It was the spring of 2011, and as they like to say in commencement speeches, I was getting ready to enter the real world. I had recently graduated from college and moved to Paris to start my first job. My dream was to become a war correspondent, but the real world that I found took me into a really different kind of conflict zone.
Bilo je proleće 2011. godine i, kako to vole da kažu govornici na diplomskim ceremonijama, spremala sam se da zakoračim u stvarni svet. Nedavno sam diplomirala na fakultetu i preselila se u Pariz da bih započela svoj prvi posao. Moj san je bio da postanem ratni dopisnik, ali stvarni svet na koji sam naišla odveo me je u zaista drugačiju zonu konflikta.
At 22 years old, I was diagnosed with leukemia. The doctors told me and my parents, point-blank, that I had about a 35 percent chance of long-term survival. I couldn't wrap my head around what that prognosis meant. But I understood that the reality and the life I'd imagined for myself had shattered. Overnight, I lost my job, my apartment, my independence, and I became patient number 5624.
U 22. godini, dijagnostikovana mi je leukemija. Doktori su direktno rekli meni i mojim roditeljima da imam oko 35% šanse preživljavanja na duže staze. Nisam mogla da pojmim šta je ta prognoza značila. Ali sam shvatila da su se stvarnost i život kakav sam zamislila za sebe srušili. Preko noći sam izgubila posao, stan, nezavisnost, i postala sam pacijent broj 5624.
Over the next four years of chemo, a clinical trial and a bone marrow transplant, the hospital became my home, my bed, the place I lived 24/7. Since it was unlikely that I'd ever get better, I had to accept my new reality. And I adapted. I became fluent in medicalese, made friends with a group of other young cancer patients, built a vast collection of neon wigs and learned to use my rolling IV pole as a skateboard. I even achieved my dream of becoming a war correspondent, although not in the way I'd expected. It started with a blog, reporting from the front lines of my hospital bed, and it morphed into a column I wrote for the New York Times, called "Life, Interrupted."
Tokom naredne četiri godine hemoterapije, kliničkog ispitivanja i transplantacije koštane srži, bolnica je postala moj dom, a moj krevet je postao mesto u kome sam živela 24 sata dnevno. Pošto je bilo malo verovatno da ću ikada ozdraviti, morala sam da prihvatim svoju novu realnost. I prilagodila sam se. Počela sam da tečno govorim jezik medicine, sprijateljila se sa grupom drugih mladih pacijenata obolelih od raka, skupila ogromnu kolekciju neonskih perika i naučila da koristim stalak za infuziju kao skejtbord. Čak sam i ostvarila svoj san da postanem ratni dopisnik, mada ne onako kako sam očekivala. Počelo je blogom u kome sam izveštavala iz prvih redova svog bolničkog kreveta, što se pretvorilo u kolumnu koju sam pisala za Njujork tajms pod nazivom „Prekinuti život“.
But -- (Applause)
Ali - (Aplauz)
Thank you.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
But above all else, my focus was on surviving. And -- spoiler alert --
Ali pre svega, bila sam usredsređena na preživljavanje. I - upozorenje za one koji nisu upućeni -
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
I did survive, yeah.
preživela sam, da.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
Thanks to an army of supportive humans, I'm not just still here, I am cured of my cancer.
Zahvaljujući armiji ljudi od podrške, ne samo da sam još ovde, već sam i izlečena od raka.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
Thank you.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
So, when you go through a traumatic experience like this, people treat you differently. They start telling you how much of an inspiration you are. They say you're a warrior. They call you a hero, someone who's lived the mythical hero's journey, who's endured impossible trials and, against the odds, lived to tell the tale, returning better and braver for what you're been through. And this definitely lines up with my experience.
Kada prođete kroz ovakvo traumatično iskustvo, ljudi se prema vama ophode drugačije. Počnu da vam govore koliko ih inspirišete. Kažu da ste ratnik. Nazivaju vas herojem, nekim ko je proživeo put mitskog heroja, ko je izdržao nemoguća iskušenja i, uprkos lošim izgledima, doživeo da ispriča priču, vrativši se bolji i hrabriji zbog onoga kroz šta ste prošli. To se definitivno poklapa sa mojim iskustvom.
