Life After Lemonade: Stage Three - To Be, or Not To Be (That Is The Question)

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause—there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.

- Hamlet, William Shakespeare

I post the whole of Hamlet's soliloquy here because there isn't a part I think I could take out without reducing the impact of it. He covers it all: to live, to die; suffering and why we suffer; how easy it is to end it all and why we don't. In a single speech, Shakespeare covers the dilemma of human existence: why do we bother going on, when life can be so hard?

The Third Stage of Survivorship is a serious stage; I'm not going to sugarcoat it. Sometimes, you stumble into it in the midst of your trauma. Most people get to it after, when the pain is over and their body has knit itself together and life is, for all intents and purposes, as it was. The only thing is, you're not as you were, are you? You're not Lance Armstrong, made stronger by cancer, winning Tour de Frances left and right. You're just a twenty-something cyclist, fresh out of chemo, dropped from your team with everyone wondering if you'll ever race again. Even YOU might be wondering if you'll ever race again, though you'd never admit it, for fear of letting everyone down. Your life is probably WORSE than it was before - harder, harsher, and more disappointing, because of what you've been through. Your family and friends are saying things like, "You look great!" in the hopes that you're back to your old self again, but inside, you're wondering if life will ever be worth living again.

That's the question you have to ask yourself in this stage. You don't want to, because you're afraid the answer might be NO. NO, I don't want to be here, because my lover is dead, because my breast is gone, because this FEMA trailer isn't as nice as my house was. NO, you want to say, LIFE IS NOT WORTH LIVING ANYMORE.

It's okay to think this. Believe me, I've thought this. People who go through tragedy think this all the time. Hamlet thought this, and it made him ask himself, "Why go on? Why be here?" But if you want to survive, you must think this, and you must ask yourself the question: do you want to be, or not to be? Because that IS the question.

Here's the rub: if you don't want to be here, you won't be for long. Maybe you'll take up smoking, or drinking, or drugs, and kill yourself slowly. Maybe you'll engage in risky behavior, and drive your car into a ravine or get mugged at gunpoint. Maybe you'll stop exercising and start eating junk and your cancer will come back in ten places and chemo won't work anymore. And you know what? There is no do-over. If you ask yourself the question, and decide you don't want to be here anymore, then change your mind later, it might be too late. So think carefully before you answer. Do you really not want to be here?

Now, I'm not saying that everyone who has a recurrence, or is in the wrong place at the wrong time WANTS to die. That's NOT what this is about at all. What this is about is allowing yourself to realize that whether you like it or not, you are having this conversation with yourself every time life isn't what it used to be. And you DO have a choice; you always have a choice, even if you have a terminal disease, because WE get to choose how we live, even if we don't get to choose how we die. Survivorship is about how you want to live the life you have left. Are you going to live like someone who wants to be here, or someone who doesn't?

The good news is, if you're still here, you're still here. You can tell yourself that maybe someone Up There thinks you still deserve to be here, or that you still have work to do here, or that there are still things in your life left to experience. Tell yourself any story you want - it's your choice. Because if you really think about it, if you look around at your loved ones and the beauty of this world, and all the things you'll miss out on if you leave it, I think you might want to stick around. Who wouldn't? Only someone who really didn't value their life would end it, and if you fought to survive something, there must be a part of you that wanted to live. If you want to live, and you're just afraid to, try to tap into that part of you, that fought so hard to survive. Life is scary, but that doesn't mean it's not worth living. It's not scary all the time, right? Just some of the time? So, if you want to live, if, when you ask yourself if you want to be or not to be, the answer is I want to be here, and the only thing holding you back is a fear that life will always be this hard, remind yourself that nothing lasts forever (just ask Terry Anderson) - except death.

The key is, once you make the decision that you WANT to BE HERE, you need to stop fucking around and LIVE LIKE YOU WANT TO BE HERE. Consider yourself FORTUNATE that you had the strength, courage, luck, whateverto make it through what you made it through in one piece and come out on the other side. Seriously. Think about how many people DON'T GET to make it - the people who picked the wrong seat when they booked their ticket and didn't make it to the emergency exit in time. Think about the literally hundreds of people who, each year, fall through the cracks of an imperfect medical system and are diagnosed too late to save their own lives. You're here and they're not. You're not in survival mode anymore. You survived. So count your (and pardon my French, but this is serious business) fucking blessings.

Once you have thought about it, and made the decision that you want to live, you have to get busy living. Stop acting like you're going somewhere, like death is coming for you or life isn't worth living. Life IS worth living, so make a decision to start acting like it. Then, you'll be ready for Stage Four - The Yellow Wood.

But first, a Sidebar: The Ricky Bobby Factor.