The holidays are a time of mass chaos. Semesters finishing up. Presents to buy. A million parties to attend. Chat. Laugh. Cry. Repeat.
I wonder how we became the age of all consuming technology. How something so small blows up on the internet, the newest facebook sensation. Or how something so big and horrible becomes inescapable. How our lives become inescapable. Do-do-do and that boy is texting you, news alert, twitter mention, facebook e-vite.
So I have decided to unplug. And I guess this blog post is cheating but oh well. No one will read it anyway because I'm not going to post it to my "timeline" or tweet about it. It will just be our little secret. I am taking this month off. From chaos and drama and virtual reality. I am doing yoga by myself and drinking lots of tea. I am reading. (I admit I am finishing up Grey's Anatomy). I am writing. I am seeing friends. I'd rather stare at my sweet sleeping puppies anyway than the screen of a stupid cell phone.
If you know me at all you know that I have never been this girl. But that was before. One year ago I was lying on the dang couch cursing those hyper puppies because I was so tired. I was pulling out my own hair, crying and begging for it to stay in just a little bit longer. I was sick. I was pleading to God. Then, then I was glued to my phone, to the distractions. To the prayers of hundreds of friends. To the emails that would eventually get me through this mess. I needed it. Craved the distraction. Life was too hard and I wanted to escape.
So I escaped into a world of blog posts and facebook messages and encouraging tweets. I escaped into the second year of medical school. I buried myself in books and inspirational quotes. I threw myself into a whirlwind relationship that was insane and so unnecessary. It was like trying to distract a toddler in the middle of a temper tantrum, "quick look over here, look at this new toy, please be quiet, if you are good we can stop for ice cream..."
But I made it. And here I reliving the moments that we all live every year. It's the end of another semester, it's the holidays, and it's being home for Christmas. Soon it will be my third year of medical school and then summer and then thanksgiving and then we will be back around again and again and again, if we are so lucky. Second helpings of the same ol' life with a brand new outlook.
Except this time I am not distracted.
I have never been so clear in my whole life. Like I said, I unplugged, and if you want to reach me, then well I don't know, maybe you should just come ring my door bell. The mountain air of East Tennessee is as cleansing as ever and I am soaking it all in. I am striving for peace of mind and for perspective and for restoration. I am recharging my batteries. Because Lord knows that it will all hit the fan again when January rolls around, for the second time since. Life will still be there and school will still be killer and I will still have to deal with a million medical appointments and follow-ups. But, I will take a deep breath and say "bring it on." I won't let myself be distracted.
I have landed on solid ground and this year, I am seeing things in a new light. It's my second Christmas since...and well, I can breathe. So leave me alone, unless you want to unplug with me, and then let's all grab some egg nog and cozy up by a fire somewhere. I swear they must have been happier in the "old days." Blissfully unaware of what was happening thousands of miles away and so blissfully aware of their own time and place. Lost in the eyes of someone across the room instead of in the lastest episode of Parks & Rec. Hand running through my hair instead of checking the score of the game. Real time conversation with real time laughter and tears.
Let's get back to that, okay?
Liv
It feels like a perfect night to dress up like hipsters And make fun of our exes It feels like a perfect night for breakfast at midnight To fall in love with strangers We're happy free confused and lonely at the same time It's miserable and magical oh yeah Tonight's the night when we forget about the deadlines, it's time
I'm standing in a crowd of people. I'm swaying to the sweet, sweet voice of Sufjan Stevens. I'm smiling, so big. I'm happy. I'm right where I want to be. Where I am supposed to be.
Last night was exactly one year since I found out. Three hundred and sixty five days ago, at this very moment, I was waking up in the ICU after having what felt like a million emergency procedures and biopsies. I was waking up. Waking up to a life that wasn't what it should be, what it could be...
Then I changed. I changed so many things. It's amazing what can happen in just one year. How just one hurdle can throw off the entire course of your life... for better or for worse. I am running in the right direction now. It's all going to be okay, better.
I feel more like myself now. I fill up every inch of every day with love. I am bursting at the seams with love. I am running towards a life full of meaning. I am trying to be better, to do better.
And now here I am. I am not perfect. But I am here.
Where I should be.
I was in love with the place In my mind, in my mind I made a lot of mistakes In my mind, in my mind
You came to take us All things go, all things go To recreate us All things grow, all things grow We had our mindset All things know, all things know You had to find it All things go, all things go
If I was crying In the van with my friend It was for freedom From myself and from the land I made a lot of mistakes I made a lot of mistakes I made a lot of mistakes I made a lot of mistakes
Everywhere I look recently I see ghosts. I feel tired. I am tired from shoving it all back inside. I am tired of bringing it up. I know no one wants to hear it anymore.
It's been a whole year...
