I am not a meme

Paul Klee - Dance, You Monster, to My Soft Song

 In news that will be no surprise to anyone, there are a ton of cancer related memes on the net.  Some are really touching, but some are a bit odd.  Some are supposed to raise awareness (that bra color one, the where you put your purse one), some are the online version of chain letters (those photo ones where you're supposed to "like/repost if you hate cancer, ignore if you don't care"--and no, I don't for a second think that's true of people who don't "like" or "repost" and I hate that people try to pressure other people into posting stuff by telling them some version of that.  But, hey, now you have real and true permission from an actual, real-life cancer patient to refuse to repost or like if you don't feel like it, so there is that), and some are good old fashioned guilt trips bundled together with messages of support (the "you only think you want something nice, but you'd be totally grateful for that life you're wasting if you were a poor, saint-like cancer patient").

For the record, I don't fault anyone who posts these things--some of my favorite people have--and I'm all for awareness and support, and I'm especially all for hating cancer, because (if you weren't already "aware") cancer is sort of bad.

Unfortunately, this is a topic I think about a lot, and have for a while, but now that I've "outed" myself with this blog, I'm a little reluctant to tackle it.  I don't want to hurt people's feelings, especially not people who are being supportive, so if you're someone who's feeling like I'm criticising your meme use, please remember that I'm not upset with anyone in particular or feeling bad about posting memes, and please don't be afraid to say something nice after reading this post because now you think it might upset me or something, that's not what I mean here so please get that out of your head. This is just something I find interesting and out of synch enough to want to comment on.  It's me, not you.  That's all.

So, here goes.

I'm a little put off by the notion that seems to roar through our culture, oftentimes while clinging to memes for dear life, that having cancer makes you different in a predictable and positive way.  Trust me, it doesn't.  Cancer makes me worry sometimes, it makes me sad, it makes me grateful, it makes my hip hurt, it makes me interested in news about treatments and new drugs.  But it does not make me different.  It just gives me different things to coordinate.

Cancer comes to all kinds of people in all kinds of situations in all kinds of variations with all kinds of degrees of seriousness and all kinds of recommended treatment.  But, unless it's a brain tumor, and even then only sometimes, cancer doesn't change the person you are.

Cancer may be an opportunity to show how you react, it may be an opening to readjust some priorities, or mull over different things (...ahem...), but I don't believe it really changes who someone is at the core.  And I definitely don't believe there's any sanctifying influence in becoming a cancer patient.

To try and illustrate what I'm talking about here: I read one blog by a breast cancer patient who freely posts her full name and personal information on her blog and from the very start shared that blog with friends, local newspapers, her hospital's website, etc.  On the other hand, she writes that she doesn't know or want to know what stage she was, much less her prognosis, and she needs Ativan to get an MRI and puts off scheduling a CT scan because she's afraid of what it might show.  None of this is inherently bad, that's not at all what I'm saying, but you'll notice it is very different from my own feelings and experiences.  My point is, we both have breast cancer, but it didn't make each of us over into some kind of rare and mythical breast cancer patient personality, it just made us ourselves with cancer.

And, without running down characteristics of every other cancer blogger and poster and person I know and how we think differently on a host of things, I hope you can still see the point I'm trying to get at.

I wonder, sometimes, if we (yes, "we," this includes me, too) like to think of some kind of magical sainting process coming with all kinds of hardship to try and insulate ourselves from some of the nastier parts of life.  We create these tropes to explain to ourselves that getting through junk isn't how we think it would be for us because there's this crazy gift of differentness that comes down and makes it bearable.  But I feel like that denies the love and support, hope, faith, and human perseverence that really helps all of us get through tough things.

Remember that meme that said something like "you may want a vacation but a cancer patient just wants to live"?  Untrue.  I want to live and have a vacation.  I'm human like that.  And so is every other cancer patient.  People don't just suddenly become immune to human wants and desires just because there's a bigger priority.  I'm sure most cancer patients would choose health over a vacation, a raise, or new shoes, but it's not like those are either/or options.  And it certainly isn't a choice between your vacation, raise, and new shoes and my health!  That's just not how it works (wish it did, though, because I would love to get rid of cancer as easily as you denying yourself those cute boots you've been eyeing.  But since it doesn't work that way, I hope you enjoy your new boots!).

People sometimes say things to cancer patients that begin with, "I could never...."  But, know what? You totally could if you had to.  Really.  If I can do it, if other patients with other cancers in other situations can do it, it can be done by anyone who's motivated to do it.  It's like anything else in life, you just do what needs to be done.  That's it.

Because I'm a geek, I'm going to close this one off with my favorite Tolkein quote:

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo."So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

I think that pretty well sums it up.  All we can do is decide what we choose to do when bad things come.  We can't decide what comes, and neither it nor we have the power to change who we are when it comes, but we, as the people we are, can and do decide how to face it.  All of us, as the people we are.