets passed. To children. To friends. To lovers. To people you will never even know in this lifetime. And it does not begin when your eyes shut or your fingers stop playing on the piano at night. And maybe it’s time we asked, will mine be full and bursting with goodness? Will it be just the thing she needs to crawl out of the bigger black holes when I am no longer here to stretch out my hand and say, “hold tight.”

When I write this way, I already begin missing things. Like I am going somewhere. Like it is ending sooner than I hope. Is that crazy to even admit?

I begin missing the trees. I begin missing the kettle on the stove, hissing as I enter the house with the light always on in the foyer. But I try to remember, as hard as it can be, to always think like this. To think about the After.

Like tomorrow someone might not have you and you will want to know that you built them up with every little thing you always wanted for them. Dignity. Respect. Joy. Amazement. The ability to stop and realise how good we’ve got it right now.

And this thing? This thing we keep waiting for to start? When we are skinnier. When we are happier. When this test is over. When this week ends. It’s all we get. And it is rushing through our fingertips right now. And sooner, sooner, there could be an After. I cannot tell you when. I cannot tell you when.

And so, while the rest of the world goes on writing symphonies about themselves and trying so desperately to just leave something behind when they go– a company, an empire, a name of sorts– you’ve got a chance to let someone know you came here for them. And you got all sorts of determined to make this story better for them. And this life better for them. And any bit you could, you tried to make it better so that they would get to dance in the Aftermath of your legacy.

After your laughter. After your words that could fill a room like the aroma of cinnamon at Christmastime. After you dug your toes deep in the planet and tried to make it the least bit better off than when you first came.

After, After, After. Enough of a focus on that and you’ll never need utter these words again: will you still hold me when I am gone? Have I given you enough to hold just yet?

I feel your sorrow chasing tommorow

There is no distance in your absence

If you call the monster he will appear

Like I disappear, blackout

There is resistence behind enemy lines

There goes the hatred bursting through the fabric

If you call the monster he will appear

Like I disappear, blackout

You are here

You are here

You are here

One day

You will see

That it all

Has finally come together.

What you have

Always wished for

Has finally come to be.

You will look back

And laugh at what has passed

And you will ask yourself,

"How did I get through all of that?"

Never let go of hope.

Never quit dreaming.

And

Never let love

Depart from your life. 

I make it a priority to tell one ugly story a month.

One Hideously, Ugly, Unflattering Story Every Thirty Days.

You can guarantee that as the 30th prances closer to the front of my calendar I am clearing my throat and looking for someone to sit beside me with a cup of tea between their hands, waiting to hear my Ugly Tale.

Throughout the years I have learned that it is not hard to find an Ugly Tale. Lord knows I have a bookshelf full of Ugly Tales, disorganised and restless, sitting on some handmade shelf within my soul. No, finding an Ugly Tale is not difficult but having the courage to tell one is another matter completely.

I don’t ever attempt to dictate or be right when I write but for the first time in ever I am going to come out and say something I believe with every fiber of my being: We don’t tell enough Ugly Stories. We don’t hold them up to the light nearly enough. We rarely find the time to stop and talk about Tragedy and Hardships unless we know a new nonfiction claiming to tell a sad story as if it were the only one has just hit the Best Sellers List.

But I don’t believe we carve out enough time to get Ugly with one another. To tell one another about the times we fell flat on our face or the very first time we realised our heart really did have seams that could rip. Rip Quite Easily. Perhaps we forgot to cover that base in kindergarten as we all held up our valiant pieces of plastic for the first time and checked out Heroic Stories from the Local Library. Someone should have told us then that it is o.k. to speak out loud the things that hurt us most or to acknowledge Broken Stories. That we can have Favourite Things and then Not So Favourite Things that we actually admit to ourselves and others.

Some part of life taught us at a very young age that we should hide away the ugliness, the not-so-pretty stories, as we vow to never grace those spots again with a flashlight or a word.

Fragile relationships. Bitter feelings. Hardships. Resentment. Leftover pieces. Remains of strength. Confusion. Doubt.

You just be strong, buttercup. Hold your head up and get over it. You go ahead and tuck that experience deep into some abandoned compartment of your heart . And we will never talk of it again.

That is how Ugly Stories go untold. Precious Ugly Stories that taught us everything we know about being human beings and yet we reject them because they make our throats dry and our palms sweat as we attempt to stutter out, “Once Upon a Time.”

Here is what I know:  That we, the crazy messes of skin that we are, have the marrow of storytellers within us.

Something in our DNA makes us cry out for stories. Again and Again and Again. And not just Pretty Stories but Ugly Stories as well. Those are the Gold that Jerk Tears from our Eyelids and Keep Us Pushing Onward. Relentless. Capable. Invincible.

And so I have become quite comfortable with sharing Ugly Stories as if they were animal crackers at  snack time.

Times where I felt pitiful. Or I fell flat on my face. Or I gave up, throwing my hands up and surrendering to a God that has kissed my skinned knees since childhood.

I find it is the only way to clear out cobwebs of the soul. To dump out the clutter from the leather satchel with the one thousand compartments that I refer to as my heart sometimes.

For there are whole parts of my life that I wish I could just sweep out into the open with a massive broom but I haven’t gotten that far yet. Right now I have a toothbrush and I am down on hands and knees scrubbing. Scrubbing Hard. Telling One Ugly Story Every Thirty Days.

Some might call it “moving forward,” others, “starting over.” I call it “carrying less this time around.” Learning to coat all that is Hard and Hard to Admit in my life with a thick stew of Love & Storytelling.

Forgiving myself for the messes I have made. Releasing the power from those Hard To Tell Stories by giving them a voice. A Narrator. A Strong Narrator. Taking them back, out of the night, with the help of a flashlight I find myself clicking on for the very first time.

So come find me and I’ll share an Ugly Story with you.

