Sometimes when I share a topic, it’s about a thought or a moment that is happening in my life. Granted, many of them are based on what’s happening in my life as a person with cancer. But other times, I am spurred on creatively by a more altruistic motivation. I wonder to myself if maybe this is happening to someone else as well - so let me put it out there in hopes that it helps.
I can recall so many situations in my life where I wondered if I must be crazy, or that I was the only person in the world that thought this thought or felt this feeling. And then I would venture to let it out in public (albeit a limited and controlled “public”), only to learn that others wondered or worried or wrestled with the same perspective.
How many of us who now have grown children can recall a particularly challenging child-rearing moment and thinking - this can’t be this hard or this bad or this exhausting for everybody, right!?!? And then at a gathering of contemporaries, we came to learn that so many of us were living through the same moments. It didn’t stop the teething or sleepless nights or bouts of adolescent obstinance, but it did feel curiously comforting. There really is a sort of solace in suffering when it’s done along with others. Kind of like safety in numbers against the lessons of life.
So, I can only hope that my sharing, which comes from a core or caring, makes a bit of difference. If you are struggling, know that others are similarly suffering or stymied. Whether you are in the cancer club or just another normal human being - living the life that we have been left with.
