The Courage Circle

Sometimes courage doesn’t feel like a choice.

I always used to find it interesting, the way that people championed my bravery as a child going through cancer. I never felt brave. 

They said I was handling it so well, that I was a trooper. 

And I integrated those words into my thinking. They fed me in some way. As praise does for any child. Any person. 

They taught me how to be. How to handle, how to behave. 

But I always found some ignorance in them, those words. Even from a young age. 

Because what is a good way to handle cancer? 

And what were my other options? To die? 

Cancer finds you and it tests you and it takes you down to the barest most wretched form of who you are. 

It strips away every tiny piece of normalcy you could possibly cling on to. All of the concrete things we define ourselves by, gone. 

You’re a runner? A climber? A surfer? A dancer? Not anymore. Not for the time being. The things that bring you joy, that feel easy, that offer some sense of relief to everyday life are suddenly difficult. 

It hurts some days to get out of bed. It hurts most days to walk. There is a constant, settling, pain that was not there before. And you never would have noticed it wasn’t there until it was. 

There are days where it won’t go away. Where you are just in pain and there is nothing you can do about it. 

It takes your physical strength. 

It takes your mental strength. Your ability to focus. I was a reader, that has always been my relief. I was too tired to read. 

And on top of the inability to do the basic things that bring you joy. Most of us are expected to be keeping up with the world. 

They said to me, ‘You might have to stay back a year in school’ 

And if I had the words at the time to articulate myself I would’ve said, ‘Are you fucking serious?’

I am experiencing pain every single day. I cannot walk longer than a block without exhausting myself. It hurts my head to look at the television. I have this disease that has taken me into its claws and held me here, without my permission. 

And somehow the world is continuing on? Somehow it is telling me that if I don't get it together, I will fall behind?

And you slowly watch it happen. And it's no one's fault. There's nothing they can do or you can do differently. But you see people go out without you, go to work, go to school, go on field trips. You watch the world continue to turn. 

So not only is your physical and mental strength taken, but sometimes your joy is too. 

No longer are you where you once were. In class or at work, in the woods, by the ocean. Now you do not get to choose where you are. You are in hospitals or in bed, taking pills, pierced by needles. Normal becomes a very very weird thing. 

And it makes you angry. All of these inconsistencies, all of the unfairness. And you very quickly realize that sometimes life is like that and there is no one towards which you can place your anger, because it is not anybody's fault, there is no one to blame. And that makes you even angrier. 

And beneath that anger is sadness and fear. 

I remember when I shaved my hair. I remember how miserable I was right before shaving it. I felt awful and it hurt. My hair was falling out and becoming super matted and it hurt so badly, until I couldn’t take it anymore. And I decided to trade one pain for another, and lose my hair. 

Then I was bald. And weak. And tired. And I had no more defenses. Even my hair was gone. I couldn't even pretend to look like I was okay. I was clearly not. 

I felt like a mole rat. I felt like I had been placed in the body of some weak, helpless, suffering person that was not me. 

And I was watching all of my vices, all of my autonomy, all of my ability to do and be and express myself, get stripped away. 

It is an impossible emotion to explain. I feel as though I should have more words for it but I cannot think of any. I cannot think of anything tangible, universal, to compare it to. 

Just imagine being naked and weak all of the time. Completely exposed and entirely helpless. That is how it feels. And it is not only cancer. Facing any type of medical treatment or injury feeds you with that feeling. 

You are down to the very depths, the deepest pit of who you are. Who you are without physical items or actions to define you. Who you are without goals, without strength, without hair. And there are times when it feels uncomfortable to be that person. 

All of your awful comes to the surface. But surprisingly, so does your good. 

In the deepest depths of who you are, you often find that things are much simpler than what you had previously believed. 

Joy is actually a very simple emotion. 

And it’s not that difficult to find. 

All of the moments you had previously not even known were there are now the ones that provide you with a smile. 

Having a day where you feel good. Where you don't feel sick. It is the greatest, most immense joy in the world. 

Getting the weekend off from going to the hospital. 

These joys are so big and so important and so vast and so characteristic of what it means to be human and experience life, but it is often only when that life gets unbelievably bad that you are able to recognize them. 

And people will tell you, you are so brave, you are so strong, even though you don't feel like it. Because instead of feeling brave, it is simply that your outlook on life has changed and so are the things that you expect from it. So are the things that you expect from yourself. 

You ARE strong, you ARE brave, it just doesn’t feel like you expected it to. 

It is much more simple. 

And somewhere in the deepest depths of yourself, you are redefined. You are no longer characteristic of only the physical things that you associate with, but you are defined by a more vibrant, potent sense of self. The you that is still there after everything else is stripped away. 

To me courage is the ability to still be that person. Courage is the combination of everything you have experienced and the you that still stands. 

The dream, the hope, the goal, I aim towards as Courage Tees grows and morphs and expands and redefines, is that we are able to be a reminder of you that stays throughout cancer. The you that has experienced unimaginable pain, and suffering, and fear, and anger, and joy and gratitude, and resistance, and love, and courage. 

The you that is found in the deepest depths of yourself.