The doctor is about to come back to the room. No, of course it’s not good news, you should know this by now. Yes, it’s cancer. I’m sorry, but I know that doesn’t matter. You’re twenty, it’s 2 o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon, and nothing really matters. Instead of algebra homework and Facebook conversations, you’ve spent the morning going through blood tests and x-rays, with no idea why everyone’s being so dramatic about a little fatigue and a high fever. I’m so sorry.

I want you to know, you’re going to ask questions. Because you’re smart and you’ve never felt so stupid. Because cancer sucks, but aside from that, you don’t know the first thing about it. But you know something’s wrong.

I want you to know, your mind will wander. Let it. You’re about to move into a hospital with four stark white walls, a bed, a TV set straight out of the ‘90s, and a slew of machines and monitors that will hum and beep endlessly through the night. You’re going to wonder “why you?” and then you’ll see the 7-year-old boy in the room next to you, with a brazenly bald head and a smile you can’t even fathom and you’ll wonder, “Why him?” You’ll watch him toy with G.I. Joe action figures and wake up early to catch all the Saturday morning cartoons and you’ll wonder why. You’ll understand what he doesn’t: you know something’s wrong. And then you’ll feel envy, in that you wish you didn’t understand, in that you wish this had happened thirteen years back.

But there’s something you should know: you don’t understand. And you don’t need to. There is no God, I know. But there are doctors. There are nurses. There’s your family, and your friends. And there’s a small shot in hell you might actually pull through this thing.

And then you’ll have a change of heart. At some point, pity will seem pointless. You’ve had enough of sorrow in visitors’ faces, of Edible Arrangements and helium balloons. When acquaintances  catch wind of your story and send you one hundred hand-written letters of overwhelming support and sympathy, don’t feel guilty for resenting them. You’ll cherish them in time, and when you’re older, you’ll cherish them still. Maria, I hope you’re still pursuing fashion. Brad, I hope you make the AFL. And Taylor, Merry Christmas to you too.

Life is confusing. We both know this, but what you don’t know yet is that it’s perfectly okay. Because life will always be confusing. After all, it’s not about searching for answers; it’s about searching for questions. And you’re not alone. Find comfort in that.

In the face of adversity, face change. You’ll think about reinventing yourself. Consider a tattoo, perhaps on your middle finger, the word “cancer.” You’ll think about your future, and tell yourself you’re never having kids. “They’re annoying,” you’ll tell people, when in your heart of hearts you’ll know you could never watch a child, your child no less, go through this hell. Besides, they are really annoying. You’ll scoff at the office jobs you promise yourself never to get lost in: a world of 9 to 5 routines, of suits and schedules you never want to partake in. You’ll find something you love, someone you love. You’ll take trips to the Mexican Riviera in the middle of October, because you can. You’ll wake up in beds you don’t remember falling asleep in, and you’ll cook Christmas dinner with your best friend instead of your relatives. You hear that? That’s “responsibility” calling, and you’re running from it. Go. Run fast, and run far. In those moments when you feel alone, when you feel like nobody, feel like anybody you want to.

See the light. There is one, trust me, and you’ll see it. Not right away, but eventually. After months of chemotherapy, radio, of high-fevers and antibiotics, of daily blood tests and constant monitoring, there will be a light. And it will power you forward. All of a sudden, it won’t be a “maybe” anymore, but a “yes.” Yes, you did it. You’re winning all the battles, and soon, you’ll win the war. And then you’ll come to a crossroad, as hard as that is to believe. You’re proud, and justifiably so. Feel that pride, and then feel pain. Feel an unnerving sense of pain that, once again, you can’t understand. Feel worry, feel scared, and feel uncertain all over again.

All of a sudden, the light’s approaching too fast, and you’re not ready. You’re not ready for the real world. You’ve found a bizarre sense of comfort in the bubble of the hospital. Your mother never left your side, for days she slept on an air mattress in the corner of your hospital room and stood by you through the darkest of darks. The doctors never left your side; the nurses were always there.

Resent the light. Wish it wasn’t coming. Wish there was another cycle of chemotherapy, another infection, another recovery. Wish there was another season of America’s Next Top Model to watch with your favourite nurse. Sure, she’s twenty-six and married, but that’s what has become your notion of a friend right now, and friendship is something you’re in no place to lose. But that’s okay. Realise, understand, acknowledge that when you felt like you lost your life, you didn’t at all. You gained life, and once again you’re afraid of losing it all.

Don’t let it go. You don’t have to, and you won’t. What you’ve yet to realise is that even when they unplug your IV, when they take your name off the door to room #9 on the north wing of the fourth floor of the Hutch Hospital of Eastern Washington, when the doctor finally says, “Go home. You’re done, it’s done, we’re done,” that she’s lying. It’s never done. You may not have cancer anymore, but you’re still a cancer patient. Realise you never made it to the light, no matter how bright it became. Realise that whenever you want, wherever you want, you’re whoever you want to be, with or without a cancer diagnosis. Never let that go. 

When I think about a bone marrow biopsy, I often imagine a microscope. I imagine it sitting on the desk of an empty hospital lab. A doctor is looking into the eyepiece and not saying anything. What does he see in there?

I’ve been thinking a lot about the number 100 since my bone marrow transplant in July. The date had been looming since the first days after I had woken, though it also felt like it would never come. In medical terms, the 100 day mark is an examination day. It’s the first major benchmark for evaluating a patient’s recovery from a transplant. The doctors administer a biopsy, an invasive procedure to extract bone marrow from a bone in my hip, to determine whether the disease has returned. The doctors are also looking for any sign that the “foreign” agents in my body — the donor stem cells, mistakenly attacking my body. This condition is called Graft Versus Host disease (GVHD).  My worry right now is about what I can’t see — the stuff under the microscope.

