"The Spoon Theory"... and a long overdue post

My heart is constantly heavy these days as my prayers are as close to "constant" as they ever have been for my friend Jen and her son and their entire family, whom I have come to consider family over the past 11 years.  Jen's sister is one of my closest friends- an old teammate and roommate and all-around amazing friend from Wheaton College (whom you have read about on this blog, unbeknownst to you!).  The past couple of years have led to a growing friendship between Jen and I as we have each struggled with our respective diseases.  Chronic illness has a way of bringing people together no matter what the illnesses might be.  There is a sense of "getting it" that can only come through one's own journey with a lifelong illness, and finding others who "get it" in this way is comforting and encouraging.

But when it comes to Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer, and all the ways that it attacks your body, I mostly don't get it.  Jen is on hospice care now, and the cancer is relentlessly besieging her body.  Her mom has to regularly drain her lungs of mass amounts of fluid so that there is more room for oxygen.  Tumors all over her body provide constant pain.  Every task or activity requires additional sleep.  None of this is comprehensible to me.

This is a rather discombobulated post, because originally I just wanted to refer everyone to read something Jen recently posted a link to on her blog- The Spoon Theory.  It is one woman's attempt to describe living with chronic illness, and is incredibly helpful.  But as I have been typing, there seems to be more that needs to be written...

Jen has encouraged and pushed me to write probably more than anyone in my entire life.  And a couple of weeks ago it hit me that I wouldn't be able to have her proofread and edit and help me write my book someday, and I lost it.  But there is one thing thing she continually reminds me to write on here about, and I just haven't known what to write, but today I'm writing it anyway.

At the beginning of June I had the privilege of going to Washington D.C. to be a part of The Out of the Darkness overnight walk, and the only reason I was able to do this is because Jen made it possible.  Thanks primarily to her generosity and the generosity of people who love her, my airfare was paid for, my hotel was paid for, my donations exceeded the minimum necessary, and I got to go.  I wrote this post just before leaving, but haven't written anything about it afterwards.  But Jen continually has commented about wanting to read my blog about the experience, and as a thank you to Jen and everyone else who made it possible for me to go, here is my attempt.

More than anything, the walk was an opportunity to be with people who "get" suicide and mental illness in the way I described above.  Most participants have lost people they love to suicide, although the participation has grown amongst us who have ourselves survived suicide.  Regardless of what "side" of suicide experience one is on, this "shared experience" minimizes the shame of it amongst ourselves.  Conversation often started with a question along the lines of, "Who are you walking for?" or, "Who have you lost?" even before names were ever shared.  To be able to be so open and have others be so open was refreshing, even though the conversations were obviously intense and hard.

There are 2 things that impacted me most from doing the walk.  When I was asked who I was walking for, I would say for myself and so that my friends and family never have to walk in memory of me.  I received a similar response a few times, which caught me completely off-guard every time.  It was something to the effect of, "Thank you for being here, you are the bravest one here."  I felt like they had every reason to hate me- I represent what stole their loved ones from their lives, and how come I'm still alive but their loved ones aren't??  But that message was never conveyed, and in fact the very opposite was communicated.  Those moments were some of the most I have ever felt understood [outside of a psych ward] in my entire life.

The other thing that was huge was that at some point I realized that as long as I am doing this walk, it means that no one has to do it with my picture on the back of their shirt.  Which means that I will do everything I can to be at the walk every year as a statement that suicide has not been victorious in my life- I'm still here.  I recorded this video hours after finishing the 16+ mile journey...

And here are some photos....

Sorry this isn't the most coherent post, but Jen, thank you for giving me this experience.  And thank you for knowing from your own experience how valuable this trip would be for me.  And thank you for reminding me over and over and over again why I need to choose life.  I love you.