Vuja De

Unedited and slightly scattered. Please be gentle.

My mom was the coolest. I had no curfew. I had no rules. I very rarely got in trouble, but not because I was a good kid. My friends loved to come to my house because my mom could hang. She was funny and a lot of my male friends had crushes on her. I bragged about how cool she was. How she was my best friend. She never made me do chores. She let me stay up until 2 am on school nights. She ALWAYS took me to McDonalds. She bought me a phone when I was twelve. We always had the tastiest snacks and the best soda at my house. I was spoiled.

My mom never taught me to cook. She never taught me to ride a bike or be a friend or say ‘I’m sorry’. She never helped me with homework. She never even made me go to school. I took my first shower at a slumber party because I was too embarrassed to tell my friends that my mom still gave me baths. I didn’t know how to get dressed until I was 8. Sometimes I had to cancel plans because she wanted to do something with me instead. She was ‘more important’ and my friends were ‘bad for me’ anyways. I spent a lot of time in my room. She never checked on me. She didn’t hug me. She didn’t say ‘I love you’. I was abused.

These two stories are one in the same. The first is the story I grew up with. It’s the story my mom (and I) wanted everyone to believe. It’s the story I told over and over again so that I would believe it. The second is the story I uncovered.

I have spent months trying to write this. Every time I think I have something, I reread and hate it. I couldn’t find a way to say it that didn’t sound angry or blameful, resentful, pitying, woe-is-me, too detailed, not detailed enough, etc. I wanted to tell the story without my emotions, but my emotions are the story. I didn’t want my audience to blame my mom. Or me. I didn’t want them to be angry at her. Or me. I didn’t want them to judge her. Or me. Then I realized that none of that mattered. What matters is that this might be someone else’s story too. What matters is that my relationship with my mother has shifted deeply. It has fractured on it’s fault and the days go by like miles.

Every child idolizes their parents, and I was no exception. My mom was my best friend, and often my only friend. I wanted to be just like her. Then I realized that being just like her was the root of my pain.

I didn’t make friends easily and I most definitely couldn’t keep them for very long. I, repeating the words of my mother, blamed them. They didn’t like me because I was chubby. They didn’t like me because I was a nerd. They didn’t like me because they were mean. In reality, they didn’t like me because of me. I was judgmental, gossipy, controlling, and self-centered. Just like my mom. When I would fight with one of my friends, my mom and I would go get McDonald’s and sit on our couch watching Twister and talking about all the reasons why that friend was a horrible person and didn’t deserve my friendship anyways. Most of the time, if I was spending time with my mom, we were talking about someone. Her co-workers, my friends, the reality TV stars that she loved to tear down: no one was safe from our secret wrath.

I was expected to get straight A’s in school, but that was the only thing expected of me. I had to make sure I could do everything on my own, however, because she couldn’t help me. I remember her stories of working her hardest and still only getting B’s. I had to be better than that, she said, because I could. And I did. I shined in school. I’ve never seen my mom’s face happier than when she is bragging about my academic achievement. Her daughter was the smartest.

I didn’t have to do chores because I didn’t do them right anyway. One Thanksgiving, I was allowed to help a bit by baking a carrot cake. I begged for years before this happened, and I wanted it to be perfect. I had to prove to my mom that I wasn’t a hindrance in the kitchen, that she didn’t make a mistake letting me help. I followed the video recipe exactly, but it told me to crack the eggs into the dry mixture. My mom saw me do it and immediately shooed me from the kitchen. I had ruined the cake. It couldn’t be saved. She had let me do one thing, and I had proved how much of a failure I was. It didn’t matter that the recipe told me to do it and that the cake ended up being delicious, I had failed. I spent that Thanksgiving in my room, crying.

I was always either the light of her life or a complete and utter failure. Achievements were celebrated with dinner, money, spending time with her. Mistakes were unacceptable. Sometimes she would make sure I knew how much of a failure I was and how badly I make her look. Other times I just didn’t exist for a few days, and then it was like nothing had ever happened. Those days were the hardest of my life. To let the pain out, I’d cry in my room. I’d write in my notebook. Eventually, I’d cut myself. I still have a tear-stained letter from 7-year-old me begging God to please send me the set of instructions that He sent everyone else so that I could stop being so wrong.

