Sometimes the smile is practice
So much support, so many folks sending well-wishes, tokens, gifts, and so on. I am overwhelmed (in a good way).
So often in the last week or so, someone gives me some variation of the following praise:
“You are dealing with this so well, I don’t think I could be nearly so calm or positive.” I have said my own version of the same on more than one occasion when confronted with a friend, colleague, or loved one facing a catastrophic situation.
Here is a little secret… you really don’t know… and you won’t know unless you find yourself in a similar situation. I hope you never find yourself in that situation! I sincerely wish that you don’t.
However, if you do, you may very well find that you are far stronger, more courageous, and fuller of grace than you currently give yourself credit for. Again, I hope that you never have to find out. I would rather see all my friends, family, and loved ones live lives that are free of potentially devastating news and challenges…. especially the kinds that include dreaded diseases or injuries.
Here is another secret… I am not always strong or positive. I have my moments of emotional breakdown… especially at 3am when I wake from some weird dream… or 11pm when dinner has been eaten and cleaned up, work and play are done, teevee is boring repeats, and I am not quite exhausted enough to fall asleep yet but too tired to do anything productive.
A cancer diagnosis doesn’t feel fair. A cancer diagnosis is pretty damn frightening. That is reality. I am not in any way ignoring or denying that reality.
I had a dear friend and colleague several years ago who spent nearly two decades (maybe more) fighting breast cancer. She won that fight for many of those years before she left this world. She was one of the strongest and most fundamentally positive people I have ever met. I never knew her without cancer and yet, until near the end, I rarely thought of her as “someone with cancer.” She was amazing and sometimes she made me crazy (even angry) with her remarkably positive attitude. I was angry for her - because the world needed more people like her. Sometimes I was even angry with her because, in my still immature outlook, I could not understand why she didn’t get angry or scared for herself. I wondered if the perpetual smile and the positive outlook was really a front and sometimes I just wanted her to be “real.” That would be my definition of real…at the time… you know… I was young… and self-involved… and thought I was ever so smart and mature and evolved.
Here is another secret. Sometimes that smile and that positive attitude IS fake. Yep… that’s right… I’m telling you true… sometimes all this strength and grace is an ACT.. You see, I’m practicing. Because I believe that if you are feeling lousy, scared, and depressed… you have a couple of choices (or at least you do if you are not clinically depressed.. I think… and I am fortunate to not have clinical depression). You can wallow in that fear and depression and thus give it strength and lasting power OR you can fake some courage until you actually start to feel real courage. I am not being flippant. This is serious stuff. Honestly, I have a great life and I am proud to say that I have been and am living that life on my own terms for quite some time now, doing the things that make me happy and joyful. So this whole cancer thing is not making me regret any of the choices I’ve made up to this point. I am lucky that way… I made the choices that I wanted to make… so I don’t have a bunch of stuff to regret or wish that I had done. But I am human and this whole cancer thing sucks already (and I don’t even feel sick yet). I need to approach it with a calm and positive attitude because an attitude of fear doesn’t do me or anyone else any good….and I need to practice that attitude now while I’m still feeling pretty damn good physically. So, I keep my moments of fear and despair private for now because I want to magnify my positive outlook, and not my fear, in the mirror of other people’s presence and attention. I think of this period of time before any treatment begins as a rehearsal. I get to dig deep and find my intentions and my anchors so that when the real show begins, I will have some mad skills and be ready for the challenge. I hope that makes sense. That’s all for now.