reflections on writing
Social media seems to be here to stay. Today we have Facebook, Twitter, Instagram – mediums that are perfectly designed to connect us and deliver quick, distilled bites of information and updates about everything from dog pics to well-intentioned-but-disgusting photos of food. Before that, MySpace served that purpose, as did Friendster (though I don’t know anyone who actually ever used it) to keep us all connected.
But if we rewind to the early 2000s, there were two websites that were king, at least to me: LiveJournal and Xanga. I had one of each (both are long-since dead and deleted). The LiveJournal blog was for all of my sad and emotional thoughts, and Xanga was full of my day-to-day goings-on – emphasis on “day-to-day,” as it was my years-long goal to write on Xanga EVERY SINGLE DAY. I met a lot of new friends on Xanga and stayed connected for years, even today. Back then, if you saw me on a random Tuesday, odds are that I would write about you that afternoon.
My standard Xanga profile pic. I was so proud of this back in 2004 (and it took me waaaayyyyy too long to hunt this image down today).
Of course, all things are finite, including niche weblogs. Even the Internet Archive has failed to save my writings. They’re lost to the ether, but what has remained are the skills I learned in doing so much writing. I now write for a living. I write papers for school on a pretty frequent basis. I have maxed out the “Notes” app in my iPhone to the point where I have to do a cleanup every couple months. I often mention that there are unpublished blog posts for this page, and it’s true. I have a good dozen which for one reason or another I won’t publish. And that’s sort of the point. While sometimes my writings are meant to share information with friends and family, ultimately they’re for me.
Some people decompress by boxing, others release their frustrations on a fishing boat or while taking a run. I write. I am not the most skilled at telling people off the cuff how I feel, but am much more effective if I can sit and think for a while before typing out my thoughts.
I’ve also learned to EDIT. Back then, my posts would be loooooooooong. You know how you click on a news article and it might say, “19 minute read”? And then you think to yourself, 19 minutes? No thanks. Who has that kind of time? I’ve got three kids. Sorry New York Times, it isn’t that important. Let’s just say that if those warnings existed in the heyday of my Xanga, it would have been the death knell. But still, friends interacted with me and it was always such a rush to comment back and know literally everything about everyone I cared about. Anyway, back to editing. That’s the other side of my job, the side I have enjoyed getting better at, the side I’m practicing on a daily basis. Editing can turn a ramble into something profound, it can distill a confusing article into something digestible.
Today I started thinking more about my upcoming PET scan. You know how I said I wasn’t nervous yesterday? I’m a little more nervous today. I let my nervousness marinate until it became nearly unbearable, at which point I turned to Reddit. There’s a great subreddit called r/testicularcancer and I’ve gotten a lot of questions answered there, as well as met some wonderful people. I decided to do a search for “PET scan” and I found a post that sounded remarkably close to what I was experiencing.
I couldn’t believe it. I’d had some interactions with guys on this page that rang close to home, but this was another level. I was instantly full of questions. Did this guy already finish his PET scan? I wondered how it went, and if I should DM him. But then I got to the description of the lymph node issue, and I felt intense embarrassment.
This post sounded familiar because it was written by ME.
One look at the username told the tale. But all wasn’t lost…I had not yet seen the responses. Guys were telling me that they were going through the same thing. Some were remarking that our situations were similar. As the embarrassment began to fade, I started to laugh.
This is just another part of the story, a blip in my life, a blog post that feels ever important right now but will one day be removed from the internet and I will be blissfully unaware of that fact. My mom has told me multiple times that the results of this cancer and everything around it could be used to help someone. They helped me today, and I hope someone else can benefit from it too.
I’m writing this rambling post (yesterday I established that if I’m writing daily, I could ramble…it’s well within my rights) so that I don’t forget. In 6 months, whether I’m in recovery from chemo regrowing my hair or continuing to do surveillance, I will remember where I was. I’m editing my words, but not my thoughts. I want to be honest and real about this journey. We all navigate a hard season of some sort – cancer or family death or losing a job or suffering a breakup – and we have to do whatever we can to heal and keep moving. For me it’s writing. So whatever yours may be, let’s keep doing it.