I Used To Smile All The Time

Yesterday, I punched out a smiley face in the big pile of soap in the sink.  Because everything deserves to be happy.  

Recently, my girlfriend told me to smile more.  I was upset about this, because I tend to think I'm one of the happiest and most carefree people in the world.  I have the history of manifesting positivity in the face of great tragedy to prove it.  After I thought about it, however, I began to realize that although I think about the world now in very clear, concise modes, and although having such a clarity of perspective is inexplicably amazing, it doesn't necessarily mean that happiness will automatically follow.

I've been under a dark cloud for a long time, and my goals and my perception have been crystal clear since I was diagnosed.  "I want this, this, and this," I said, as soon as I found out I had cancer.  And I immediately set out to achieve those things.  Some of them were easy, others of them aren't yet fully realized.  I'm still hurting in certain ways after my experience, and the fact that I'm focusing on ways to fix that, instead of complaining and feeling sorry for myself is great, but it doesn't mean that it makes me happy, entirely.  Because happy is an attitude, and I'm working on that.  I still feel like I'm happier than the average bear, especially considering I know for a fact it's worthless to go through life being anything but.  I just think I've been too concerned lately about conditional happiness.  "When I get XYZ, I can finally relax..."  Except that getting to XYZ is a huge journey, full of unforeseen obstacles and circumstances.  And you still have to live your life while you get there.  This is a pretty common attitude, and it manifests itself in several ways:

"When I get that promotion I can finally relax" -- Spoiler alert; it'll never be enough money.

 "When I meet someone who makes me happy, everything will get better," -- Not necessarily; you generally need to be happy with yourself in order to attract someone in the first place.

"When I lose the extra weight, I'll be so much happier," -- I don't know, will you?  You'll still be you.  Be happy now, and lose the weight if you want to, not because you feel pressured to do so.

Conditions, conditions, conditions.  It doesn't matter what level of priority they have in the grand scheme of things, all the way from "I'm unhappy at my job and won't be satisfied until I get a new one," and all the way to, "I'm killing my family financially post-cancer and need a book deal soon or we'll all starve."  Conditions are a matter of perspective, but that's a thought for another time.

So, stop focusing on the conditional.  It'll be great when it comes.  But deal with your life while you have it, in the most fundamentally satisfying way possible.  Because, seriously, what's the alternative?

How Far Have You Come?

The Allegory of the Winding Road

Life moves in curves, and currents.  There are corners to be strolled or cut, and obstacles to be leaped or removed.  The path winds down through the years with unyielding certainty -- the certainty is that the bends in this road will never stop.  How far have you come, through the winding pathways of life?  

Personally, I've gotten to a place in my life I never thought I'd be again.  Not ever.  I stumbled through violent switchbacks in recent years, only to come out in a place where I figured the road only lead in one direction, and that I would just have to deal with it.  But I was wrong.  There I was, finding myself rummaging through memories of when things were different, holding dear to my heart a spark of something I imagined I'd never see again.  I thought I would never hold a job again, or have a savings account again, or live in the places I wanted to live.  Mundane things mostly, but when you take them all under consideration, you find out that what you really believe is that there's no chance for you to lead a normal life.  I thought I was banned from a normal life, resigned to standing outside the gates, fingers wrapped around the bars, peering in at others going about their business, taking it all for granted.  And looking in at all the scurrying bodies and blurred faces, continuing on down the road to their own likely destinations, I was reminded of the other things I wouldn't have -- the things that hurt the most.  I thought I'd never love again, or be loved.  I wasn't worthy of anyone's love, sometimes not even my own.  And that I'd never have a family, or live with someone, or buy a house, and have children.  For a long while I thought that was okay, and it was just the cards I'd been dealt.  I would live with my revelations and move on.  

But your circumstances, or the events in your life, or the setbacks you feel so deeply, do not define the course of your happiness.  At any point in time, you can walk around another bend, and suddenly find exactly what you've been looking for.  That doesn't mean you have to wait around for it, trotting silently into the dusk with no direction.  Although unfortunately, most tragedy brings to mind a sense of helplessness, and a feeling that it would be entirely impossible to so much as grasp at the things you once wanted most.  Even tragedy is not as strong as the continuing whims of a road that winds down through time, ready and ever willing to heal, to encourage, to mend hearts and minds, to entwine lives and further goals, and most of all, to plant love in all directions, waiting for you to stumble onto it.  