In some ways, 100 days is an arbitrary date — even my doctors might concede that. It could be 80 days or 175. Recovery from bone marrow transplants, as I’ve learned from doctors and fellow cancer patients, is rarely predictable. I have a 28-year-old friend who says she “sailed through” the first 100 days after transplant without major issue, only to reveal that her hardest days came in the second 100 days. Maybe that’s the reason, as another friend and transplant patient said recently, that there aren’t a lot of books titled, “How to Recover From a Bone Marrow Transplant.” It’s one of the most advanced medical procedures that doctors do — and it seems as though each patient’s journey is likewise a step into unknown territory.

Maybe more than anything else, the 100 day mark is symbolic. And maybe that’s not a bad thing. My family threw me a party last Saturday, on Day +101. We had cake — the number 100 frosted across the top — and everyone stumbled through a variation of the “Happy Birthday” song that we had to make up on the spot. It was the first time I’d seen my family together since my transplant.

Two days after the party, on Monday, I started a new round of chemotherapy. The doctors want to prevent any cancerous cells from exacerbating. That makes sense, but it’s hard to think about recovery from my transplant when I am trying to prepare for another year of chemo.

The 100 day party may be over but I’m trying to find a moment to take stock of the progress I’ve made since my transplant.

Rare, rare bird

Abide with me.

Don't give yourself

Too easily.

Stand your ground

For all to see.

Rare, rare bird

Abide with me.

Beautiful lamb

Don't turn away.

Just say the word

Without delay.

And shine your light

For all to see.

A rare, rare bird

You are to me.

Rare, rare bird

Abide with me.

Beautiful lamb

Don't walk away.

Just say the word

Without delay.

Take my hand

'Cause I'm lost you see.

A rare, rare bird

You are to me.

Rare, rare bird

Abide with me.

Guilt, like cancer, is a greedy guest feasting on its host. It is nondiscriminatory. We have all felt it, wondered what it was doing there, willed it to go away.

I’m aware that feeling guilty about having cancer is more than a little irrational. But when it comes to cancer, guilt is a mercurial, equal-opportunity burden that affects both patients and caretakers.

In the outpouring of love I’ve gotten since I began writing about my disease, guilt has never been too far away. Intermixed in the spectacular and candid messages of support, I’ve also received dozens of apologies from friends, classmates, and acquaintances who feel guilty for not being in touch or not realising what I have been going through. Some people feel guilty just for being healthy when I am sick. The topic of guilt came up during a support group meeting for young adults with cancer. I was comforted to hear that everyone in the room felt some form of guilt related to their cancer. I certainly had. From the day I received my diagnosis, guilt has been a steady and quiet companion on my journey.

Sometimes, guilt is a self-inflicted wound. Although I know I shouldn’t, I feel guilty about being a burden on others, taking up too much “space” with my problems and causing pain to those I love. How could I not? I trust that others with cancer know what I mean.

Not long after my diagnosis, I wrote in my notes about my own feelings of guilt.

I feel guilty when I start feeling sick or get a fever. I want to apologise, for I know I will soon make the life of my loved ones hell. My mother will have to drive for hours in the middle of the night to take me to the hospital. Family will have to take sick days from work. After long days at the office, Frey will spend night after night sleeping between the sheets beside me. My father will “hold down the fort” at home (this translates to lonely nights spent worrying by himself and feeling very far away from my hospital). My brother, typical of most 20-something “bros,” doesn’t talk much about his feelings. He has trouble sleeping. Often, when I wake up from nightmares, I hear him tossing and turning in his room next door.

At times, I have blamed myself for lifestyle choices that might have led to my cancer. During my many travels, might I have been exposed to some kind of environmental toxin? If it weren’t for all those late nights during uni spent studying and going to parties, would I still have fallen sick? Did my vegetarian phase at age 8 strip me of important nutrients and compromise my immune system? Too much junk food? Were my jeans too tight?

The belief that cancer happens for a reason can be an attractive line of thinking — where there’s an effect, there must be a cause. This is what a logical mind tells us, but it’s usually untrue. Even when a patient is found to have lung cancer after decades of smoking, is cancer still the patient’s “fault”? Even if there is a correlation to the choices a person makes in life, cancer is always deeply unfair.

Guilt takes other forms for patients, like feeling shame for the envy we feel about those who are in good health; feeling guilty about the disproportionate amount of attention we receive, and even guilt about surviving cancer when so many others have not.

I’ve learned that guilt is made less powerful when you confront it — writing about it, talking about it, bringing my fears and thoughts to the fore, out into the open. For me, the cure for guilt, to the extent that there is one, has been sunlight.

People are always giving advice to cancer patients. Whether it is nutritional advice or doctor recommendations or tips on how to quell the nausea that accompanies chemotherapy or radiotherapy, just as soon as people hear you are sick they usually want to find a way to help. Most of the advice is welcome and encouraging, though in some cases you’re just not in the mood to hear what someone has learned because you’re too busy treading water.

That’s one reason I hesitate to lend any advice at all. I’m only 22. I’ve had cancer for 27 months now. It feels like forever to me, but it’s a short period of time compared with people I know who are going on 5 or 7 or 10 years living with cancer. But I’ve received some heartfelt advice and solidarity along the way from fellow cancer patients, doctors, friends – even from strangers – and it has meant a lot to me. Now I want to share what I’ve learned along the way.

Here are six strategies that have helped me to cope with cancer.

Find Your Community

At first, I bristled at the idea of a cancer community. It was enough to have cancer; did I also have to share my experience with a group of strangers? It felt like extra homework. I hesitated for several months before going to my first cancer support group meeting. It was overwhelming to imagine hearing a dozen other stories as bad as, or worse than, mine.

But something surprising happened. I started going to a young adult cancer support group. For the first time since my diagnosis, I became aware of the fact that I was not alone in my fears and anxieties. Instead of feeling isolated in my experience with cancer, I began to realise there was an amazing community of people out there who were going through the same thing and could help me make sense of what was happening because they had been there themselves. Rather than feeling overwhelmed by the stories of the other cancer patients, I felt empowered and inspired by their strength and bravery.