Cancer totally transformed my life. I left the hospital knowing exactly who I was and what I wanted to do in the world. And now, every day as the sun rises, I drink a big glass of celery juice, and I follow this up with 90 minutes of yoga. Then, I write down 50 things I'm grateful for onto a scroll of paper that I fold into an origami crane and send sailing out my window.
Rak je potpuno promenio moj život. Napustila sam bolnicu tačno znajući ko sam i šta želim da uradim u svetu. A sada, svaki dan kada sunce izađe, popijem veliku čašu soka od celera i nakon toga odradim 90 minuta joge. Onda zapišem 50 stvari na kojima sam zahvalna na svitku papira koji savijem u origami ždrala i otpremim ga na put kroz prozor.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
Are you seriously believing any of this?
Da li zaista verujete u to?
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
I don't do any of these things.
Ne radim ništa od toga.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
I hate yoga, and I have no idea how to fold an origami crane. The truth is that for me, the hardest part of my cancer experience began once the cancer was gone. That heroic journey of the survivor we see in movies and watch play out on Instagram -- it's a myth. It isn't just untrue, it's dangerous, because it erases the very real challenges of recovery.
Mrzim jogu i nemam pojma kako da napravim ždrala od papira. Istina je da je za mene najteži deo mog iskustva sa rakom nastupio kada je rak nestao. To herojsko putovanje preživelog koje vidimo u filmovima i gledamo kako se odigrava na Instagramu - to je mit. Ne samo da to nije istinito, već je i opasno, jer briše stvarne izazove oporavka.
Now, don't get me wrong -- I am incredibly grateful to be alive, and I am painfully aware that this struggle is a privilege that many don't get to experience. But it's important that I tell you what this projection of heroism and expectation of constant gratitude does to people who are trying to recover. Because being cured is not where the work of healing ends. It's where it begins.
Nemojte me pogrešno shvatiti - neverovatno sam zahvalna što sam živa i bolno sam svesna toga da je ova borba privilegija koju mnogi nemaju priliku da dožive. Ali važno je da vam kažem šta ta projekcija junaštva i očekivanje stalne zahvalnosti čini ljudima koji pokušavaju da se oporave. Jer se isceljivanje ne završava izlečenjem. Ono tu počinje.
I'll never forget the day I was discharged from the hospital, finally done with treatment. Those four years of chemo had taken a toll on my relationship with my longtime boyfriend, and he'd recently moved out. And when I walked into my apartment, it was quiet. Eerily so. The person I wanted to call in this moment, the person who I knew would understand everything, was my friend Melissa. She was a fellow cancer patient, but she had died three weeks earlier. As I stood there in the doorway of my apartment, I wanted to cry. But I was too tired to cry. The adrenaline was gone. I had felt as if the inner scaffolding that had held me together since my diagnosis had suddenly crumbled. I had spent the past 1,500 days working tirelessly to achieve one goal: to survive. And now that I'd done so, I realized I had absolutely no idea how to live.
Nikada neću zaboraviti dan kada sam otpuštena iz bolnice, kada sam konačno završila lečenje. Te četiri godine hemoterapije uzele su danak mojoj vezi sa dugogodišnjim momkom, i on se malo pre toga odselio. Kada sam ušla u svoj stan, bilo je tiho. Jezivo tiho. Osoba koju sam želela da pozovem u tom trenutku, osoba za koju sam znala da će sve razumeti, bila je moja drugarica Melisa. Bila je takođe pacijentkinja obolela od raka, ali umrla je tri nedelje pre toga. Dok sam stajala na vratima stana, htela sam da plačem. Ali bila sam previše umorna da bih plakala. Nestalo je adrenalina. Osećala sam se kao da se srušio potporni zid koji mi je davao stabilnost otkad sam dobila dijagnozu. Provela sam proteklih 1 500 dana neumorno radeći na jednom cilju: preživljavanju. I sada kada sam to ostvarila, shvatila sam da uopšte nemam pojma kako da živim.