I always felt that it was solely MY fault that I was a failure. I should have been able to do things better. I was so smart, after all. It was MY fault I was depressed. I should be able to just get over it and handle my life like everyone else. It was MY fault I was a bad person. I should know what to do to make people like me. I hid all of these things for so long because I didn’t know what else to do. I wasn’t allowed to have these problems. I was supposed to be better than that.

Then I found my SO, and I moved out. I didn’t have to hide myself anymore. In fact, someone was actually encouraging me to share. I was terrified he’d see me for the failure I was and leave me like everyone else, but he didn’t. He didn’t even think I was a failure. He looked up to me. He called me his idol. He was so amazing and smart and intuitive, how could he be so wrong about me? Slowly, I realized that maybe his opinion wasn’t wrong. Maybe I wasn’t seeing clearly, but how? Obviously something was wrong with me.

Then, we moved back in with my mom, and the moment happened. After spending a few years around ‘normal’ people, I noticed our dysfunction. After a few college psych classes, I noticed her patterns. After reading those old notebooks of mine, I noticed my trauma. Naively, I confronted her. Her denial and ego consumed her to the point that she tried to have me arrested. Only then did I realize: I am not the problem.

My mother has a box. Within that box, she hoards her entire life. She is entirely in control of that box, and as soon as something within it becomes uncontrolled, she gets rid of it. Once upon a time, I thought that she expanded that box to include me. Now I understand that I was diminished to fit. I thought I was special to her. I’m not. I can’t be, because my mother has Narcissistic Personality Disorder. She is the only constant in her world; everything/one else is optional.

I understand that my mother equates love to use. I understand that my mother is incapable of empathy. I understand that my mother will not change. None of this entirely quells my anger and blame. I have spent so long feeling inadequate. I have spent so long feeling lonely and not knowing why. I have spent so long blaming myself that I haven’t yet been able to let it go. I feel guilty every day for my decision to stop contact with her. I still have days that I believe I am wrong, and that if I were a better person I would just appreciate my mom for the things she has done and let the rest go. I cannot live there though. Living in my mother’s box almost killed me, and if the choice is between myself or my mom, I choose me. For the first time, I choose me.

The Real World

In a place where there is nothing, I listen.

I hear the strength of stillness brushing against my ear. A bird calls the same six notes to an absent friend. A caterpillar methodically devours a leaf, and a chain of ants marches unbroken across my boot. 

This is the real world. Everything IS.

Yang to my inner Yin.

We are the chaos, not the master plan.

There are no locked doors in the thorns, and how could there be?

Pockets of sunlight strike my face, and I shiver against them. I wipe oil off of my nose significantly. I shiver again, under my jacket, under my skin. I rise and brush dirt from my fitted and stressed blue denim jeans.

I’m not from here anymore.

It’s A Good Thing I Like Puzzles

I thought about ending this blog when I finished chemo. I thought about how poetic it would be to me; finishing one chapter of my life and starting a new one on a clean page, crisp and white. For several weeks, I was just happy. I settled into the relieved buzz in my head, and nothing could stir it. The world was no longer unjust. Good things happened to the people that deserved them. For a few lovely weeks, I had nothing itching at my brain that needed to get out. I started cooking dinner again, my hair started growing back, Tuesdays went back to just being Tuesdays, and I went back to being me. I could think straight, I could go grocery shopping, and I even started back at work.

 

I sank back into my life, the way that it used to be, and I slowly realized that was a mistake. I’m not the same person that I was BC (before cancer). After reading this short but sweet post by another going through a similar situation, I realized that I don’t even remember who that person was. I have the same job, car, house, clothes, face; but when I look at all of these remnants from my life, I see a puzzle that I put together and no longer fit into. I feel that way too, like a single, lost piece of something whose jagged edges don’t quite fit like they used to. Sure, I’m colorful, but the real beauty can only be recognized in context that I no longer define myself by. The pieces aren’t scattered around me either, ready to be picked up and put back together.

