An experience that changed me would be my older brother being diagnosed with cancer. Now look, i know that this can seem very morbid and depressing, this post could just be oozing melancholy and pity; but i swear it is not anything like that. It’s funny, it’s a time in my brothers life that yeah obviously if we all had the ability to we would find a million ways for this to have not happened, but it did, and that is why you need to find the humour you have to find the silver lining because when you think your older *migh* die you have to learn to cope and maybe, inappropriate humour is not the best way, but it got me through it and my brother gives me permission to joke about it so i kind win on that part i guess. Cancer sucks, i am not the first human to say and i definitely will not be the last but that is the most concise way of expressing how i feel about this disease, it sucks; and i know i’m a literature student so i should have much better words to explain my feelings of dismay, but i don’t. And honestly, i do not feel like dressing cancer up in some fancy outfit and putting a bow on it, because that takes away the realness of it. It takes away all the things that suck about it. If i were to make it sound rich, and like it was a project proposal i would be taking away the fragility of this disease and the way that it not only shapes the individual diagnosed but those surrounding them. When you think your sibling might die, something happens to you, something in your core stops surviving for your own purpose and becomes only concerned about your sibling. The world stops being tiny little things that bother you, it becomes a cluster of things that are useless and pointless, you learn that materials are just materials and i know i sound shallow; that i only realized this when my brother got sick but hey, i was sixteen when he was diagnosed, i did not know any better. So i learned, i managed, the sole purpose for me during this time was make sure my brother is okay and stay out of the way, become self sufficient and be your parent. Look, my parents had a sick kid to take care of. I did not want to add to the stress, so you learn to become invisible. So yeah, the growing too early did change me, made me value my time here which is so cliche but it is true. I plan ahead but i know that things can change in a split second, i also am now so desensitized to hospitals that i decided to work in one because at one point that institution was a home. The bond of siblings is a tough road i can tell you that, but he is my best friend that was specifically put on this planet as being my literal second half. I used to be mad at him for almost dying, but i kinda got over that, now i’m just happy i still have a best friend.
Step two:
Hospitals used to scare the bejeebers out of me, the smell, the noises, the feeling of the grim reaper just lurking around, possibly paying you a visit during your stay. But the place that used to scare me became my other home, another place where i would get ready for school and where i would eat supper with my family. My brother getting cancer sucked, it still sucks when i think about it now even after several years of him being in remission. It sucks for all the obvious reasons, but for me it sucked becasue all I wanted on this earth was to take his sickness and give it to me. And i was angry, because we both had to grow up way too early, i wasn’t a doctor and i started understanding their lingo way too much. And i was upset, because i thought he would die, so i would watch him sleep in those stupid tiny hospital beds with wires all around him, my parents sprawled in the room, me sitting in those run down love seats – unable to sleep because every time i would close my eyes it felt like the world was swallowing me up and eating me whole with anxiety and paranoia, and that stupid thought of the grimreaper passing in his room kept me up the most at night. You have no idea how relieved i am that he never paid us a visit.
Step three:
My eldest brother falling ill to cancer was the underlying experience to my childhood and repressed trauma that will be surrounded with melancholy and trust issues, the fear of your sibling decaying and becoming victim to an illness is the fear of most people on this planet. The most upfront thing about cancer is that it is universally known to suck, everyone agrees that it is terrible and that they would do anything for a cure. So everyone throws these fancy balls and galas to raise money because if we dress up and put on nice make up the superficiality of that scenario will lead to a cure. The fancier the dress the fatter the check basically. The reality of it all is the idea that people make it fancy, they dress up the disease.
Tangerine dreams 