Extreme Harmony

I want so much to forget all of this.  I want that more than anything.  But I know that if I did; if I were to put this all behind me and live as if it never happened, it would be the single most selfish act of my entire life.  Just because I was lucky enough to have survived, that doesn't mean I can ever walk away.

Writing about my experience with cancer brings back painful memories with every word.  Engaging in the cancer community, and finding all of these wonderful people whose lives have been touched by the disease is both a blessing and a curse.  It brings me closer to all of you, knowing that we have this shared experience.  And it brings me closer to humanity, knowing that such suffering isn't only possible, but commonplace in the world.  It identifies and exposes the human condition in greater detail than anything else could.

This is what inspires me to act -- the fact that everyone goes through something, which is an important thing to be mindful of in the first place, but even more so when you've just been through something pretty terrible yourself.  You have the option to step back into the mainstream, that winding and disorienting wormhole of people and energy shooting off ceaselessly into the future, back into the routine, into the grind, the rat race, the series of events and reactions and self-decrees that we call everyday life.  It certainly takes a while to get back to that place, back to "normal," or what was once normal for you, but I'm finding out that it's entirely possible.  When I talked to people while I was going through treatment, people who were a few years out who had already been through the same ordeal and had left most of the pain behind them, I was exposed for the first time to individuals who had regained normalcy in their lives.  I couldn't, for the life of me, understand how they'd done this.  It was such a foreign concept to me.  And I wasn't even happy for them.  In fact, I was irritated.  I thought about my feelings, and how I'd been so miserable, so life-alteringly miserable, and knew in my heart that I'd never be where they were.  I'd never be satisfied again, and I'd certainly never be able to hold a job again or have successful and fulfilling relationships, not with the dark cloud of what had happened following overhead.  Those thoughts seem so far away now.  I've been reintroduced to levels of normal in my life that I never thought I'd see again.  And I've also realized that it's okay to embrace them.  It's okay to allow myself to be happy.  I don't have to take the whole weight of cancer on my shoulders, all by myself.  I can do my thing and help, and I can also be happy.

But that's just it; I have to help.  I can't sit by while others are dealing with this and worse, and allow it to continue without putting up a serious fight.  Which brings me to option number two.  Option two is where I was, sitting alone in my room, writing up a storm about my experience, all nicely packaged together in book form (which will hopefully be seeing the light of day soon), that I would use to garner awareness and attention, and build a platform from which I could enact change and better the circumstances of those who were not as fortunate as myself.  There are some people in this world who have no advocates, and who are lost, and who have no hope.  This is unacceptable to me.  I was going to fix it.

I still am.  And I would be extremely pissed at myself if I didn't follow through here.  The need to do so outweighs any threatening complacency a million fold, so I don't really have a lot to worry about.  I don't have to hole up anywhere and work myself to the bone, focusing on nothing but the misery and the task at hand.  There is, I'm finding, a third option: a Middle Way.  And that is, as I touched on earlier, that I can focus my energy on enacting change and bettering the world, and find personal happiness and fulfillment at the same time.  I want others who are going through this and don't even remotely understand what it means to accept "normalcy" again, to know that it's okay to learn to be happy again.  It's okay to be happy.  You'll find happiness in old things in different ways. And it's okay to embrace that.  It's okay to own your new life.  You have passed through a checkpoint, a weigh station, and you've seen things others never will, and that has shaken you to your core and caused you to reevaluate and reconsider just about everything you've ever experienced.  But there are some experiences that will still translate, and that will be all the same, or even enhanced by this.  And they are...

Love.  Self-worth.  Fulfillment.  Happiness.

If you're anything like me, you'll isolate yourself from the possibility of ever finding these things again.  I had resigned myself to being miserable, although I would have argued that I was steeling myself and making the necessary sacrifices to meet my goals.  I now know that it was unreasonable to put myself through all that I did, but, I needed it at the time, and it was useful to my growth, and I wouldn't trade that time for the world.  I got a lot of work done, both tangible and intangible.  It was a time of significant development and the beginning of a gradual process of healing.  I'm proud of myself for having such discipline and fortitude at a point when I needed it most.  This is not to say that I immediately took to my self-care responsibilities right away, or with any sense of ease whatsoever.  In reality, I spent the good part of a year curled up on the couch, covered in a snuggie.  But that was part of my process.  If you happen to process tragedy that way, curled up under a snuggie, then that's okay.  I went from severe "handling" mode, to severe couch mode, in the span of a few months.  I shut down because I couldn't filter all the terrible information that was running through my head, like the vile tributaries of a vast and poisonous river.