On paper, of course, I was better: I didn't have leukemia, my blood counts were back to normal, and the disability checks soon stopped coming. To the outside world, I clearly didn't belong in the kingdom of the sick anymore. But in reality, I never felt further from being well. All that chemo had taken a permanent physical toll on my body. I wondered, "What kind of job can I hold when I need to nap for four hours in the middle of the day? When my misfiring immune system still sends me to the ER on a regular basis?" And then there were the invisible, psychological imprints my illness had left behind: the fears of relapse, the unprocessed grief, the demons of PTSD that descended upon me for days, sometimes weeks.
Na papiru mi je, naravno, bilo bolje. Nisam imala leukemiju, moja krvna slika se vratila u normalu i invalidski čekovi su ubrzo prestali da stižu. Za spoljni svet, očigledno više nisam pripadala kraljevstvu obolelih. Ali u stvari nikada nisam bila udaljenija od zdravog stanja. Sva ta hemoterapija ostavila je trajne fizičke posledice na moje telo. Pitala sam se: „Kakav posao mogu da zadržim kada mi treba dremka od četiri sata usred dana? Kada zbog poremećenog imunog sistema i dalje stalno idem u hitnu pomoć?“ A tu su bili i nevidljivi, psihološki tragovi koje je ostavila moja bolest: strah od recidiva, tuga koju nisam obradila, demoni PTSP-a koji su mi dolazili danima, a ponekad i nedeljama.
See, we talk about reentry in the context of war and incarceration. But we don't talk about it as much in the context of other kinds of traumatic experiences, like an illness. Because no one had warned me of the challenges of reentry, I thought something must be wrong with me. I felt ashamed, and with great guilt, I kept reminding myself of how lucky I was to be alive at all, when so many people like my friend Melissa were not. But on most days, I woke up feeling so sad and lost, I could barely breathe. Sometimes, I even fantasized about getting sick again. And let me tell you, there are so many better things to fantasize about when you're in your twenties and recently single.
Vidite, govorimo o povratku u stari život u kontekstu rata i zatvoreništva. Ali ne pričamo toliko o tome u kontekstu drugih traumatičnih iskustava kao što je bolest. Pošto me niko nije upozorio na probleme povratka, mislila sam da nešto mora da nije u redu sa mnom. Bilo me je sramota, i uz veliku krivicu sam podsećala sebe koliko imam sreće što sam uopšte živa kada toliko ljudi, kao moja drugarica Melisa, nisu. Ali većinu dana sam se budila osećajući se tako tužno i izgubljeno da sam jedva mogla da dišem. Ponekad bih čak i maštala o tome da se ponovo razbolim. I da vam kažem, ima toliko mnogo boljih stvari za maštanje kada ste u dvadesetim i odnedavno slobodni.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
But I missed the hospital's ecosystem. Like me, everyone in there was broken. But out here, among the living, I felt like an impostor, overwhelmed and unable to function. I also missed the sense of clarity I'd felt at my sickest. Staring your mortality straight in the eye has a way of simplifying things, of rerouting your focus to what really matters. And when I was sick, I vowed that if I survived, it had to be for something. It had to be to live a good life, an adventurous life, a meaningful one. But the question, once I was cured, became: How? I was 27 years old with no job, no partner, no structure. And this time, I didn't have treatment protocols or discharge instructions to help guide my way forward.
Ali nedostajao mi je bolnički ekosistem. Kao i ja, svi su tamo bili falični. Ali ovde, među živima, osećala sam se kao uljez, preplavljena i nesposobna da funkcionišem. Takođe mi je nedostajao osećaj jasnoće koji sam imala kada sam bila najbolesnija. Gledanje svojoj smrtnosti pravo u oči na neki način pojednostavljuje stvari, preusmerava vam fokus na ono što je zaista bitno. A kao bolesna sam se zavetovala da će, ako preživim, to biti vredno nečega. Moraće to biti zarad dobrog života, avanturističkog života, smislenog života. Ali je proizašlo pitanje, kada sam se izlečila: kako? Imala sam 27 godina i bila bez posla, bez partnera, bez strukture. I ovoga puta nisam imala protokole lečenja niti uputstva po otpustu kojima bih se rukovodila nadalje.
