No Way to Make this Right

I still have this infantile desire for things to be right, for a simple justice that makes sense.

We go on living everyday like it’s our right, and how dare things change in any way that discomforts us… that shakes things up?

Why does one person get cancer and another person a promotion? Why does one person have so many children they are nearly neglected and another desperate couple tries and tries? Life’s not fair, but does it have to rip your heart so?

There are so many stories that we must tell ourselves…”It must have been something I’ve done, or something I did not do. I didn’t pray enough, or to the right god. It’s my lot in life to suffer. It just wasn’t in the cards. God has a plan and who are we to question it? That’s just fate. You picked your path a long time before you were born. If only I thought the ‘right thoughts’ this wouldn’t have happened.” It goes on from here…

Blame your parents. Blame your social positioning. Blame your boss. Blame God. Look in the mirror and there you are staring back vacantly and it doesn’t really matter who you blame. It doesn’t change the outcome and it doesn’t make being in your discomfort or sadness or depression any easier. There is no way to wiggle out of this one.

I wish I had something uplifting to tell you. I once heard an author say that the worse thing a writer could do was to leave her readers feeling down… that it was selfish and basically cruel. I don’t wish cruelty on you dear reader. My heart is in a really tender place. I guess I need to bemoan this human condition… this shared suffering, which in the end, might be the thing we share most commonly with each other. It is the secret code under the script of our lives, that shows we are all from the same shitty club.

I love living don’t get me wrong. Thing is, I have a friend who, it is told, is dying. Stage IV and the days are being counted and lived as madly and fully as possible. It brings me to a place of complete silence inside where I start to watch my life from the end of a long tunnel and I wonder if I have been too optimistic, too ballsy in my assertion that I will just go on and on.

-Champagne Joy is the director and producer of #Cancerland, a reality TV show about women living with cancer. Her tenacity and zest in the face of a shitty prognosis is awe inspiring. I want her to go on and on and continue to kick ass and show cancer who’s boss. She has a mountain of medical bills and you can help her here.