It's okay to come to terms with all that, and the fact that you've gone through it.  And the fact that you are or will some day come out on the other side.  Being happy or accepting happiness is not a denial that something awful has happened to you -- quite the contrary, I'm finding out.  It's an acknowledgment of the experience, and a nod to your new-found perspective.  Life is short enough as it is; we should embrace all the love, self-worth, fulfillment, and happiness that we can.  You might stumble around aimlessly until you find it, like I did, or you might suddenly get back on your feet and know exactly where to look for it.  In truth, there's no right answer, and no guidebook for finding happiness after a tragedy.  Normalcy is a lie ordinarily -- it doesn't exist -- and even more so after you have your life threatened.  Normalcy is a quest, more than it is a concrete state of things.

The Wilderness Within

Sometimes you need the wilderness, other times you need to emerge from it.

I have been wandering around with such an awful resolve and sense of purpose for so long, that embracing new realities is something I'm very exited about, but it's also something scary.  Until recently, I have been braced against horrible things, and that's been my normal mode of operation.  Since 2011, there was a constant struggle in my heart and mind to return to the way things used to be; I struggled for a sense of normalcy, that slice of contentment we dream of obtaining and take for granted when we find it.  Recently, I picked up my trembling hands and I shook the sky, the covering that held in my self-limiting reality, and I took back my sense of ownership over my life.  From that sprung several things for which I can be thankful, and potentially much more.  Part of it was luck, and part of it was my decision to stop living like I had been, constantly subjugated and controlled by my developed fears and weaknesses, paralyzed by my dwindling hopes for the future and anything I'd once considered a possible outcome in my life.

I'm not sure what my message is this time.  Because I'm not sure what I'm taking from this just yet.  I think I'm starting to understand the miraculous people in the world who live through terrible things and yet still remain fully equipped to lead a fulfilling life, filled with joy and love.  Although I fundamentally needed the time I took to commit to pursuits related to my diagnosis and treatment, and solidify my plans for the foreseeable future, and I'm extremely proud of what I accomplished during that time, all of it served a particular purpose during a particular period.  The hardest part of that is letting it fuse naturally into the fibers of my heart, so that it mingles with my soul and so that I will always remember.  And then being able to let it go.  So that I retain control of myself and my direction, as opposed to following a prescribed direction based on my circumstances.  I am writing my own prescriptions now.  Certain people help, and certain events, too, but the signature at the bottom is my own.  I could fail, or be forcefully torn from my direction once again, but I refuse to let negativity define how I forge on.

I hope that everyone is as lucky as I am.  And that you all experience the revelation that you're the only qualified guide to the wilderness within you.

A Free Life

"I was supposed to die, and I just didn't.  And it kinda felt like I had a free life, an extra life."
        - Bukowski

I watched a documentary about Charles Bukowski recently.  I've always been interested in the man's words.  Although tortured and hard-earned, his views and expressions are primal, unrelenting, and pure.  He exhibits a fascinating reality, one that is unfamiliar to me in most regards, which probably accounts for my fascination.  However, I did not expect to hear him say those words, and it opened up an entirely new perspective on his life.

Because this is how I feel.  So I understand more fully where he came from now.  Obviously, this is one chunk of the man's personality, and while I identify with certain aspects of his character, I don't claim to understand the rest.  I, too, should have died, and I didn't.

There is no cure for what I have.

Typing those words is one of the hardest things I've ever done.  I literally had to take a minute to brace myself.  What else could possibly be worth worrying about?  Well, turns out, a lot of things.  Because we are not as isolated as we would like to think.  Those pesky people, all of the rest of them that live here with us -- they always get in the way of our plans.  No matter how hard we try, with our five-year plans and our ten-year plans, there are always things that derail us.  Organic, living, loving things.

For a long time I thought I was alone.  A very, very long time.  I had resigned myself to several things, none of which I'm ready to publicly admit.  But there is a strange power in hardening your resolve, and preparing yourself for a certain future that you have planned for, absurdly, without any thought as to how easily you might be swayed from it.  The reason this power is strange, is because it isn't real.  Because you don't have any power over your future.  It will happen 100% without you, if it has to.  Ride with it, or deny yourself the experience.  But there is no in-between.

