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Thursday 9 August 2012

Today I live



Thank you Blue Oyster Cult for making me think.

Listen to this whole song. I know they were on drugs but this song is beautiful.

LISTEN TO IT!!!!
ALL OF IT!!!!
I COMMAND OF YOU!!!!
I PROMISE CUPCAKES OR BEER!!!!*

*IF YOU WANT CUPCAKES OR BEER YOU HAVE TO COME HERE

->http://youtu.be/AUO_5EALZoM<-

So here I am thinking about life and death.
There is some frank talk about dying in here so if this would bother you, I suggest you come back when I am dancing around in a sarong eating a chicken wing, which may happen later....

Life isn't a given.
To live life you need health- not a given either.

Death is inevitable.
Death is what we are born to do.


LIFE IS....
short
exciting
wonderful
glorious
simple
challenging
beautiful

Life is of course many other things, including the ugliness, life is brutal, mean, unfair, disgusting, impossible, boring, sad, sick, strange, life.

Now I think at times I can be a pessimist, but not as much as I think I was before cancer. 
 I didn't have a real understanding of the delicate nature of life and didn't see as clearly the beautiful and wonderful and special and simply GLORRRRRRIOUSSSSS-ness of it all.

Life is great.
It's a lot like me, I call myself a roller coaster, because roller coasters are fun but terrifying, like me of course, and such is life.

Wouldn't it be boring to be on a roller coaster that doesn't turn you upside down, make you puke all over the other riders, never goes up high and never swoops you down low and fast?

I think so.
Who would we be without all the excitement and terror, not humans.
Some type of horrible alien.
Aliens sick me the fuck out, and they are out there, and they are slimy, translucent, without any human characteristics (unlike how TV and film portrays them) they are the enemy and we must be aware... ok whole other entry there....

ANYWAYS! Enough about slimy disgusting aliens. 

DEATH IS...
sad
peaceful
wrong
natural
scary
unstoppable
final

Death frightens most. I feared death stronger than ever last year obviously.
Several dreams and self revelations led me to come to not fear it.
Or it could be the prescriptions....
BUT regardless, at some point, I just stopped and thought:

ERIN:
If your cancer is destined to come back, that will be the time to worry about it.
Worrying is just a waste of time, and doesn't help you prepare for the reality of the situation or diagnosis. Life is happening today. You are as close to normal in a health aspect as a cancer survivor could be.
Wouldn't you be so sad on your deathbed if you spent your last years WORRYING and thus giving the disease power over you and your LIFE? How could you live? You would only die.
IF this is your last few years, why would you want to be a cancer status, a victim, angry and fearful of the disease that you did everything at your disposal to treat, and you have the best team of doctors to monitor you, as well as having your own awareness, so that you can always take a proactive approach to any changes in your body or on your skin.
WHY would you WASTE your LIFE with PETTY things, or people that drain your life force,  leaving you weak and vulnerable to malignancies?
You have today.
Tomorrow is a different thing, but that's part of the ride, now isn't it?

Once this sunk in I felt very peaceful. 
I could enjoy my life again.
I was free of the identity of cancer victim and be Erin, fighting cancer.

Now of course that the chemo is gone the cancer is further away, and now I am just Erin, who has fought cancer. Most of the time I am JUST Erin.

Fear is normal and I think I will always have fear, at least some.
The biggest change is that it has opened my eyes in
 how I want to be in life, and how I want to be in death.






I LIVE IN A BEAUTIFUL WORLD
Words my Uncle Bertie painted before he died. 
I never understood it more than I do today.
Of course, his version is much nicer, I wrote mine backwards on a piece of scrap manilla envelope, and that shitty retarded looking writing is actually mine, and that last word is world, and it is the least perfect of course, but after all, there is beauty in imperfection.



"Seasons don't fear the reaper
Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain..we can be like they are"

-E.


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