I’ve also found a surprisingly vibrant cancer network in virtual space — on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere. But in my experience, nothing can replace face-to-face interaction – even if no words are exchanged – with someone else who understands what you’re going through. Two of my closest friends are people around my age whom I met at the hospital. We don’t talk about cancer all the time. But knowing we can go there if we need to is invaluable.

Eliminate Clutter

Cancer feels messy inside and out, whether it’s the disease itself, invading my body, or the material clutter that comes with disease: heaps of laundry piling up, stacks of unopened bills, prescription medication crowding the bedside table, unanswered phone calls and e-mails, and more. I’ve found it helpful to try to control the chaos in small ways. 

I’ve gotten rid of unnecessary clutter in my room. I do regular mini-spring cleanings. What do I need? What can I put away in storage? It makes me feel better, even when cleaning tires me out. The way my surroundings look and feel has a big effect on my mind-set, especially when I am spending a lot of time resting in bed. I like to feel light.

Prioritise Your Relationships

Cancer also forced me to declutter my social life. When I found out I had cancer, I was a still at university. I had dozens of friends and acquaintances who formed a frenzied around-the-clock social network, talking and texting all day, every day. I was tied to my phone like any other 20-year-old.

After my diagnosis, I tried to keep up my old ways, but there was less time. And I had much less energy. At first I felt guilty about not being able to maintain the same frequency of communication with my friends. But having cancer forced me to adopt a simpler schedule.

Be Kind to Yourself

Instead of feeling mad at my body for failing me, I’m trying to give myself permission to take it easy. Easier said than done — I almost didn’t include this point because I’m still struggling with being kind to myself. I can’t help but feel frustrated with myself when my body is overly tired, or when my mind is fuzzy. (They call it “chemo brain.”) Sometimes I beat myself up over sleeping late into the afternoon. Or when I can’t eat more than a few bites of any meal. Or when my muscles are too weak to pick up the kettle on the counter. It’s a daily struggle not to view these setbacks as failures or weakness. But I’m trying not to punish myself for the things I can’t change. In the time we should be the easiest on ourselves, I’ve found that we can often be the most judgmental and harsh.

Do Something for Someone Else

The experience of being sick for an extended time means that you become the center of attention. Someone has to be taking care of you, people are always worried about you, and as the patient you spend a lot of time focusing on, well, you. That’s a lot of yous. Cancer confers a certain kind of myopia. You’re always thinking about your own health above all else. That doesn’t leave a lot of time to think about other people. For the first time since my diagnosis, I’ve begun to send letters and care packages to other cancer patients and friends of mine going through a difficult time. By reaching out, I’m paying it forward for all the help and care I have received. I have found that small acts of gratitude or connectedness to other people who are suffering rescues me from my own self-pity and makes me feel like I’m capable of helping, and not just of being helped.

Set Goals Unrelated to Cancer

From the earliest days of my diagnosis, one of the casualties of cancer was the feeling that I had to shelve my dreams and goals. These paused plans — dreams, interrupted — weighed on me every day. I was constantly thinking of everything I could be doing – everything but lying in a hospital bed or sitting in an infusion suite. Right before I got sick, I was working on my dreams. But with my diagnosis came radio and new plans. It was devastating to miss this opportunity.

But I decided that I didn’t want to let cancer put my life entirely on hold. It had always been my goal to be a writer of some kind. So now I’m going after that goal again. This time, however, I’m trying to write about a different kind of landscape.

As a cancer patient, I think a lot about how we talk about illness — or more often, how we talk around it. Even the word “cancer” is ugly, scary, burdensome — a roadblock for a conversation before it even starts. Who wants to go there? Much of the time, I’d rather not bring it up if I don’t have to — and I’m the one with the disease!

When the topic is a life-threatening disease, the instinct — for both the patient and non-patient — is often to freeze, and try to come up with a positive spin.

“I’m trying to think positive!” I’ll tell a friend, after listing the symptoms I’m having.

“I’m staying strong!” I’ll write in a text message.

“It’s tough, but I can do this,” I’ll say when I’m having an especially hard day.

No one coached me to say these phrases. So where did they come from? In the middle of chemotherapy, when I’m feeling my worst, why do I feel the need to inject these little nuggets of positivity into conversation?

Our culture is steeped in positive thinking — from the self-help mega-industry to uni courses in positive psychology to the enduring pull of our dreams. There is no “dislike” button on Facebook. Nobody wants to be a downer.

But I don’t think it’s all cultural. When it comes to disease, I think the “positivity spin zone” is a force of nature. First, we want to protect the people we love. Cancer makes people think about mortality. It scares your friends and family. And many cancer patients, consciously or otherwise, try to buffer bad news with a dose of positivity. Putting a positive twist on how things are going is a way to convey hope. We want to be strong, to put on a brave face for our loved ones. Positivity is a signal that everything is going to be all right, even if no one knows that for sure.

The second reason, I’ve come to realise, is to protect ourselves. There’s no denying that cancer is a gloomy subject. We repeat positive phrases to ourselves as a sort of mantra. And while positive thinking alone can’t cure cancer, attitude is critical to getting through the process and growing as a person. We voice positivity as a show of strength in the face of the unknown. It’s a daily note to self: I’m going to beat this.

But while I have learned a lot since my diagnosis — and I am trying to be hopeful for the future — living with cancer is also just really, really hard. We don’t always talk about those times. We self-censor many parts of the journey. And when we do speak about it, we often find ourselves framing any negative thoughts in a more positive way.

At what point is positivity a form of denial? Does positivity at all costs have a cost? I’m not a negative person, and I’m certainly not trying to set up a school for negative thinking, but today I’m giving myself permission to step out of the spin zone of positivity — to stare down fear, anxiety and dread without the guilt that I might be giving up or not fighting hard enough.

This reality isn’t positive or negative. It’s just another day in my journey as a cancer patient.

