Monday, March 14, 2011

Cancer be gone: Happily Ever After?

So how are you going to share your story?  As a Cancer survivor, I have become part of an ever-increasing community of survivors and although we might not all share the same diagnosis: we do have some things in common.  No doubt, some of you might struggle to relate to the people you meet who have had Cancer... and we know that you care about us and are super happy to see that we have recovered so well.  But our story goes beyond mere survival.  We were somebody before the Cancer ever even happened and now, though we are different, we aim to regain the human race and become a part of the everyday.  It's not as easy as all that.  From the very moment that we are diagnosed, we have this sixth sense: a whole other level of understanding of ourselves and the life we are living.  So what is it that makes a human being human?  Last night I was watching a film on David Suzuki, FORCE of NATURE, and that touched on a lot of things that I've come to learn and have been meaning to share bit never got around to it because I wasn't sure how I was going to say it.  We are all a part of the earth's energy exchange system.  When we are born, she gives us our own little portion that we learn to feed and nourish and develop.  It is with this energy that we present ourselves to the whole rest of the world.  Our fingerprint is the energy we expend each day and finally the mass sum of all our years that is deposited back into the earth to replenish her.  I know that I will die someday... it is an inevitable part of human existence.  I drew a very strange parallel...  David Suzuki, reportedly in the final stages of his life, reflects on so many things that I have already been thinking about.  We are not so different at all, we human beings.  At 32, it would seem that I have had a whole series of mid-life crises... or maybe it would be more accurate to call them 'staring death in the face' conversations.  I am very quick to look at my life, thus far, and immediately discount most of what I have done.  Why?  No particular reason except for the fact that I am human and as such, I usually only place value on things that are amazing and extraordinary and remarkable.

Yeah.... I know.... We are ALL amazing and remarkable in our own right... It is very easy to overlook that fact.  I've become so accustom to my own point-of-view that I forget that life has not occurred this way to anyone else ever.  I feel like a time capsule... my life has been compartmentalized into three succint portions: life before I almost died (1), life before the Cancer (2), and now I am living life after Cancer.  I want to know about other people and their experiences... collect their insights... share that common thing that is humanity.  Idealic, though it may seem, I think that it's nigh time that we start relting on a very personal level.  Life and death and Cancer affect us all in varying degrees.   So how is anyone ever going to know anything about it?  Share your story... you have the capacity to move, touch, and inspire others by being bold enough to say what noone else has said before you: I am a superhero.  And this is my story....

N' that's how I'm surviving... MDB