So here goes, another cathartic free for all mess of emotion. I will speak into the empty space so I can finally stop choking on the words..."remember then, I can't believe it still, I was so tired, I was so sick, what a crazy thing, but I'm good now, different, so good.." Things could not possibly be more different now. Different people, different house, different way of seeing things, different challenges. I am so different. Yet I keep coming back to the same.
It's just my mind. It is so jumbled. Trying to separate the sameness out from the constantly changing background. Trying to hang on for dear life to that feeling. To that desperate thankfulness. To those tears of joy.
No one is happy all that time.
I feel like I am cheating. Wake up, study, eat, sleep, breathe, breathe, breathe. Sameness. How easily we all forget what it's like to be upside down. How easily we sink back into where it is too comfortable. How easily we let that different slip though our fingers. We readjust to the different so it too becomes part of the same. We recalibrate. We keep moving forward. We keep breathing.
I lust for someone to come along and wake me up. Yearn for it. Slap some damn sense into me. Open my eyes. Yet, I know there is no one capable of a gesture so grand. Well no one that is, except for myself. And right now I am just hitting that snooze button, sliding deeper under the covers, shielding myself from the cold, from the dark, from the sameness. I am scared of not feeling. Of becoming mediocre. Of being a fraud.
I guess that's normal.
So for now I will retreat back under those covers to protect my vulnerabilities. My sanity. My sameness. For just a minute longer. Knowing that I WILL find that place where I am hiding and I will invite myself to see life upside down, again. To break through that sameness that is so comfortable but so terribly smothering.
I will, I promise, but just one minute more....
Liv
We'll fast forward to a few years later And no one knows except the both of us And I have honored your request for silence And you've washed your hands clean of this
Life is a hurricane spinning out of control. You blink and it's eleven months later and you are out laughing with friends. You've forgotten all of the horrible times and you just are. The present sneaks up on you. Time slips by so quickly. And I just can't believe it's been eleven months since I first heard those crazy words "we found a mass"...
I had a little meltdown in Mass tonight. You cannot just spring an "anointing of the sick"-sacremental-free-for-all on me like that. I need at LEAST a week to prepare my emotional state. For all of my non-catholic friends, "anointing of the sick" is basically just a special blessing where a minister anoints your forehead and the palms of your hands and prays over you. It is meant to bring you strength and healing, and underlies some of my most powerful memories. They are like mile markers, corresponding so well with every stage of this whole thing. Beginning, middle, end...
The first time I was anointed:
I was home for the first time since I was diagnosed and dragged my weak little self to Mass, determined to put on a brave face for all those who knew and who needed reassurance. Cancer really is just a series of comforting words and reassuring smiles to everyone else. I made the rounds and hugged and smiled 'til my face hurt. Then, just as I was leaving, Father Tim grabbed my hand and asked if I had a minute for him to anoint me.
Now up until this point in my life, I have been healthy, like insanely healthy. Not one broken bone. I still have my tonsils and all my wisdom teeth. I didn't even catch the swine flu when it swept through sorority recruitment in 2009. I had never even given the sacrement a second thought. It was for old people and people with cancer (I literally just laughed out loud writing that). Who ever thinks anything like this will ever happen to them?? It's always someone else. It's always someone else and never you. Until it is you.
I had been talking to an old high school friend and neighbor, Hunter, who I hadn't seen for years, so I grabbed him and his brother and called for my parents and sister. We all held hands in a circle next to the baptismal font. Father Tim said the blessing as I bawled like a baby, squeezing Hunter's hand. I felt so helpless and tired. So sick and needy. It was one of the first moments I remember feeling truly helpless in this whole mess. But, in that moment, helpless was right. In that moment, all I could do was cling to a prayer and try to find that minuscule bit of strength left inside me. And so I did.
It was just the beginning and I knew it was going to get much worse before it got better. So, I mustered up whatever tiny courage I had left and I put that smile on my face and I did it. I lost my hair and put my body through hell. I studied my butt off, even when I felt like crawling back into bed for a month. Honestly, I don't even remember much of anything else. PTSD or something like that. But there are some moments from that era that still have memories attached, like...
the second time I was anointed:
I was in Memphis and heard that they were going to be doing a special anointing of the sick Mass the weekend both my parents were going to be in town. I think this was around mid-February, right smack in the middle of the it all. I remember it so well. I had just had chemo on the Friday and felt awful, but was happy to see my Dad. And at this point I desperately wanted to be anointed, to find that strength again, because it was fading fast and even though the PET scans showed that I was responding brilliantly to the chemo, well chemo just plain wipes every ounce of happiness and strength right out of you, so I needed to stock back up. Courage on aisle twelve.
I was wearing my new wig, the dark brown sassy one with bangs. I sat towards the back between my parents. We sat away from any children so they couldn't cough on me. It's funny how I used to cringe with every sneeze I heard. I was fairly new to that church, but I think people knew. I mean, I was the girl in the scarf. The bald girl always has cancer. Plus I was bawling again.