We are forced to survive reality by harnessing our thoughts, feelings and emotions as they quietly travel along on their own trajectories. We think our realities are different to the world surrounding us and thus it becomes a struggle of who we are; until; we find someone who has a mutual understanding that our personal reality is okay and they choose to spend their reality in ours. 

We call this a love story.

It’s on you.

That is where it starts. That is where it ends.

It’s on you and what you want, and how hard you are willing to hustle, and how relentless you are going to be when they tell you to give up. 

Because people will tell you to give up.

They’ll look at you with crooked faces. They won’t understand your drive. And they are going to look to bring you down because they don’t know any better. They haven’t had the guts to go for it themselves and so they will try to tell you no. Impossible. Not worth the time.

Forget them. In the nicest, sweetest way possible, forget them and all the little barriers and boundaries they try to place on this life of yours.

Wake up. It’s your life.

You owned it yesterday. You gleaned the freedom today. Stop acting like the world runs you. Like the magazines run you. Like all of the folks who never perked their ears to really listen to you have a say in what you are going to do with these footsteps of yours.

It’s yours. You’re free.  Are you gonna start running towards it?

Don’t wait. Don’t stand in the corner waiting for the direction to reveal itself. Just. Start. Sprinting.  Peace will flood in when it’s right. But you have to move to find the peace. Peace comes through footsteps, I promise.

Think about what stopped you yesterday. Who was that person? What were they afraid of? And why did they govern you for so long? You’ve got one chance. You’ve got one shot. The world won’t cry if you never use it. It’s on you. Don’t make the universe regret you.

Look around. Forget “the box.”

Forget what you “think” the world is all about. Forget this, forget that. Forget the status update. Forget the selfie.

Here is what the world is really all about: Humility. People. People helping other people. People trying to make this hard thing, this impossible thing, more graceful for others. That is where the joy is. That is where the peace is. That is the beauty of every thread of life: we were never designed to go this thing alone. We were born with spaces in our fingers and you were born to go out and find the ones who fits in your spaces Oh So Well. 

Strive to do good. Strive to be the best version of yourself. Reflect. Learn from the Yesterday that made you feel weak. Stop letting people bend and break your heart. Play the music louder. Scream if you need to. Walk away from that toxic person who never had your goodness at the forefront of their mind. Walk away. Your goodness will be at the forefront of any mind that loves you fiercely, boldly, with no sense of tomorrow. You deserve that. I deserve that. The best of it.  You’ve got to learn to want that for yourself.

Learn to stand in front of the mirror without cringing. Throw off the chains of your secrets; don’t let them prison up your mind any longer. Let it out. Say the damn things that you have needed to say. Make them good. Make them worth someone turning their head to listen to you.

You’ve got a voice.

Most people would kill to have one. So learn how to use it. Start. Start small, start slow, start however you want. But start. Don’t go to the ground never having used that voice of yours for something good, something worthy, something that thickened your skin & buckled your knees & ramshackled your heart.

Screw December 31st and the resolutions you’ve stacked away in the closet for the start of a New Year and 12 bells clanking at midnight. It Starts Now. It should have started five minutes ago. It starts with a single question that turns out to be the answer to everything:

 Are you worth it enough to start?

“Hey… it’s me. I hope you still know who ‘me’ is. I think you do, but its been a while. Almost six years.”

Five Years. Nine Months. Fourteen Days. But who’s counting, really?

“And normally I wouldn’t call you, because we haven’t talked… and you’ll think I am crazy for even trying. But the world just might end in an hour and I thought this might be the best time, or the only time, to catch up. You know… Before it all ends.

And nothing that I am saying right now is making much sense at all but I just called to ask how you are doing. It’s funny, I’ve been waiting to ask you that for nearly six years and it takes an 89-year-old preacher predicting that the world is going to end in an hour for me to actually find some kind of spine to call you up and just ask you.”

I play over what I will say in my head.

I am getting ready.

I am going to call you at 5p.m. today. 

December 21, 2012. 5:00p.m.

One hour before the world is destined to end a girl will find the courage to call a boy after six years. Before earthquakes tumble through hometowns and destroy playgrounds from childhood and take  down old oak trees that still play home to abandoned tree houses crooked up in their branches.

And I am going to ask, “How are you?”

How. Are. You.

Three anvils coming off the tongue.

“I feel kind of silly, just blubbering to your voicemail. But I have been telling myself for the last three months that the world would end today because, well, if I didn’t then I would probably never call. I wouldn’t search for a reason. And I think one of us has really needed to call the other. I could be wrong. But…but…”

For the first time in 22 years, my mouth will fail me when I finally call. Completely fail me. For I know I’ll want to say Ten Thousand Things all at once but I am already stuck with the task of saying them One by One.

“I don’t listen to the Beatles on Sunday anymore; that was kind of your thing. And my hair colour has changed three times since I last saw you but maybe you saw it on Facebook. Most people still keep in touch on Facebook. That’s how I find out about all our friends’ engagements and baby showers at least. Crazy; thought that might be us.

And I haven’t forgotten your birthday. I know I haven’t called or said anything but I never forgot it. To be honest, I still get these nervous rashes sometimes when someone even brings up your name…. I finally learned how to kayak.”

I watch the numbers on the clock skip forward. Past five. Half Hour until the World Ends.

“I hope you are doing well. Really. I have only ever want the best for you but I think that wish got lost somewhere in the last few years. I hope you’ll know it now. I saw your Aunt Marge last month. She might have told you that though. I really should have called years ago; that fact is not lost on me.”

But a boy can cast a crazy spell on a girl’s fingers when it comes time to gather up bravery by the arm load and make those fingers crawl toward the keypad and tap out his number. An area code is suddenly heavy. The number itself is nearly impossible to dial.

“I haven’t decided if I want you to call me back when you get this. There will probably only be a few minutes left. So don’t bother. Or maybe bother. If you feel like it. But promise me, promise me, that you won’t say you miss me. Don’t find a way to plop that sentence into one of my seven inboxes either. Because suddenly you’ll be filling all my spaces again. And it won’t last ten seconds before you pull away and begin apologizing for the mess.”

