Lost In My Mind
The Head And The Heart • The Head And The Heart
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Or…Becoming More Brettish, Part Two
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Becoming More Brettish
I want to share a recent email exchange with a friend.
This is his note to me after receiving the news that ICE chemotherapy did not work, but that I was approved for Adcetris (the brand name for SGN-35). It is followed by my response.
Bret,
This is good news. I’ll take it. The more I hear you talk and the more I read about what it means to fight cancer, the more I realize how true it must be that it is a life-changing experience…one in which you don’t go back, you only go forward. It is interesting that mixed in with the fear and distress I feel on hearing of your physical pain and struggle, I also see and hear about the transformative experience that this is. While in a sense it separates you from us (those who love and care about you but who cannot empathize with your journey), it also draws us in - to a limited extent - to a greater understanding of those who do battle. I guess what I’m saying is that I know what you are going through is making you into a better person…or a better way to say it might be that it is making you more fully you…more Brettish. And I am privileged to be your friend as you go through this process, and I hope I can rise to the occasion and learn something about life and struggle and journey from you. So as you become a fuller version of yourself through this process, I will promise to move forward with you and to do my best to learn to appreciate what you will bring to the table in our friendship in years to come…to embrace the new and refined you rather than hoping for a carefree and idealized past where we can pretend struggles are something the folks across town have to deal with.
To mix CB radio lingo with 90s rap lingo…peace out good buddy,
-Frank
Frank,
I’ve received a lot of emails, notes, cards, and well wishes over the past year, and for that I am thankful. But I’ve been particularly anxious to say thank you for this note. Empathetic. Friendly. Thoughtful. Insightful. Just as I’ve always known you to be. It’s a top-fiver for sure. People ask what they can do to help when they live out of town, and this is a pretty tasty example. Thank you.
Interestingly, I recently spoke on the phone to our friend Paul for the first time in a hot minute. We were discussing life with Hodgkin’s and recent goings on in his life. The questions were/are…When life takes a big shit on you, is it a learning experience? Does it change you? Or do you fight the change because it is seemingly being forced on you— butt up against it with all you’ve got? You might guess what he chooses. Or at least says he chooses. That’s Paul on the surface—in the phone call performance we love. I respond by admitting that I want to be changed by this. I want to listen and learn. To be measured, not spilling. I say I am somewhat predisposed away from conflict—at least of this nature. On my surface, I want this to make me a different person. It feels necessary.
Beneath my surface, away from emails and blogs and my preternatural need to say and feel the right thing, at home, in my head, in my guts, I recognize so much stubbornness, so much dogged determination not to change, that it makes me sick. Fills me with dread for my future.
On the surface, I say to Paul, “well…Paul, that’s so nice of you to make vivid for me how lovely it is that I know how to change and roll with the punches, but if you were backed in a corner you would do the same. By force, you change.” A statement designed to deflect praise and simultaneously bask in it. But after we hung up, the conversation made vivid for me something else. Even when I have a very clear picture of something bad in my not to distant future, change can feel damned near impossible.
Sick, right? We know change is necessary, but we don’t know what change is necessary. Or if we do, we refuse to change it anyway. When we were college-enrolled, intellectual hacks (besides you), we distrusted adults for exactly what we are starting to admit we are capable of as well. And it’s actually not, I’m realizing, not changing. Change is easy. People we look down on change jobs, towns, spouses and so forth all the time. Rather, it’s not growing. Not…evolving. We were growing then. We were evolving faster than we could grow beards (again, besides you). We believed when we were adults we would live better than our parents. We would look in our backyards, and find the fruits of a life well invested—if we even wanted backyards—not a giant, growing pile of regret, self-doubt and ghosts.
I don’t want to butt up against this disease, but I can’t seem to help it. I want, as you say, to move forward. Become fuller. More refined.
Man, do I want to be more Brettish.
Isn’t it interesting that even though they don’t know why people get Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, I still manage to feel guilty for having it?
Truth is, I can go backwards.
But it’s springtime. And I read your words. I feel your promise. I share food and stories with family and friends. Hold hands with my wife. Feel the cool, refreshing breeze of the night. Take a deep and less painful breath. And I believe that I am changing. Um…growing. Guilt-lifting. Ghost-busting. Hodgkin’s-defying. This is life-changing after all, and it is possible for me to know what change is necessary. I am more Brettish.
Thanks for thinking of me.
Sincerely,
Bret
