Nostalgia.

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...

Ok back to studying...

Liv

imPORTant

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

in-deed.

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.³⁵ Anyone who wants to save his life will 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)]

Ignorance, not bliss.

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

To me, with love.

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

It's alright, it's alright, it's alright

Yeah, sometimes you gotta lose 'til you win

It's alright, it's alright, it's alright

It'll be alright again

It'll be alright again, I'm okay

It'll be alright again, I'm okay (I'm okay)

It'll be alright again, I'm okay

Welcome back, Olivia.

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 am so me. And it feels great to be back.

With all my love,
Liv

Miss Almost.

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