This Muddy Mess called You & Me. Sometimes Us. Rarely We. Lately, these days, They & Them. Two People wandering far, far away from You & Me.

The minutes sprint towards 6:00p.m. I close my eyes. I wait.

“And please don’t call me back asking to know what happened to Us ten minutes before the world goes ending.”

6:00, 6:01, 6:02,

“I can tell you how it all began: We were young. We knew nothing at the time but everything in the moment. We tried. We fought. We stumbled. We didn’t know better. We wanted it to work. We wanted it so bad.“

6:03, 6:04, 6:05,

“Life got harder. Time taught us lessons. Pain. Jealousy. Foolishness. Resentment. Don’t you remember? They all showed up to throw a Bon Voyage party for the two of us.

You chose south. I needed north. You were moving. I was shaking.”

6:06, 6:07, 6:08,

“We really shouldn’t spend the last ten minutes before the world ends tying all the reasons behind our own ending to red balloons. Letting them go. Watching them float up to the Solar System. We’d be left with only one reason.”

6:09, 6:10.

“We both needed exits. And they needed to be graceful. I would not cry this time. You would not call. We’d grow bigger someday. But we had to learn to do it on our own.”

Silence. Nothing. No ground shaking. No world crumbling.

I was going to call you at 5p.m. today.

An hour before the world ended and I was going to call you. 

I was going to ask, “How are you?”

I am sorry I never called. I am still wondering how you are.

It's much easier to not know things sometimes. Things change and friends leave. And life doesn't stop for anybody. I wanted to laugh. Or maybe get mad. Or maybe shrug at how strange everybody was, especially me. I think the idea is that every person has to live for his or her own life and then make the choice to share it with other people. You can't just sit their and put everybody's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can't. You have to do things. I'm going to do what I want to do. I'm going to be who I really am. And I'm going to figure out what that is. And we could all sit around and wonder and feel bad about each other and blame a lot of people for what they did or didn't do or what they didn't know. I don't know. I guess there could always be someone to blame. It's just different. Maybe it's good to put things in perspective, but sometimes, I think that the only perspective is to really be there. Because it's okay to feel things. I was really there. And that was enough to make me feel infinite. I feel infinite.

I received a letter the other day.

It was the kind of letter that is painful to read because it stirred up old feelings and made me believe, for a mere moment or two, that I was right back in the muds of my yesterday. That, at any moment, I could be vulnerable to pulling the thread that would lead to my unraveling once again.

I stood still, I put the phone in my pocket, I breathed in to read:

“I’m tired of feeling like this but cannot seem to break the cycle of blah. Part of me does not want to get better because I don’t want to get better just to fall apart again. How can I even begin to find something else to define me, when I feel so empty right now? Not that I expect you to answer or know the answers. I’ve had enough disappointment to know that no one has any answers. It’s just kind of a relief to be able to tell someone, and talk about it. That’s all I want to do anymore–talk about how upset I am. How angry I am. Am I even a good person anymore?”

He dumped his feelings upon the page.

I felt like I showed up to clean up the wreckage with just a bucket and a mop. But more than his stories and pains and his questions hitched to a prayer for answers, I felt my own emotions rushing back. I began nodding my head. I sucked back the tears. And I thought, “Goodness, I never had the courage to admit I felt this way. Ever.”

Instead, when my own life carried the same echoes of his print on the page, I ushered myself into a life of writing letters to others and I covered my wounds with thin lined paper. I never faced the reality or taught myself this truth (this truth would have changed everything from the beginning): Loneliness is quite capable of swallowing us whole. And Loneliness will think to do a lot of things but it will never think to spit us back up until we look around and realise that we have never been Alone.

Alone & Loneliness–they are two different things. One is thick and the other is a myth. We have never been alone, not a day in our lives. What kind of devil hissed this lie in our ears? Yes, we have felt tender. Yes, we have felt defeated. But no, we have never been alone so much as we have refused to let the others in.

Anyone who knows me–knows the heart of me, and the bone of me, and the bends of my smile–knows why I really started writing.

It was not some strange aficionado for stationery. Never a day in my life have I ached to bring the art form of letter writing back to fullness. It wasn’t a racing heart for cursive & curves on a page. It was a fear that I was very much alone in this world. It was a fear that I might never feel whole again. It was fear that not a single soul needed my footprints, my input, my laughter. It was a crippling belief that I would live and die and I would never have made noise in this world.

I fell apart and the writing just happened. And even in the scripting of hundreds of these letters, the falling-apart-ness never felt so robust, like it was going to be the end of me every single day.

And so, when this letter arrived in my mailbox the other week, that same familiar helplessness curled into my knees like a little boy gasping for his mothers closeness. For a second I almost felt as though I was standing naked in the middle of the post office. Wanting to cry. And curl. And surrender.

In the moment when the tears are dripping down your cheeks and you feel hollow and sucked dry, you are not alone. I know it feels otherwise. Trust me, I know it feels otherwise.

But Aloneness is something you need to admit. You need to talk of it. You need to speak it out into the air before it grows claws & legs & fangs on the inside and silences us into thinking that never a soul has tread on this lonely soil before. Every single one of us– short or stout, blue-eyed or kissed by the hollow of hazel– can tell stories of Loneliness. I know we’ve got so many of them. We could build cities out of stories of loneliness. There would be bridges and fountains and libraries and cafes made with the bold stackings of Loneliness.

The first step is to unravel it. To admit it. To go no more seconds, no more minutes, no more hours, thinking you are called to harbouring emptiness alone. It’s not true. It is simply not true.

And hey, if you ever just need to let the loneliness drip out of you, you have my address.

Xz

Things end.

We grow up knowing this. Anything that is good surely cannot last forever. Anything worthwhile and special to us relies on the fact that it has some kind of ending point. An expiration date.