Maybe I’ve been losing pieces for longer than I realize, but I always had the structure, the corners, to fit into. Now I can either try to force myself back into the picture I created, or I can start with a blank board. I don’t know where to start looking for new pieces though. I don’t know what my piece looks like anymore. I don’t know what I want or how to get it. I don’t even know who I am anymore. The words that I used to use to describe myself: intellectual, creative, hard-working, caring, they all seem trite and insignificant now. I don’t want to be defined by words like fighter or survivor. I don’t want to be defined by my successes and failures. I don’t want to be defined by the people around me. They don’t deserve the responsibility of defining me, and I don’t want to become their influence. I recently read an article about women being defined by their spouses instead of their accomplishments. It made me think about definition and legacy. What do people remember about me when we part? What do I want them to remember? I could say that I don’t care and that people are going to think whatever they want about me anyways. Honestly, I don’t know.

 

My cats fight with each other. Bella, I’ve had for years. I got her when I still lived at home and went to high school. I visited her at home almost every weekend in college, and now that I have my own apartment, she’s with me again. I got Raichu after being diagnosed. He spent many hours in my lap, playing therapy cat when I didn’t feel good. Since finishing treatment, the cats have been fighting on a regular basis. I think they are acting on behalf of my BC self and AC self, fighting for space in my new life. The Fiance and I have tried everything to make them get along, but all we can really do is keep them separate for most of the day. Sometimes I truly believe that if I could fix the turmoil in my soul, they would get along.

 

Waking up lost in a life that isn’t yours anymore…..I want to say it is disheartening, or encouraging, or challenging. I don’t know what to say about it though. How can I define my life when I can’t even define myself? It is confusing, I know that. Anxiety and unrest creep into my mind in quiet moments. I can’t sleep at night because a question mark echoes deafeningly in my head. I think about this so much that my Fiance thinks I’m ignoring him, but in reality I just don’t know what to say. I don’t know anything. Cancer took my certainty, and now I’m not sure how to get it back.

The Phoenix

REMISSION.

And it feels SO good.

When my doctor told me that he’d looked over my scans again and had decided that they looked promising enough to cancel my 7th and 8th cycles, an extra two months of treatment, I was literally dumbfounded. Even though he told me this before my final treatment, my brain didn’t have the power to process it. The only word that my disconnected lips could form was, “really?”

“Yes, really. I think that after today you could be done,” he replied, and I cried. I’m not sure if anyone noticed because the excitement of my mom and boyfriend were much more noticeable, but I cried. A million invisible pounds lifted from my chest and after months of unconsciously holding my breath, I could breathe. No longer is Death my mistress in the dark. No longer will I have to be scared every minute of every day, not just for myself but for my family. I am finally reborn, beautiful, new, and perfect after months of burning and ash. I am ready to fly. Just like no one can quite explain what it feels like to be diagnosed with cancer, no one can come close to explaining the radiating joy, relief, excitement, and pride that comes with being called a survivor. I did it. I beat this – this insurmountable, life-altering thing. Even though the survival rate for Hodgkin’s is better than that of some viruses, no one can take this victory from me. No one can make this mean less. I did it. I took my life back. I don’t mean to be the type of person who toots my own horn on the internet, but god-damn it I’m taking a minute to toot my own horn on the internet. Go me.

But also go Mom, and go Boyfriend, and go Boyfriend’s family, and go friends, and go co-workers, and go doctors and nurses, and go everyone that support me. Because I couldn’t have faced this monster without all of you. You all reminded me what I was fighting for when I thought the cancer had taken it all away. You reminded me what lay beyond the inferno, and I know that you will be the ones to help me leave my nest with new eyes. Real support doesn’t end when the battle is won. It celebrates your glory and follows you through your next challenge. I just hope for the strength to pay that support forward.

I’ll never be fully finished with Hodgkin’s, as my doctor reminded me when he scheduled us an appointment a few months from now, but I’m coming to terms with that. I used to think that my disease was my demon. It would follow me for my life, tormenting and fighting me at every step. I thought it would take everything from me, but I realize now that isn’t how it has to be. Hodgkin’s is my life partner, but it can be a silent partner. It can be like my shadow; following me, watching me thrive in the sunlight, and only taking up the space that I allow. If – IF it threatens to swallow me again, I now know that I have the strength to set myself ablaze so brilliantly that shadows seek escape. I can endure the burn, and I will emerge from the ashes.

