Cliches become a shorthand for people when you become sick. While some are helpful (though I'm at a loss right now for which ones actually don't make me want to scream) there are those, such as "Every cloud has a silver lining" that should remain unsaid. Some other favorites that people ought to not say *although they have:

1. This too shall pass
2. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger
3. Time heals all wounds
4. Everything happens for a reason
5. Turn that frown upside down and let a smile be your umbrella
6. Only the good die young
7. Life's a bitch and then you die
8. Anything you need, just ask
9. What goes around, comes around

I'm sure there are more but those are the ones that come to mind. I also hated it when people were like, "You have to be positive." ALL THE TIME. I know that it's important to keep a good attitude, but there are going to be times when the world is just overwhelming. You're going to cry. So many people were telling me to be strong, not get upset, and so on and then I would actually feel guilty for crying and started to count how many times I cried. I was proud for not getting upset. As if this is a contest of who can handle it better. Some people would be like, "don't be self-pitying" if I lamented about my appeareance or what not. Okay, if there's ever going to be a time when a little, I didn't say a lot, of self-pity is going to be okay, now is about that time. A lot of people don't realize that they're doing it, they think that they are being a good influence. But they wind up invalidating your feelings or making you feel worse. Then you start to not want to talk about things in front of them. I felt that I was depressing people or angering them and I couldn't be truly honest about how I felt because I was worried about their feelings. It just became a mess. I'm not even sure that it's all resolved because I'm not sure that there's any real set list of rules for this. But I guess we try on a daily basis to just make sure that we don't take all our anger on those who care about us and they try to be mindful of our situation. And there's a tentative truce set up that will eventually become the working vocabulary for all those involved. At least that's the best to hope for. No one is ever going to say the perfect thing, unless they whip out index cards or rehearse it beforehand (and yes that has happened) so I learned to be a little more forgiving, although I really wish more people would be like, "what the hell?" or "damn, this sucks." It's a little more honest and a lot less trite.

Again a break from the cancer thing. I hate when it rains in the city. Not because I hate the rain. Because I hate the people with the umbrellas. How they have the ones that jab you in the eye. Or How fewer people can walk on a sidewalk with the extra bulk. Or how there's that one guy, with a friggin' golf umbrella taking up half the street and wielding it around ensuring to knock you several times. It's annoying. I'm starting to become a fan of ponchos. Not that I'd wear one, but I see their appeal (although it is weird to see a whole family of tourists in a matching one in a place not Disney World).

I feel like I've always been at war with my body. That fight hasn't changed much. Although now the stakes are higher. I feel somewhat betrayed having got cancer. Trying to think if it was the countless diets I went on or the Burger King I love to indulge in now and again. Was it really the diet soda or frozen yogurt? I've always been on that weight roller coaster. The sick thing is that when I first found out that I had one of five things (but only two of them with names) and I realized that the treatment for sarchoidisis (sic) was Prednasone, I freaked. Like, no way am I going on a steroid for a month. I was like, at least let me get the thing that makes you skinny. Hey, I said it was a sick thought. And when I was first diagnosed I lost so much weight and was happy. Okay? That's how warped my mind is about this weight thing. People complemented me on how good I looked--one person actually said to me "You look like you did at your Sweet 16". And I was like "Thanks!" when I really needed to process and be like, uh, I'm a grown ass woman and I don't need to look like I'm 16. Plus, I'm so pale I'm almost translucent now and back then I had the nerve to be tan. The weight didn't stay down. I put it back on with the steroids. But I didn't gain more than five pounds over what I was, so that was fine.
And then when I went into the hospital with pneumonia and I was put on massive steroids for three weeks. I gained about twenty to twenty five pounds. I was devastated. Clothes I had bought in December, a mere month before, no longer fit. My face was bloated. I had to go buy new jeans. I was going back to work in elastic banded black pants; none of my suits fit. It was so hard for me. First my hair and then my weight. People couldn't understand. they were like--but you're better! you're living! I wish I could explain it, I really do. I wish i was better than that, not worrying about the petty pieces of life. But I'm not. They are still the things that bother me. I hated not fitting into my favorite clothes. I hated that I was bald and chunky and not looking like myself. I hated it more than being sick.
Radiation came and then I couldn't eat for a solid week. It hurt to swallow--first in my throat and then I would get a weird pain in my back. And for the last two weeks of radiation and then for about a week or two afterwards, I really didn't eat very much. I find, even now, that I have a reduced appetite. I've taken off about half of what I put on. And yeah, it's great to fit into my clothes again but I feel like I've won the battle but lost the war. Because, it should be that I'm healthy--walking four miles a couple of times a week--and that should be what i'm focused on. And i'm trying. I'm trying to not care about my fat jeans being in permanent rotation. Because the truth of the matter is that whoI am goes way beyond what I see in the mirror. Who I am, in my heart, is how i beat this disease. And I just can't let that self-doubt and self loathing win. because then the disease wins too. And I just can't let that happen.