But what I did have was an in-box full of internet messages from strangers. Over the years, people from all over the world had read my column, and they'd responded with letters, comments and emails. It was a mix, as is often the case, for writers. I got a lot of unsolicited advice about how to cure my cancer with things like essential oils. I got some questions about my bra size. But mostly --
Ali zato sam imala inboks pun poruka na internetu od nepoznatih ljudi. Tokom godina, ljudi širom sveta su čitali moju kolumnu i odgovarali su na nju pismima, komentarima i imejlovima. Bilo je tu svačega, kao što to obično biva kada se radi o piscima. Dobila sam puno saveta koje nisam tražila o tome kako da izlečim rak pomoću stvari kao što su eterična ulja. Dobila sam neka pitanja o veličini brushaltera koju nosim. Ali uglavnom -
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
mostly, I heard from people who, in their own different way, understood what it was that I was going through.
uglavnom su mi se javljali ljudi koji su, na sebi svojstvene načine, razumeli kroz šta sam prolazila.
I heard from a teenage girl in Florida who, like me, was coming out of chemo and wrote me a message composed largely of emojis. I heard from a retired art history professor in Ohio named Howard, who'd spent most of his life struggling with a mysterious, debilitating health condition that he'd had from the time he was a young man. I heard from an inmate on death row in Texas by the name of Little GQ -- short for "Gangster Quinn." He'd never been sick a day in his life. He does 1,000 push-ups to start off each morning. But he related to what I described in one column as my "incanceration," and to the experience of being confined to a tiny fluorescent room. "I know that our situations are different," he wrote to me, "But the threat of death lurks in both of our shadows." In those lonely first weeks and months of my recovery, these strangers and their words became lifelines, dispatches from people of so many different backgrounds, with so many different experiences, all showing me the same thing: you can be held hostage by the worst thing that's ever happened to you and allow it to hijack your remaining days, or you can find a way forward.
Javila mi se tinejdžerka iz Floride koja je, kao i ja, završila sa hemoterapijom i napisala mi je poruku koja se većinom sastojala od emodžija. Javio mi se profesor istorije umetnosti u penziji iz Ohaja po imenu Hauard, koji je većinu života proveo u borbi sa misterioznom, iscrpljujućom bolešću koju je imao još otkad je bio mladić. Javio mi se zatvorenik osuđen na smrtnu kaznu u Teksasu po imenu Mali Dži Kju, što je skraćenica za „gangster Kvin“. Nikada u životu nije bio bolestan. Uradi 1 000 sklekova za početak svakog jutra. Ali povezao se sa nečim što sam opisala u jednoj kolumni kao svoje „zarobljeništvo“, kao i za iskustvo zatočenosti u malenoj fluorescentnoj prostoriji. „Znam da se naše situacije razlikuju“, napisao mi je. „Ali pretnja smrti vreba u obema našim senkama.“ U tim usamljenim prvim nedeljama i mesecima mog oporavka, ti neznanci i njihove reči postale su spas, pošiljke od ljudi toliko različitog porekla, sa toliko različitih iskustava, a koje su mi pokazivale jedno te isto: možete biti taoci najgore stvari koja vam se ikada dogodila i dozvoliti joj da vam otme dane koji vam preostaju ili možete naći način da nastavite dalje.
I knew I needed to make some kind of change. I wanted to be in motion again to figure out how to unstuck myself and to get back out into the world. And so I decided to go on a real journey -- not the bullshit cancer one or the mythical hero's journey that everyone thought I should be on, but a real, pack-your-bags kind of journey. I put everything I owned into storage, rented out my apartment, borrowed a car and talked a very a dear but somewhat smelly friend into joining me.