Now I can finally focus on the things that matter. I must relearn how to fly on feeble wings, but I can train them to be strong. Now that I know what it takes, I can soar higher and farther than before. And honestly, I can’t wait for this part. I’ve spent so long on the ground, I’m aching to feel the sky again.

A phoenix isn’t cliché. It’s a symbol that has proven true for thousands of years and millions of people. I am the phoenix. I am reborn.

World Cancer Day

Today is World Cancer Day. Last year, I wouldn’t have known that. 9 months ago, I wouldn’t have known that. 9 months ago, I had a stable serving job, went to college full time, lived comfortably with my boyfriend and had just helped my (at the time) best friend make a life change by moving in with us.

I started to occasionally feel light-headed and dizzy at work, but I often spent long hours on my feet without breaks or food, so I thought that if I went to the doctor, they would just tell me to take better care of myself. Then I fainted after work one night. Both my housemates saw it and convinced me to schedule an appointment. I remember sitting in an exam room, feeling nervous, because I knew the doctor would reprimand me for my bad decisions. She walked in, asked me about my symptoms, listened to me breathe, felt around at my neck, collarbone, and under my arms, then immediately walked back out.

She came back almost 30 minutes later and said, “Based on your breathing, we’re going to give you a precautionary x-ray, just to see if we find anything unusual.” Then she took me around the corner to the x-ray room, where a silent technician took pictures of my torso and head. After another few minutes of waiting back in the exam room, my doctor returned, saying, “I’m going to need you to go to the hospital for a CT scan. I’ve already called and reserved it for you. They’ll be waiting for you. I don’t want to worry you by telling you anything now, so they’ll tell you if they find anything on the scan.” I don’t think ‘scared’ accurately describes what I felt when I called my boyfriend to have him go to the hospital with me. I don’t think fear had set in yet. I was in shock, and I was confused. I didn’t understand why the doctor was telling me so little, or why all of these scans had to be done so quickly. Although I had driven myself to the doctor, I knew that I shouldn’t go to the hospital alone, but I didn’t exactly know why. I think, subconsciously, I knew that I was about to receive big news even though I couldn’t fully process what was happening.

At the hospital, they checked me in to emergency, and I waited in a new room with my boyfriend and mother for a few hours before the CT machine became available. After the scan, which was loud and lonely and made me feel like I was peeing my pants, they wheeled me back to the room in silence. No one said anything about my health, and the tension only increased as we waited for someone to come in and tell us anything. Surprisingly, I didn’t feel anxious to leave like I usually do. I didn’t feel anxious for the doctors to come in and expel my confusion. We joked nervously that, “It must be cancer.” I remember saying in response, “It better not be cancer, or I’m going to be pissed.”

Then the doctor walked in, holding my chart in his hands, reading. Without even looking up at me, he asked, “So, how long have you had a history of lymphoma?”

Gravity stopped. The room spun around that one word. The fabric of time and space ripped, and I floated through an eternity of space. As stars whizzed by my head, I could read each of them, and they whispered, “Lymphoma.” And the universe imploded on itself, hurdling me head over feet back into the exam room, where the doctor still hadn’t looked at me.

I don’t want that to be the image of cancer that I show to the world, but that is the one that I know. I wish I could write about how cancer is nothing and that it’s not scary and big and difficult. I promised to be honest in this blog, though. Maybe next year I will be able to talk about how it made me stronger or changed me for the better or at least that I survived. Right now though, cancer rules my life. It is scary, and it is difficult, and there are many people out there that are going through it without the support that they need. It needs to be talked about, because a lot of the time it is preventable. I’m not saying that I ‘caught’ cancer, but I could have been more vigilant about preventing it. I could have found it a lot sooner if I wasn’t so scared to have a conversation with my doctor. World Cancer Day actively fights against silence related to this disease, and I believe that will save lives.

My Journey is to Health

“Disease is not the opposite of health.”