We can convince ourselves that good byes don’t exist and that we can hold time in the palm of our hand and dictate when it will stop and when it will go. But be warned, a sad reality awaits around the corner when another ending comes to sit at our feet.

We need to live with the ending in mind. If I have learned anything this past year, more valuable than the medical consent forms I signed or the inner processes that I was taught in a doctors office, it is that when we keep the ending in the picture the story line becomes all the more sweeter.

When we keep the ending in mind, we start to think “why not.”

When we keep the ending in mind, we start to say “we should.”

When we keep the ending in mind, we forget the “I will find time later,” or the pushing of people to the back burner.

When we keep the ending in mind, every moment becomes special.

When we keep the ending in mind, we remember that these days are not to be played with, they are to be treasured and used.

Now I dont ask you to treat your life like a story book with your thumb placed on the last page, but I do encourage you to look at the people all around you, today and tomorrow and think about how much you value their presence. What would life be like without them? Would you be the same person? Have they taught you something that you would not have learned otherwise? Do they know this?

We should always be mindful of the fact that we cannot slap timers on peoples’ backs and expect them to stay forever. Life does not work that way. Some endings come when we least expect them. Some endings are known from the beginning.

Either way there is no excuse. There is no excuse for not telling someone how much they mean to us. There is no excuse for not making time for the people that we love. There is no excuse for not building relationships that make saying good bye so hard to do. I have decided that I would much rather have a memorable experience, one that I can hold close to my heart rather than one that I held back from because I knew it would end too soon.

Keep the ending in mind, not because it makes life seem cruel but because it’s there. But don't let the ending get in the way of starting something or letting something grow. The ending should remind us that this moment is sweet and once in a life time. This moment will never be duplicated. We should never take the time we have been given and the people that we have been blessed with for granted.

Forget the clock on the wall.

Go hug your friends. Call your family. Let people know how you really feel.

Things end. Don’t let the fact hinder you, let it remind you of what is really and truly important.

This post is dedicated to Freya. Today we found our ending point but have already forged a new beginning. Let the world be your playground. You are ready.  

There once was a little boy who genuinely believed he could read the whole entire set of the World Book Encyclopedia. From A to Z. He would sit curled up in a fort he had made, with Volumes D and E longing to be read, planted deeply in the heart of the Congo as it jumped off the pages to take shelter in the mind of this little boy.

He wanted to know everything. The way the world worked. Why the stars only came out only at night. Every event of Buz Aldren's life. The customs and cultures of each country on the map hanging outside his bedroom. Perhaps if he could know everything, that could make up for all the things he could not know just yet.

How he would grow up.

Where he would go to university.

How the world might decide to open its arms up to him.

If he could let his mind dance along the pages of an encyclopedia, then it might never long to stray into the crevices of the facts that he could not yet hold in the palm of his hand.

We are in an age and era where we can literally know anything and everything with the click of a mouse and touch of the scroll bar. How that little boy's heart would have fluttered if he had Google at that age. Knowledge is at our very fingertips, the possibilities are absolutely endless.

But when it comes to our futures and our plans, that is something we cannot type into Google and find it waiting for us somewhere amidst the 63,490,402 results. Sometimes life makes us wait. We want to kick and scream, but no matter our rant, life will still make us wait.

I am in a state of limbo right now. You know the kind? Where you are hanging between the chapter of your life that you have precariously been writing for so long but you can see the second, even more eventful, chapter looming on the horizon. I can almost say for certain where I am going next year, but am not positive enough where I am ready to scream it out.

But this week has been a lesson for me (oh life, how cute and funny you are for using instances like this one to teach me lessons… NOT!). This week was one in which I was supposed to learn FOR CERTAIN where I would be going next year. But like that awful brat in the toy store who lets out blood curdling screams over every shiny gadget that he thinks is vital to his life, we cannot always get what we want. At least not when we want it. 

It’s good that it happened this way.

It is good when things transpire that keep us in check and remind us to “pump the brakes” and be patient. We need to be reminded every once in a while that life is not as simple as typing our questions into a search engine and pulling out an answer in .002 seconds. It reminds us that no matter how fast-paced and high-speed we can potentially make every aspect of our lives, the real stuff will still make us wait like a little child on Christmas Eve.

And for me, that is reason enough to believe that this life is not about knowing every little thing that we possibly can. It is not all about insisting on reading several volumes of the Encyclopedia. Because we live, and I mean really live, in the unknown. In What Is Not Yet Certain. And How It Makes Us Feel.

So I need to become a little more patient. I need to realise that life is still happening even when all plans are not set and ready. If it was not this, then it would be something else.

But that little boy, the one that I left sitting in his fortress, made of sheets and couch cushions, for this entire entry (and I sure he doesn’t even notice), I think he and I are thinking the same thing right now. Isn’t it grand and isn’t it exciting to have something to wait for, to have something to look forward to.

If Mr. Forrest Gump is right, and if life really is a box of chocolates, well then throw out the map on the box because I am ready and waiting to see what is going to happen next…

There will be them days when all that will seem reliable is a chunky cable knit sweater hanging in your closet that, to your own knowledge, has never let you down before.

On them days, pull the wool over your head, push up the cowl neck, and invest all your faith in stitching and a chunky sweater.

There will be them days when you wish you could pull sentences from the sky, make words out of treasures you’ve found while sifting through the Lost & Found bin, to tell a person how you really feel. But all that will come out are fragments.

Incomplete.

Sentences.

You.

Don’t.

Know.

How.

To.

Complete.

On them days, find a sweet rhythm in the stuttering and the stammering. Simply delight in the person who makes the simplest syllables–I miss you, I love you, I need you– the hardest to recite. Maybe even say this: You Make All the Letters In My Alphabet Shake. The Q’s Quiver. The R’s Rattle. (they’ll find you truly poetic then.)