Znala sam da moram da nešto promenim. Htela sam da opet budem u pokretu da bih otkrila kako da se iščupam i vratim se u svet. Tako sam rešila da krenem na pravo putovanje - ne na ono glupo putovanje raka niti na putovanje mitskog heroja na kojem su svi mislili da treba da budem, već na pravo putovanje sa spakovanim torbama. Sve što posedujem sam smestila u skladište, izdala svoj stan, pozajmila auto i nagovorila dragog, ali i pomalo smrdljivog prijatelja, da mi se pridruži.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
Together, my dog Oscar and I embarked on a 15,000-mile road trip around the United States. Along the way, we visited some of those strangers who'd written to me. I needed their advice, also to say to them, thank you. I went to Ohio and stayed with Howard, the retired professor. When you've suffered a loss or a trauma, the impulse can be to guard your heart. But Howard urged me to open myself up to uncertainty, to the possibilities of new love, new loss. Howard will never be cured of illness. And as a young man, he had no way of predicting how long he'd live. But that didn't stop him from getting married. Howard has grandkids now, and takes weekly ballroom dancing lessons with his wife. When I visited them, they’d recently celebrated their 50th anniversary. In his letter to me, he'd written, "Meaning is not found in the material realm; it's not in dinner, jazz, cocktails or conversation. Meaning is what's left when everything else is stripped away."
Moj pas Oskar i ja smo se zajedno zaputili na put od 24 000 kilometara po Sjedinjenim Državama. Usput smo posetili neke od neznanaca koji su mi pisali. Bio mi je potreban njihov savet, a i da im se zahvalim. Otišla sam u Ohajo i boravila kod Hauarda, profesora u penziji. Kada pretrpite gubitak ili traumu, možete imati potrebu da zaštitite srce. Ali Hauard me je podsticao da se otvorim za neizvesnost, za mogućnosti nove ljubavi i novih gubitaka. Hauard se nikada neće izlečiti od bolesti. Ni kao mladić nije mogao da predvidi koliko dugo će živeti. Ali to ga nije sprečilo da se oženi. Hauard sada ima unučiće i svake nedelje ide sa ženom na časove balskog plesa. Kada sam ih posetila, nedavno pre toga su proslavili 50. godišnjicu braka. U pismu mi je napisao: „Smisao se ne pronalazi u materijalnom svetu; nije u večerama, džezu, koktelima niti razgovorima. Smisao je ono što ostaje kada se ukloni sve ostalo.“
I went to Texas, and I visited Little GQ on death row. He asked me what I did to pass all that time I'd spent in a hospital room. When I told him that I got really, really good at Scrabble, he said, "Me, too!" and explained how, even though he spends most of his days in solitary confinement, he and his neighboring prisoners make board games out of paper and call out their plays through their meal slots -- a testament to the incredible tenacity of the human spirit and our ability to adapt with creativity.
Išla sam u Teksas i posetila Malog Dži Kjua na smrtnoj kazni. Pitao me je šta sam radila da mi prođe sve to vreme koje sam provela u bolničkoj sobi. Kada sam mu rekla da sam se baš izveštila u „Skreblu“, rekao je: „I ja!“ i objasnio kako, iako većinu dana provodi u samici, on i njegovi susedi zatvorenici prave društvene igre od papira i jedni drugima izvikuju poteze kroz proreze za hranu - što svedoči o neverovatnoj izdržljivosti ljudskog duha i našoj sposobnosti da se prilagodimo uz pomoć kreativnosti.
And my last stop was in Florida, to see that teenage girl who'd sent me all those emojis. Her name is Unique, which is perfect, because she's the most luminous, curious person I've ever met. I asked her what she wants to do next and she said, "I want to go to college and travel and eat weird foods like octopus that I've never tasted before and come visit you in New York and go camping, but I'm scared of bugs, but I still want to go camping." I was in awe of her, that she could be so optimistic and so full of plans for the future, given everything she'd been through. But as Unique showed me, it is far more radical and dangerous to have hope than to live hemmed in by fear.