The preist called us all up and I stood there with the others, probably the only one under fifty years old. I closed my eyes while the preist said his blessing over me and traced the sign of the cross on my forehead and palms. Even standing at the front of the church, among so many people I didn't know, it was just as intimate as before. I felt relieved for some reason. All the worry left my body and I was vulnerable again, as helpless as ever. I walked back to my parents and just cried. Public crying is kind of just a thing I do now, clearly.
This was the middle...the horrible awful middle. The middle is the hardest part of anything. Looking back and looking ahead become equally as hard. My life was all cancer, all the time. We were even learning about it in school. It was all I thought about, talked about, dreamt about. I was bald. I was tired. It was just the middle and I wanted it to be the end. Sometimes if I'm in a really bad place, I just close my eyes and wish for it to be the next day, year, anything. As if time really worked like that. As if I have any control. But, just like that I blinked and it WAS over. And it was...
the third time I was anointed (aka tonight):
I was just sitting in Mass surrounded by some friends. Corie and I were loudly butchering the unfamiliar music (we went to a different church because we overslept the morning Masses), when out of nowhere the priest announced that anyone who so chose could come up to be anointed. I quickly thought, "Yes, finally, I don't have to do stuff like that anymore! It's just for old people and people with cancer blah blah blah..." But, then a fear gripped my chest and I though maybe I should just in case. While I no longer craved it, I still couldn't say no. Then came the tears again. (See, I had very little time to prepare myself, which was not conducive to my emotional stability.) I held out my hands and took a deep breath as the priest blessed me. I walked back and sat down and smiled at my friends. Then I had the meltdown, right there on Corie's shoulder (It wasn't super bad noise wise though, I've kind of perfected the silent cry at this point, which is necessary when you do so much public crying.)
But this time I was crying for different reasons. I was so overwhelmed that I had just come out on the other side of that blink. Here I was eleven months later, and healthy again. I was being a normal twenty-four year old medical student and going to concerts and halloween parties and playing on the flag-football team. I was smiling for real and for myself and not for anyone else. I was crying and I was smiling and I was fine. And I am so fine.
I have reached the end of that chapter of my life. Most of the time I don't even think about any of it at all, but rather there are moments, songs, sights, smells, tastes that bring me back there. And it is in those moments that make me so glad that I have finished that blink. I closed my eyes eleven months ago, praying to come out on the other side. Now they are open.
I have opened my eyes.
Liv
if i kiss you where it's sore
will you feel better?
will you feel anything at all?
Life is hard. School is hard. Relationships are hard. Jobs are hard. It's all hard. You push and you push and you try and you triumph and you fall and you fail. It's so hard. It's like you are trying to walk up a mountain frozen over with ice, futile effort after futile effort, you push forward only to find yourself right back were you started. You take a deep breath.
And you try to live with ease.
I've been doing a lot of yoga lately. And while most of my friends who go with me don't subscribe to all the "nonsense spiritual stuff" that goes along with it, I have been listening. Really listening. And the main message: practice with ease. Live with ease. If you move into a pose and you start shaking and it's too hard, then breathe through it, take it back a notch, or just rest. Because if you cannot do it with ease, then it's not going to benefit you. You aren't going to get anything out of it, you aren't going to get any better. The struggle wins. If you get there and you cannot breathe and your mind is spinning, well, then it's like climbing up that icy mountain. And it's not worth it.
And it's not that life isn't worth it, because it totally is. But the pain isn't, the suffering isn't, the self-inflicted bs isn't. Don't let the struggle win. Let the struggle slip through your fingers and float away with the wind. Life is always going to be hard- but when you can learn to live with a little more ease, when you can breathe into the struggles and the pain, or rest when you start to shake: that's when you can finally find peace.
Because life is always going to be hard. There is always going to be suffering. But, you don't have to suffer. Learn to live with ease. You can walk around that mountain and still arrive on the other side, without a scratch or bruise. Rest when necessary and breathe through the pain and suffering. Find peace through the path of least resistance. Better yet, let that peace find you.
Liv
So carry on, my dear What is clear up in the daylight Is we're hung here
1Well now, you rich! Lament, weep for the miseries that are coming to you. 2 Your wealth is rotting, your clothes are all moth-eaten. 3 All your gold and your silver are corroding away, and the same corrosion will be a witness against you and eat into your body. It is like a fire which you have stored up for the final days. 4 Can you hear crying out against you the wages which you kept back from the labourers mowing your fields? The cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord Sabaoth. 5 On earth you have had a life of comfort and luxury; in the time of slaughter you went on eating to your heart's content. 6 It was you who condemned the upright and killed them; they offered you no resistance. [James 5:1-6]
Enough (adj): adequate for the want or need, sufficient for the purpose or to satisfy desire.
What really is enough? A question that has plagued man from the beginning if time. Do I have enough? Do I give enough? Am I enough?