I found out on Tuesday that I will need 4 additional treatments before finishing chemo. I still have 2 of the original 12 to finish as well, so I have a total of 6 treatments remaining. That’s half of my original number. When my doctor told me this, I cried. I went from thinking that I was almost done, with only three weeks of chemo before I could reemerge into the world and begin my life again to having over 3 months of treatment remaining and being only halfway finished. I was devastated. All day, my boyfriend kept trying to convince me that it was still a good day, but still I sulked. I was almost done. I was so close to the finish line, and now I couldn’t even see it.

The funny thing about chemo is that it freezes you in time. I am continually losing muscle mass, hair, and a surprising amount of cognitive function. Normally, if your muscles get smaller, you go to the gym a few times, work out some, and the muscles come back. Chemo makes that difficult. Because all of my cells are being wiped out every 15 days, I can’t just go to the gym and build up some muscle. It doesn’t work. There is nothing to build on because all of my cells are dead. I can’t start recovering and rebuilding what I’ve lost until my treatment is over, and this is exceptionally frustrating for someone who cannot stand for longer than 10 minutes, cannot walk a hundred feet to pick up her mail, an can barely remember what she had for dinner two nights ago. I was three weeks away from being able to learn how to walk again, and I wanted it so badly.

Then my internal optimist came back from lunch, and I remembered a quote that I heard recently. “Disease is not the opposite of health.” I realized that I don’t necessarily need to be disease-free to be healthy. Just because I can’t begin to rebuild my muscles or go back to work doesn’t mean that I can’t start being healthy now.

medicine won’t make you healthy, medicine only makes you not sick.

Image from a Google search of the quote I mentioned, and although I don’t necessarily support ‘natural cures not medicine,’ I do agree with the statement. While my medicine is working to make me not sick, I can still be working to make myself healthy. I can begin to find the right foods for me. I can talk to my friends and family and work toward sustaining healthier, happier relationships. I can find the things that really motivate me. Most importantly, I can spend my time enjoying the life that I have now instead of waiting for a better one to come along. I think that much of my life has been spent waiting for it to get better, and that’s how I got so unhappy in the first place. Even during this time that I feel so powerless, no especially during this time, I refuse to make the same mistake. Even though I’m facing a setback, I cannot be discouraged. Life is just one setback after another, and the beauty of it is realizing that the word setback can easily be changed into the word challenge or opportunity. When I have really learned that, I will be healthy.

Go out and turn all of your setbacks into opportunities.

Post-Traumatic Growth

I didn’t know that post-traumatic stress had a kinder, more productive twin brother called post-traumatic growth until I watched this Ted Talk by Jane McGonigal. She uses video games and a personal head injury to turn us all into better people, enjoy:

After watching Mrs. McGonigal, I realized that there was a name for the change in emotions I have felt since being diagnosed with cancer. Over the past few months, I’ve felt more motivated to eat healthier, develop more meaningful relationships, spend less time at home in front of the TV or computer, and get back to college to continue my education (something I’ve always enjoyed). I coined the phrase “become a more active member of my own life.” All of these sudden desires align with the changes that those who experience PTG tend to report. Once I have beaten cancer, I want to become a better, stronger, happier person.

I can also relate with the dark fog of depression that Jane experienced. Throughout my treatment, especially early on, I felt that there was no point to what I was doing. The pain, discomfort, and potentially permanent side effects that I was experiencing weren’t worth the life that I was trying to save. I thought to myself, “Why not kill myself?” “Am I really worth hundreds of thousands in medical bills?” I realized that I had become a zombie in my life before cancer. I wasn’t happy with my life, so what point was there to save it? That realization has fostered all of the changes that I am currently trying to make and will continue to make once my treatment is finished. In order to be worth saving, I need to become that better, stronger, happier person. Traumatic experiences don’t have to be fraught with sadness, grief, and anxiety. They can be wake-up calls instead. As McGonigal says, they can be springboards to becoming better people. The only way that I can accept my cancer is to make it into one of these springboards. It cannot and will not be a death sentence, but a challenge.

How many of you have had a difficult situation inspire you?

