Beyouthclothing - Coachella Valley Firebirds Shirt
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I think a lot of people—and I haven’t necessarily been above this—have the Coachella Valley Firebirds Shirt Also,I will get this misconception that once you’re given a clean bill of health, there is a rubber-band snap back to yourself, and “you’re good!” It’s not just that we expect people to snap back, but we do them the disservice of projecting a hero’s journey arc on to their recovery. The survivor’s journey and hero’s journey are often conflated. When people are cured, we expect them to return better and braver and wiser for what they’ve been through. We call them inspirations and that comes from such a well-intentioned place, but, for me, there was a sense of cognitive dissonance. Everyone was congratulating me on being done, and I felt a sense of expectation, given that I had survived, especially when so many of my cancer friends hadn’t, that I should not just be living, but I should be somehow living a more beautiful, more meaningful life. That was a lot of pressure on someone who was physically wrecked and who was emotionally struggling with the grief of losing not just my friends and a relationship, but losing notions of who I might be. For example, just in terms of motherhood, my cancer left me with all kinds of short and long-term side effects, one of them being infertility, and I was sad and I was angry and I didn’t feel inspiring or brave.
You recently wrote on Instagram that, going through cancer for the Coachella Valley Firebirds Shirt Also,I will get this second time, “I don’t yearn for accomplishments, professional or personal. What I want is time. I want to…remember all the shapeless days, away from my phone and work, when I was truly present with my friends and family and the company of self.” The first time, I think you were working furiously? Am I remembering this right, that you were in the hospital and you were on deadline for The New York Times? What changed? The biggest contrast for me is the beauty of being in your thirties. At 22, I was caught up in this glorification of hustle culture and this anxiety of accomplishment, probably because I didn’t have a career yet. I just had these half-formed daydreams about what I would eventually do. I was busy working as a paralegal and trying to pay the bills, living off of coffee and 99-cent bagels. When I got my diagnosis, even scarier than the disease itself, or even the notion that I might not survive, was this idea that if I didn’t, I’d be remembered as someone’s sad story of unmet potential. It was really important to me to write my own story and to work. I felt a great sense of self-worth and accomplishment and also a great sense of service—to the point that I was trying to meet deadlines in the bone marrow transplant unit. There’s a photo of me from that first transplant where I have a vomit bucket under one arm and my laptop under the other, and I’m crying, not because, oh my God, I’m so physically miserable, but because I’m upset with how my draft is turning out and I’m scared I won’t meet my deadline, which is totally ridiculous, but I think also felt good to me to have a focus other than just merely being a sick person. This time around, I’m 33. I have been trying to let go of that anxiety of accomplishment. I’ve chosen a softer path for myself, maybe because I have had the luxury of being able to accomplish some of those thing my 22-year-old [self] desperately wanted. I’ve been yearning for the quieter moments.
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