I think about this all the time. I was raised with many, many blessings and have been lucky throughout my life to always have all that I need... enough...and more than enough. But I still WANT. I want new clothes and a new car and someone to take me out to dinner.
And geez what a conflict in my mind because I want and I want but I don't need anything. That homeless man on the side of the road on my way to the library... he needed something. That patient with no health insurance needs something. That child sent to school without breakfast needs something.
Where I grew up I wasn't surrounded by poverty. Honestly, it wasn't until high school that I experienced a lot of things in my life for the first time. Traveling to Brazil and visiting that orphanage. Working as a day camp counselor, scrounging food out of the snack closet and sneaking it to that little girl who was crying because she was so hungry and her mother had no food. I moved to bigger cities and traveled to even bigger ones. While I pranced around Paris, I was painfully aware of the begging eyes who yelled after me in broken English... "please please help me..." I moved to Memphis to begin medical school. Here, there is not a day that goes by that I am not faced with poverty and helplessness.
I saw a man the other day at the West Clinic. He had been dropped off by a bus, and sat down next to me. We had both gotten there early, about 5:45am, fifteen minutes before the doors would be opened. I started taking to him and found he was there to get another round of his daily radiation therapy. He was alone. He was just sitting there all alone in his tattered jacket and his ratty old knit cap. Where was his family? Where was anyone? All I could offer him was my smile and a prayer, which I did. The doors opened. We walked inside and took our seats. I watched as he carefully made himself a cup of coffee, with cream and sugar, and drank it like it was the most delicious thing his lips had ever touched. I watched as he sat there alone until they called his name.
I was so helpless.
How many people in a day do I just walk by who are in so much need? How many of my future patients will be just like this man? What can I even possibly do that would be enough?
I go to bed every night in a warm bed and wake up every morning to put on my nice clothes and fill my belly with warm food and a cup of coffee. I take it all for granted. I have more than enough. We all do. Are we thankful? Are we giving back? Would we be willing, as the bible teaches us, to give it all away for the sake of others?
To be completely honest... I don't think I could....And I think about that all the time.
What is enough? Is it enough for me to say that I am a Christian, a Catholic? Is it enough for me to, one day, when I have more then enough to give some of it away? More than just a few bucks to a homeless man at a Taco Bell, more than just a prayer? Or will it be too late then? Or is it about something more? Am I just missing the whole point? This whole thing just makes my head spin!
My thoughts are all mixed up now. Especially now in this time of political debate for our country, I find myself surrounded by the questions that I try to push to the far corners of my mind normally. What is enough? Talk of taxes and redistribution and nationalized health care and the rich and the poor. Of millionaires not paying their "fair share" of money that is "theirs." Of people literally dying on the steps of the Emergency Department because they cannot afford a Primary Care Physician. Cancers going years before being diagnosed because there is no money for a routine doctor's visit, no money for the transportation to even get there. Something is definitely wrong with this picture. But how to make it right?
What can we do to even make a dent? What can I do? To make sure another has enough? I am sitting here telling you that I have NO IDEA. I am sitting here typing on my macbook, with my warm cup of coffee, listening to music on my iPhone, warm and full. And all I know is that one day I will probably regret not giving, not helping more than I would regret giving, helping. And I know that one day I will figure it all out (or maybe not)... and I will finally do something... one day I will finally figure out that to be enough I have to give enough. One day. But for now I will pray, for myself and for others in much more need, hoping that can be enough for now...
Liv
8 The precepts of Yahweh are honest, joy for the heart; the commandment of Yahweh is pure, light for the eyes.10 more desirable than gold, even than the finest gold; his words are sweeter than honey, that drips from the comb.12 But who can detect his own failings? Wash away my hidden faults.13 And from pride preserve your servant, never let it be my master. So shall I be above reproach, free from grave sin.14 May the words of my mouth always find favour, and the whispering of my heart, in your presence, Yahweh, my rock, my redeemer. [Psalms 19:8,10,12-14]
Feeling a little nostalgic about my favorite Avett Brothers concert today... good thing I am buying tickets to see them for the 6th time when they come to Memphis on Oct 12th :)
(Also, get ready because you can hear me scream/sing in all of these videos... LOL... me and Emmy were literally standing in the very front row, right in the middle... best day of my life. But really)
Just soak it all in. Beautiful...
SSS
Tear down the House
First time they played this song off their new album... ahhhh....
Go to Sleep
Best jam out session of any concert of any time.... just sayin...
Hey y'all... see that tube up there. That used to be inside of me. But not anymore. You see, that tube is called a port-a-cath, and it is what they stick inside one of your veins, the inferior vena cava in my case, so that they can "safely" pump you full of drugs. I begged Dr. Johnson to put one in, after the chemo from my fourth treatment burned my right arm so badly. So he did, even though they had to put it in an abnormal spot (due to my superior vena cava, the normally used vein, being squeezed by my tumor.) And so in January, clinging my mother's arm, crying and scared, I braved the radiology suite. (And after a little drugging, I totally forgot about my fears and just ohh'ed and ahh'ed at how cool the procedure and all the fluoroscopy pictures on the monitor were.)