Why I Love My Boyfriend

I recently read a blog post that I’m sure many of you are familiar with (because it was Freshly Pressed). In the post, independent, 20-something Vanessa Elizabeth makes a slightly ironic list of things to accomplish before getting engaged.

Not only does she discourage getting married young, she basically says that people only do it because they’re desperately lonely and don’t have the independence or self-confidence to approach the world alone. This bothers me. I am less than 23, and quite frankly I plan to be married by the time I get there. I’m not lonely, and as my mother will tell you, independence could very well be my most domineering personality trait. I am not a scared, shivering little child who got kicked out of mommy’s house and immediately had to find another warm body to cling to. In fact, I moved away from home of my own volition; into an apartment with my boyfriend.

My boyfriend, who is undoubtedly the love of my life. Please do not patronize me by saying that I am young and don’t know what real love or commitment is, because he is the one who taught it to me. Yes, we started dating in high school. Yes, we were just kids then and still are now. We have been together for almost 4 years. Make with that what you may, but keep in mind that we’ve been through traumas together (like death, homelessness, and cancer) that some couples never face in a lifetime of marriage.

I love my boyfriend in a way that I don’t even understand sometimes. I understand who he is, all flaws included, and I understand that he might or might not be that person forever. And I love him. I certainly don’t think that I will be the same person in 10 years, and I am excited to journey through the changes with him by my side. I will always love him, no matter how he changes. I know that, because when I take stock of where he lives in my heart, it’s the compartment that holds my mom and my sisters. No matter what they do, how badly they hurt me, or how they change I will always love them because they are my family. My boyfriend has moved into that place in my heart. Even if I suddenly hated him, I would still love him. He is my soulmate in the sense that he will forever be a part of my life and the great thing is that I love having him there.

We bicker. We argue. We fight. We’ve both had times that we questioned the stability and longevity of our relationship. He definitely pushes my buttons and I push his right back. I know that we’ll never push each other over the edge though, because we don’t always have to agree. One of us doesn’t always have to be right. We can disagree and get mad and yell and scream, but then we take a nap, wake up, and hug it out. We don’t hold grudges. We don’t resent. We love, and we work through our problems as a team, together, not as individuals against one another.

I know that getting married will not hinder my life. I know this because every day I am excited to see my boyfriend. Anytime literally anything of importance happens to me, he is the first person that I want to tell. I miss him when he goes to work. I want to go out of my way to do things that make him smile. I also know that having him in my life makes me want to improve it. I want us to have everything and anything we want or need. I am just that much more motivated to change things or work hard or start over when I think of him. He is my partner in life, and I am so excited to experience my life with him beside me. I understand that my life is my own to experience how I will, and so is his, but that doesn’t mean I can’t hold his hand and see him smile encouragements at me as I do it. So here is Vanessa’s list, and what I really think of each item:

1. Get a passport. Is there a new law that forbids married couples from traveling? I do plan on getting my passport. My boyfriend and I want to spend some time in Japan, possibly teaching English there for a few years.

2. Find your “thing.” I can still do this after I’m married too. I just get to have a cheerleader there with me. And you never know, maybe it’s his “thing” too.

3. Make out with a stranger. Not really something I’d be into anyways. You can get Herpes that way.

4. Adopt a pet. We already did! And little Raichu loves his mommy and his daddy.

5. Start a band. I have no musical talent whatsoever, but my boyfriend actually had a band already, so I’m not ruining his life either.

6. Make a cake. Make a second cake. Have your cake and eat it too. What’s better than eating two whole cakes in your kitchen alone? A cake fight! Followed by eating the remains. Plus, having someone to share with will lower the calories.

7. Get a tattoo. It’s more permanent than a marriage. I have two. He has eight.

8. Explore a new religion. Do I have to worship my significant other as a deity once I marry them? Neither of us are very religious, but then again if I started to believe in reincarnation, I’m sure he’d buy me an ant farm or a dog collar for after I die.

9. Start a small business. We plan to. It’ll be a little pub with great BBQ food. I handle the business and finances, he works the kitchen.

10.Cut your hair. Cancer. Been there, done that. The day I shaved my head, he vowed to let his hair grow until I’m cured.