There will be them days when the only adoration you get is from a John Mayer song that he recorded seven years ago about sons. And you’ll think to yourself, Wouldn’t it be lovely to be the boy who puts the colors inside of the world? On them days, keep your earphones plugged in until the end of the song, until Mr. Mayer tells you straight, “boys would be gone without warmth from a woman’s good, good heart.”

There will be them days where the Missing gets thick.

Thicker than molasses. Thicker than the chocolate current that took Augustus Gloop down in Wonka’s headquarters. You’ll curse songs on the radio that bring the Girl You Thought to Miss back. Your bones will ache for conversations where her name sits beside more than just some past tensed verbs.

On them days, let the Missing keep you.  People will tell you not to look at old photographs or cry over love letters;  I say, get yo’ salty groove on but promise to let it go at the end of the night. For your own good. For the doors that need to close before God props open that window people always talk about. We are human beings… looking back undoubtedly gets laced somewhere in our DNA, even if it seems to hold the nutritional value of chewing gum.

There will be them days when all you will wish for is someone who knows your name.

You’ll grow tired of being The Guy on the Train. The Young Gentleman in the Cafe. On them days, give people a good mystery. Find that girl with the notepad and glasses. Sit down right on her lap, swipe a hand across her cheek and put a pencil between your teeth. And then get up. And walk off the train.

Give people a reason to write you into story lines and poems that gets recited in the underground coffee shops of Sydney. Make her wonder if your name is Ryan, Matthew, Hayden, Alexander. Anything but the letters your mother stacked alongside one another to call you home when the street lights came on.

There will be them days when you wish to be anything but.

Anything but here. Anything but the guy whose skin you woke up inside. And you’ll only dream of curling up in balls & corners, waiting for the night to take you back to bed again.

On them days, breathe. Recognise that you’re human. Handhold a latte that’s sweeter than your usual pick. Purse it between two hands and just feel. Whatever it is. However raw or painful or distracting it wants to be. Just let it wash over you. Don’t try to even push it out the way.

There will be them days when all you have the strength to do is sit–square in the middle of the kitchen table that still holds your initials from childhood– and pair spoonfuls of peanut butter with a carton of vanilla bean ice cream. One more bite, that’s it. Just one more bite.

On them days, go for creamy instead of chunky. Go until the gentle reminder pushes its way inward: Food won’t heal you. Food won’t fix you. Put the Big Spoon down, Little One. I love you too much to watch this pain.

There will be them days when you’ll scrape the paint right off of your fingers. Freckles of Gold and Blue falling to the floor of the car. And you’ll look down at your hands in discouragement. What do you want of me? The question will sit in your throat. What am I here for?

On them days, take out a piece of paper and write it down. All The Places Your Hands Have Been. The letters they’ve written. The wrists they’ve touched. The wounds they’ve bandaged. The children they’ve held. The stories they’ve grasped in their Tiny Palms.

And marvel… just marvel at the good Two Hands can bring to a world in need.

Then place those Hands of Yours upon your hips. Pull up the cowl of your chunky wool sweater once again. Go outside. And face the world.

“I have feelings for her,” he said. “They’re real.”

The smoke from the bonfire hissed and tangled with my hair as I watched him wring his hands in circular motion, as if his mama had just told him to wash them good. Soap. Water. No skimping. Germs, they be a killer.

The flames cackled. We sat face to face. The pockets of people around us all cloaked in heavy conversation. Laughter. Their voices buzzed by concoctions of vodka & rum & fruity summer cocktails.

“So what do I do?”

It occurs to me that this feeling doesn’t overwhelm him so often. That it is not every day that he lets the good girl in to take up cushion space in his heart. He’s nervous for the first time in a very long time. His steps have become more careful. His heart takes to guarding. His speech turns to stumbling. Ah, the seeds of someone who might just be madly in love by morning if only they’d let themselves go.

“You tell her,” I say back.

You tell her.

Not in a text. Not even on the phone. You tell her when, and only when, you can see the green in her pupils. The birthmark on her neck. You tell her when your palms are sweaty and your words don’t feel like they hold an ounce of eloquence. You tell her, even when the whole thing could collapse at any moment on any one of your syllables. She might reject you. She might turn away. But you need to say it all the same.

You don’t go back.

To being just friends. To holding it inside. A smart girl will know that a friendship doesn’t work when one of the two is willing to give up worlds & go extra miles & endure sleepless nights for the other.That’s not friendship. That’s blaring, stupid love and it is completely & utterly worth it when two walk towards it with open hands. So even if she turns you down, you don’t sink back into “friendship.” You know those feelings ain’t packing bags. Ain’t hitchhiking to Nebraska. You tell her and risk the whole of it all.  & if it isn’t her, some good girl is gonna love you better.

You hold her.

Her hand. The small of the back when Michael Buble is on and she’s dancing on the toes of your dress shoes in the middle of the living room. You get all wrapped in the scent of her hair. You hold that same hair back on those rare but wild nights. You already know the kind. Yes, you do, because you were crazy to think there wouldn’t be a night with too much tequila and banter. You hold her. All the parts of her. The secrets she has saved for you. The dreams. The fears.The Gold & the Glue to a story that becomes glittered with Us & We. Never again just you & her.

You stay.

When dishes break. When snot is on the sofa. When the honeymoon period ends. The finances grow frail. When Life gets unruly, as she always often does, you suck in, breathe deep and you work it out. You man up & work it out.

You recognise.

That what you feel is very good. That we– the fleshy messes that we are– were made for these kinds of feelings. The Overwhelming. The Anxiety. The Goodness of Falling in Love. In Finding a Someone Who Soon Becomes Your Only One.You let the feelings own you for a little while, break you down to dust for a girl who weakens your knees in the very best way. You recognise. Not everyone has this. Most people want this. They might be lying if they tell you different. You recognise that it is good, very good. The Best Stuff in Life.

You be good to her.

That’s it. That’s all. If ever you need a starting point, a middle grounds, a point of punctuation, it. is. this: You be good to her. Always & always.