And ever since then it's been with me. Something tangible I could feel. Something other people felt and pretended not to notice when they touched me. It almost became comforting to touch, this lump on my right side. I would reach down to feel it occasionally, as weird as that sounds. It became a part of me.
But today... they took it out. Safety blanket gone. And I feel like I can breathe again.
I cried sitting in the chair waiting to go into the radiology suite, straight up cried. Sitting by myself, next to this precious older couple, wearing that ridiculous hospital gown with the slit in the front and wrapped up in a blanket. And this time not because I was scared or anxious (even though I hadn't gotten any drugs yet), but because I was so damn happy. All this was coming to an end. A chapter in my life was ending and I could finally begin a new one. A page had turned.
The doctor asked me if I wanted to keep it. I so did. Of course I was interested because of the medical part of me, but also because of the nostalgic part of me. I wanted to touch it. I wanted to feel this tube that had delivered horrible drugs to my body. That made me feel just AWFUL and CURED me at the same time. I wanted to feel connected to that little piece of plastic forever. I have decided that it is not just a coincidence that "port" in French means "door". Looking at this port, sitting on the table, I see a door to my future. Not only a door to my future, but a window to my past. Something that holds me together as the future yanks me forward by both hands, while the past keeps a tight grip on my right ankle. Something that connects all of my dots.
I am sure the scar that this leaves is going to be awful because the incision from January was so prominent already. But isn't that so appropriate. Because the scars this has left me with are so much deeper than the surface. And they will remain with me forever. Reminders of my past and my mortality. Of this chapter. Something tangible that I'm sure I will make a habit out of touching, finding comfort in its reminder. The reminder that we are mortal. And that I am lucky.
I will breathe easier tonight knowing that this little piece of plastic rests on my desk across my room and is no longer swimming through my veins. I made it, y'all and its finally starting to sink in.
Liv
Long chats and late nights had become the way of my past. These past few months I had thoroughly enjoyed leaving the night to those who wanted it, sinking into my pillow at a reasonable hour. But there I was very, very early Sunday morning, once again, fighting sleep and staring into the darkness, divulging my most inner, darkest secrets to someone who I barely knew...
And doesn't darkness always seams to bring out things that we don't necessarily want to know? Hidden truths that we keep hidden on purpose. Every once in a while we stumble upon one of these, be it an old friend or lost memento, that we had exiled to this darkness. What follows is my secret.... thrust into the light.
Recently, I have felt selfish. Entitled. Impatient. Basically, I TAKE.
I take, but I should give. That's my secret.
You see, this whole cancer (slash life) thing can make you feel so many things. And one of them for me was that whole "live your life to the fullest" which I think I misunderstood for "do whatever you want." Which is absolutely not right at all. I have been a horrible friend and daughter and sister. I have been an awful person way more often than I should have been, which is...really...well, never.
I kind of had a wake up call (figuratively and literally...) that early, early morning. I just needed someone to knock some sense into me. I really believe that God throws the right people at you at the right times, and this is exactly what I needed to hear. We caught up and I told him how I had a negative (read: good) PET scan and great prognosis for the future (oh yeah have I told y'all that yet??? I AM HEALTY!!!). He told me that once, back when he was a patient, he thought about how much he had "taken" from this life and had yet to give anything back. If he were to die tomorrow what would be his legacy? Would others benefit from his existence??
This is something I had pushed to the very back corners of my mind, hidden in the darkness. Would people benefit from my existence, or did I just simply soak up all that life has given me, leaving nothing but barren soil behind? Or did I make sure to leave it better than I had found it, for at least one person? And well, right now I am not sure. But I know that's why I want to be a doctor. And I know that's why I want to be a better friend and daughter and sister.
I always find it so comforting when the Sunday readings in Mass are a perfect reflection of my recent thoughts... See the second reading, below:
[14 How does it help, my brothers, when someone who has never done a single good act claims to have faith?Will that faith bring salvation?15 If one of the brothers or one of the sisters is in need of clothes and has not enough food to live on,16 and one of you says to them, 'I wish you well; keep yourself warm and eat plenty,' without giving them these bare necessities of life, then what good is that?17 In the same way faith, if good deeds do not go with it, is quite dead.18 But someone may say: So you have faith and I have good deeds? Show me this faith of yours without deeds, then! It is by my deeds that I will show you my faith. (James 2:14-18)]
You see, I can write and write in this blog. I can talk a big game about wanting to "help people" as a doctor. But what am I doing right now to better another's life? This passage from James seems so simple, but it is one of the hardest things to really, REALLY, put into practice. It is so hard not to be selfish and impatient. It is even harder for me not to feel entitled, as embarrassing as that is to put into writing. To not feel like I deserve to be happy and do well and be healthy... because I just went through this awful thing and I deserve it, right??
