The Equation

Math has never been my favorite subject, but there is something comforting about an equation. You put the right numbers in the right places, follow the rules, and eventually you arrive at an answer. Even when the problem is complicated, there is something reassuring about knowing that there is a way through it.

But imagine trying to solve an equation with a missing number.

You could add when you're supposed to add, subtract when you're supposed to subtract, and follow every step exactly as you were taught. And yet, if one of the numbers is missing, you are probably going to end up with the wrong answer.

Or maybe you have all the numbers, but you think you need to add when you actually need to subtract.

You can do the math “perfectly” and still get the wrong answer.

I have started to realize that I had been doing something similar with my feelings.

I was leaving them out of the equation.

I thought I was supposed to be okay. So I would tell myself I was okay.

I thought I was supposed to be brave. So when I was afraid, there was a part of me that wanted to skip over the fear and get straight to courage.

I was living my life trying to make everything look fine on the outside.

But the problem with pretending you don't feel something is that the feeling doesn't stop existing just because you haven't acknowledged it.

And when you make decisions without including all of the information, you might still move forward, but you may not be moving in the direction you actually need to go.

Cancer helped teach me that feelings are information I was leaving out of my equations

I didn't need every feeling to tell me what to do. I just needed to be willing to know what I was feeling before deciding what to do about it.

Being afraid didn't mean I needed to stop.

It meant I needed to know that I was afraid.

Sometimes that meant asking another question at an appointment because I didn't understand what was happening. Sometimes it meant telling a doctor that something wasn't working for me and asking if there was another way. Sometimes it meant admitting that I was overwhelmed instead of continuing to act like I could handle everything exactly as I had before.

I learned that there was a difference between being afraid and letting fear make every decision for me.

I could say, I'm scared.

And then I could ask, Okay. What do I need because I'm scared?

Maybe I needed more information.

Maybe I needed someone with me.

Maybe I needed to slow down.

Maybe I needed to cry.

Maybe I still needed to do the thing I was afraid of.

The fear didn't have to disappear first.

It just needed to be included in the equation.

The same thing happened with anger.

There were moments when I was angry.

Not the kind of anger that immediately turns into motivation or a lesson.

Just angry.

Angry that this was happening.

Angry that my body had become something I had to think about so much.

Angry when something didn't go the way I needed it to.

And, angry at people.

I had to learn that acknowledging that didn't mean I had to become an angry person. It meant I had to be honest enough with myself to say, This hurt me.

Sometimes the next step was a conversation.

Sometimes it was a boundary.

Sometimes it was deciding that I didn't want to explain myself anymore.

Sometimes it was realizing that someone else's behavior was not something I had to continue making room for simply because I was going through a difficult time.

My feelings didn't always tell me exactly what to do.

But they gave me information about what needed my attention.

I think this is where we sometimes get confused about feeling our feelings.

We imagine that if we admit we're angry, we have to act angry.

If we're afraid, we have to avoid the thing we're afraid of.

If we're jealous, we have to become bitter.

If we're sad, we have to stay sad.

But a feeling isn't an instruction.

It is a piece of information.

And once you have the information, you get to decide what to do with it.

One of the ways I learned this was lying in bed when I was too sick to do much of anything and scrolling Instagram. 

There were times when I would scroll and see people traveling, buying things, going to weddings, making plans, living lives that looked completely untouched by medical bills and appointments.

Meanwhile, I was looking forward to hitting my insurance out-of-pocket maximum.

There were moments when I felt jealous.

And I didn't particularly like admitting that.

I was supposed to be grateful for what I had. I was supposed to be happy for other people. I was supposed to know that social media wasn't the whole story.

All of those things could be true, and I could still be jealous.

So instead of trying to make myself stop feeling it, I started asking what the feeling was actually telling me.

Maybe I missed spontaneity.

Maybe I missed spending money on something fun instead of something medical.

Maybe I wanted to travel.

Maybe I wanted to feel like my life was mine again.

The jealousy didn't make me a bad person.

It gave me information.

And once I had the information, I could decide what to do with it.

When I was overwhelmed, I could ask what needed to be removed from the equation.

I had spent so much of my life assuming that the answer was to add something.

Add more effort.

Add more productivity.

Add another explanation.

Add another thing to my list.

But sometimes I didn't need to add anything.

I needed to subtract.

A commitment.

A conversation.

An expectation.

An obligation to keep everyone updated.

Cancer helped me acknowledge that this journey was mine.

That doesn't mean I didn't need people. I did.

I didn't have to provide a perfectly packaged update every time something happened.

I didn't have to make everyone else comfortable with my experience.

I didn't have to answer every question immediately.

I could share when I wanted to share.

I could step away when I needed to step away.

I could tell people what I needed.

I could also admit when I didn't know what I needed yet.

And slowly, I started making choices from a much more honest place.

Not necessarily a happier place.

An honest one.

Because when I pretended I wasn't upset, I might make a decision that looked fine from the outside but didn't actually fit what was happening inside me.

When I acknowledged that I was upset, I could make a different choice.

When I admitted I was afraid, I could gather the tools I needed to move forward.

When I admitted I was angry, I could decide whether I needed a conversation, a boundary, or simply a place to let the anger exist.

When I admitted I was jealous, I could become curious about what I was missing.

When I admitted I was overwhelmed, I could stop adding and start subtracting.

Because if you leave a number out of an equation, you don't get a more convenient equation.

You get an incomplete one.

And an incomplete equation can still produce an answer.

It just might not be the right one.

Eventually, I began to understand acceptance differently, too.

I had thought acceptance might mean reaching a point where I no longer felt angry or afraid or sad about what had happened.

Instead, acceptance looked much more like being able to hold the whole equation.

This happened.

I didn't want it to happen.

I was scared.

I was angry.

I was grateful.

I was jealous.

I was exhausted.

I was hopeful.

I love people.

I needed boundaries.

I wanted my old life sometimes.

I wanted a new life, too.

None of those things canceled each other out.

They could all be true at the same time.

And when I stopped trying to erase the numbers I didn't like, I finally had enough information to begin figuring out what came next.

Not gritting my teeth.

Not white-knuckling my way through.

Not convincing everyone, including myself, that I was fine.

Maybe courage is being willing to look at the equation honestly.

To say, This is what I'm feeling.

To ask, What is this telling me?

And then, with that information in front of you, decide what you want to do next.

You don't have to feel ready.

You don't have to feel fearless.

You certainly don't even have to feel good.

You just have to stop leaving things out of the equation.

Because sometimes the answer isn't about becoming a different person, feeling a different feeling, or finding the perfect solution.

It’s realizing you erased something from the equation, and then you can finally do the math.