My point was that worst of these concerns, the ones that cause us the most grief, are for the first life.  The free life is for remembering how absurd it is to obsess over these things, and to let yourself be caught up in the winds of fate, and taken wherever you will yourself to go, and some places that you don't.  Some people never have cause to own their free life.  Others go back and forth between the two.  For my own life, I hope there's a balance to be found between the two; between caring about the day-to-day, and remembering how superfluous most things are.  There is no question that I must remember the wisdom I etched into my heart the day I was diagnosed.  But as much as I'd like to have my effervescent transformation solidify and hold for the rest of my days, I'm only human, and the wisdom of the free life fades.

I'd like to delve deeper into the free life and what it means to me at another time.  For now, though, I believe 2 a.m. is threatening to swallow me whole and resurrect me into another day.

Attitude: the Ultimate Form of Alchemy

Attitude and perspective, in my experience, account for my mode of living, more than anything else.  Maybe it's obvious -- but if you have a positive outlook, and feel confident and comfortable in your own skin, your decisions come easier, and the borders around your path through life are crisper and more defined.  Mmm, I love me some crispy borders.

There are things I have to do to keep up my attitude.  Some of these things I've neglected for a very long time.  Without them, I flounder like a wild, floundering thing.  Some of these things are very specific -- I have to be writing, I have to be exercising in various ways (resistance, aerobics, martial arts, meditation), and I have to be listening to and performing music.  If I'm ever feeling unhappy, eventually (you'd think it would happen automatically at this point) I go down the checklist.  Am I writing?  Exercising?  Jamming out?  No?  Well, that's an easy fix.

Some of my essential items are more intangible.  I have to feel active, and I have to feel useful, for example.  If I don't have a busy schedule, it's harder for me to be content.  But if I have a busy schedule, and my business is superficial and not allowing me to feel useful, I feel even more dissatisfied.  These are the things I've figured out and saved on my mental hard drive, to pull up now and again when I need to perform some serious self-analysis.  Finding your things is important, because it allows you to have more control over your behavior, and overall destiny.  I prefer to regulate my own subconscious, or at least do as best I can, and not have it regulate me.

Today, I feel fantastic.  I've accomplished a thousand things (in my head, because in reality, it's more like 3 major things), and I have a thousand more on the agenda.  In fact, I'm using this blog post to distract myself from one of them.  Shit, I just said that out loud.  Oh well, back to finding my things, and nurturing my attitude.

And Stone by Stone, We Craft the Temples of our Hearts

My first unadulterated thought when I was diagnosed with cancer -- "My God, I've wasted so much time."  There are many facets or interpretations of this thought, but it's no mystery to say that this is my greatest sin: Time management.  In fact, the Grand Architect has seen fit to bestow upon me many talents.  Some of them practical, some of them a burden.  By the time I was in High School, I was involved in dozens of things.  And I was naturally better than everyone else at all of them.  I had a disastrous case of big-fish-in-a-little-pond syndrome in those days.  All of it was easy for me back then.  All of it except for basketball, which I hopelessly sucked at.  I wanted to play basketball in the worst kind of way when I was younger.  And I was awful.  I did it because I couldn't do it, and I persisted in joining the team every year because I thought it's what my father wanted.  Of course, that turned out to be false.  It didn't matter anyway because I quit the team sometime in middle school.  I quit because I was written off, for the first time in my life.  And it hurt.  Pain like that was foreign to me until then.  I was so naturally talented at anything else I picked up, and I had received so much praise in my life, that I couldn't deal with the fact that I might actually have to try hard to succeed at something.

I made a habit of quitting when things became overwhelming, or when I finally had to try.  I could easily have gone to school on a scholarship for multiple things (in fact, I did get a full ride for theater that I turned down, and I would have for music if I'd decided to audition).  Maybe it was out of fear that I didn't pursue any of them.  I didn't want my activities to get to the point where they'd be work, because then I'd have to be tested, and I'd have to work hard.  So I scrapped them all, and I just winged it.  Maybe I'd find something else, I thought.  Something at which I'd be even more talented, and something I'd never have to work at as long as I lived.  I would get by on my talents, and the world would recognize me for my intrinsic value.