11. Date two people at once and see how long it takes to blow up in your face. I don’t believe in actions that intentionally hurt other people, so no thanks. Wouldn’t do that if I were single for a millennium.

12. Build something with your hands. Ikea, here we come! Unless cooking counts, then I do that all the time.

13. Accomplish a Pinterest project. Done. And I’m starting to really think this list is only female-friendly. I have zero male friends with Pinterest.

14. Join the Peace Corps. Interesting idea. Not exactly my cup of tea, but my boyfriend might enjoy it.

15. Disappoint your parents. Oh I’ve definitely been there, done that.

16. Watch GIRLS, over and over again. I don’t even know what GIRLS is, but i’m sure if I begged enough I could get the boyfriend to submit.

17. Eat a jar of Nutella in one sitting. Can we frost our two cakes with it?

18. Make strangers feel uncomfortable in public places. I do that almost every day anyways. He often points it out to me.

19. Sign up for CrossFit. What’s better than a work out buddy?

20. Hangout naked in front of a window. Done that. Want one better? Do naughty things in front of a window. That requires a second party.

21. Write your feelings down in a blog. Isn’t that what I’m doing right now? I don’t think my boyfriend is stopping me.

22. Be selfish. I have been. For much too long. See Confessions.

23. Come with me to the Philippines for Chinese New Year. Not this year, what with the regular chemo treatments and all, but maybe someday.

In closing, I just want to say that I have nothing against you, Vanessa Elizabeth. I like your blog. I like that you discuss controversial things. And I’m sure that some people benefit from some alone soul-searching time. Just think a little about it before you make a call to action that dramatic and far-reaching.

The Funny Thing About Never

For years, my official stance on the New Year is that, “I never make resolutions.” The funny thing about ‘never’ though, is that it’s usually not true. At least not when you’re talking about the future. This year, I have decided to (sorta) change. I have decided not to make resolutions, but rather to resolve.

In my mind, making a resolution and resolving are two different things. I could make a resolution to lose weight, to exercise more, to be healthier, to get a better job, to get back into school, to write more, to watch less TV, or any number of other things. Resolutions are easy to make up on the spot; right at midnight if you have to. They are also easy to break. They require almost no commitment because you will always have the next New Year to make them all over again. To resolve is to act. Resolving is something that I can do every single day instead of just a new goal that I have to accomplish with a pretty far-off deadline. To resolve takes dedication, patience, and motivation. I’ve been thinking about it for months, actually.

Sitting in front of the toilet in the middle of the night, after a particularly difficult round of chemo, I remember wishing I could just go back to the way my life used to be. I started thinking about what I missed from my life BC (before cancer), and I could only come up with one thing: not having cancer. The only thing I missed about my old life was not being sick all the time. How was that right? The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I wasn’t really happy. I eventually figured out that at some point I stopped doing things that made me happy. My days consisted of go to school, go to work, watch TV, sleep. Even going out with my boyfriend had become a chore that I was supposed to do. Everything that I did was because I was supposed to. I went to school because I had to in order to get a better job. I went to work because I had to make money to pay for the apartment and the car that I had to get so that I could go to work and school. I had to cook dinner. I had to watch TV all the time because I couldn’t afford anything else. Then, all of a sudden, all of those things that I had been doing for so long because ‘I had to’ didn’t matter anymore. I had to fight cancer. All of those other things became luxuries I couldn’t afford. I realized that if the cancer won, I wouldn’t be proud of my last few years. That is when I decided to resolve.

Watching The Booth at the End on Hulu today gave me the wording for what I am resolving to do: (Interesting show, would make for a great play adaptation)

I resolve to choose. Too many of us spend our lives doing things that we have to do or are supposed to do instead of what we choose to do. In high school, I was happy to attend because I loved learning and really wanted to be there. I lost that love in college, and it somehow became a chore. Before I go back, I need to find that love again. I need to find my desire, my choice. I chose to participate in drama (the theatre kind, not the Jersey Shore kind) and I always loved it. I miss it. I chose to ask out my boyfriend, even after I was warned not to, and he continues to be one of the best and most uplifting parts of my life. I may not have chosen my current job, but I can choose whether or not to stay there, and I can choose to enjoy it.

