Be Halsey or Be Lena Dunham...

“YOU want me to be positive”

This week’s Every Weekday Writing promise and posts brought to you by “Cynical Unhinged Woman who is Trying To Be Positive as a social emotional experiment of sorts”….

And, thankfully, this week also brought a really interesting question from a kind human that inspired a lot of the week’s work! (You’ll have to come back tomorrow to see what they asked!)

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Here is something you don't want me to say:

“YOU want me to be positive”.

If I played the Internet game better (or hell, even just was a more admirable sick person), I would live my life in a way that makes the gift of your gracious time (which I do NOT take for granted) more pleasent and more inspiring.

I would inspire you by TikTok style half-dancing a lot when I'm in the hospital (which admitedly I do if I'm really nervous, but it's only like 1 out of every 4 surgeries that it happens naturally and I don’t feel like nurses are watching and I’m not worrying about having to pee before I’m put to sleep instead).

I would ask for your participation in my illness: Giving you a call to action so that you're part of casting spells for me before I go into another OR. (Just kidding. Although if you can, please do?)

I would give much-more-thorough health updates that let you know when something is wrong so you know when to be worried and are part of worrying (I honestly think that part is really nice, T to the B to the H? I avidly read updates from friends of mine, and if someone allows me the honor of knowing what's going on, I feel so priviliged to be able to stress about them). But if you ARE the person who’s doing the sharing, and you're from a background that says doing so is a burden... attention seeking… weak.... You quickly learn to be vague, tongue in cheek, or even to not tell the truth at all until after the fact.

I’m often told to NOT tell the truth or grapple with it myself, because it can worry students or stress out other people. So, frequently, I feel the deep discomfort of feeling like I'm lying for a week or so, while knowing that that's exactly what's been asked? Or, if done correctly, can make others feel more comfortable and some less mad at me... Thus, i lying bad in that case, or is it helping someone else who’s requesting as much?

If I was doing this "right", I would probably say something like "leave the word mucus in the comments below and I'll tell you what sort of strep I'm growing" (Do I need to say 'just kidding'?)....

You get it.

You get what I'm saying. I suck at sharing about health in a way that follows all the unspoken rules we speak about. Either:

1) Share, give all the details so you don't worry other people, invite loving friends into the fight and use the word "fight" without shame (it IS a fight, but I've been told that's stupid to use enough times that I don't, even though it is), and lean on lovely people so you don't psychologically snap, or…

2) Be so vague that no one ever fully knows what's going on because we ALSO tell women that's "brave" and "dignified" to do, continue to view yourself as a burden but don't lean into any catharsis that could benefit you to the contrary, stay mysterious because that's sexy and mature, but.... no matter what you do... BE INSPIRING.

Be Halsey or be Lena Dunham... (And by the way, no matter which you pick, you're also wrong.)

If you were me (or we, since there are many of us here who likely feel this way): Which option would you be?

And, if imagining, can you see the constant pitfalls and emotional traps of both?

I want to be someone who makes you believe you can ‘Lance Armstrong onward’ through the pain and the Tour De athletecism (I'd make a steroid joke but I'm already on them)... But even when we get existing "right", and we write about how wrong we feel in the right way...

We sometimes feel the worst, because feelings do one thing with certainty in this life and only one:

They change.

Some days I'm one option and some days I'm another. Some days I AM positive (and dammit, maybe even gosh durn inspiring?), but sometimes I can't imagine how I can keep going (especially in the last year or so).

Could you?

So here is what I can say: I am positively inspired about trying to work on being more positive so that I can keep going even if that’s not naturally inspiring.

And, knowing the world has some people in it who care about other people as they fight something they don't want to and have for far too long...

Gives me a fighting chance.

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