I won't take the blame for all of it, though.  I was conditioned to avoid working hard for various reasons.  And I wanted everything I did to be fun.  I was a kid.  And kids should always have fun.  Regardless, I had never set limits for myself.  I allowed my wants and desires free reign over my life.  And I deliberately shied away from anything that would cause me any grief.  The real world was different, however.  And even though I grumbled about it, I never missed a day of work or even called in sick.  Ever.  I spent my last day of one manually labor job with an upper respiratory infection.  Even though I didn't like it, I acted very responsibly whenever I was employed in a "grown up" money job.  And that made my revelation even harder to stomach.

What had I been doing?  Working a "real" job these days is little less than indentured servitude.  There was a point, after I'd entered the workforce, where I let my "responsibilities" define my actions.  I worked 24/7 on a certain job, before my diagnosis.  In the morning, I woke up to multiple voicemails, and at night I'd fall asleep after solving the last crisis of the day.  I missed out, ruined relationships, lost touch with family, and halted progress on finding my real place in the world, all out of a misplaced sense of duty.  When I was diagnosed with cancer, I realized that it was never my duty to put my life on hold for the sake of an intangible ideal that had never been mine.  What I believe my duties are now is debatable, but right then I knew my sole responsibility was to do what I wanted without excuse.  And that's exactly what I set out to do.

My advice is clear -- find your greatest flaws, and fix them.  Discover what it is that you would admit to yourself if you were going to die.  You know what it is.  I did.  It whispered to me in the dark recesses of my subconscious long before I gave it a name.  Even when you find it, there is no easy fix.  Self-analysis is not a spectator sport.  My flaws took me unto the verge of death, and it was only through a terminal crisis that I willfully decided to deal with myself.  Maybe it's impossible to deal with ourselves otherwise.  Maybe it isn't.  My advice is to live as best you can.  That involves all of the intricacies of your soul that you call your own.  Find them, fix them, craft the temple of your heart, and carve out a place for the ones you'd like to bring along for the ride.

And So We Fight On

I struggle every day with the same thoughts, and the same burning questions.  I'd like to tell you about one of them.  Every day, I have the very distinct and overwhelmingly powerful thought that I'm not a good enough person to have been given extra time on this earth.  I was supposed to die, and I didn't.  And every day, I get upset with myself and obsess over the idea that I haven't done enough to deserve the time I have.

When I was diagnosed, at 25, I had already lived an incredibly full life.  I had several adventures, and had many amazing people in my life, many of whom I couldn't imagine living without.  My life was already its own reward, and each day, a wonderland.  I had already run after my dreams, traveling down various highways and dirt roads on the journey through my own soul, and through the tangled, unpredictable wilderness of my ambitions.  I accomplished a great deal by that point, in spite of my own propensity to commit the cardinal sin of wasting time.  But there were several things I could have done better.  Including a few I could have done much, much better.  I haven't always done the right thing, though I tried very hard.  Sometimes I did the wrong thing, and I did it on purpose.  I did it because it benefit me, or out of a hedonistic sense of momentary pleasure.  For a long time I adhered to misguided philosophies of morality, and justified behavior that had no justification.  I admit it's possible that I'm being too hard on myself, in hindsight.  I think that when you have a reason to pause and evaluate your decisions, more often than not you'll find yourself guilty of several things, whether it's fair, or logical, or not.  But these motives, whether deserved or not, help me to become the man I want to be.  And there isn't anything contrived or misguided about that.

Very generally, I feel that I don't deserve the good things that come my way now.  And that makes me work harder for them.  But harder in a very genuine way, because I'm no longer moving toward goals for the sake of achieving them, I'm only moving on things I actually want.  When you know what you want, and you aren't sure you deserve it, you become a better person, by default.  There are several reasons why I might have cause to be happy about moving forward these days, and all of them are quickly diminishing the thought that I no longer deserve to be happy.  It's possible that I have a clean slate.  And I have clear priorities.  Those two things make me formidable, and stronger than I've felt in a very long time.  It remains to be seen what I do with that strength -- whether I find the courage to follow through, or lose my willpower altogether down the road.  It seems very likely to me that I will meet my goals, one way or the other.  The fear that I'll sabotage myself is very minimal for now.  Of course, that goes in phases, like everything else.

My point?  Hopeful optimism.  Start feeling excited about being happy.  I am.  I feel a lot of pressure building up, whispering in my ear that it's time to be content, after a long winter of discontent.  If you allow such urges to course through you, even in times when you know you don't deserve it, you may just allow yourself to act on those urges, and end up suddenly, surprisingly, happy.  