So, I’m not going to make a resolution to change some thing about my body or my habits. I’m going to change something much more important: myself. Hopefully the other changes will come from that. For 2014 and hopefully the rest of my life, I resolve not to be forced or ‘have’ to do anything. I resolve to choose.

Confessions

When you have literally nothing to do all day but lay in bed and watch endless repeats of tv shows that you don’t really care about, you tend to daydream.

For me, daydreaming is a very introspective experience. I have an analytic, problem-solving mind, and with all of the psychology classes I’ve taken in my few college years, I’ve developed a new hobby called “Solve all of My Own Personal Problems”. And while I do call it a hobby, I actually take the process quite seriously. By really thinking deeply about myself and my actions in situations that I didn’t like the outcome of, I’ve found out things about myself and “who I am”. Some of these discoveries were downright unpleasant, and involved some denial, anger, and quite a few tears. These are the discoveries that inspired me to write today.

I don’t want to hate myself (as I’m sure no one does), and for the most part, I don’t. There are things that I want to change, though, and these things have been keeping me up at night even more than my chemo-induced insomnia. So, in order to (hopefully) sleep better AND make a public declaration of change, I present to the cyber world, My Confessions:

I confess to being selfish. I often find myself thinking, “What can I get out of this?” or “How can this best benefit me?” While I would never intentionally harm or inconvenience another for personal gain, I wonder how many times I have unintentionally done so. This bothers me because although I don’t aspire to be a martyr or a saint, I do want to help people. Honestly, sincerely, from the bottom of my soul I want to help others. I’m not sure if I have ever expressed true selflessness even in small things, like letting the boyfriend have the last bite of dessert or offering to watch my sisters so that my mom can have a day off. I’ve learned that you can’t just want to help people. No one cares how you want to be, they care how you are. I want to be more selfless.

I confess to being lazy. This could very well be my biggest vice, and it’s not exactly a new discovery. My opinion on it has changed though. I used to think that in order to not be lazy, you had to get up and do something. There, laziness fixed. Unfortunately, I’ve found that laziness is a much stronger monster than that. Laziness is a vice of the mind, not the body. I can sit on the couch and be lazy, or I can go to a theater or restaurant and be lazy. I can clean my house and be lazy. I can get a degree lazily. Laziness doesn’t stop with action, it stops with motivation. In order to stop being lazy, I need to find motivation and passion for the things I do. I need to enjoy cleaning the house and find reasons why it interests me so that I do it the right way, not the lazy way. I need to find reasons to attend class every day and really learn, instead of getting a lazy degree based on good test scores. I want to be more motivated.

I confess to being achievement-oriented. My goals throughout life have been things like “graduate as valedictorian,” “get a bachelor’s degree,” “have a nice apartment,” “get married,” “have children,” and “be successful.” These seemed like completely normal goals to me. Goals that a lot of people have. Until I talked to a few of my friends about their major goals. They listed things like “go to college,” “learn to teach,” “fall in love,” and “make a home.” I noticed that their goals included the journey, while mine were only concerned with the goal at the end. Life is not a race. There is no prize for first or second place, and no one wins. There is only the journey, and we each only get one, and I’ve been ignoring that. I want to experience my life.

I confess (most difficultly) to being fault-finding. This realization hurt, because I have always tended to preach about seeing the best in others. Again, though, people care about how you act, not how you think. I am a hypocrite. When I watch reality TV with my boyfriend, we talk smack about the contestants. After I meet a new person, I immediately categorize everything they did into a personality trait that I either like or do not like. I then judge that person based on my value scale. Only very recently have I learned that my value scale may not be right. Other people are always valuable, no matter what type of personality they have. Their opinions are always worthwhile, even if I have already decided that mine are more “right.” I don’t treat people that way, and I need to. I want to be less judgmental.

The most wonderful thing about realizing all of this about myself and trying to improve my personality in such a way is that I can. I can become a better person, and the realizations that I’ve made prove that I am valuable enough to do so. Even with all of my faults, I am worthwhile enough to be given a change. Everyone is.