My cancers taught me self-respect

On panting and crying in public and the thousand things I feel unprepared to do.

“So yes, everything looks good with the scan.”

“…” (startled)

“So keep it up.”

“Really?!… I thought… I thought I had seen something on the screen before I left the examination room… I thought I had seen something wrong.”

“Oh no, that’s not how it works. You’d never be able to see anything like that in the distance.”

“Oh my god, I can’t believe it!…” (proceeds to pant and cry)

“So I’d say: see you next year. Unless you have a different idea.”

“No! Yes! Oh my god, thank you! (Pants and cries) Yes, see you next year! Thank you so much!”

Panting and crying in the middle of the street, I dialed my mom’s number and proceeded to relay the phone call with the doctor. I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it! Any resemblance to a startled pageant contestant, losing it onstage, was pure coincidence. I got awarded ANOTHER YEAR of this life. THIS LIFE! Rows of bikes, sidewalk pavements and pedestrians who avoided eye contact were my witnesses.

Nothing puts you in touch with your reasons for living like a potentially life threatening illness. All of the things that ARE GOING WELL suddenly presenting themselves — bright and clear — before you.

Having a functional body that enables me to walk the city of Lisbon, hike the Gardunha hill, and move in all the varieties of movement that exist. Yoga on the Inhaca island, bellydancing in Sarah Safi Harb’s classes, a run towards a friend (cannot pick one!!). Help them move houses, offer to carry the baby, and the heavier boxes. Retrieve my own hefty cases kept on the highest shelves of the storage. Lift weights at the gym. WEIGHTS, can you believe it? Me, pumping iron! The odd passions you find when you’re committed to living. Kettlebell swings, dumbell deadlifts, deadlifts of any sort for that matter! I was made for movement as much as I was made for writing, which might surprise no one but myself, but still.

My freedom of movement, so obviously precious. Who’s stopping me from going places I’ve never been? Getting on a train, a bus, a plane; saving for a car, a home on wheels, a piece of land to call my own. My spacious apartment in the heart of Amsterdam, of which walls I never got to painting, its balcony and kitchen cupboards begging for the renovation I dream of doing but constantly postpone. Wouldn’t I rather deal with the pain of attending auditions and not getting the role? Toiling at a business a I have no clue how to run? Writing a book I feel too incompetent to finish? Learning how to grow my own vegetables through trial and error? Fighting for other people’s right to the same freedoms I’m afforded? The opportunity! The privilege! The possibility!

The everyday nuisance appearing minor, so evidently insignificant. Desired even. How else was I supposed to feel accomplished, get animated for new undertakings if there wasn’t any friction, some degree of challenge? The carrousel of challenge and ease, ease and challenge, that we are all on.

Morning rumination? Fine, I’ll take it. Impostor syndrome? Give it to me. Bouts of loneliness? Figureoutable. Wrinkles and saggy skin? Löl. I take it all. Let me ruminate. Let me sweat before a presentation, a date, a critical health scan. Let me crave more suitable companionship. I take THIS LIFE any time.

The YES in me is resounding. I want to coexist with my anxiety. I’ve been living with it since I know myself. After four decades of this I have enough perspective to say: I’ve been doing fine. I am willing and able to be a student of my anxiety. I want to keep exploring the liminal spaces of my mind and brain, those areas where memories, physical sensations and thoughts intersect, where meaning is made, old and new. I want to revisit old beliefs again and again until one day — under different circumstances — a pattern of biological reactions gets interrupted, a chain of thought broken, and I land somewhere different. They call it an insight — an epiphany if I’m lucky. I’ve had many throughout my life, I’m here for more.

If my understanding of THIS LIFE got so much richer with books by Bessel van der Kolk, Gabor Mate, Pete Walker, Lindsay Gibson, Kelly Turner, Julia Cameron, Peter Levine, Mark Wolynn, how else will it keep expanding? Give me more books, tomes, treatises. I’ve often toyed with the idea of going back to school, pursuing a master’s: why not now? Or I can sit this juicy bum down and write, write, write until a book takes shape. José Saramago, Gabriel Garcia Marques, Marcel Proust, Arundhaty Roy, Mary Oliver. I was never alone, I wasn’t alien, I was not that singular — thank fuck!

I am on time, just like everybody else. Growing up, there was an emphasis on not missing that train. Unsurprisingly, my focus kept going to the trains I missed rather than the ones I could still catch. Oh, if only I had stepped in. Wistfulness was in the wider culture too. The greater lesson is that there is no shortage of trains, even after we missed one, two, three, a hundred of them. They don’t come on demand, and there’s no schedule — that’s the catch.

Even when you’re older, slower, wrinklier, lonelier, poorer; even if you’re lacking motivation, money, status, or a body part. Trains will pass, stop in your vicinity. Some will be full, others will open its doors wide open. A few will require you to stand up and run if you want to get in. Every train takes you somewhere worth it if you decide to respect the journey. You’re not supposed to know the destination in advance.

My cancers taught me to respect my journey — it was their hidden gift. They gave me a sort of reverence for the commute. I have been aided by many other commuters along the way, friends and strangers. This then led me to want to give back. I started helping others find more comfort in their seats too, or figuring out the exit that better suits them. The more I considered other people’s journeys and saw myself in them, the more I found innate self-worth. I gained self-respect in the midst of mercurial storms.

There will be more books, eye creases, fellow passengers to sit with and learn from, or to console and protect. Hopefully, there will be a thousand more things I feel unprepared to do. There will be rides that feel interminable. Right now, I’m in carrousel mode. I’m here to share the tale. When life shifts gears I’ll tag along. I take THIS LIFE anytime.