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For those who can't sleep, can't rest, whose stomach is in knots, adrenaline surging.... [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-01-22

This is not meant to be preachy.

A thread on BlueSky helped me yesterday. I want to share in case it is useful to someone else, as well as memorialize it for myself.

The deadly sickness into which our country has fallen, and seemed to be in remission four years ago, has returned; once again we face an ongoing national emergency. For who knows how long? How severe it will be? And with what result?

So. As this (to me) amazing person Mishell Baker posted her thoughts publicly, I'm going to assume it's okay to put the thread on repeat here. I hope no offense.

If it's useful to you, great; if some parts or all of it are not, then please leave them aside, no offense intended. :-)

But I would be interested in any personal perspectives.

x Being a person with deadly, incurable cancer who is nonetheless still alive for an indefinite timeframe gives me an interesting metaphor that helps me deal with things like large-scale corruption in government or commerce. Bear with me for a second while I try to explain. — Mishell Baker (@mishellbaker.bsky.social) January 20, 2025 at 9:26 PM

x So, there are times when I need to pay attention to the cancer, like, when I have to go to doctor's appointments, take a medication on time, or make choices regarding self-care to increase my quality of life. But when I am not doing those things, thinking about the cancer is actively harmful. — Mishell Baker (@mishellbaker.bsky.social) January 20, 2025 at 9:28 PM

x There are moments when I feel okay, and my daughter wants to play a video game with me. Or I have the chance to see a cool movie, or the urge to write a story. I cannot do these things if I am paralyzed with horror and dismay thinking in detail about what's happening in my body. — Mishell Baker (@mishellbaker.bsky.social) January 20, 2025 at 9:30 PM

x Whether there is the chance for a one-day miracle if I live long enough is irrelevant. The point is: I am alive, *today*, and at some point, I will not be. So if in a given moment I can make my or someone else's life better, that is what I should be doing, rather than obsessing over my illness. — Mishell Baker (@mishellbaker.bsky.social) January 20, 2025 at 9:32 PM

x People might see me laughing my ass off at Futurama with my daughter or niggling over lore details of a video game and think, "How can she just IGNORE that she is dying of cancer? She's in denial! Sad!" Opposite of sad. Not in denial. In full acceptance of the ENTIRETY of my situation. — Mishell Baker (@mishellbaker.bsky.social) January 20, 2025 at 9:33 PM

x In my mind, to ignore all the good fortune of my situation just because of one (however huge and monumental) shadow over it is its own kind of denial. Ingratitude. I am loved. I am financially secure. I am inventive and live in an amazing city. How many people have all that? — Mishell Baker (@mishellbaker.bsky.social) January 20, 2025 at 9:35 PM

x It genuinely does not matter, the SIZE of the horror that looms over one, even if it threatens one's very life. When it is time to deal with that horror - to ameliorate, evade, conquer, whatever is available to you - you will know. By all means, focus on the task. — Mishell Baker (@mishellbaker.bsky.social) January 20, 2025 at 9:36 PM

x But every minute you focus on that horror when you are *not* actively doing something to evade or improve or ameliorate the situation (receiving chemo, taking Zofran, listening to the doctor, etc.), you are WASTING WHAT'S LEFT OF YOUR WILD PRECIOUS LIFE. — Mishell Baker (@mishellbaker.bsky.social) January 20, 2025 at 9:38 PM

x The same goes for all of you. Most of you have more time than I do (and it has taken a lot of work for me not to rage at that, and to feel genuine happiness and hope for you), but none of you have forever. — Mishell Baker (@mishellbaker.bsky.social) January 20, 2025 at 9:39 PM

x You have opportunity after opportunity to create something lovely for yourself or others. Every moment you choose to sit and think about horrors beyond your control, every time you make the choice to look for more and more details about just HOW bad... you are turning away from those opportunities. — Mishell Baker (@mishellbaker.bsky.social) January 20, 2025 at 9:40 PM

x There is no calamity so huge that there is not beauty and humor and joy to be had in the moments between actively working on solving or evading it. Learning to take those moments, embrace the hell out of them, is what will make it all worth it, at whatever point you reach the end. — Mishell Baker (@mishellbaker.bsky.social) January 20, 2025 at 9:42 PM

x Sorry for getting really heavy and personal and "poor dying me" for a moment, but I thought there was a chance that a dramatic metaphor might help at least a few of you. I wish happiness for you. No matter what happens to and around you. And I believe you can find it. — Mishell Baker (@mishellbaker.bsky.social) January 20, 2025 at 9:43 PM



Incidentally, the comments extending under the thread drew this response from another, and famously, amazing woman:



Take care, one and all.

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