Wrong.
One of the hardest things for me is to go back to the West Clinic, where I got my treatment, and see the faces, some familiar and many unfamiliar, of the many, many patients who are (still) fighting for their lives. To see the faces of patients who I know will not make it much longer. "Survivor's guilt" or his ugly cousin "helplessness" take their seats, one on each of my shoulders, and wiggle their way into every thought. Why am I the one sitting here with my new crop of hair, antsy to get back to the library, instead of them? It just breaks my heart to see so many good, probably extraordinary, people have to go through so much, with no hope in sight. It breaks my heart and pressures me to do something extraordinary as well.
But, it doesn't have to be extraordinary. You just have to do something... really it can be the smallest thing you can think of... the point is that there is no faith without deeds. The point is that I cannot believe in this magnificent God who GAVE me the strength to make it through and who GIVES me all that I need and more in this life, without wanting to pay it forward. I must GIVE as a way of trying to put the smallest dent in the debt that I owe in this life. I can barely aspire to break even, for that would be impossible, but I can at least try.
And the first step is to put all my feelings of entitlement aside. I am alive, no more or less alive than any other on this earth. In the great words of Henry Dodd, a classmate and good friend of mine, "everyone experiences trouble, but in their own way...the trouble of another may be only trivial in your eyes but to them could mean the world..." (sorry I butchered that quote...). But you get the point. What I have gone through is nothing special.Everyone around me has their own "cancer" to overcome. This was just mine. And it is but a catalyst that will propel me into the part of my life which is destined to be more special than any other prior part of my measly 24 years on this Earth. Special because it will not be of my life, but of something bigger. I want to give back. I must give back. Not because of my diagnosis, and not in spite of it either. But because I have faith.
And I am going to start very close to home. You'll see.
Liv
[34 He called the people and his disciples to him and said, 'If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me.35Anyone who wants to save his lifewill lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. (Mark 8:34-35)]
Whoever said ignorance is bliss was sadly mistaken. To explain let me take you back a year in my life. Just one measly year. My 23rd birthday, August 30th 2011.
It was a Tuesday. One week before my first medical school test. I woke up and got ready for school. Sat in class, probably in the back because I was five minutes late. Went to anatomy lab. Did I go to lunch with friends? (I can't even remember?) Maybe I talked to my parents on the phone? Studied. Cooked dinner with my boyfriend. The same dinner we had made millions of times. Opened a couple of presents. Probably watched some TV and I went to bed.
I was stagnant. I was superficial. I was peaceful.
But I was ignorant.
I was cozy under the blankets of my comfortable and predictable life. I was satisfied, by the same meal I had eaten a million times, and by the same conversation I had participated in over and over again. I was warmed by the smiles of people I barely knew, and by the arms of someone I had fallen out of love with. I wasn't sad, but I wasn't happy either. I was stagnant and had no motivation to pull myself out of the quicksand I had fallen into. Quicksand that was slowly taking me under, pulling me deeper and deeper into a life of complacency and empty, but smiling, eyes.
And just as I was about to be sucked completely under...I woke up. Gasping for air and clawing at the surface to save my own life. Kicking and screaming. Awake for the very first time. Alive for the very first time. Staring into the face of a diagnosis which could have, if the circumstances aligned and if I was just a little bit too late, stolen my life. A life I had yet to see and understand and live.
And so I did something that many people never get a chance to do. I changed. I got to know people, like really took to time to know people. I fell in love, like really in love. I worked harder than I had ever worked. I learned not just for the sake of passing a test, but for the sake of really learning. I cried harder than I had ever cried. I lost more than I had ever lost and fought harder than I had ever fought. I found God again. I danced and laughed when I wanted to because I wanted to. I called the people closest to me and told them that I loved them. I was happier and more sad than I had ever been. Ignorant no more, I was alive.
Fast forward to my 24th birthday. I woke up smiling and danced around my room. I smiled harder when my entire medical school class sang to me and Dr. Muthiah gave me an air high five. I was warmed by the smiles and hearts of people who I truly knew and loved. I hugged my best friends when they surprised me with a cake and told me they loved me, knowing that it was true. I cried later, overwhelmed by how loved I felt. Overwhelmed by how happy I was. How lucky I was to finally be awake. To be living a life so full it is bursting at the seams. I am not even mad that I cry more now, because that is the price I pay to truly smile. I never knew what that felt like before December, to really smile. To really be happy. Ignorance was not bliss. It was emptiness. But I am not empty any more.
Don't wait to change your life. Open your eyes and shake off your ignorance. Bust out of the quicksand. Just... change.
Before it is too late.
Liv
Perfect Games- The Broken West We sit around looking for flaws in the diamonds We sit around spillin our ice cubes on the lawn We sit around finding our way through the darkness Well we waste our time when we could be righting every wrong.