Poslednja stanica mi je bila u Floridi, da bih videla tu tinejdžerku koja mi je slala sve one emodžije. Zove se Unikat, što je savršeno, zato što najviše zrači i ima više znatiželje od svih ljudi koje sam srela u životu. Pitala sam je šta hoće sledeće da uradi i rekla je: „Hoću da upišem fakultet, da putujem, da jedem čudnu hranu koju nikada pre nisam probala, kao što je hobotnica, da dođem da te posetim u Njujorku i da idem na kampovanje, mada se bojim buba, ali i dalje hoću na kampovanje.“ Divila sam joj se što može da bude tako optimistična i tako puna planova za budućnost, s obzirom na sve kroz šta je prošla. Ali, kako mi je Unikat pokazala, mnogo je radikalnije i opasnije gajiti nadu nego živeti u strahu.
But the most important thing I learned on that road trip is that the divide between the sick and the well -- it doesn't exist. The border is porous. As we live longer and longer, surviving illnesses and injuries that would have killed our grandparents, even our parents, the vast majority of us will travel back and forth between these realms, spending much of our lives somewhere between the two. These are the terms of our existence.
Najvažnije što sam naučila na tom putovanju jeste to da podela na bolesne i zdrave - ona ne postoji. Granica je porozna. Kako živimo sve duže i duže, preživljavajući bolesti i povrede koje bi ubile naše bake i deke, pa čak i naše roditelje, velika većina nas će putovati naizmenično u ove svetove, pri čemu ćemo većinu života provesti negde između njih. To su uslovi našeg postojanja.
Now, I wish I could say that since coming home from my road trip, I feel fully healed. I don't. But once I stopped expecting myself to return to the person I'd been pre-diagnosis, once I learned to accept my body and its limitations, I actually did start to feel better. And in the end, I think that's the trick: to stop seeing our health as binary, between sick and healthy, well and unwell, whole and broken; to stop thinking that there's some beautiful, perfect state of wellness to strive for; and to quit living in a state of constant dissatisfaction until we reach it.
Volela bih da mogu da kažem da se, otkad sam došla kući sa putovanja, osećam potpuno zalečeno. Nije tako. Ali kada sam prestala da očekujem od sebe da ponovo postanem osoba kakva sam bila pre dijagnoze, kada sam naučila da prihvatim svoje telo i njegova ograničenja, zaista sam počela da se osećam bolje. Naposletku, mislim da je u tome trik: da prestanemo da sagledavamo svoje zdravlje kao binarno, između bolesti i zdravlja, zdravog i nezdravog, čitavog i oštećenog, da prestanemo da mislimo da postoji neko divno, savršeno dobrostanje kome treba težiti i da prestanemo da živimo u stanju stalnog nezadovoljstva dok ga ne dostignemo.
Every single one of us will have our life interrupted, whether it's by the rip cord of a diagnosis or some other kind of heartbreak or trauma that brings us to the floor. We need to find ways to live in the in-between place, managing whatever body and mind we currently have. Sometimes, all it takes is the ingenuity of a handmade game of Scrabble or finding that stripped-down kind of meaning in the love of family and a night on the ballroom dance floor, or that radical, dangerous hope that I'm guessing will someday lead a teenage girl terrified of bugs to go camping.
Svako od nas će imati prekide u životu, bilo da je to zbog dijagnoze koja će povući uzicu ili zbog nekog drugog bola ili traume koja nas obara. Moramo naći načine da živimo između, tako da se snalazimo sa bilo kakvim telom i umom koje trenutno imamo. Ponekad je potrebna samo genijalnost ručno napravljene igre Skrebl ili pronalaženje tog ogoljenog smisla u ljubavi porodice i u noći na plesnom podijumu, ili ta radikalna, opasna nada za koju pretpostavljam da će jednog dana navesti tinejdžerku koja se užasava buba da ode na kampovanje.
If you're able to do that, then you've taken the real hero's journey. You've achieved what it means to actually be well, which is to say: alive, in the messiest, richest, most whole sense.
Ako ste u stanju da to uradite, onda ste krenuli na put pravog heroja. Postigli ste ono što zaista znači biti dobro, a to je: biti živ u najhaotičnijem, najbogatijem, najcelovitijem smislu.
Thank you, that's all I've got.
Hvala, to je sve od mene.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
Thank you. (Applause)
Hvala. (Aplauz)