Let's Commiserate

Some days I almost forget that I survived a terminal illness.  Almost.

Inevitably, at some point during the day, I'll remember what I went through.  It's often triggered by the scar on my upper thigh.  I have two scars, but the one on my lower leg doesn't bother me much.  I can't say why the other one does -- there are several reasons, I think, but none of them easy to explain.  Some days it feels sore and acts up while I'm walking around or sitting a certain way.  It's hard to forget about something that causes you physical discomfort.

Tell me your least favorite thing about what cancer or another condition has done to your body.  Also, tell me if the scars ever heal -- physical or mental.  I struggle with a few particular things related to survivorship, and I want to know what other people think about, and what sort of questions or doubts everyone else obsesses over.  It would be nice for me to have an honest conversation about the kinds of things I worry about.  At the very least, so that I can admit them to myself.  And at best, so that someone can assure me that these things are real, and that it's okay to think about them.  

Maybe we can help each other.  

I am Awake

As it once was uttered... so too do I now say, "I am awake."

Once there was a man who had everything.  It was taken from him in an instant, and in that instant he found himself awake for the first time.

Soon afterward, however, the dream faded and was replaced by a nightmare.  It swallowed him down into depths he'd never seen, and once more he faded into darkness.  After what seemed like aeons, sinking into the dredge, he began to wish earnestly for freedom.

And then, inexplicably, there was a light that shone in the dark.  He began to tug on it like a rope.  Testing it cautiously at first, he pulled himself along.  When he came to the end of the rope, he realized that someone was at the other end, and that really he'd been pulled to the surface by someone else.  When he crawled out of the deep, he looked beyond the beautiful face of his savior, and he saw another face, and another behind that one.  On and on as far as he could see.  He walked the Earth to follow the line of souls til the end.  There he came face to face with himself.

And it dawned on him in that moment, that once again, he was awake.  He had found the light, he had forged the will, and he had been blessed with those who had invested in his resurrection -- himself included.  All of what he had once learned when his soul had first been fractured, became etched into his heart, and served as a catalyst to his recovery.

And so I say again; this man was me.  And I am awake.

There are many crests and troughs in life, some more extreme than others.  And I can't and will never proclaim to understand how one pulls out of the toughest of circumstances.  Nor do I claim to have lived through "the toughest of circumstances."  But I have felt my share.  I know how it feels to be oppressed and paralyzed by your own fears.  I just hope in my heart that all of you are as lucky as I am in life.  That when I find myself up against insurmountable odds, there are those in my life who are there to drop some light on me.  And they are willing to wait patiently, while I sit, alone in the dark, until I decide it's time to hang on once again, while they pull me up.  Through factors both internal and external, we skate by as best we can until the universe, in its infinite wisdom, decides that its had enough of us.

Metastatic Memories

I've put this off for a long, long time. In fact, I've put it off for a year and a half. I mostly discouraged myself from even considering the attempt, from the very beginning. I saw other people doing it, and I thought that although in some cases they were very successful in their undertakings, it simply didn't appeal to me. Something about it makes me squirm. It inspires me to fight to uncover any excuse in the book in order to justify my inaction.

What am I talking about? What is this terrible and ugly thing that I'm resisting with every fiber of my being? Because there are many things in life that I choose to resist. Things I refuse to take responsibility for out of fear or an inability to face the emotional and psychological consequences. As with us all, I too abandon certain nagging thoughts to the dark recesses of my mind. As with us all, I accumulate pain and guilt through a series of encounters with forces either beyond my control or not. And as with us all, I have many pervasive and lingering fears. In this case, however, I'm talking about the decision to write publicly about my experience with cancer.

Perhaps publicly isn't the right descriptor. Because, in fact, I've actually written a book about it that's currently being shopped around for publication. And there's hardly anything more public than that. I suppose what I mean, specifically, is the actual act of blogging. Blogging is a more accessible form of media. It's a series of intimate details about the blogger's own life. A projectile vomiting of unfiltered ideas that can be interpreted and analyzed with little effort. Constant postings that explain the character defects and neuroses of the author. Blogging constitutes a window into the blogger's very soul. It's a very public enterprise. I've always wanted my accessible thoughts, my public thoughts, to reflect a particular attitude or brand. I never wanted to be the cancer kid. Yet that's what I am. I wanted to be the carefree, mildly eccentric, live-life-on-his-own-terms, rock star personality that I so admire. I want to make people laugh. The last thing I want to do is make them uncomfortable. In fact, I don't even want to make myself uncomfortable (who does?), even though I've been in a constant state of discomfort, albeit unconsciously at times, since my diagnosis.