I get along kicking myself in the lightning I get along knowing you won't be here I get along finding myself in the darkness Well we waste our time when we could be righting every wrong. And we chase heartbreak where we can see heartbreak don't belong.
We kick around placing our bets on the evening We kick around hanging our secrets out for sale We kick around sticking it out in the darkness We waste our time when we could be righting every wrong We waste our time when we could be righting ever We chase heartbreak where we can see heartbreak don't belong We chase heartbreak and I was right here all along We waste our time We waste our time
As you all know, and as I have said a million gazallion times: happiness is a choice that we make. And I am here to talk to you about finding that happiness within YOURSELF. Not in or from anyone else.... but from you... to you. As RuPaul so eloquently states: "Honey, if you can't love yourself, how the hellll are you going to love somebody else!!" and he (she?) is so right! (Can I get a HALELU?!) You have to start with you. You have to love YOU.
Imagine this: You see that boy from across the room and butterflies well up in your stomach. You smile at your best friend. You go to a concert and get chills. Now all of these things are well and good but what if... now just what if you could conjure up those feelings of joy and love and connectedness all on your own? Wouldn't life be great?! If you could just jam around your house alone, not thinking of anyone else, and just smile because you are so darn happy with your life? (And maybe not even with your life, but with yourself in general...)
Now I guess this is sounding kind of silly and maybe even slightly narcissistic. But lately I have been finding myself seeking out more and more alone time, and coming out of that time alone feeling refreshed and quite honestly, happy. This is the total opposite of how I used to be: dependent on others for happiness and distraction. I remember even only a few months ago being APPALLED at my friend Ben for saying he rode around in his car with no music on and thinking "how are you ALONE with your thoughts for that long without going completely INSANE!!?"
But, lately I have found comfort inside my own head for the first time in a long freakin' time. It is like I have cleaned out and dusted the attic that is my mind. And I have only brought things up to this attic that deserve a place.
And I have made a little space up there just for ME.
Me? But wait Olivia, I thought that after that last post you had no idea WHO YOU ARE? And well, that is still pretty much true... but I am working on it. I am working each day to do a little something to find out who I am and to build a better (happier, more independent) Olivia. I want to find her under these ten pounds that I have gained post-chemo and under this haircut that, while people say it is adorable, I hate like every 3 minutes. I want to find her behind the thick walls I put up. I want to find her underneath all my BIG TALK. I want to find her so that the word "cancer" in every lecture wont make me feel (imagine?) that one hundred side-ways glances dart my way. I want to find her and love her and make her happy. (Sorry if that got creepy...LOL)
So I have been running, everyday, and doing yoga, and studying in quiet library spots, and even driving in silence (sometimes...). But most importantly, I have been learning to love myself again. To be comfortable in my own skin. To shake off these doubts and fears. To feel good enough. For myself and no one else.
And it feels damn good, y'all.
lovelovelove,
Olivia
Little miss, do your best
Little miss, never rest
Little miss, be my guest, I'll make more anytime that it runs out
Little miss, you'll go far
Little miss, hide your scars Little miss, who you are is so much more than you like to talk about
Hello new school year. New hair cut. New friends. Oh and new Olivia. I am back in Memphis and I am better than ever. You know, thinking back, I haven't felt this good/healthy/awake in over a year. It is just crazy to me how I got so used to just feeling BAD, and tired, and sick. Even before the crazy diagnosis, I remember thinking in September... "you know it isn't normal for a 23 year old to go to bed at 9:30 every night and take 3 hour naps every afternoon...OR MAYBE I'M JUST IN MED SCHOOL??!?" HA! I am amazed I even had the time to sleep that much and do well first semester anyway (except that our first semester wasn't THAT bad... and it is nothing like second year, which is studystudystudy all day all the time.)
I just feel so good. So alive. So happy. So everything. It is almost overwhelming. It IS overwhelming.
Sitting in church this Sunday I became so overwhelmed with happiness I actually (silently, and rather stealthily) burst into tears during communion. You see, before, when I was sick, that is the quiet time during Mass when I would pray for God to make me whole again. For Him to cure me from the inside out and to fill me with the strength that I so desperately sought. But there I was this Sunday. Just sitting there and feeling SO WHOLE. Knowing that my prayers had been received and answered.
But not knowing where to go from there.
I am healthy and emotional and silly and loud and snarky and passionate. I feel like I have been given back my life, and with that, my old identity. But WHO AM I? Because I do not feel like any of the old Olivias at all. But more like a completely different and changed and affected girl. And I don't think I want to be crazy Sophomore Olivia or motherly Senior Olivia or dependent-on-boyfriend Olivia or any of the other ones that I have either forgotten or dare not share with the world. I want to be something bigger, something more. Something more... me.
How do I achieve this new level of "me"-ness, you ask? Well, something in church really struck me this weekend and kind of answers that exact question:
*** Brothers and sisters: Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were sealed for the day of redemption. All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling must be removed from you, along with all malice. And be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ.
