TCNJcystic
New member
I don't do a lot of posting at this forum or any other CF forum. Most of my time here is just spent reading the posts I think I can learn a thing or two from. I wanted to post something and maybe get an "amen" or two from the crowd if I'm lucky.
I'm not going to say anyone is wrong or any particular person has been getting me down lately because if I've learned anything, it's that everyone has their own ***** to deal with, and mine ain't any worse than anyone else's.
The meat and potatoes of what I want to say is that I hate hearing all this talk about death all the time on this forum. Cue the expected "then don't come to the big kids forum" response. My problem with this is that I am a big kid, and I've been living with cf for 20 years, and I've lost friends and a cousin to this disease. It sucks, I won't disagree with anyone on that, but I'm a full-fledged big kid who doesn't think it's even remotely necessary to dwell on the death side of things.
What the hell are we doing, though, by embracing death like belongs to the cf community alone? I've heard people write here to make it seem as if life is one decrescendo toward the inevitable death that all cfers have to endure. Death is something that everyone goes through, and it is the direction everyone's life is headed in. What I've found separates some of the death talk on this forum from the way death is viewed in non cfers, is that cfers here tend to think about it an awful lot, whereas other people don't.
I've gone through my phase of thinking about death everyday. It could be tomorrow. Who knows? I was jealous of non cfers who seemed to live like they were immortal, planning their lives to include their 50th wedding anniversary. Most of these people don't worry about the proverbial "tomorrow," and I'm asking, "Why should cfers?"
We, cfers and non cfers, simply don't get enough time on this planet to really, really understand how amazing it is to simply be alive. We take the smell of the air on a given day for granted. We don't see how amazing it is when a child laughs, or when friends sign up for the Great Strides walk behind your back. We don't often enough sit back and say, "holy *****. this life thing is absolutely unbelievable."
When it comes down to it, the life of anyone, cfer or non, shouldn't be spent worrying about death or even about trying to make that April 15th deadline, it should be spent as happily as it possibly can be, in celebration of life rather than fear of death.
The argument that cfers get the "license" to have a morbid sense of humor is alright by me, I guess. It's not an attitude I'd like to adopt, and I think it's a waste of time to adopt it when there is so much more positive in this lifetime to think about than the tragedy of this disease.
Again, I know I've probably gotten to some people, and I really really really completely genuinely don't mean to offend anyone. I know you have your own ***** to deal with, and your attitudes are a result of your lives, which I can never understand. I completely respect and understand that, and any argument to my character is just going to be responded to with a copy of this paragraph. It's as sincere as anyone has ever been.
I'll close with a line from RENT, which I think describes this whole idea pretty accurately:
"To people living with, living with, living with...not dying from disease."
I'm not going to say anyone is wrong or any particular person has been getting me down lately because if I've learned anything, it's that everyone has their own ***** to deal with, and mine ain't any worse than anyone else's.
The meat and potatoes of what I want to say is that I hate hearing all this talk about death all the time on this forum. Cue the expected "then don't come to the big kids forum" response. My problem with this is that I am a big kid, and I've been living with cf for 20 years, and I've lost friends and a cousin to this disease. It sucks, I won't disagree with anyone on that, but I'm a full-fledged big kid who doesn't think it's even remotely necessary to dwell on the death side of things.
What the hell are we doing, though, by embracing death like belongs to the cf community alone? I've heard people write here to make it seem as if life is one decrescendo toward the inevitable death that all cfers have to endure. Death is something that everyone goes through, and it is the direction everyone's life is headed in. What I've found separates some of the death talk on this forum from the way death is viewed in non cfers, is that cfers here tend to think about it an awful lot, whereas other people don't.
I've gone through my phase of thinking about death everyday. It could be tomorrow. Who knows? I was jealous of non cfers who seemed to live like they were immortal, planning their lives to include their 50th wedding anniversary. Most of these people don't worry about the proverbial "tomorrow," and I'm asking, "Why should cfers?"
We, cfers and non cfers, simply don't get enough time on this planet to really, really understand how amazing it is to simply be alive. We take the smell of the air on a given day for granted. We don't see how amazing it is when a child laughs, or when friends sign up for the Great Strides walk behind your back. We don't often enough sit back and say, "holy *****. this life thing is absolutely unbelievable."
When it comes down to it, the life of anyone, cfer or non, shouldn't be spent worrying about death or even about trying to make that April 15th deadline, it should be spent as happily as it possibly can be, in celebration of life rather than fear of death.
The argument that cfers get the "license" to have a morbid sense of humor is alright by me, I guess. It's not an attitude I'd like to adopt, and I think it's a waste of time to adopt it when there is so much more positive in this lifetime to think about than the tragedy of this disease.
Again, I know I've probably gotten to some people, and I really really really completely genuinely don't mean to offend anyone. I know you have your own ***** to deal with, and your attitudes are a result of your lives, which I can never understand. I completely respect and understand that, and any argument to my character is just going to be responded to with a copy of this paragraph. It's as sincere as anyone has ever been.
I'll close with a line from RENT, which I think describes this whole idea pretty accurately:
"To people living with, living with, living with...not dying from disease."
