Day 185: the curtain is up

Yesterday Dana Farber held a Young Adult Cancer Conference that Rie and I attended, to mixed reviews. It is a difficult situation. It’s a conference; we are all there concerning a common cause. It’s a single day of new people meetings and speaker workshops. But the reason of our gathering is not “we all have brown hair” or “we all have dogs” or even “we all want to grow gardens.” Nope, it’s “we all have cancer.” By nature, this is not a light topic. And a conference by nature is a brief experience with morning and afternoon sessions in which you learn something informative. A conference differs from a support group—a support group is something you commit to, and through repeat visits you grow relationships and authenticity is organic. At a conference it’s hard to launch into a safe space in the amount of time available, and deftly handling a delicate topic like cancer just seems like an impossible task. I appreciate the enormous amount of work and organization on their part, and I think for some people it was a chance to feel like someone gets it. Marie found the caregiver workshop to be encouraging. I usually do not struggle with being honest—even in a public setting—but for some reason I could not engage. This is a problem that starts with me: I’m putting on the brakes because this is a club I never wanted to be a part of. I’m struggling with how defining it is of who I am now, the cancer girl. I guarantee it is the first thing people associate with me, and honestly it has been so life altering that it’s how I see myself too. So I don’t blame anyone for this; it’s not 'wrong', it’s just the reality of the moment. This is when I remind myself that it is not all bad, that I will continue to change and grow for the rest of my life, that this is just a swatch (albeit a large one) in the grand picture of my life and who I am.

There was one unexpected moment—one phrase—that struck me yesterday. In the opening session, someone read a short piece of writing about a part of her experience with cancer; among other things she said the following: “Cancer did not just disrupt my life, it disrupted my imagination.” And though the speaker did not take this thought to the conclusion that I was expecting, this phrase still resonates with me so much. I feel an absurd interruption of who I am as a person—my personality appears to me stunted and dried up, my capacity for entertaining joy in my life feels wounded. I feel lost, as in, gone away to sea. My dearest hope is that she’s in there, somewhere still. 

For the final session of the day, I had signed up for the creative arts expression workshop, and amongst the cray-pas and magazine clippings I found myself drawing what looked to be a colorful curtain, reminiscent of a circus tent, halfway pulled up the page. And it just sort of occurred to me: this is life. The curtain is up. As in, life is exposed, in progress, all hidden compartments and inner workings are being revealed with big bright lights, and the show must go on. And I’m in the middle of some creepy dance number that I haven’t practiced, and maybe I am also naked.  Real life is being revealed to me: sort of ugly and hard—whereas without cancer this may have taken longer to uncover, or perhaps never at all in this way. I don’t think this means I am happy that cancer happened, it’s not a joyous thing to be caught naked in front of an audience and a mirror. But I am trying to see it for what it gives me, gift or not. It’s hard to know if I’m pleased with the big reveal, right now it’s too close and I’m still trying to move my way through the finale of this segment. I had hoped that this time bubble would prove to be instructive and constructive for my person, and maybe it is and I maybe I just can’t see it. Right now it feels like I’m just barely scraping by with a dance that looks like sitting on the couch and making eggs.

I did learn some things about myself yesterday: one being that conferences aren't really my thing. I'm glad I tried it, something new: my first real excursion into the wild since being confined to the spaceship coupe. Perhaps in a few years, when this is more past than present, I will feel differently. Until then, bopping along my merry way...