So be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma. (Ephesians 4:30-5:2)
***
There it is, plain as day. Let go of everything that is not love. Let your bitterness for your past escape from your heart and breathe through moments of passing anger. Life isn't about holding onto evil, but rather overcoming evil and stepping into the light. And I think that once you learn to live in this light (as a friend so eloquently wrote in her own blog recently...), in love, in happiness, in compassion, then you can finally be who you are truly meant to be.
I guess I don't really know who I am anymore. When something defines your life for so long and is so permeating, it's hard to let the real you show through all of that. And now that I am stripped bare of these curtains that I hid behind, I am left standing there front and center in a great big spotlight. Naked to myself and the rest of the world. Finally able to see myself, without pretenses or excuses. It is just me, whoever that is now and whoever that turns out to be.
And so here I am now, sitting on my bed and smiling to myself like an idiot. Because I just cannot help but feel so blessed to have my life back. But not just my life "back." I feel so blessed to have this glorious opportunity at a new beginning. To prove to myself and the world that I am back and with a vengence. I am going to go far and do big BIG things with this new lease on life.
Who ever I am, I am happy, so deliriously happy standing in this new found light. Living in love. Letting go of bitterness and basking in compassion.
I blame Corie for all these emotional posts because she told me Grey;s Anatomy would be "a good summer show to watch"... but geez I just loved this song when I heard it at the end of my most recently watched episode...
Miss Halfway- Anya Marina
You oughta hear the mirror in my house You oughta fear her pretty, pretty mouth Says I'm imperfect in every way Miss Almost Miss Maybe Miss Halfway
All my friends in L.A. got jobs on Melrose Place I play Replacements songs and sigh A waitress in the sky
You oughta hear the things I've been thinking You oughta swim in a heart that is sinking You try to break me with all the things you say Miss Almost Miss Maybe Miss Halfway
Tony makes 60k, invests in IRAs But I'm busy making paper airplanes out of resumes
But I'm gonna burn I'm gonna shine and multiply I'm gonna fill up the great divide You'll never break me with all the things you say Miss Almost Miss Maybe Miss Halfway
I'm gonna burn a pie now and then And I'm gonna say the wrong things to your friends I'm gonna burn and shine and multiply And when I do, you're gonna see me in her eyes I'm gonna burn and shine and multiply I'm gonna fill up the great divide You'll never break me with all the things you say Miss Almost Miss Maybe Miss Halfway
So Joanna came over to pick me up today and I was in a funk.
Like a bitter at the whole world funk. And well Jo pointed out that I really
have never written a “bitter” post before… so here goes…
In this world, we are surrounded by so many different
people. Millions of people. Everyday we pass hundreds of total strangers on the
street who leave no mark on us.But
then there is that one. That one person who sparks a feeling inside of you.
Good or bad or happy or shocking or angry.
Is it proximity? Is it just happenstance that someone walks
into your life? That this particular someone stirs up that emotion inside of
you? And what about when this someone is gone? When you decide it’s just better
to write them out of your story but you cannot get them out of your mind to
save your life.It reminds me of gravity. How two objects have a certain
pull on one another. (And really do we even know why gravity works?? I mean I
guess SOMEONE knows…)
Geez Louis I just have a million questions today. Like how
even from miles away someone can still make you so angry or make you miss them.
That shouldn’t even be allowed to happen. How can I be sitting on my couch this
morning watching Grey’s and drinking my cup of coffee and then all of a sudden
be in this dang funk? How can a Kenny Chesney song overwhelm me with emotion in
the middle of my shower? How can a 20 year old girl’s relationship problems
make me want to punch a random stranger in the face?
Ugh. And what are feelings anyway. What is love? What is
hate? What is anger? Where do they come from? Now as the science-y person that
I am I assume/half-know they come from hormones and things in your brain. But,
it seems so much more than that. How smells and sounds and sights stir up something
so strong inside of me. How just a single memory can make you burst into tears.
Now I know what you are thinking… and I am sure half of you
stopped reading this after the first emo paragraph… but for those of you still
with me, you might think: what has gotten into happy
life-your-life-to-the-fullest girl we know so well? And sorry this normal
pick-me-up blog has turned down this dark and stormy path. Maybe it’s this
intense thunderstorm happening behind me right now. But everyone gets in a funk
every once in a while and everyone deserves to write a bitter blog post every
now and then (although I admit this may have been better kept in my own journal
locked away from all you judgy-mcjudgersons.)
But it just feels good to rant. (And there is that word
“feel” again…) It feels good to get all these bad emotions out there… like I
just word vomited my funk right out of me. So thanks for listening, and if you ever need a good rant, feel free. Go ahead. Let it out. Because it feels good to feel bad sometimes.
Liv
PS Alanis is just the icing on the top of this rant sundae. Dare you to scream this at the top of your lungs. Seriously, DO IT.