My decision to finally offer up a public record of my cancer fiasco is in fact an act of great personal courage. But I'm not asking for your admiration. Others may not find writing about their cancer to be very difficult. But they might struggle with something I find easy. That's the nature of being human. We all have our wars to wage.

And so my reluctance to blog about this has been covered by layers and layers of justification, buried deep with no hope of discovering why the resistance is present in the first place. Any time the topic is broached, I find myself saying, "Blogging? Well, shit, I wrote a book, for God's sake -- isn't that enough?" And I don't know the answer to that. Maybe it is enough. Or maybe, as a cancer survivor, I have a unique obligation to increase awareness and fight for those who can't fight for themselves. Possibly, and I plan to post more on this later.

But why the resistance to blogging? I did write a book. I wrote it while undergoing immunotherapy for stage 3 metastatic melanoma. A good bit of it, probably a third, was completed during my first month in the hospital, where I received the lion's share of treatment intravenously every weekday for four weeks. Days when I cried myself to sleep most nights, and struggled desperately to keep my sanity intact. But those images and feelings, those metastatic memories, are distant. My diagnosis, my surgeries, my treatment, all passed in a blur. And likewise, most of the actual writing did as well.

It's the paralyzing fear of revisiting these memories that keeps me from blogging. Now that I'm thinking clearly, and enough time has passed, I've gained the capacity for perspective. When something traumatic happens to you, it's very common to shut down emotionally in order to avoid the most terrifying aspects of your ordeal. And that's what I did. I functioned entirely on autopilot for a year and a half. Ostensibly, that isn't even a bad thing. In fact, I did very well. When you've severed all emotional connections to your circumstances, you can be anything you want. I was very courageous, and I'm told I was the glue that kept my family together after my diagnosis. I spouted contrived wisdom and used romantic ideals to comfort those closest to me, hardly realizing what I was doing. Some of the things I said or did are offensive to me now, due to the absurd oversimplifications I entertained or encouraged. Cancer is not romantic, and the smell of death circling above your head can never be effectively aerosol-ed. The mere suggestion that it can is offensive. And I was at one time the worst offender.

And so, after "waking up" from a year and a half of autopilot, a year and a half of embedded trauma, and a year and a half of drug-induced cognitive suppression, it's almost unbearable to look back over the events of the last year and a half without overwhelming terror. I've woken up to find myself alive, in working order, and surrounded by love and support. It's my responsibility to carve out a path from there. That in itself is terrifying -- what is life supposed to be like after cancer? How fulfilled can it really be? Do you stop taking shit from anyone, or anywhere? Do you adopt a no-shit policy? Is it okay to finally be selfish? Is it alright to ignore certain responsibilities, because you finally have your priorities straight? These questions and more are certainly worthy of extensive examination.

Personally, I suppose blogging will be an outlet. It'll allow me to finally free myself of some pervasive negativity, and maybe even relieve enough of my recently adopted neurotic behavior to once again function in the world at large. It will certainly serve to garner awareness for cancer, and that's a primary goal in my life these days. Because, as much as my experience has pained me and set me back in my own life, the thought of anyone else undergoing the same level of suffering is very hard for me to think about. I find myself tearing up every time I begin to read the account of another cancer survivor. Awareness is important, because suffering is only alleviated when there is enough manpower present to alleviate it. It isn't magic -- it's math. And all the publicity in the world won't help unless enough of us decide to act. Action manifests itself in several ways, and that's part of the reason I've finally decided to blog about this.

My account is detailed in my book, "Cancer Kid." But that isn't enough. I have certain goals I've sworn to meet, without excuse, and I plan to meet them. Blogging was not originally one of those goals, but it's going to help in several ways. It will hopefully help the public at large be more informed about the goings-on of cancer survivors. It will help me create a platform for myself and publicize my work, which will in turn increase awareness and further the fight. It will allow me the resources to fund the foundation I'd like to build. And, perhaps most importantly of all, it will free me from the fear I've buried so deep in my subconscious, and allow me to remember the important things in life.